Here's Everything We Know About "Stranger Things" Season 5 So Far

You probably have a million questions about Season 5. Here's what we know so far...

From its inception in 2016, Stranger Things has consistently broken records.

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The first volume of Season 4 broke the record for the most hours watched in a weekend premiere for a streaming series, pulling in a massive 286.79 million hours over a two-day stretch. Volume 2 of the season led to Netflix crashing due to overload from fans eagerly trying to watch the newest episodes, with the series going on to break a Nielsen streaming record for most viewing time in a week — a whopping 7.2 billion minutes in just seven days!

Needless to say, the show is phenomenally popular, and as fans reach the end of Season 4, thoughts are turning to what the final installment might entail. Here's everything I've found out so far about Season 5...

1. It's likely to hit our screens in 2024

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The long break between Seasons 3 and 4 might make you feel a little antsy about when we can expect to return to Hawkins, but David Harbour (who plays Hopper) told GQ that he reckons filming will start in 2023, so the show would probably land in mid-2024 going by their previous filming-to-release timescales.

Show creator Matt Duffer told TVLine that the plans are "pretty well mapped out," but they're just taking on board learnings from working with new actors as well as the ones they got to know closely in Season 4, so things might change a little bit from that outline.

Together with brother Ross, he said: “Don’t hold us to it, but the gap should be quite a bit shorter this time, due to the fact that we already have an initial outline, and we can’t imagine there will be another six-month forced hiatus [due to the pandemic]."

The writers are set to have a little vacation in July, saying: "And then we're going to come back. I know that the writer's room is going to start in that first week of August."

2. The episode lengths won't be as mega as Season 4's

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The Duffers told Collider that Season 4 would be the only season with such consistently lengthy episodes.

Matt said: "I think we're aiming for eight again. We don't want it to be 13 hours. We're aiming for more like 10 hours or something. I think it's going to be longer than Season 1 because we just have so much to wrap up, but I don't think it's going to be as long as Season 4."

That said, the brothers told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that the series finale with likely be feature-length, and even compared it to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which has a runtime over 3 hours! 

3. There will likely be a time jump

Jason Laveris / FilmMagic

We all know that the cast can't stay kids forever, but nonetheless, there was a lot of chatter online when the Season 4 teaser images dropped and the cast looked so grown up. With Season 3 releasing in 2019 and Season 4 in 2022, it's likely we'll see our young series leads change before our eyes again if the final season drops a couple of years from now.

Ross Duffer said: "Ideally, we'd have shot [Seasons 4 and 5] back to back, but there was no feasible way to do that." So with that in mind, the writers have discussed a time jump to line the characters' ages up more closely with the actors that play them.

How the time jump will factor into the storyline is yet to be revealed...

4. There's no Russia and California in Season 5

Stranger Things @Stranger_Things

explain the upside down in 10 words or less: https://t.co/6GDuP2qPcA

02:59 PM - 05 Jul 2022

@stranger_things / Via Twitter: @Stranger_Things

As we say goodbye to the gang and the locations we've grown to know and love, we'll also be bidding adieu to some of the lesser-explored locations Season 4 brought to the fore, namely Russia and California.

On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, creators Ross and Matt Duffer confirmed that the final season would be right back where it started in Hawkins, Indiana, so we can truly say goodbye to the characters and locations that have become a second home for many fans. Of course, there will also be a lot of time in the Upside Down, too!

Joe Keery, who plays Steve, told Esquire: "Hawkins is the origin of everything and also where everything will end."

5. Vecna's not gone

Stranger Things @Stranger_Things

and i'll cheers to that.

03:00 PM - 05 Jul 2022

@stranger_things / Via Twitter: @Stranger_Things

When the Byers boys and Eleven return to Hawkins, Will senses Vecna's presence, and chillingly states that he's "hurting but still alive." He goes on to say that Vecna will not stop until he's taken everything and everyone — so the gang must kill him if they want the terror to end.

As if Will's Spidey senses tingling and his ominous speech wasn't enough to confirm that Vecna will be returning, Vecna actor Jamie Campbell Bower teased that he knows all about Season 5. "Take from that what you will," he said!

6. Season 5 will have the same vibes as Season 1

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The Duffer brothers have mentioned that the final season will hark back to Season 1's vibes, with Matt Duffer telling NME: "We wanna go back to a lot of the things we did in Season 1. [There will be] a lot of the original groupings and pairings that we had in Season 1 — there’s something nice about coming full circle.”  

This will be welcome news for the fans who complained about the uprooting of the Byers bros. for Season 4, accusing the writers of sidelining the much-loved family.

The Duffers also discussed how some of the character arcs would come full circle, too, in particular Will, as well as Steve and Nancy's unfinished business and her relationship with Jonathan. 

Matt told Collider: "I think one of the things that's exciting about Season 5 is [that] Season 4 was interesting to us because everyone was scattered to the winds. That's what was unique about it. But this is about everyone finally coming back. Coming back together, coming back to Hawkins. Hopper is back in Hawkins. The original group [is] back together — the original group of boys plus Eleven. The OG group. There's something interesting to re-explore some of the Season 1 dynamics again, except on this grander scale."

7. There WILL be tears

Netflix / Via tenor.com

The Duffer brothers are set to punch us right in the feels with the final season of Stranger Things, with Matt stating that they "really want to stick the landing" of the ending, and explaining that when they pitched Season 5 to Netflix execs, it was really emotional.

He said: "We outlined Season 5 and pitched it to Netflix. Everyone there had also been present when we first pitched the show in 2015. While we were strangers then, we were now friends, and there were a lot of tears when it was over. It’s just been an extraordinary journey for all of us, and while it’s hard to believe that we’re approaching the end, we feel incredibly lucky to have such amazing partners."

He also said he saw executives crying who he'd never seen cry before and described the experience as "wild."

8. Will Byers will be the main focus

Netflix / Via giphy.com

While Will's disappearance in Season 1 was a huge part of the storyline, some might say Will himself hasn't had as much screen time as some of the other characters in recent seasons. However, Season 5 is set to very much bring Will to the forefront of the storyline again, from his connection to the Upside Down, why Vecna chose him and how they're connected, as well as Will's growth as a person.

Speaking about Season 5, Matt Duffer told Collider: "Will's going to be a big part and focus. We're starting to see his coming of age, really. 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."

9. Eddie's death will have huge repercussions

Stranger Things @Stranger_Things

i’d like to see a demo bat try to take my eyes off this masterpiece

08:00 PM - 02 Jul 2022

@stranger_things / Via Twitter: @Stranger_Things

And no, that's not me idly threatening the Duffer brothers!

The latest in the batch of lovable characters introduced and killed in front of us in the space of one season, Eddie Munson quickly secured his status as a fan favorite, with many eagerly sharing ways he could make a reappearance in Season 5. It wouldn't be out of the realms of possibility — I mean, Hopper did it in Season 4 after his implied death in Season 3!

But unfortunately, the Duffer brothers have confirmed Eddie is most definitely dead. They told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that his death will have "huge repercussions" among the survivors in Season 5, so it will be interesting to see how Eddie's spirit permeates the final stretch of the show.

10. The series will be action-packed from the get-go

Netflix / Via giphy.com

The Duffers have said there will be "less ramp-up" for the show's final season. Matt Duffer said: "Normally, it's like 'Oh, we get to revisit the characters in their normal lives and how they're doing and what are their relationships like,' but [Season] 5 is just going to be pedal to the metal from the opening scene." 

Ross Duffer added: "[In Season 4], for instance, it was two hours before our characters even realized the monster was killing people in Hawkins. They know what the threat is now, and so that will help speed it up."

Matt continued: “[Seasons] 4 and 5 are really [connected] together. [With Season 5], there’ll be no wind-up time — like even [in Season 4], you get to experience the kids and what they’re going through in high school before things start to escalate. Then it gets crazier and crazier and crazier — that’s typically the trajectory. Five, you’re just going to be right in the middle of it, so it’s going to feel very, very different.”

With Season 5 dovetailing directly into the final stretch of the show, we won't get any of that character-led catch-up time before we're thrown into the action. However, exactly how that dovetail will happen if there is the time jump that's been mentioned is yet to be explained. 

11. Max is brain dead, as fans speculated following Season 4

Netflix / Via giphy.com

With Eleven shouting into the empty blackness of Max's mind at the end of Season 4, many fans have taken the scene to mean that Max is braindead.

Speaking to the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Duffer brothers said: "She's braindead, but yeah, she's alive. She's blind, and all of her bones are broken, but yeah, she's doing great!"

According to many medical sources including Hopkins Medicine, brain death is irreversible — but this is Stranger Things we're talking about, and Max is only alive in the first place because Eleven resurrected her by entering her mind and showing her happy memories while piggybacking from a pizza dough freezer. So we may well see the Max we've grown to love come back to us!

There's already been a whole bunch of theories about what's going on in Max's mind, from Vecna stealing all her memories to her being subconsciously trapped in the Upside Down. The Duffers are yet to comment though, so I guess we'll just have to wait two years or so to see how our beloved Max fares...*sobs*

12. Even Sadie Sink has no idea about Max's fate

Clout News @CloutNewsMedia

Sadie Sink says she doesn't know if Max lives or dies in season 5 of Stranger Things. #max #sadiesink #strangerthings #StrangerThings4

01:12 PM - 04 Jul 2022

@CloudNewsMedia / Via Twitter: @CloutNewsMedia

While Vecna actor Jamie Campbell Bower seems to have an idea about where his character is headed, Sadie Sink is as much in the dark about Max's fate as we are.

She told Deadline: "They've been very secretive about Season 5 in general. I have no idea what's coming and what that looks like. Max's storyline is very up in the air, 'cause obviously, she's in a coma, and Eleven can't find her in the void. So who knows where she is and what state she's in."

She also said that the Duffer brothers called her before she read the script for the ninth episode to tell her Max dies, so she wasn't caught off-guard when reading it through!

13. Season 5 will be the last season

Stranger Things @Stranger_Things

uoos noʎ ǝǝs

04:01 PM - 17 Feb 2022

@stranger_things / Via Twitter: @Stranger_Things

There has been some confusion around the final season of the show, with many believing Season 4 to be the last. Ultimately, the Duffer brothers decided to extend to a fifth season to do the storyline justice and not go down in history as an epic show with an epically bad ending, à la Game of Thrones.

In an open letter to fans, the Duffers said: "Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things. At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons. It proved too large to tell in four, but — as you’ll soon see for yourselves — we are now hurtling toward our finale. Season 4 will be the penultimate season; season 5 will be the last."

14. Season 5 will all release at once

Netflix / Via giphy.com

Peter Friedlander, Netflix's head of scripted series for the US and Canada, told Variety that Season 5 won't be split up like Season 4.

"For the fans of Stranger Things, this is how they've been watching that show. I think to change that on them would be disappointing." He described Stranger Things as a seasonal experience that fans go through with the Hawkins natives, and said deviating from that would be "an abrupt change."

He also explained that the only reason Season 4 was split into two parts was an attempt to get the show out quicker to those who wanted to watch, but assured fans they'd return to the "multiple-episodic-viewing experience" we're used to for the show.

15. Will's sexuality will be more overtly explored

ty @willeIfilms

OH WOW

05:38 PM - 01 Jul 2022

@willelfilms / Via Twitter: @willeIfilms

The latter part of Season 4 (and a few hints in the earlier episodes) left viewers speculating that Will is gay, but his sexuality was never overtly discussed during the show. While some complained that the show was too vague and metaphoric, Noah Schnapp, who plays Will, was quick to point out that his character is a freshman in high school back in the 1980s and may not have been ready to come out.

As for the show's writers, Matt and Ross Duffer told Variety that the full arc of the story hasn’t come to pass yet, and that applies to Will’s arc, too.

They said: "It’s going to be much easier to talk about for everyone — the actors and us — once those final two episodes [of Season 4] have played. But certainly, his journey and arc is far from finished."

UPDATE: Noah Schnapp has confirmed his character, Will Byers, is gay and in love with Mike. After speaking to the Duffer brothers about what's next for Will, Schnapp said: "Obviously, we hope for a coming out scene, and I also want to see them address this connection to the Mind Flayer and how that fits into the world.”

16. The season is set to be "pure chaos"

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Joe Keery, who plays Steve, told Esquire that the final season is going to be "pure chaos; complete madness." 

He added: "There are a lot of pending plots to close. I have my preferences, but it seems to me that the Duffers are focused on offering an 'emotional reward.' I blindly believe in them. They are the most of the most, and there is nothing that can resist them."

17. Millie Bobby Brown wants more main characters to meet their maker in the final season

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In an interview with The Wrap, Millie called the Duffer brothers "sensitive Sallies" and encouraged them to go down the path of Game of Thrones, known for its brutal culling of characters. She joked that they now struggle to take a group photo because there are too many cast members, so the writers "need to start killing people off!"

She even volunteered her own character, Eleven, for the chopping block and joked that when the Duffers do try to kill a main character, they just bring them back again, like with Hopper.

Responding to Millie's jokey criticism, the brothers said they had explored all options in the writing room, but the deaths had to be right for the show.

Matt told the Happy Sad Confused podcast: “Just as a complete hypothetical, if you kill Mike, it's like... that's depressing... we aren't Game of Thrones. This is Hawkins, it's not Westeros. The show becomes not Stranger Things anymore, because you do have to treat it realistically, right?"

He went on to state the difference between Game of Thrones and Stranger Things when it comes to dealing with character deaths, stating that "even when Barb dies [back in Season 1], there's two seasons worth of grappling with that, so imagine — is that something we're interested in exploring or not interested in exploring?"

The writer duo did, however, tease that more deaths could be on the table as they head toward the end of the series. As for Millie, jokes aside, she confirmed that she fully trusts the Duffer brothers and their creative process, saying "What they've seen for Eleven has always been amazing and something I've always supported."

18. The ending is already confirmed

Netflix / Via giphy.com

Nothing is fully set in stone, but the Duffer brothers think they know how the series will conclude.

Matt Duffer told NME that they "do have an end,” saying: "I'm sure a lot of it’s going to change, but now [it’s] the end. It’s just one of those things that you come up with and you go, ‘That’s it, that’s right, that’s inevitable — that’s what it has to be.’”  

They also hinted that the show might have multiple endings.

19. There might be a spin-off show in the pipeline

Netflix / Via giphy.com

The Duffer brothers told Variety that they have an idea for a spinoff series to pursue following the final season, so maybe we'll get our Stranger Things fix via new avenues in the future.

They said: "We do have an idea for a spinoff that we’re super excited about…but we haven’t told anyone the idea yet, much less written it. We think everyone — including Netflix — will be surprised when they hear the concept, because it’s very, very different. But somehow, [Mike actor] Finn Wolfhard — who is one crazy smart kid — correctly guessed what it was going to be about. But aside from Finn, no one else knows!"

Peter Friedlander, Netflix's head of scripted series for the US and Canada, said we will "hear very loudly when we have stuff to announce," but until then, it's "highly confidential." 

20. The Duffer brother have formed Upside Down Pictures, a new production company

Emma Mcintyre / Getty Images for Netflix

Through this new company, they'll develop film and television projects as part of their overall deal with Netflix. The spin-off will be under this company, as well as a new stage play set within the world and mythology of Stranger Things, to be produced by multi-award-winning producers Sonia Friedman (Wolf Hall) and Stephen Daldry (The Reader, Billy Elliot).

A few of the projects in the pipeline at Upside Down Pictures include:

- A live-action television adaptation of the manga and anime series Death Note

- A series adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub's The Talisman, to be created by Curtis Gwinn

- An original series from creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance)

21. The final season will explain why the Upside Down is stuck in the past

Netflix / Via youtu.be

The Upside Down is stuck in time on the day of Will's disappearance, November 6th 1983. Season 4 is set in 1986, which Nancy realised when she couldn't find the guns hidden in her room when they followed Steve into the Upside Down, with her diary there confirming the time had stopped three years prior. 

Speaking to Deadline, Ross Duffer said: "The biggest [question left by] the volume one finale [is] how the Upside Down is stuck in time on the day of Will's disappearance. That's something we don't answer in volume two, and that is really the key plot point, the key question that is going to drive our final season as we try to wrap up this story and give the rest of the answers out."

22. There will be a "full blown Upside Down invasion"

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Matt Duffer told Deadline: "We've always wanted the Upside Down encroaching into Hawkins in a more massive way. We hinted at it a little bit in season 2 but we want a full blown Upside Down invasion, and that's something you just can't hit the rewind on."

Ross followed up, saying: "Yeah, once that happens, there's no going back. So, you could only really do that this deep into the story."

23. Eddie Munson is definitely dead

Josh Horowitz @joshuahorowitz

STRANGER THINGS SPOILERS AHEAD! Here the Duffers discuss who lived and died and who the internet was sure would die in ST4. Watch the full hour long spoiler chat at https://t.co/e84WokCDhq

06:11 PM - 04 Jul 2022

@joshuahorowitz / Via Twitter: @joshuahorowitz

There has been fan chatter and plenty of theories about how Eddie's body not being shown to be brought back to Hawkins could mean he simply skipped town since everyone had it out for him, but the Duffers have shot down fan hopes and confirmed that our boy Ed is in fact, dead. Definitively. Sigh.

(Although, there is a Kas the vampire theory being thrown around that would allow for him technically being dead, since Kas is resurrected. And the Duffers also "confirmed" Hopper was dead and look how that turned out! But yeah, it looks very unlikely we'll see Eddie again unfortunately, unless in the form of flashbacks or something similar).

24. David Harbour knows the ending

Cindy Ord / Getty Images

Of course he's keeping schtum about the details, but the Hopper actor told Rob Brydon he knew about the show's conclusion.

He said of season five: "There's an ending to the story that is a very clear ending," and when Brydon asked if he knew that ending, he confirmed that he did.

Speaking of the ending, Matt Duffer said: "We do feel good about the ending. I was like, okay, I think this ending is not... I'm not super insecure. I'm insecure about a lot of things, but I feel like the ending feels good."

Ross followed up, saying: "The last 20 minutes, they're locked in. Like I told you, sticking the landing is so [important]."

25. Netflix reveals season 5, episode 1's name

Netflix / Via instagram.com

On 6 November 2022, Netflix and Stranger Things TV social media accounts dropped an image of the title page of a script, which simply read: "Episode #501. Chapter One: The Crawl by The Duffer Brothers". Actors Maya Hawke (Robin) and Amy Beth McNulty (Vickie) expressed their excitement in the comments on Insta, with Maya asking when she could read it and Amy Beth calmly explaining that she needs the script because she wants to read it to her cats. Petition for a readalong of the script with Amy Beth and her cats!

That's what we know so far. Ignore Will's advice and bookmark this article, as it will be updated as more news breaks!

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