Stranger Things Season 5 Spoilers: Duffer Brothers Confirm Time Jump

As Stranger Things fans tick off the days until the release of Season 4, Part 2 (on Friday, July 1), the series’ creators, the Duffer Brothers, are also counting down — to the fifth and final season of their record-breaking Netflix hit. “I’m not sure we’re ready to say yet a start date for shooting,” Matt Duffer tells TVLine. “But a lot of it is pretty well mapped out.”

Which is not to say that what he and sibling Ross have planned won’t be altered before or as the cameras begin to roll. “We learn a lot every time we make a [season],” says Matt. “We’ve learned a lot just working with all of our new actors and the ones that we’ve worked with for a long time over this year [making Season 4], so I’m sure it’ll change a little bit from that outline.

“The ending is the hard thing,” he adds. “That’s obviously the stressful thing. We really want to stick the landing.”

At least one aspect of Season 5 does sound like it’s written in stone. Given how quickly the show’s young leads are growing up, “I’m sure we will do a time jump,” says Ross. “Ideally, we’d have shot [Seasons 4 and 5] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that.

“So these are all discussions we’re going to have with our writers when we start the room up,” he continues. “Believe it or not, we’re still working on Season 4. We’re trying to finish the final two episodes, they’re so massive.”