“Stranger Things,” one of the streaming era’s most atmospheric and successful shows, is ending after ten years, and it’s kind of overwhelming.
The show’s last episode dropped three and a half years ago, which means remembering what happened while also taking in all the teases about the new season – which is being released in three batches through the end of the year – has been a lot.
At the very least, an official synopsis can help us get a leg up. According to Netflix, our cast of good guys is “united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna.” Meanwhile, the government has placed the town of Hawkins under strict military quarantine, and is again looking for Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who has consequently gone back into hiding.
Outside of that, here is a helpful guide to what we know ahead of the show’s long-awaited return – and the rumors and theories that are best to ignore.
Fact: The new season of the Netflix hit will be longer and more cinematic
Gone are the days of Seasons 1 and 2 of “Stranger Things,” where all but one of the episodes neatly elapsed in under an hour.
The new eight-episode season will feature many installments that run well over 90 minutes, according to IMDb. This, of course, is not a new approach. Remember Season 4’s gargantuan closing episode, which clocked in at 2 hours and 19 minutes and set the stage for one final face-off against Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower)?
“Stranger Things” creators and showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer recently told The Hollywood Reporter that they designed the final season in “volumes, so they’re basically like mega movies,” with each batch leading up to “its own climax.”
The series finale is, in fact, set to be released in movie theaters on New Year’s Eve, Netflix announced last month. The big climax will screen in over 350 theaters in the US and Canada beginning December 31 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT – at the same time it releases on the streaming platform – and run through the next day.
One of the unique joys of “Stranger Things” has been the casting – each season has brought new faces into the fold who ultimately proved quite welcome, namely Priah Ferguson, Sadie Sink, Maya Hawke and Joseph Quinn (RIP Eddie!).
Season 5 will prove to be no different, bringing on board one of the most esteemed and celebrated actors from the sci-fi realm of movies – Linda Hamilton, of “Terminator” fame.
Matt Duffer recently told Time that he and his brother have “been very lucky” in that every industry veteran that they have approached to be on “Stranger Things” – including Winona Ryder, Paul Reiser, Matthew Modine and Sean Astin, who all got their start in the ’80s, when the show takes place – have said yes.
“I like the idea of almost more character actors from that period who have been maybe underutilized recently,” he told the outlet. “Someone younger generations who are watching the show might not know of who we can introduce them to.”
Joining Hamilton this season are up-and-coming stars Nell Fisher – who will portray Mike and Nancy’s slightly more grown-up baby sister Holly Wheeler – along with Jake Connelly and Alex Breaux.
Back in the day, Netflix was the king of the binge-watch, dropping entire seasons in one swoop.
The pendulum has since swung back a little, with Netflix trying to have the best of all worlds, recently releasing some seasons of buzzy shows in pieces.
The streaming giant’s programming gamble with “Stranger Things” seems somehow magnified this time around, considering the three parts of this season are being released on or just before Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve this year.
Who really stands to lose here? Viewers. Because if you’re not prepared to spend your holiday in Hawkins, you run the risk of major spoilers.
While the titles may hold some clues, no good mystery would reveal all their secrets so soon. That said, let’s take a closer look at Season 5’s titles.
The second episode of this season, titled “The Vanishing of …,” appears to be a callback to the pilot episode “The Vanishing of Will Byers.” This makes perfect sense, since finale seasons almost always come full circle to where things began. In the first 5 minutes of Season 5, which have already been released, the show indeed returns to the very beginning, when Will (Noah Schnapp) first disappeared into the Upside Down… only to come face to face with one Vecna.
Other potential clues? Episode 4, “Sorcerer,” could be a reference to Dungeons & Dragons, and episode 6, which is titled “Escape from Camazotz,” may refer to Mayan mythology, where “camazotz” means bat-like spirits or demons. This could be the official name of the “demobats” that killed the valiant Eddie (Quinn) in Season 4. “Camazotz” also connects to the literature of Madeleine L’Engle, whose groundbreaking novel “A Wrinkle in Time” featured a malevolent planet that went by that name.
Lastly, the series finale seems to hint at a happy ending, since “The Rightside Up” does serve as the opposite of “The Upside Down.”
But it must be said: With this show, you never know when you’re just being thrown off the scent.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the creators called out four episodes – Episode 4 and 6 from Season 2 and episodes 7 and 9 from Season 4. Season 2, to jog memory, eventually shows Will Byers as a spy, unwittingly working for the Upside Down, an unsavory connection that he has had to deal with throughout the series.
“Season 2 is when we really started to build out the mythology and started to dive into everything, and how this was going to be an ongoing (series). That’s where we started to really plant the seeds for the mythology, and I think probably that’s why that is as relevant as it is,” Matt Duffer told the outlet.
It makes perfect sense, meanwhile, to watch some of the later episodes of Season 4, especially the finale of that season, since they most directly set up the action of the new installment, which starts off in the fall of 1987 (or about one and a half years after Season 4), according to Netflix.
The Duffers’ choices of what to watch ahead of time seem to indicate that there will be more answers than questions by the time the show wraps up – unlike some other famous series finales (looking at you, “Lost”). Since the episodes dive deep into the mythology, it stands to reason we will finally get full clarity, at least, on Will’s connection to Vecna and the Upside Down, and perhaps why he was ‘chosen’ in the first place.
And just in case you have more time, Ross Duffer recommends watching Seasons 1 and 2 in their entirety.
“(Those) are the seasons we referenced the most, because we really wanted this to be circular and to come full circle. There are a lot of mysteries we set up and then intentionally did not answer in those early seasons,” he told THR.
LOL. While there is a palpable sense of fans wanting justice for those who’ve already fallen – mainly Barb (Shannon Purser), Dr. Alexei (Alec Utgoff) and Eddie – what about everyone who has survived up until now? Are they safe? “Stranger Things” wouldn’t be the menacing, engrossing thriller that it is if they were.
While we still have the next five or so weeks to dive deep into the final season of the original series, take solace in the fact that this is not really the end.
Next year, the animated “Stranger Things: Tales from ’85” series will debut on Netflix, which is a prequel series of sorts that takes place between Seasons 2 and 3 of the show. The Duffer brothers have said that the appeal of doing an animated show within the world of “Stranger Things” is that there’s “really no limits,” and it really opens up what can be done with the characters at that age.
“Stranger Things” Season 5, episodes 1 through 4 debut on Netflix on Wednesday at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET.
