Stranger Things 5 begins with a frantic race to the finish line

It has been a decade since the Stranger Things phenomenon began, and the Duffer brothers had had ample time to craft a strong finish to their breakout hit series. But the beginning of the show’s fifth and final season feels like a frantic race to the end.

While Stranger Things wasn’t Netflix’s first breakout hit, it catapulted the streamer to a new level of pop cultural prominence by telling a wildly captivating story that got everyone talking. Modern day nostalgia for the ‘80s never really went away, but Stranger Things kicked off a new wave of shows and movies that made it feel like other studios were doing everything in their power to re-create the Duffer Brothers’ success. Stranger Things was a momentous phenomenon that didn’t show many signs of losing steam over the course of its first few seasons.

By season 4, though, the show’s new episodes were releasing at a much slower rate thanks to production delays caused by the covid-19 pandemic. While the larger Stranger Things franchise was growing with a stage show and plans for an animated spinoff, after the 2023 writers strike led to even more delays, it felt like Netflix might have a tough time getting everyone excited to go back to Hawkins for the core series’ final season.

In the first four episodes of Stranger Things 5, you can feel the Duffer Brothers trying to address past production issues that were beyond their control while also exploring narrative ideas they had mapped out long before the series began airing. Though this season picks right back up where the last left off, it’s peppered with details that emphasize how much time has passed in the real world since we last saw these characters.

The younger cast looks and feels much older in ways that can’t exactly be attributed to sudden growth spurts. And characters have a tendency to speak to each other in quippy bits of exposition as if they know that people who need their memories jogged are watching. Those elements of Stranger Things 5 call for a suspension of disbelief that feels reasonable given all the external factors that kept this season from debuting more quickly.

Though a lot has changed about Hawkins in the months since it was almost entirely torn apart by the Upside Down, most people are still able to go about their everyday lives. Everyone remembers how earth-shaking interdimensional energy cracked the streets wide open. But they try not to think about what went down now that the damage has been mostly covered with massive sheets of metal.

Aside from the compulsory medical checkups and a military-enforced quarantine that keeps civilians from leaving town, things feel relatively normal to people unfamiliar with Vecna.

(Jamie Campbell Bower) and his many Demogorgons. But for Eleven / Jane (Millie Bobby Brown), Hopper (David Harbour), and the rest of their crew, the unnatural calm is a sign of how much more dangerous things are about to become.

In order to remind you how this winding story began and to emphasize what kinds of monsters Stranger Things‘ heroes are up against, the new season spends much more time with Will Byers (Noah Schnapp). Will insists on playing a larger role in the teens’ plans to take their fight to Vecna in the present, but the show also jumps back to the past to explore what happened to the boy when he was first dragged into the Upside Down in season one. As disturbing (in a good way) and impressive as many of this season’s otherworldly set pieces and VFX are, the Will-focused flashbacks featuring a new child actor superimposed with Schnapp’s de-aged face undercut some of the show’s fantasy. Similar to the show’s previous experiments in de-aging its quickly growing stars, the effect doesn’t quite work on a visual level. But it does give you a sense that the Duffers really want this season to feel like it’s bringing certain characters’ stories full circle.

You can feel that same desire at work as the show cuts to missing child posters of a younger Eleven before revealing that she has actually been hiding out in the woods with Hopper and training to use her powers in combat. Hop — originally introduced as a drunken mess in season 1 — knows that his adoptive daughter isn’t a little girl anymore. He and Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) both understand that Eleven might be their only hope of defeating Vecna for good, but it’s hard for them to accept her willingness to risk her life.

Stranger Things has always had a massive cast of lead characters and done a (mostly) solid job of weaving together their plotlines in ways that felt organic. But because this season is so focused on giving everyone one last hurrah, the show quickly starts to feel a little too busy for its own good.

The season bounces between Hopper family drama, school troubles for the Hellfire Club’s other remaining members (Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Priah Ferguson) and a fraught love triangle between some of the older teens. Beats like the growing friendship between Will and Robin (Maya Hawke) have to move relatively fast because the show only has so much time. And things get even more hectic as Stranger Things 5 gives new prominence to Mike’s younger sister Holly (Nell Fisher) and her foulmouthed classmate Derek (Jake Connelly).

While Stranger Things 5 tries to flesh out some of its players further, it often feels like the show is coasting on the assumption that you still know and love these characters enough that simply seeing their plots wrapped up is enough to make for a satisfying story. After all this time spent in the pipeline, though, what Stranger Things needs to really stick the landing is a final chapter that works as its own compelling narrative. The show might be able to pull that off in its final four episodes if it can slow down and really lean into the kind of emotional drama that made Stranger Things such a knockout in its earlier seasons. But with this season already halfway over, Stranger Things 5 is going to have its work cut out for it.

Stranger Things 5 also stars Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Brett Gelman, Cara Buono, Amybeth McNulty, and Linda Hamilton. The first four episodes are now streaming, the next three debut on December 25th, and the finale premieres on December 31st.