From the very beginning, Stranger Things has balanced supernatural horror with deeply personal relationships. While Hawkins is constantly under threat from monsters, portals, and alternate dimensions, the emotional core of the show has always been its characters and the bonds they form. R

Romance, in particular, has played a surprisingly important role, whether it’s Mike and Eleven’s tender first love or Nancy and Jonathan’s complicated journey. But one relationship has always existed slightly on the sidelines: Dustin Henderson and Suzie Bingham.

Dustin and Suzie: The NeverEnding Story

Despite never sharing a single in-person scene together, Dustin and Suzie managed to become one of the show’s most memorable couples. Their long-distance romance, played by Gaten Matarazzo and Gabriella Pizzolo, relied entirely on radio transmissions, phone calls, and pure personality — and somehow, that made it even more charming.

Fans will never forget their unforgettable moment in Season 3, when Dustin desperately tries to contact Suzie using his homemade ham radio. What follows is one of the most iconic scenes in the series: the pair belting out The NeverEnding Story theme song while the fate of Hawkins hangs in the balance. It was ridiculous, sweet, and strangely emotional, a perfect snapshot of who they were as a couple.

Suzie later proves she’s more than just a quirky voice on the other end of the line. In Season 4, she plays a crucial role by helping the group locate a powerful computer, showing that even from miles away, she’s part of the fight against the Upside Down.

That’s exactly why her complete absence in Stranger Things 5 feels so jarring. Suzie doesn’t appear in the final season at all. There are no radio calls. No updates. Not even a throwaway line explaining where she is or what happened between her and Dustin. For a relationship that had been carefully maintained across two seasons, the silence is impossible to ignore.

What makes this even more frustrating is how much Dustin struggles emotionally in Season 5. He begins the season deeply affected by Eddie Munson’s death, carrying grief that isolates him from almost everyone around him. At one point, even his usually unshakable friendship with Steve Harrington is strained.

Suzie could have been a lifeline during this period. Even if she couldn’t physically be in Hawkins, a simple radio conversation or message could have offered Dustin comfort, grounding, or even a moment of levity. The final season had the perfect opportunity to finally bring the two together on screen, yet it never happened.

Instead, the show quietly suggests that their relationship may have ended.

What Happened to Suzie in Stranger Things 5?

Near the end of the season, Dustin, Mike, Lucas, and Will are invited to a graduation party hosted by Stacey. During the scene, Stacey openly flirts with Dustin and notably, he doesn’t shut it down. The moment is brief, but it sends a clear message: Suzie is no longer part of his life.

For many fans, that implication wasn’t enough. They wanted answers.

Now, Gaten Matarazzo has finally shared his own interpretation of what happened behind the scenes of Dustin and Suzie’s breakup and it’s not exactly comforting.

According to the actor, the split likely happened off-screen during Dustin’s prolonged period of grief. In a conversation with Business Insider, he said,

I didn’t have a conversation with them about it. I think, unfortunately, what can be assumed is that in Dustin’s yearlong unhealthy grieving process — I mean, if he’s cutting out the friends that are day-to-day spending time with him, you can imagine he probably cut out a long-distance relationship. I would like to think he did so nicely. I don’t think he did so nicely, because he wasn’t very nice at that point in his life.

Matarazzo also floated another possibility: that Suzie simply had enough. He said,

Or maybe she was sick of his shit. Maybe she was just like, “I’m not dealing with this.” And that would be very tremendously fair of her. So I can imagine she was like, “I don’t have time for any of this.” So I like to think she probably broke up with him.

From that perspective, Suzie’s choice to walk away makes sense. Being in a long-distance relationship with someone who is emotionally unavailable, grieving, and shutting people out would be exhausting.

And that’s where the story ends. No closure. No goodbye. No explanation.

For a show that has always excelled at emotional payoffs, the quiet disappearance of Dustin and Suzie’s relationship feels like a rare misstep. Fans who invested in their unconventional love story were left to piece together the ending themselves and many found it deeply unsatisfying.

Stranger Things 5 may have wrapped up the battle against the Upside Down, but for Dustin and Suzie, their story fades out not with a song, but with silence.