“Stranger Things” is back. And not a moment too soon.
Netflix’s flagship original series has returned for its fifth and final season, which will stretch across Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, with the final episode streaming on Netflix and appearing in select theaters across the country simultaneously.
In the first batch of episodes, we see our characters reeling from the apocalyptic finale of the fourth season (which aired back in 2022, you’d be forgiven for forgetting) – Max (Sadie Sink) is still in a coma after her confrontation with Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower); Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) has gone back underground with Hopper (David Harbour); Vecna is missing; and the rest of the team, including Joyce (Winona Ryder), are trying to figure out just what is going on with the Upside Down. Plus, there’s another disappearance by a key character, whisked away to the Upside Down just like Will Byers (Noach Schnapp) was in the very beginning of the show.
And that’s just scratching the surface.
TheWrap spoke to the Duffer Brothers, Sadie Sink and Jamie Campbell Bower following the mind-blowing fourth episode of Season 5. Consider this a major spoiler warning.
Entering Camazotz
One of the bigger surprises for Season 5 is that there is yet another plane of existence – in addition to everyday Hawkins and, of course, the Upside Down, there is a Dream World inhabited by Henry Kreel, aka Vecna, and visited by Max and, now Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher). Holly is new to this world, having just been kidnapped by Vecna, with Max serving as her mentor. (There’s a great bit where Max tries to get Holly to remember who she is. “I’ve been to your house multiple times,” Max implores.)
“That was something we decided that we wanted to do way back in Season 4, when we decided that Max was going to go into a coma. We wanted her to land inside Henry’s mind,” explained Matt Duffer, one of the creators of the show, with his brother Ross. (They also directed or co-directed five of the final eight episodes.)
Matt explained that they and their writers have a soft spot for “The Cell,” the Jennifer Lopez/Vince Vaughn thriller where she was transported into the dreams of a catatonic serial killer. “This is our slight take on that. We like the idea of living inside this twisted mind, because it allows them to, eventually, explore everything there is to know about Henry,” said Matt. “There’s a weird, creepy, fairy tale-like quality to it that we really liked.”
Not that the Duffers told Sink about her new realm of reality, which Max refers to this realm as Camazotz to young Holly, keeping with the abundant “Wrinkle in Time” references this season.
“They hinted at it during season four. I think right before we were getting the final episode, they just said to me that the fate of your character is going to feel like it’s uncertain, that it’s up in the air, but don’t worry, we have a plot line for you in Season 5, like you play a crucial role in it,” said Sink. “So that was all I was briefed with. And then as we got closer, anytime I’d see them, they’d give me a little bit more information.”
Sink was uncomfortable at first. “I love to be with the rest of the cast, so it was a little bit weird at first to think that I’d be so isolated or that a lot of this stuff would be on my own. But then it made sense for Max. I feel like she’s very self-sufficient, she’s very resilient. If it’s going to happen to anyone, it’s going to be her,” Sink said. “And I was excited to play with what Max looks like when she’s left on her own for that long and under those circumstances. That was cool. It was a nice challenge.”
While Max has set up shop in a cliffside that seems like a place that Vecna will not follow, she does travel to other realms of his subconscious, including one that might be familiar to theater goers…
“The First Shadow” Becomes Essential Text
In one key moment of Max’s vision quest, she slips back into Hawkins High School in 1959. Max walks by the parents of prominent “Stranger Things” characters; there’s also discussion of the school play. If this sounds like something you might have already heard about, it’s because she’s essentially walking through “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” the play that opened in London before going to Broadway.
“Obviously, a limited number of fans have seen it, but for those who’ve seen it, I think it’s a fun Easter egg. And those who are going to see it, I think it’ll be fun because it ties it all together in a way and it gives those particular scenes a little bit more context,” said Ross Duffer.
“The First Shadow,” it should be noted, was written by Kate Trefry, a “Stranger Things” staff writer who also penned the upcoming Episode 6 (“Escape from Camazotz”). Could we be going back in time again soon?
“We do even a little more with the play in a later episode,” teased Ross Duffer.
Somebody cue Huey Lewis and the News.
Vecna’s Return
Guess who’s back?
After much speculation of where he was and why he was stealing new kids, Vecna, in all his gnarled glory, finally returned in the Part 1 finale. He unleashed his formidable powers on the platoon guarding a gateway to the Upside Down. It is very cool – and bloody. For the Duffers, the sequence was hugely important to the evolution of Vecna as a threat.
Ross: “Season 4 got pretty dark with Vecna, but that was all within the mind. And so we wanted to see, if he’s going to come into the real world and fight, what would that be?” explained Ross Duffer. “We knew immediately that it was going to have to get pretty violent and pretty dark. We really wanted to unleash hell on those poor soldiers.”
And while the sequence might be shocking to some, it wasn’t all that much different from earlier seasons.
“Honestly, we’ve never held that much back. I mean, this is not a show that is designed for a younger audience, which I think is why there is a younger audience who likes the show, because it’s not targeted or made specifically for them,” said Matt. “I always think about when we were kids, I knew when I was being targeted and written for, and I thought that was deeply lame, so that’s one of my theories as to why the show resonates with some younger people. Because we’re not making the show specifically for them.”
In other words, let younger viewers think that they’re getting away with something by watching the show, even if that harder edge was always by design.
For Campbell Bower, this version of Vecna is much more a product of visual effects than it was for season 4. But he was still on set, inhabiting the character physically.
“I described it as feeling like I was walking out into like a wrestling ring. I remember watching WWE, growing up, and that first moment with the soldiers, particularly with the guy with the flamethrower, it was so important to me to be super considered, and like nothing really phased me at all,” Campbell Bower said. “Even when he sees Joyce, and she’s like, ‘You stay away from my son,’ he’s just like, shut up, and throws her casually across the room. It felt like it had to be cool, calm and collected.”
Not only does Campbell Bower get to inhabit Vecna again, but he also shows up as Henry Creel, the human version of the character, this time masquerading as Mr. Whatsit (another “Wrinkle in Time” reference), as he abducts children from Hawkins.
“I had to take some time to think about what that was and eventually got to the understanding that this is a presentation. This is a performance of what Henry, in his current state as Vecna, thinks he could be like, or what somebody will be comfortable around,” said Campbell Bower of the Mr. Whatsit version of Henry. “And within that, I used references like Mr. Rogers and the Pied Piper of Hamlin.”
Campbell Bower thought about the dreamscape – the one that Max and Holly are stuck in (see above) – and why that was the world he created. “Why is it his house? What is there? What is unhealed there?” Campbell Bower wondered. He thought more about the character and the imaginary world.
“Childhood for me was really important when creating Henry for Season 4. I carried that with me, and I would ask myself questions,” Campbell Bower said. Some of the questions – If he sleeps, where does he sleep? Is he sleeping in his parents’ room? – informed him further. As did the set itself.
“The level of detail that went into the creation on an art department side of that house as well is phenomenal. There are right things that I don’t think you’ll ever see on camera that just were built for that room,” Campbell Bower said. “It was a really interesting experience to have to consider that side of the character for this season, as well as bringing back other parts of Henry, which will be seen later on as we develop.”
The Duffer Brothers said that they always knew they were going to bring back Vecna – “bigger and badder,” as Matt said.
“We knew that he wasn’t just going to be attacking you within the mind, that we wanted him attacking in the physical world, and so we needed to level him up. Basically, because of that, we wanted to make his arm a weapon,” Matt said, referring to his claw arm, which he uses to punch through people’s heads this time around.
“His entire body was ravaged by our heroes at the end of season 4, Nancy blasted him like eight times with a shotgun. He was set on fire. He fell three or four stories.” In the Duffer Brothers’ imagination, he “rebuilt his body,” in an ode to “Hellraiser” (one of the original inspirations for the character).
“He becomes more a part of the Upside Down and less human. And in that way, he’s much scarier. But I think the scariest scenes with him are, without a doubt, in Volume 2,” Matt teased.
The Duffer Brothers also teased that we’ll learn “what he’s been up to” in the next installment. Christmas can’t come soon enough.
Will the Wise
Poor Will Byers. Abducted by a Demogorgon in the first season. Terrorized with visions of the Upside Down ever since. Every time he gets goosebumps it could mean the end of the world. He thinks of himself as cursed; damned maybe. Misfortune finds always him.
But in the final episode of this first batch of season 4, a new Will emerged.
Earlier in the episode, Mike (Finn Wolfhard) describes Will as a “sorcerer” (also the name of the fourth episode) – someone whose magic doesn’t come from casting spells but instead comes from within. And as the episode comes to a close, with Demogorgons threatening all of our major characters (and giving Lucas quite the gaping chest wound), Will the Wise finally reveals himself to be a real-life sorcerer. He dispatches the monsters – all of them, all over Hawkins (how much do we love that they can just tear through to our reality, instead of having to pop out at specific junction points?) – his eyes glowing white like a 1980s anime character.
When the Duffer Brothers started to shape this first section of Season 4, they started to think about how to give it the most explosive cliffhanger imaginable.
“We knew we needed a major climax at the end of four, and we quickly knew what we wanted that to be, which was this massive battle, a confrontation between Will and Vecna, and ultimately, the reveal that Will has these powers,” said Matt Duffer.
“We’ve always wanted for Will to have powers, and it’s something introduced with this connection to the Mind Flayer in Season 2, and then in the subsequent seasons, we’ve continued. We’ve been trying to lay the tracks for that,” added Ross Duffer. “We just never found the quite the right moment to do it until now. But it really made sense now. Obviously, if we were to do it, it had to be Season 5. But also because Season 5 is bringing things full circle.”
In order for things to come full circle, to the Duffer Brothers, it had to go back to Will. The first episode of the entire show was called “The Vanishing of Will Byers,” after all.
“He was the one that was taken. We wanted to explain why he was taken and what his connection is to Vecna and the Mind Flayer and why he is still connected to them,” Ross said. “That’s all led to Will finally realizing his true potential.”
And boy does he ever.
Eight is Enough
One of the mysteries revealed in the fourth episode is who is being sequestered in a special military installation in the Upside Down. Some characters are convinced it’s Vecna, but considering Vecna’s big debut in the military installation in the real world (see above), it turns out another long lost character is being kept behind armed guards and very large, thick doors – it’s Kali aka Eight, played by Linnea Berthelsen and last seen in Season 2, Episode 7 (“The Lost Sister”).
That was the controversial episode that saw Eleven travel to Chicago and get involved with a band of “Warriors”-style street toughs, eventually connecting with Kali, who Eleven learns is from the same remote viewer program that led to the Upside Down.
When talking to the Duffer Brothers, we compared it to Nikki and Paolo having a huge role in the final season of “Lost.” (They laughed but did not engage.)
“We’ve talked about bringing Kali back, basically every season since Season 2, because we love Linnea and we wanted to do right by her and that character,” said Ross Duffer. Finally, they found their opportunity with Season 5.
“Going into Season 5, it felt like a loose end, and it felt like the story wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t deal with it. But we didn’t want to bring her back unless she fit in organically and in an important way, to both the plot, narratively, and also Eleven’s journey and where she ends up,” said Ross.
He teased that Kali will become “very instrumental in where the show goes in the next volume,” but declined to provide specifics. We imagine that her powers are somehow key to the military’s operation within the Upside Down – but we totally could be wrong.
“Once [the character’s importance] clicked into place, we were excited. We always want to take big swings, so we weren’t scared to do it. When we came up with the idea, us and the writers got really excited, because we know Linnea is incredible, and we knew that if we gave her the right material, she was going to knock it out of the park. And she does,” Ross said.
“Stranger Things 5,” part 1, is streaming on Netflix. Part 2 comes on Christmas Day, and the series finale will air on Netflix and play in theaters on New Year’s Eve.
