A Stranger Things cast member has addressed rumours of a “secret episode” amid unfounded rumours that the latest episodes of the hit Netflix drama have been “tampered with”.
The second part of season five arrived on the streaming service on Boxing Day and set the scene for a bumper finale scheduled to drop on New Year’s Day (Thursday 1 January).
Fans have made numerous complaints though, with some arguing there is a lack of major developments across the episodes, while the show’s writers have been forced to clarify what happened to one much-loved couple after confusion over one particular scene.
Amid the disgruntled comments, an anonymous document shared online claimed the latest instalments have been tampered with – and the theory has even led to an online petition calling for “unseen footage” to be released.
Randy Havens, who plays Hawkins Middle School teacher Scott Clarke, has now addressed the rumours in a post on Instagram.
Writing on his story, he retorted: “There is no Snyder Cut of the show, please don’t believe everything some random a** tells you on the internet.”
The person behind the Change.org petition, which has been signed by a whopping 280,000 people as of Monday (29 January) morning, argues: “I believe [there] was more to the episodes and we didn’t see them either due to Netflix or the team of Stranger Things cutting them. This has been a long 10 years process and this is what we get.
“They must have cut out a lot of scenes from volume 2 and from our loved characters. I believe we as fans should stand up and take the initiative to get the footage and make the decision.”
One of the petition’s supporters wrote: “We did not wait YEARS for a cut, sloppy season. Some individuals spent time away from their family and friends to watch a season’s volume that is incomplete and very, very sloppy.”
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“It just feels soulless and we deserve to see how this story was truly supposed to end, with all of our beloved characters,” another said.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is the 2021 director’s cut of the 2017 version of the superhero film.
It was released after years of petitioning from fans who were disappointed with the version of the movie delivered by Joss Whedon, who took over at the helm when Snyder left the project in post-production following the death of his daughter.
Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer have previously said they’re not trying to finish the drama with a massive overhaul of characters.
“It’s not Game of Thrones. We’re not in Westeros. I love Game of Thrones, but it’s just a very different type of show than that,” Matt told The Hollywood Reporter.
“There’s not going to be a Red Wedding situation. I think some things happen in the finale that are very surprising, but we’re not trying to shock or upset anyone,” he continued. “I hope by the time people get to the end of the finale that it just feels like there’s something inevitable about what happens, and that it doesn’t feel painful but feels satisfying.”