How strange.
“Stranger Things” star Jennifer Marshall has called out Netflix for not having her appear in the hit show’s fifth and final season – especially because her return would’ve helped secure union health insurance as she recovers from a startling battle with skin cancer.
“I had cancer, I get it,” the actress, 44, wrote on Instagram alongside a short clip on Tuesday. “But I was in remission during the shooting of season five.”
She added, “Shooting would have helped me obtain my health insurance through the union.”
Marshall, who played the often-absent mother of Sadie Sink’s character, Max Hargrove, in Seasons 2 and 4 of “Stranger Things,” went on to question where her character was during the events of the show’s shocking final episodes.
“Maybe they had too many characters, idk but obv Susan Hargrove is THE WORST MOTHER EVER LMAO,” she added.
The Navy veteran-turned-TV star publicly announced that she was diagnosed with Stage 3 melanoma in a Facebook post in October 2022, just a few months after the fourth season of “Stranger Things” aired that May and July.
Although Marshall was formally diagnosed in January 2021 following a battle with Stage 1 foot cancer, she completed filming Season 4 while undergoing treatment.
Marshall went on to question her character’s mysterious absence further in her short Instagram clip.
“How often I think about where TF Max’s mom was during season five lmao,” she wrote, before replying in the video: “Every day. Not all day, every day but every day.”
However, this wouldn’t be the first time the “NCIS” actress called out Susan Hargrove’s Season 5 absence while her daughter lay hospitalized in a coma for nearly two years before waking up and graduating high school 18 months later.
“Okay folks! It’s over…but where was she?” Marshall wrote in another Instagram post after the final episode of “Stranger Things” was released on New Year’s Eve.
“What kind of mother isn’t there for her child while she’s in the hospital?” she asked. “Give me all your theories…”
Marshall has since clarified that playing Max’s mom was the “opportunity of a lifetime,” even though she would have been “ecstatic to return” for the final season.
“It would have helped me not only financially, but would have been a mental and emotional uplift after battling cancer for almost two years,” she told People in a statement Wednesday.
“Either way, no one is entitled to a role, cancer or not,” Marshall added. “My heart remains grateful, and I will always give those involved in the decision-making the benefit of the doubt.”
The Post has reached out to Netflix for comment.
Sink, meanwhile, shared her own theory about her on-screen mom’s whereabouts during a chat with Vulture published on Dec. 25.
While some fans speculated that Susan Hargrove was working off-screen to pay for her daughter’s mounting medical bills, Sink had a much darker theory.
“It’s kind of common for the parents on the show: You just don’t know where they are except for Karen Wheeler,” the “Whale” star, 23, told the outlet.
“My theory is that Max’s mom must have disappeared or died at some point in the rift at the end of season 4,” she added, “because it goes through the trailer park.”
