It’s taken 9 years and a whole lot of faith that the youthful cast wouldn’t age out prematurely, but we’ve finally reached the fifth and final season of Netflix’s pop culture smash, Stranger Things. From it’s humble beginnings, when we first were introduced to the quartet of D&D playing kids, to an epic previous season that literally saw the town of Hawkins, Illinois torn asunder, the brain child of Matt and Ross Duffer has become one of the most unstoppable juggernauts in TV history that saw its influence and scale swell as quickly as the Mind Flayer absorbing more victims.
However, with the end in sight, can arguably one of the most anticipated final seasons of all time possibly hope to stick that landing when other pop culture phenomenons crashed and burned? Dispatching a Vecna hell bent on colonising Hawkins with those freakish vines from the Upside-Down is one thing, but can Eleven, Mike, Dusty and the rest of the meaty cast pull off the impossible and deliver a season that meets expectations?
The end starts now.
After a quick spot of retconning that places wrinkly, noseless rotting uber-bastard Vecna at the scene of Will Byers’ abduction/impregnating back in 1983, we zip ahead to 1987, 18 months after Season 4 placed a giant rift to the Upside-Down smack bang in the middle of Hawkins. However, as the episode progresses and we get reacquainted with with the regulars, we simultaneously get eased in to the new normal. The military has swooped in, placed steel plating over the yawning chasm and quarantined any Hawkins’ residents that haven’t wisely fled the scene. Not only have the army walled off the only remaining opening, but they also have a base camp set up within the Upside-Down.
However, unbeknownst to the brass, our fearless group of Vecna hunters have made good on their vow to hunt down and finish off the multidimensional mutant once an for all and set up sort of a resistance group that has everyone working together to order to continuously smuggler Hopper into the Upside-Down in convoys to seek out their enemy and put him down once and for all. However, while everyone has their own part to play, others are getting distracted. While Mike and Lucas are all in, Vecna-sensitive Will is still being wrapped in cotton wool by his mother Joyce and Dustin is incurring the wrath of local bullies by still maintaining the late Eddie Munson was innocent of murders he was framed for. Elsewhere, Max still languishes in her coma, Robin his embarking on a secret relationship with her crush, Vickie and both Steve and Jonathan seem to be locked in a dumb game of one-upmanship in order to win a deeply unimpressed Nancy’s heart. But when their latest venture into the Upside-Down (aka. the Crawl of the title) goes horribly wrong, we find Hopper trapped in the other dimension and a Demogorgon coming after a most peculiar victim – Mike and Nancy’s younger sister, Holly.
With so much on the line and so many plates to spin right from the off, there’s a danger that our fifth trip to a rapidly beleaguered Hawkins could have gotten swamped by its own lore, however after nearly a decade of being in the driving seat of Stranger Things, it’s extremely gratifying to see that the Duffer Brothers have a tight enough grip on the universe they’ve created to put some interesting new spins of some familiar, well-loved characters. For a start, while every season thus far has started with the ever ballooning group acting separately and slowly contracting back from all angles to form one, big monster slaying super gang, here we start with them holding a unified front in their hunt for what they believe is a wounded Vecna. The plot for the entirety of the first episode essentially takes the form of the Duffers walking us through a Crawl, a mission that sees Robin, Steve, Nancy and Jonathan use their job at the local radio station to spy on the military and pass messages to arms of their resistance. The final result is ultimately to sneak Hopper into into the Upside-Down and back at regular intervals in order for him to search quadrants of the town until their foe is located. Everyone seemingly has a part to play – except Will and Eleven who are currently suffering from a case of overprotective guardians, which is ironic as both have the most clear connection to their viney antagonist. With the opening scene elaborating more on Will’s ordeal and Eleven training her powers to mold her into a supreme, Demogorgon killing machine, it’s obvious from the get-go that these two will probably have a more intimate relationship with the artist formally known as Henry Creel than, say Steve Harrington, but El’s boosted powers and Will’s extra sensory ability to sense his enemy (dubbed “the goosies” by Steve) are blatantly being kept in reserve by both the parents and the Duffers for the opportune moment.
However, experiencing the most tonal shift of the group is Dustin, who after the traumatic events of the previous, seems to be becoming a proto-Eddie as his friend’s mauling and subsequent demonising has turned him from the bright, positive, Dustin we all love to a bitter teen who finds himself at the mercy of predatory bullies. In fact, it’s the beating he takes while trying to protect Eddie’s grave leads to disaster striking during Hopper’s mission and with the angry bearded one stranded in another dimension (and probably due a meeting with Linda Hamilton’s Upside-Down based scientist) thanks to an attack of a suspiciously focused Demogorgon, the gears of Season 5 start to shift into gear.
However, where they shift to proves to be something of a genuine surprise mainly because it seems that Vecna’s focus this time out seems locked onto Holly Wheeler for some reason. While it proves to be a shock chiefly because I frequently forget that Mike and Nancy even have a younger sister, it seems that whatever nefarious plans Vecna has, they seem to involve him giving the youngest Wheeler the same Upside-Down experience Will had four years earlier and it manages to bring to the fore possibly the most exciting aspect of this final season. A body count.
While we’ve seen the likes of Barb, Bob, Eddie and Alexei bite the bullet in various, heartbreaking ways the fact that a Demogorgon has targeted the Wheeler residence means that there’s high chance that blood could finally be shed from the more regular members of the cast and while I’d agree that Ted Wheeler meeting a gruesome end might not be exactly earth shattering loss, it certainly would be a good start when building up to more momentous murders of the main members.
Our final return to Hawkins gets off with a cracking start with a whole bunch of world building that keeps things feeling fresh even after all these years. With the basics, reintroductions and status quo changes all neatly taken care off in the season premiere, the remaining 7 episodes are all set to build Stranger Things up even higher as it burns it all down. Who will be left standing when those other worldly spores finally settle? That’s what we’re about to find out.
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