Sadie Sink on Eleven’s Fate

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Stranger Things season five, volume three.

Friends don’t lie—and neither does Sadie Sink. 

After the Stranger Things series finale ended with Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) sharing an alternate ending for Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who was believed to have died while destroying the Upside Down, Sadie shared her opinion of what really happened.

“I think she’s dead,” the actress—who played Max Mayfield in the Netflix show’s last four seasons—admitted on the Jan. 5 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “I think Mike’s story is just one last story and then they say goodbye to childhood. But that’s just one final tale and that’s it.”

Instead, the 23-year-old believed that Mike telling pals Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin) and Max a story that Eleven escaped and found herself in paradise was simply a coping mechanism. Although Max and the rest of the group proclaimed that they believe she’s alive, Sadie is content with the ending.