[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “Stranger Things” Season 5, Volume 2 — Episodes 5-7.]

I’ll be honest: I never expected anyone in the main cast of “Stranger Things” to die. After Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) disappeared at the end of the first season, only to reappear at the start of the second (which wasn’t exactly a surprise), it felt like the Duffer brothers were indicating their homage to ’80s science-fiction would be more “Goonies” than “Aliens.” Their characters would face danger, sure, and some lives would be lost, but the core group wouldn’t be picked off one by one, season after season. They’re kids! In a kids’ show! This is their story!

Granted, quite a bit has changed since then — the glow-up between Seasons 1 and 2 suggests Hawkins traveled to another dimension where Reaganomics actually worked — but the Duffers remained devoted to Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), and Will (Noah Schnapp), as well as their adopted friends and parental figures. Hopper (David Harbour) improbably, ridiculously, yet obviously surviving the Season 3 explosion only furthered the impression that certain people were bulletproof, which also helped separate “Stranger Things” from its ruthless prestige TV peers.

But that understanding wasn’t (and isn’t) universal. Every season, fans work themselves into a frenzy over who should and shouldn’t be killed off. Culture writers convert those fears into lists ranking the likeliest deaths. Even the cast members complain about the size of the cast while predicting an inevitable demise or two lurking in the next set of episodes.

So in Season 5, Volume 2, when Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Nancy (Natalia Dyer) find themselves trapped in a sealed room slowly filling with white goo, it’s reasonable to assume, “OK, here we go. The Duffers are finally doing it. These two are toast.” The couple starts confessing secrets. They recognize the fundamental flaws in their relationship. Jonathan even “un-proposes,” giving Nancy the ring he once hoped would fix their problems and that he now knows can’t save them. Nothing can. This is it. Time to kick the bucket.

Except they don’t. Of course they don’t. The seven-minute scene just keeps going, and going, and going, until it’s clear the death Jonathan assured Nancy was about to happen couldn’t possibly still go down. For one, their dialogue doesn’t close a loop; it opens one. At first, they say everything they have to say while they still can, but then… they don’t die. They have more time, and they keep talking. Something shifts. They realize the lives they could’ve lived if only they’d been honest with each other, if only they knew their partner was feeling the same things they felt, if only… they had more time. Like, a lot more time. A lifetime, even.

Killing them off after such a meaningful emotional discovery wouldn’t just be insanely melodramatic (seven minutes!), it would also be cruel. “Stranger Things” may be sappy sometimes, but it isn’t cruel. So tragedy becomes triumph: The ring doesn’t sink into the white slime; it slides across a suddenly solidified surface.

Once again, the main characters dodge Death’s scythe, and once again, I’m sure there are “Stranger Things” fans screaming in frustration. They likely screeched again when Hopper didn’t blow himself up, as planned, at the end of Episode 4, and I’m sure they sank to the floor when Robin (Maya Hawke), Vickie (Amybeth McNulty), Lucas, and Max (Sadie Sink) all survived the Demogorgans’ best velociraptor impression in Episode 6 — especially when it takes the unlikely intervention of the implausibly alive Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono) to save them.

Viewed with the belief that someone has to die in “Stranger Things” Season 5, I can see why these moments might be frustrating. Focusing on which of these teenagers makes it out alive would make any head-fake toward who it might be feel like torture. (Though if that’s what you find yourself dwelling on during the 10-and-a-half-hour final season, I’d argue the show has bigger problems.)

But here’s the thing: No one has to die. If you can believe that, then these moments become less about teasing and evading the inevitable and more about appreciating and acknowledging the characters we’ve watched grow up over five seasons in 10 years. (And lest we forget: The Duffers love these characters. That’s why so many of them are still around to begin with!)

It’s not enough to find out that Jonathan and Nancy won’t get married; we need to know why they broke up and that they’ll be better off for it. The same goes for the comparably low-stakes relationship between Robin and Vickie. No offense to the Robie ‘shippers out there, but we don’t need to see a proposal; we just need to know they’ll get to go on their long-awaited date to Enzo’s (presumably with Hopper and Joyce at a nearby table). Lucas and Max need to see where their coma-delayed relationship can go, and the same goes for everyone else.

One reason it’s so easy to focus on “who will die” is because so many recently popular TV shows have done exactly that. “Game of Thrones” was a literal game of death. “Breaking Bad” built toward Walt’s demise the whole time, and “Succession” did the same with Logan Roy. But all of those shows focus on adults (save for a few Stark children) and were aimed at adult audiences. “Stranger Things” isn’t, and the Duffer brothers know it. They’re telling a coming-of-age story; an allegory for how the events and decisions of adolescence can shape what comes next. It doesn’t have to pivot around the kids denied their shot at finding out.

Season 5, after all, is framed by Mike and Eleven’s daydream of a conversation in the first episode. Eleven wants to know what happens when their fight with Vecna is over, and Mike tells her — using Dungeons & Dragons logic — that the group “usually doesn’t return to their local village” (aka Hawkins). Instead, “they travel to a faraway land, a peaceful land, somewhere beautiful. […] Then they start again. Together.”

So where will they go? Who will they go with? What friendships will continue into adulthood, and what families will come out stronger in the end? The suspense in Season 5 doesn’t pivot solely on whether the Hawkins crew can defeat Vecna and who among them will survive the final battle. It also stems from finding out what their lives will be like after they come out the other side, all grown up.

And that’s how it should be. With the two-hour finale still days away, I won’t pretend to know what happens in the end. Anyone could still die, including Eleven, just like Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) argues she should. But even that dire prognosis seems to indicate we should be focused on reasons she ought to live rather than coming to terms with her impending martyrdom. As full-circle as it may seem for Eleven to disappear into another dimension, just like she did at the end of the first season, she deserves better than that. She deserves better than to lose out on the life she’s spent all this time fighting for. She deserves better than a tragic ending for the sake of one.

So do the rest of them. And so do we.

“Stranger Things” Season 5 Volume 2 premiered Thursday, December 25 at 8 p.m. ET on Netflix. The series finale, “Volume 3,” will be released Wednesday, December 31, at 8 p.m. ET on Netflix and in select theaters.