[Pace picking up speedily.] The fifth and final season of Stranger Things will have shorter episodes than the fourth season, according to the Duffer Brothers. “For the first time ever, we don’t wrap things up at the end of four, so it’s going to be moving,†Matt Duffer said during a July 4 episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “I don’t know that it’s going to be going 100 miles an hour at the start of five, but it’s going to be moving pretty fast. Characters are already going to be in action. They’re already going to have a goal and a drive, and I think that’s going to carve out at least a couple hours and make this season feel really different.†Forget running — it sounds like the Hawkins gang will be sprinting up that hill. But there will be an exception to the snappiness of this season. According to the creators and showrunners of the Netflix show, we can once again expect a final episode that’s as long as a feature film. The Duffers actually joked that the last episode of season five will be “Return of the King-ish,†a nod to the Lord of the Rings film that runs for three hours and 21 minutes. Don’t expect it to actually be that long, of course; according to the Duffer duo, season five’s finale will last “at least two hours,†but it won’t be longer than season four’s finale (which was two hours and 22 minutes). Still, the brothers did tease that the Stranger Things series finale would have “like, eight endings,†so there should be plenty of material packed in. Here’s to hoping that all those extra endings don’t translate into extra deaths.