The Stranger Things 4 Finale Almost Killed Off A Completely Different Character

There are spoilers ahead for the entire fourth season of "Stranger Things," so consider this your only warning.

The wait for the final season of "Stranger Things" will be long, but in the meantime, there will be exactly one song playing on a loop, lots of time to speculate about what comes next, and plenty of opportunities to badger the Duffer Brothers about the eventful fourth season of their epic sci-fi series. And boy, do we have questions.

Mysterious as ever, "Stranger Things" ended its fourth season with a massive cliffhanger, just after forcing us to endure several painful developments — like the death of beloved Hellfire Club leader and one-man Metallica cover band, Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn). And while she managed to pull through in the end, Sadie Sink's Max Mayfield was nearly a casualty in the fight against Vecna. Instead, she ended the season in an ominous coma. There were some other deaths along the way too — Jason Carver gets gruesomely pulled apart by Vecna's Upside Down earthquakes and Papa didn't even make it to the finale but uh, they won't exactly be missed. But while the body count was otherwise graciously low, the Duffer Brothers recently revealed that they had one more death planned for the finale.

During a chat with Collider, the series creators were asked, "Did you originally have any different ending for this season?" It turns out, the answer is yes.

When asked about their original ending for the penultimate season, Ross Duffer revealed that one character's fate was drastically changed: "In terms of who makes it, who lives or dies. I think there was a version where Dimitri, aka Enzo, didn't make it."

Enzo (Tom Wlaschiha), whose actual name is Dimitri, debuted at the start of the fourth season as a new companion for Hopper (David Harbour). And by a companion, I mean a prison guard! Luckily for the former police chief, the duo strike up a deal that eventually becomes a friendship with Dimitri playing a crucial role in Hopper's escape from the Russian prison camp. The idea that Dimitri was initially destined to die during their side quest actually makes a lot of sense; after all, "Stranger Things" has a pretty reliable tendency to introduce new characters and kill them off in the same breath. Eddie is a prime example, never making it out of his debut season, like Bob and Alexei before him. What was to stop Enzo from following suit? After helping with the escape, he's no longer a crucial part of the plot — and anyway, crossing paths with a demogorgon is very dangerous business. It's a miracle that the entire Russia gang managed to survive their fight against Vecna's army.

On the bright side, this leaves Enzo free to make his grand return and in the fight against Vecna, Hawkins will definitely need help. But on the other hand, I can't see any reason he'd want to join them in battle against an otherworldly psychic monster — especially since the final season is 100% guaranteed to end with a body count.

Whether or not Enzo is down for another fight remains a mystery. Thanks to the two-day time skip, we never actually see the journey from Russia back to Hawkins: Joyce and Hopper pull up just in time to reunite with their kids and mourn all the damage to their town, but we don't see them bid farewell to their new buddies in Russia. So in the grand scheme of things, Enzo's survival is a pretty mild change. Ross Duffer explained, "[Enzo] ended up making it. But that's [the most] radical of a departure from the original idea versus what we ended up with."

The Duffers went on to share that making big dramatic changes is unusual for them. They usually have the end of each season locked down in the development stage.

"So when we're breaking a season, that is one of the first things we're talking about is, where do we want this story to end up? So the ending is always that goal post. Even as we're breaking episode one, we know exactly where we're going. I don't think we've deviated truly in any season for the finale, we've always stuck to it. I believe the case is the same here."

Obviously, they had their minds set on all the other big character deaths but surely I'm not the only one wishing Eddie had been the one to slip through the cracks of survival?

Season 4 of "Stranger Things " is now streaming on Netflix.