As fans quickly noticed, the Stranger Things season 5 finale episode was lacking some demogorgons and demodogs, but their notable absence was not always the plan. According to the Duffer Brothers, at some point there was a three-hour version of the ending which included not only Vecna's loyal creatures, but also an Aliens reference.
During an interview with The Wrap, the Stranger Things showrunners were asked to clarify where the demogorgons were when the gang arrives at The Abyss in the last episode of the fifth season (you can read all about what happened there in our Stranger Things season 5 finale ending explained). "Mainly it’s just that Vecna was not expecting this sneak attack on his home turf. Never in a million years could he even imagine that," Matt Duffer answered.
"[The demogorgons] are there somewhere," he continued. "We obviously discussed having a demo battle on top of the Mind Flayer battle, but it felt more right to us that why does he need the demos when the Mind Flayer is this giant thing and can attack them? He doesn’t need his little ant army to attack, he’s going to take care of this himself. It’s a giant, desolate planet. If you recall, you see Henry wandering the planet back in Season 4 and at some point in his journey, he does see a demo far in the distance, but it’s not like they're hanging out in little huts. There's not like a giant civilization of demos up there."
That said, there was a version of the finale where the demogorgons showed up, as the Duffers revealed. "We did at some point have that they were going to come across a giant field of demo eggs in kind of an Aliens thing, but you can’t get all your ideas in there," Matt Duffer explained, with his brother Ross confirming: "Yeah that’s in the three-hour version of the finale, which was never written."
The plan was for the demogorgons to come out of the eggs when the gang walked past it, but the showrunners were worried about the "demo fatigue", as they had already used the creatures earlier in the season. "One of the other things we talked about was just demo fatigue. I felt like we did everything we wanted to do with them in Sorcerer, and wanting to keep the focus on Vecna and the Mind Flayer, who’s been absent this season," Ross Duffer explained.
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