Key Points
Jamie Campbell Bower stopped by EW’s Comic-Con suite to promote The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
The actor also took time to reflect on the end of Stranger Things, which concluded in December.
Bower said he still gets asked about one of the craziest theories to emerge from the show’s finale.
The cast of Stranger Things is slowly realizing that Vecna was easier to vanquish than fan theories.
Over the weekend, Jamie Campbell Bower stopped by EW’s 2026 San Diego Comic-Con studio, where he reflected on a certain idea that took root in the show’s fanbase and hasn’t died down since. Asked about the craziest fan theory he’s heard since the December finale, Bower didn’t have to think very hard to find his answer.
“That there was gonna be another episode,” he said, without hesitation. “Everyone was like, ‘Conformity Gate, there’s gonna be a ninth episode.’ I was like, ‘If there is, I’m not in it! I shot what I shot, I’m done.'”
The “Conformity Gate” theory, as it has been dubbed online, suggested that the cast secretly shot a ninth episode of the fifth and final season which would drop soon after the “supposed” finale. Fans of the theory hypothesized that the supersized finale — which provided a definitive happy ending for almost every character in the show — was actually an elaborate illusion concocted by Bower’s villainous Vecna.
Noah Schnapp and Jamie Campbell Bower on ‘Stranger Things’
Credit: Netflix
Netflix eventually shut down the idea that a bonus episode was on the way. The streamer’s official Stranger Things Instagram account at one point updated its bio to read, “ALL EPISODES OF STRANGER THINGS ARE NOW PLAYING.”
But that hardly deterred the Conformity Gate truthers.
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Laughing at the memory, Bower added that it was “pretty crazy” to watch the theory spread like wildfire amongst viewers, noting that “confirmation bias” was very powerful online, with every single thing that cast did in public being used as evidence that the theory was right.
“Anything that we did was like, ‘Well, that just proves it,'” Bower recalled. “They were like, ‘That ‘s it, it’s coming.'”
He continued, “And I still get asked the question, even now. People are like, ‘Is there a ninth episode coming?’ I’m like,” he paused, pretending to check his watch, “It’s been six months! If there is, they’re kinda behind.”
Bower isn’t the only star of the show who has responded with incredulity to the theory.
Jamie Campbell Bower on ‘Stranger Things’
Credit: NETFLIX
Caleb McLaughlin, who played Lucas Sinclair in all five seasons of the hit sci-fi series, shared his two cents on the matter months after the series concluded.
“At first, I thought the ‘Conformity Gate’ theory was dumb,” McLaughlin told THR in February. “I get that people want to live in this optimistic place of, ‘Oh, we want more Stranger Things,’ but the show is done, guys. I was like, ‘Guys, it’s over. It’s been 10 years. We were full-on kids, and now we’re full-on adults, and we don’t need any more of us.'”
But, he later came around to see that the optimistic speculation made sense for the show’s fanbase. “The Duffers, our wonderful, amazing creators, wanted to leave everybody with this level of optimism that the show has always given everyone. So if they left the show without that, we would have left Stranger Things without the true essence of what we’ve been representing forever.”
Check out more of EW’s coverage from San Diego Comic-Con 2026.
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