Here’s the official description of the new season: “The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding. As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they’ve faced before. To end this nightmare, they’ll need everyone — the full party — standing together, one last time.”
Toward the end of Stranger Things season four, the Hawkins crew reunited and seemingly overpowered Vecna from separate corners and dimensions of the world. They outsmarted and flambéd him, thinking they’ve won — but he survives and retreats. In the final moments of the finale, it was revealed that Vecna’s curse succeeded, despite Max still technically being alive. Hawkins splits into four pieces and the group was left looking down at their splintered home as the villain’s final chapter begins.
The Duffer brothers have revealed a few things since the season four finale dropped on July 1, 2022. For starters, Will is a “big part and focus” of the final season, the showrunners told Collider in an interview. “We’re starting to see his coming of age, really,” Matt said. “Which has been challenging for a number of reasons, some of which are supernatural. But you’re starting to see him come into his own.” Ross added that season five will most likely bring fans full circle to season one, when Will was trapped in the Upside Down, as well as potentially with Steve and Nancy, since she and Jonathan seem to be hitting a rough patch that’s not fully resolved.
Secondly, season five is going to have a time jump, considering the actors who play the kids are all approaching (or already in) their 20s, despite technically still being in high school in the Stranger Things world. “I’m sure we will do a time jump,” Ross told TVLine. “Ideally, we’d have shot [seasons four and five] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that. So these are all discussions we’re going to have with our writers when we start the room up.” Netflix confirmed that the show would jump a little over a year to the fall of 1987, after season four took place in March 1986.
When THR asked Jamie Campbell Bower how Vecna will factor into the show’s endgame following the villain’s journey throughout the fourth season, he admitted it’s possible that the Hawkins kids could win in the end. “There’s always an opportunity for the good guys to win,” he said. “I think in this case, they’d have to be way smarter than they have been thus far because Henry is not one to forget and not one to let things slide.”
In December 2023, Stranger Things made its way to London’s West End for The First Shadow, a stage play that takes place in 1959 Hawkins when Hopper, Bob Newby (played by Sean Astin in the Netflix series) and Joyce are all in high school. “When new student Henry Creel arrives, his family finds that a fresh start isn’t so easy … and the shadows of the past have a very long reach,” the play’s description reads. “This gripping new adventure will take you right back to the beginning of the Stranger Things story — and may hold the key to the end.” So, it’s probably safe to assume something in Joyce, Hopper and Henry’s past will come back in some way, shape or form in the show’s ending.
Netflix dropped a first-look featurette at The First Shadow as part of Stranger Things Day (check that out here and read more about the Stranger Things spinoff plans below). In August, it was announced the play would be taking a trip across the pond and debuting on Broadway in the spring of 2025.
The Duffer brothers also said the ending of the series made executives cry. The creators shared on a panel in November 2022 that one of the things they’re trying to balance in season five is giving the characters a chance to complete their arcs while also tying up loose ends and final reveals.
Wolfhard told THR in March 2024 that the “last season is sort of a crossroads, and so we’re getting back into a lot of the dynamics of season one, which is really fun.” He added, “There’s some ‘leader Mike’ moments, and it’s a very grand season, obviously. Every season has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, and this season is huge, but it’s also kind of isolated as well.” However, he did not explain how, exactly, the fifth installment will be isolating.
Matarazzo agreed with Wolfgard that this season will be bigger, as many of the show’s cast and crew have teased thus far. The actor behind the show’s beloved Dustin noted that making season five the “biggest, darkest, scariest” one yet is “the goal.”
“That’s certainly the intention behind writing it,” he told THR in September. “The one consistency of this show is that it just grows every year in scale and size and in the message that they want to bring. So this season is not different in the slightest, and I knew that they had prepped that, initially. They said, ‘Hey, this one is going to be really, really big. We’re not going to candy-coat it: it’s a full year shoot.’ And that led to a big reaction of, like, ‘Oh, so we’re really going for it.’ So we have been [going for it], and we still are. I’m excited for people to see it.”