“Stranger Things” fans have known for a while that Season 5 will mark the end of the hit series that introduced the world to Hawkins, Indiana, and the Upside Down.
Now, after years of waiting, fans also know when the end will arrive.
‘Stranger Things’ reveals Season 5 release dates
It’s been about three years since “Stranger Things” Season 4 hit Netflix.
Now, after a lot of anticipation from fans, the show has unleashed a three-part schedule for its fifth and final season.
Diehard fans who plan to binge the new episodes will need to keep their holidays open.
Below is the schedule, which “Stranger Things” revealed May 31:
- Season 5, Volume 1 (the first four episodes, per USA Today) — Nov. 26 at 6 p.m MST (the day before Thanksgiving)
- Season 5, Volume 2 (the next three episodes, per USA Today) — Christmas, 6 p.m. MST
- Season 5 finale — New Year’s Eve, 6 p.m. MST
What we know about ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5
“Stranger Things” creators Matt and Ross Duffer have long hinted that the fifth season will bring somewhat of a full-circle ending the show, returning it to what captivated audiences in the first place, as the Deseret News previously reported.
Some of the Season 5 episode titles indicate the Duffer brothers are still moving in that direction.
The second episode, titled “The Vanishing of (name redacted)” mirrors the very first episode of the show — “The Vanishing of Will Byers” — that set everything into motion.
The final episode of the upcoming season, “The Rightside Up,” circles back to the finale of Season 1, titled “The Upside Down.”
“We wanna go back to a lot of the things we did in Season 1,” Matt Duffer previously told Entertainment Weekly. “A lot of the original groupings and pairings that we had in Season 1 — there’s something nice about coming full circle.”
Below are the titles for the eight episodes in Season 5:
- “The Crawl”
- “The Vanishing of …”
- “The Turnbow Trap”
- “Sorcerer”
- “Shock Jock”
- “Escape From Camazotz”
- “The Bridge”
- “The Rightside Up”
The setting for ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5
Although it’s been close to a decade since “Stranger Things” premiered, the final season is set in the fall of 1987 — four years after Will went missing in Season 1, as the Deseret News previously reported.
This marks an 18-month jump from the Season 4 finale — the longest time jump between seasons in the show’s history, according to Screen Rant. This could work to the show‘s advantage as the main stars are all now ages 20 and up.
The Duffer brothers have also said the fifth season will return to the show’s roots by being set entirely in Hawkins, according to Entertainment Weekly. But that doesn’t mean the scope of the story will be limited.
“Season 4 was big, Season 5 definitely feels bigger,” Jamie Campbell Bower, who plays the monster Vecna, said in the behind-the scenes video.
“We spent a full year filming this season. By the end, we’d captured over 650 hours of footage. So, needless to say, this is our biggest and most ambitious season yet,” Ross Duffer told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s like eight blockbuster movies. It’s pretty insane.”
Questions going into ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5
The fate of Max
One of the biggest cliffhangers in “Stranger Things” Season 4 is the fate of Max Mayfield, played by Sadie Sink. As the “Stranger Things” teens fought Vecna, Max — who was trapped in Vecna’s curse earlier in the season — offered herself up as bait.
The plan went awry, and Max met her death for a whole minute before Eleven used her telekinetic powers to save her friend. But Eleven was unable to restore Max completely, and Max wound up in a coma with broken bones and her eyes presumably blinded.
The Duffer brothers recently told Variety that Max’s character will play a role in the season — “but we don’t want to reveal how that’s possible,” Ross Duffer said.
“Right, because she’s in a coma,” Matt Duffer added. “I think she’s grown just more confident as an actor and in her choices. We did film a scene the other day with her that was just absolutely heartbreaking. I don’t know how she hits those notes.”
A Vecna showdown — and a greater role for Will?
The final season will see a final showdown with Vecna.
At the end of Season 4, Will — who was trapped in the Upside Down in Season 1 — indicates that the battle is far from over, and that he can even feel to a degree what Vecna is thinking, as the Deseret News previously reported.
His character was somewhat sidelined in Season 4, and the ending of the season hinted at a greater role for him. Overall, though, Season 5 will give the “Stranger Things” gang a chance to finish what they started in Season 4.
“We wanted them to actually lose,” Matt Duffer previously said, according to Variety. “We wanted our characters to experience what that felt like. That was the big idea coming into Season 4, that they were going to lose. We were going to introduce Vecna and they were going to lose to him. That sets our characters up for what will be the ultimate final confrontation with Vecna and with the Upside Down in Season 5.”
Will Nancy and Steve get back together?
It’s clear throughout Season 4 that Nancy and Jonathan’s relationship, now long-distance, isn’t what it used to be (although in real life, the actors are reportedly still going strong). Much of Season 4 hinted at a possible reconnection between Nancy and America’s favorite babysitter, Steve Harrington, whom she dated in Season 1.
Bringing Steve and Nancy back together would also align with the Duffer brothers’ vision of returning to some of the storylines and character pairings of the first season.
Season 4 also saw a reunion between Hopper, who had been imprisoned in a Russian camp, and Joyce Byers, setting things in motion for their relationship to finally play out in Season 5.