That stress hasn’t changed, although the reactions of the young cast have. One difference between the first and final season? “We got along!” says Brown, laughing. “We stopped fighting.” They do admit to regressing to their younger selves on set. “When I’m around Gaten and Finn and Noah, I’m probably the most childish I’ve ever been,” McLaughlin says. “We’re doing these jokes from when we were, like, 12 years old. It’s easy because we grew up together.” The Duffers tailored the scripts to match the actors’ real-life energy.

But Brown, 21, had a slightly different experience. “[The Duffers] really got to understand the boys’ personalities,” she says. “Whereas Eleven, you can’t really write to me, because she grew up in a laboratory, and she has powers, and has such a traumatic past.”

Brown, unlike the boys, also had to face sexism. In the spring, she made a video responding to articles that accused her of looking older than her age. When asked what she would say to other young women who face trolling, she’s circumspect: “I don’t really have much to say on the matter. But I’m always going to be a source of advice from the experience I’ve been through.” Brown has carved out a successful career starring in big-budget Netflix projects but has chosen to build a life away from the limelight on a farm in Georgia with her husband, baby, and (at the time of publication) 86 animals.