Netflix’s massive show about teens saving the world from ungodly horrors, Stranger Things, wrapped up its epic fourth season in 2022. Three years later, the fifth and final season is about to kick off and we’ve just received a trailer to give us a taste of what’s to come.
With the end of the series (and an era) finally on the calendar, fans can’t help speculating what will go down. After all, we’ve seen monsters from the Upside Down that continue to live in my nightmares, clever yet haunting Christmas light communication and the otherworldly powers of Kate Bush‘s music.
What will we be forced to witness in the next season of the Duffer Brothers’ (Matt and Ross Duffer) hit show? Which child will be next in line to experience horrors beyond human comprehension?
Here’s all the goss about season five of Stranger Things, from the new trailer to how many spinoffs and prequels the mad geniuses in the writing room are whipping up.
Everything we know about Stranger Things season 5
Table of Contents
- What happens in the Stranger Things season 5 trailer?
- When will Stranger Things season 5 be released?
- What are the theories for Stranger Things season 5?
- What do we know about Stranger Things season 5?
- Who is in the Stranger Things season 5 cast?
- What happened at the end of Stranger Things season 4?
- Will there be a Stranger Things spin-off?
What happens in the Stranger Things Season 5 trailer?
Set to a goosebump-inducing cover of Queen’s “Who Wants to Live Forever”, the Stranger Things trailer spells major trouble for Hawkins, Indiana. Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) is back — and this time he’s deadset on bringing his nightmare realm into the real world. As Mike (Finn Wolfhard) puts it, the gang has one mission: to find Vecna and end this once and for all.
Easier said than done. The trailer shows Demogorgons absolutely tearing through soldiers enforcing the Hawkins quarantine, while Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) cradles an unconscious Max (Sadie Sink) in a hospital elevator as a Demo-dog charges toward them.
Meanwhile, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Hopper (David Harbour) seem to be fighting their own battle in the Upside Down, and Mike watches Joyce (Winona Ryder) break down in fear for her son Will (Noah Schnapp).
It’s giving chaos. It’s giving heartbreak. It’s giving final boss energy.
When will Stranger Things Season 5 be released?
After literal years of anticipation, we finally have information about the final season of Stranger Things. In Netflix’s annual Tudum event, it was announced that season five would be released in three stages.
The first four episodes fall under Volume One and premiere on November 26, 2025. Volume Two is made up of three episodes, which will be released on December 25, 2025. The final episode will be released on New Year’s Day, 2026.
Talk about some bold release date choices!!
Here are all the release dates and times for Australia:
Volume 1: November 27, 2025 @ 12pm AEDT
Volume 2: December 26, 2025 @ 12pm AEDT
The Finale: January 1, 2026 @ 12pm AEDT
What is the plot?
The plot for the new season is as follows:
“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.”
What are the theories for Stranger Things 5?
Fan-made posters have sparked some interesting theories. Clearly, the fans did get the release year wrong, but the vibes are still pretty on point.
A Stranger Things fan account shared the following glorious posters on Twitter:
It appears that the theory here is that Will is going to develop Eleven-like powers next season.
I actually think Will developing powers like El makes sense, because we know Will has connections to Vecna and the Upside Down that haven’t been explained yet. Time was also a theme in Season Four, both for Henry/Vecna (remember those clocks everywhere?) and also for Will, since we discovered the Upside Down is trapped in time to the exact day he disappeared into it all those years ago.
Since there’s obviously some connection between the Upside Down, Vecna/Henry, time and Will, and three out of four of these have supernatural or mystical elements, it makes sense that Will will finally unlock something that gives him powers too. And it’s also possible he goes a little evil for a while. I mean, he’s been mind-flayed before, and we know he’s feeling isolated from the group… perfect pickings for a possession if you ask me.
If you cast your mind back to season one, Will’s Dungeons and Dragons character was a wizard called Will the Wise. Perhaps he becomes a wizard of sorts in season five? We know this show loves foreshadowing, and there’s been lots of it when it comes to Will’s wizardry and his part in defeating Vecna.
The fanmade poster also calls Will the “last victim”. Will was the first victim of the Upside Down in season one… so perhaps he is finally taken, once and for all? Or is he the one who closes the Upside Down for good? Or is he the “last victim” because the Upside Down is frozen to the day he was taken?
Either way, it all started with Will, and it’ll end with Will too.
These fan-made posters are actually so sick and I hope there’s some truth to them.
I have my money on Will the Wise defeating Vecna!
What’s that I see? A Hydra-esque creature that looks exactly like the Dungeons and Dragons demogorgon from season one, and the dragon Will painted himself and the crew defeating in season four?
My Stranger Things season five theory is this is the final boss battle, and what Will the Wise will be defeating — a nice full circle moment from the crew’s first game in season one.
Another nosebleed for Will! Looks like this fan is defs manifesting Will having powers and so am I.
What do we know about Stranger Things Season 5?
Thanks to the Duffer Brothers spilling tea every time they leave the house, we know a few things about what will happen in season five and who will be returning to act their ass off.
The season will centre Will
If you were disappointed with how much Will’s character felt like an afterthought in season four, I have some good news: the official Twitter account for Stranger Things has revealed Season Five will be all about Will.
Since Will is also the main subject in a couple of the Stranger Things season five posters, where he can be seen either with a nosebleed (ummmm!) or with red eyes and a trench coat, it’s pretty obvious he’ll be at the centre of season five.
I mean, he was the first victim of the Upside Down in season one. And according to the promotional posters, he’s the last victim in season five. So either he dies, or he saves the day.
We saw Eleven fail at her task in season four because she went at it alone. In previous seasons, Will has always been the key to the Upside Down’s undoing. So it makes sense that he would step up and use his Vecna spidey-powers (or possibly some new Eleven-adjacent powers) to end this once and for all.
A conclusion to the story of the Upside Down
The new season will be set in the Upside Down and Hawkins exclusively. No more random cuts to Russia or California.
“I think one of the things that’s exciting about Season Five is [that] Season Four was interesting to us because everyone was scattered to the winds,” the Duffer Brothers told Collider in July 2024.
“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 one dynamics again, except on this grander scale.”
Finally, we may get some kind of explanation as to what the Upside Down truly is. We might even see it disappear from the world completely.
Who is likely to die?
At this point, it’s all guesses and estimates, but I have a feeling we’re going to see some main characters RIP for good.
Eleven is probably the character who is most likely to perish in a final fight against Vecna. This whole story started with her, so it’d be poetic to end it with her as well. Plus, her death would signify a return to “normal” for the gang, to pre-supernatural life.
The Duffer Brothers have been telling folks that pretty much everyone started to cry when they read the final script ideas to Netflix, so take that as you will. Clearly, someone important is going to perish, and it’s going to break everyone’s hearts.
“It’s like that lighthouse blinking in the distance… while a lot of season five is actually pretty blurry, the last 30 minutes of it are pretty clear in our heads,” Ross Duffer told Entertainment Weekly in July 2024.
“So if we can make the journey entertaining, I think that we have an end that will hopefully satisfy. You can’t satisfy everyone, but the hope is that it’s something that feels right for this story.”
Who is in the Stranger Things Season 5 cast?
Returning for season five will be Noah Schnapp (Will), Finn Wolfhard (Mike), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Priah Ferguson (Erica), Natalia Dyer (Nancy), Maya Hawke (Robin), Joe Keery (Steve), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan), David Harbour (Hopper), and Winona Ryder (Joyce).
Sadie Sink (Max) and Jamie Campbell Bower (Vecna/Henry/One) will be returning as well. In what state, however, is a mystery to us all.
Joseph Quinn (Eddie Munson) will not be returning because he is very much dead.
What happened at the end of Stranger Things Season 4?
Stranger Things Season season four was 13 hours of madness, mindfuckery and magnitude 7.4 earthquakes.
We laughed, we cried and many of our fave characters went through insane amounts of suffering no child should have to go through (remember, these characters are supposed to be around the age of 14- to 15).
Vecna may or may not be dead, Max may or may not be dead and the town of Hawkins is now a disaster zone after the earth has split and opened up into “hell”.
So yeah, nothing too chaotic.
Did Vecna really die?
Sure, we saw Jamie Campbell Bower’s Vecna/Henry/One get a bit of shotgun and Molotov cocktail action, but we technically didn’t see him die.
Plus, we have Will saying he can still sense Vecna alive, and so I guess we’ve got a problem.
When asked if Vecna would be returning for Stranger Things season five, Bower couldn’t reveal if he was signed on for more seasons.
“I couldn’t possibly say, it’s gonna be my answer,” he told Entertainment Weekly in July.
“I couldn’t possibly tell you. Anything I say is going to be wrong.”
Is Max still alive?
One thing that many fans are wondering about Stranger Things season five is if it will feature Max, who was very clearly dead for a hot minute there.
Thankfully, Eleven was able to restart her heart. The last we see of our queen is her in a coma, giving no response to Eleven’s attempts to wake her. And Eleven couldn’t find her in that dimension she goes to when she enters people’s minds either, which is concerning.
Is Max only alive in terms that her heart is beating? I mean, it would make sense given El’s choice to bring Max back from the death was a moment of passion and not one of thorough planning. Maybe she fucked it up?
Sadie Sink, who plays Max, spoke to Entertainment Weekly about where she thinks her character is going next season. And no, it wasn’t the grave.
“It really is just so sad,” she said.
“When you’re putting yourself in that moment and then you’re with someone like Caleb (McLaughlin), who I’ve known since I was very little, sometimes things can feel very real on that set. It was very emotional… It’s just so heartbreaking.”
“I’m not sure where we’re going and what Max’s state is. It’s definitely all up in the air right now,” she continued.
“I’m just as excited as everyone else to find out where Max is and how she’s doing.”
Is Stranger Things Season 5 the final season?
The Duffer Brothers actually addressed this in a tweet back in February 2022.
“Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things,” they wrote in a fancy little letter.
“At the time, we predicted the story would last four or 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 Four will be the penultimate season; season Five will be the last.”
Well. No room for misinterpreting that one.
“With nine scripts, over eight hundred pages, almost two years of filming, thousands of visual effects shots, and a runtime nearly twice the length of any previous season, Stranger Things 4 was the most challenging season yet, but also the most rewarding one,” they wrote.
Will there be a Stranger Things spinoff season?
Yup, the Stranger Things universe isn’t done yet. While season five will wrap up the main Hawkins saga, the Duffer Brothers have confirmed a spinoff is on the way — just don’t expect a rehash of Eleven and the gang.
Details are still under wraps, but the creators have teased that it’ll feature entirely new characters and storylines, possibly exploring other corners of the Upside Down.
There’s also an animated series called Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 in the works, set between seasons two and three, which is expected to drop in 2026. So, even though the OG crew is hanging up their bikes, the weirdness of Hawkins isn’t going anywhere.
I’m excited to see what the hell they do next. Maybe in the spinoff, the real stranger things will be the friends we made along the way? Just spitballing ideas here. There’s a reason the Duffers get paid the big Netflix bucks.
You can watch seasons one to four of Stranger Things on Netflix right now.
The post The Stranger Things S5 Trailer Teases Vecna’s Return & A Full-Blown War In Hawkins appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
