Stranger Things has officially — finally — wrapped up, but not everyone is celebrating the end of this nearly decade-long journey. Max’s (Sadie Sink) mom, who appeared in the second and fourth seasons, never made it into the show’s fifth and final season, and Jennifer Marshall, the actress who played her, could have really used a job with health insurance.
On Tuesday, Marshall, who has said she was diagnosed with skin cancer in 2020, posted a video on Instagram titled, “How often I think about where TF Max’s mom was during season five.” “I had cancer, I get it,” she wrote in the caption. “But I was in remission during the shooting of season five. Shooting would have helped me obtain my health insurance through the union. Maybe they had too many characters, idk but obv Susan Hargrove is THE WORST MOTHER EVER LMAO.”
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It’s unclear why exactly Marshall’s character didn’t appear in the season — in a December interview with Vulture, Sink said she believed Susan “must have disappeared or died at some point in the rift at the end of season four, because it goes through the trailer park.” But she didn’t seem too surprised by her absence. “It’s kind of common for the parents on the show: You just don’t know where they are except for Karen Wheeler,” she added.
In a statement, Marshall told The Cut that “no one is entitled to an acting job, cancer or not,” but “it would have been extremely beneficial for me to appear in the last season as I was healthy but again.” She added, “The writers had a lot to juggle storyline wise and I give everyone the benefit of the doubt.”
