Stranger Things Season 5 arrived with the weight of nearly a decade of storytelling and its finale delivered answers to one of the series’ biggest lingering mysteries: the fate of the Upside Down.After Stranger Things Season 5 featured some long-standing secrets and revelations about this mysterious realm, the collapse of the Upside Down became the defining moment of the series’ endgame. As Dustin discovered the Upside Down was not Vecna's lair but a wormhole acting as a bridge, accidentally created by Eleven under Brenner's horrific experiments, which needed to collapse in the Stranger Things Season 5 finale.In an interview with Netflix Tudum, the Duffer Brothers break down these pivotal moments from the finale, which cemented the Hawkins' gang's final triumph as they collapsed the bridge into bits:“We thought the idea of a supernatural version of that where our characters ultimately need to blow up this bridge, which connects Hawkins to an evil dimension … was something we’d been working toward for a couple of years.”More on this in our story.How did the Upside Down collapse in the Stranger Things Season 5 finale? View this post on Instagram Instagram PostThe intense climax of the Stranger Things Season 5 finale saw the gang reunite in The Abyss to defeat the Mind Flayer, the multi-legged creature who was in complete control of his inter-dimensional realm. After Eleven appeared at the gang's rescue, Nancy volunteered to act as bait while the group distracted the creature. As Eleven encountered Vecna inside the Mind Flayer's body, the creature trapped Nancy on all sides. Luckily, the gang used flamethrowers, flare guns and Molotov cocktails to torch the Mind Flayer and Eleven defeated Vecna.The Stranger Things Season 5 finale took a triumphant turn as Joyce finished off the creature for good and the gang rescued all the children from Vecna's Pain Tree. After all was done, Dustin signaled Hopper and Murray to execute the final leg of their plan, which was to collapse the Upside Down, using Mike's detonator.While the Upside Down was assumed to be Vecna's lair, Stranger Things Season 5 confirmed that it is a bridge connecting Dimension X to the real world. The creators had always intended to conclude their epic sci-fi saga with the collapse of the wormhole, which was inspired by their love of David Lean’s 1957 war film, The Bridge on the River Kwai, as Matt Duffer told Netflix Tudum:“The idea in that film is they need to blow up this bridge. It’s a major military goal.''The Upside Down collapsed to two epic needle drops in the Stranger Things Season 5 finale View this post on Instagram Instagram PostThe epic collapse of the Upside Down was cataclysmic in every sense in the Stranger Things Season 5 finale, enhanced to perfection by two Prince needle-drops which were carefully chosen by the Duffer Brothers themselves.After Dustin signals Hopper and Murray, they set the timer on the bomb using Prince's 1984 album, Purple Rain, as the trigger. The iconic wormhole comes crashing down as the tune of “When Doves Cry” by Prince and the Revolution fills the air. The racy and intense track takes a more somber turn and shifts to Purple Rain as the gang is captured by the military and Eleven bids her final goodbye to Mike.While the Upside Down collapse was always on the cards, the creators had a hard time finding the right song to score this epic moment. Ross Duffer explained the significance of music in that moment:''Once we came up with the idea that the record was going to be the trigger for the bomb, we knew we needed an epic needle drop, and so many ideas were thrown around. I think there’s nothing really more epic than Prince.”Thanks to the revival of Kate Bush's “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” through Stranger Things Season 4, the Duffer Brothers were granted access to Prince's estate, which is generally not 'licensed outside the Purple Rain movie'. The Duffer Brothers were granted access, leading to this epic moment where the Upside Down collapsed to two epic needle drops in the Stranger Things Season 5 finale.For the latest scoops on your favorite TV shows and movies, follow SoapCentral.