Stranger Things is back for a fifth and final season and we’re going to take a closer look at those first four episodes. Warning! The following will include ALL THE SPOILERS for Stranger Things Season 5 Part I. “Maybe it’s Nancy.” “Surely not Hop!” “My money is on Steve.” These were the little bits of ... Stranger Things season 5 | A spoiler-filled deep dive into the new season
Stranger Things is back for a fifth and final season and we’re going to take a closer look at those first four episodes.
Warning! The following will include ALL THE SPOILERS for Stranger Things Season 5 Part I.
“Maybe it’s Nancy.”
“Surely not Hop!”
“My money is on Steve.”
These were the little bits of conversation that happened on my sofa at roughly 6am on the 27th November. The final season of Stranger Things, perhaps the most popular TV show at the moment, had dropped just hours earlier and we had gotten up early to catch up on all the action before the internet would ruin the new episodes for us.
There were many secrets, reveals and all kinds of surprises and we’ll be looking at all of them, so this will be your final warning for spoilers. I’ll even insert a still from Stranger Things season 5 below to make sure you won’t accidentally stumble upon something you didn’t want to know.
Now then, let’s get into it.
Netflix is releasing this last season in several parts. You can now watch the first four episodes, three more will follow on Boxing Day and the big finale will get 2026 to an explosive start on New Year’s Day. Naturally, this first part had to end on a bit of a cliffhanger, something shocking to keep up hooked until the next lot of episodes drop.
Which brings me to those bits of conversation I had in my living room in the morning. Like most of the internet, I was convinced that someone was going to die. The Duffer brothers have already promised this season would be pulling on our heartstrings, so surely one of our favourites had to bite the dust in episode four to hook us to tune back in in a few weeks.
Let’s just say I could not have seen that ending coming.
But let’s get the basics out of the way first. Things pick up 18 months after the events of season 4. Max (Sadie Sink) is still in a coma, Hawkins is under military quarantine, thanks to the major rift into the Upside Down and Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) is still after… something.
Our core gang have not only been hiding Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) in the woods, they’ve been making regular secret trips to the Upside Down, trying to locate Vecna. None of them have been going very well, until the one we see that traps Hopper (David Harbour) in the Upside Down while a demogorgon breaks through from the slimy dimension and into the Wheeler household.
As promised during the season’s press tour, Holly Wheeler is a much bigger part of this season and the second episode is even named The Vanishing Of Holly Wheeler. And vanish, she does. Turns out, Vecna is after the kids of Hawkins, but what he wants with them is still a little unclear. He wants to shove whatever he shoved down Will Byers’ throat down their throats but the endgame is fuzzy.
Before the demogorgon manages to actually grab Holly, Mrs. Wheeler – Karen to her friends and family – defends her, trying to fight the slimy, toothy demogorgon away. Her weapon of choice? A bottle of wine. Never underestimate a Karen with a bottle of wine! She does a number on the demogorgon, but it’s not enough as it easily slashes her throat and takes Holly to the Upside Down.
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Stranger Things season 5 immediately establishes itself as the most brutal, gory season yet. There’s plenty of blood and pretty impressive injury detail, which then begs the question, why does all the de-aging look so bad? Winona Ryder and Noah Schnapp are the main victims here, but the show already has a reputation of not being particularly graceful with it last season.
From there on out, it’s pretty much non-stop action. The first episode has the tough job of overloading us with information on what has happened in the last 18 months and the rest of the episode in this lot don’t have time to waste or to stop for any kind of character development, at least not much.
As the episodes progress, it’s starting to seem more and more likely that someone is going to kick it by the end. Steve and Dustin’s friendship is on the rocks, Jonathan wants to propose to Nancy, Robin has a new secret girlfriend, Hopper is trying his best to keep Eleven safe and Will has never had this much screentime. Everyone is in a place where their death would have the maximum amount of effect.
So, who dies?
No one! In fact, the surprise element of episode 4 wasn’t a death, but a rebirth of sorts.
Will accepts his fate, his new state of being after being used by Vecna like an old radio, and dramatically taps into a new source of powers, rendering his eyes all cloud-y and allowing him to start breaking demogorgon bones and rescue his friends. If he wasn’t more important to the plot than Eleven before, he certainly is now and perhaps the group’s only chance to beat Vecna. The plot thickens, as they say.
But there was more. Hawkins lab, deep inside the Upside Down was hiding something behind a very big door and once again, my brain was working in overdrive to try and guess what was there. Yet, even I couldn’t have guessed that the one character being hidden was – drum roll, please – Eight.
That’s right. That one character that only appeared in one episode that the fandom doesn’t particularly love back in season two is back and tied up like Jesus on the cross.
Surprisingly Eleven has taken a bit of a backseat in these new episodes. The focus is largely on Will, which makes sense after that big reveal of his new powers, but how do you bring all these storylines to some kind of conclusion? Stranger Things is arguably stretched pretty thin between an awful lot of characters and a plot that keeps getting more and more convoluted. Thankfully, there is still time for the occasional heartfelt moment and even a few chuckles
So, where do we go from here? The Duffer brothers have a lot of questions to provide answers to and a lot of pressure on their shoulders to stick the landing. After all, there have been a lot of hugely popular TV shows that were somewhat ruined by their endings.
The first part of this season was thrilling and everything I could have hoped for, but it’s hard to deny its obvious flaws or at least the worries it has raised. We’ll have to wait a whole month before we get the next three episodes and then another week before Stranger Things fully comes to an end. Netflix really does know how to milk it, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thoroughly excited to see where things go from here.
Stranger Things Season 5 Part I is now available, Part II will be on the service on Boxing Day and the finale follows on New Year’s Day.
