It is, hands down, the biggest TV event of the year. The final season of Stranger Things (or rather, the first four episodes) drops in India on Thursday morning (November 27, 6.30am IST) and fans are waiting with bated breath to see how it pans out for the gang at Hawkins. The fandom for the Netflix series — one of the biggest-ever from the streamer — has only grown with each season, and the release of this season in a staggered manner — Volume Two is on December 25, while the finale will air on December 31 and also in select theatres in the US — has fans on the edge. Here’s what you need to know before you dive deep into the world of Eleven, Vecna and more.
Hawkins has been breached
The boundary between the real world and the Upside Down is gone. After Max’s heart briefly stopped, four massive gates converged, tearing the town apart with huge fissures.
The entire area is under a government-imposed quarantine and with the devastation being publicly blamed on a 7.4 magnitude earthquake, The Upside Down is literally bleeding into Hawkins.
Stranger Things creators — Ross and Matt Duffer, collectively known as the Duffer Brothers — have hinted numerous times that they are prepared to finally break down the exact nature of the Upside Down in Season 5.
The Upside Down is also slated to throw up some answers, most of which will have to do with its own origin. In a chat with The Hollywood Reporter, the Duffers have indicated that the intent — right from the beginning of Season One — was to always keep the Upside Down “mysterious”. “In Season One, we didn’t even know we were going to get a Season Two, but we still kept some mystery in there. For instance, what is the Upside Down? Why was Will (Byers) taken, which obviously is why this season begins with a flashback to his time in the Upside Down,” they said.
Max is still in coma
In a heartbreaking turn of events, Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) became Vecna’s fourth victim and died for a full minute before Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) remotely restarted her heart. Greviously injured, she is now in a coma.
When Eleven attempts to reach her consciousness in the Void, she finds only darkness. This leaves Max’s condition and survival a major unanswered question for Season 5.
Vecna is down but not out
The multi-pronged attack on Vecna (Henry Creel/One, played by Jamie Campbell Bower) by Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Steve (Joe Keery) and Robin (Maya Hawke) in the Upside Down and Eleven in Max’s mind, severely wounded him. But that, of course, doesn’t mean that Vecna is done... in fact, far from it! Vecna escaped before they could deliver a fatal blow. The final moments confirm he is still out there, gathering strength and putting the rest of his plan into motion.
Ross and Matt Duffer, in the run-up to Season 5, have emphasised that they wanted the show’s storylines to “come full circle” in the final season, and that’s evident in the first five minutes of the new season, that Netflix offered a peek at, which confirms that Vecna has been there since the beginning, as he was with Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) during his disappearance in Season One.
Will still has a villain connection
The first person taken by the Upside Down in Season 1 can still sense Vecna’s presence. The “chill on the back of his neck” and the “goosebumps” are clear indicators that the villain is not only alive but close by and Will — the boy who vanished on November 6, 1983 with life not being the same ever after for Hawkins — will be vital to the final outing’s plot. Since we learnt of Vecna’s union with the Mind Flayer in the Season 4 finale, we now know that he is bonded to Will as well.
The Upside Down is frozen in time
November 6, 1983 was the day when Will first disappeared. This signals that Upside Down is permanently stuck in time. The main reason behind this freeze hasn’t been revealed. The answer — which we hope will be revealed early on in Season 5 — will hold important answers that will help Eleven and Co. understand the origin of Vecna and what will go into beating him.
There is another vanishing...
Episode 2 of the final season will see another vanishing — as the episode title suggests, that will be of Holly Wheeler, Nancy and Mike’s (Finn Wolfhard) sister. That Holly will play an important role this season was indicated early on, with the role being recast. Taking over the part from twins Ainsley and Tinsley Price is Nell Fisher, whose spook cred includes Evil Dead Rise.
Newly-minted monsters? Nay!
The Duffers, however, have reiterated that there will be no new monsters this season. They said: “A lot of this season is about returning to the prior seasons, and we didn’t want to overstuff it with new creatures. So as we worked on the season, we thought: ‘Let’s just have fun with what we have previously established.’”
They added: “It is more like taking what we’ve done and then amping it up, like what (James) Cameron did from Alien to Aliens. That’s how we see this season.”
Eleven’s powers are back!
When Eleven undertook the “Nina Project” with Dr. Owens (Paul Reiser) and a resurrected Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine), she revisited her traumatic past and regained her psychokinetic abilities. She is now in a “warrior state” and more powerful than ever. As was made amply clear towards the end of the last season, she is now ready to face the monster she created when she first sent Henry Creel into the Upside Down.
Hawkins has its OG gang back
As Season 4 drew to a close, we had Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Hopper (David Harbour) escaping the clutches of the Russians. The California crew also managed to made it back in the Surfer Boy Pizza van. With the entire team now in one place and aware of the true scale of the threat — Hawkins looks it is all set to implode even as the Upside Down bleeds into it — they can finally face the final apocalyptic battle together.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW Does one need to go on for a marathon run of Stranger Things before S5 Vol 1 drops?
That would mean a binge of 34 hours and 43 minutes! Well, the Duffers have made it easier by suggesting a rewatch of four “crucial” episodes before Season 4? They include: “Will the Wise” (Season Two, Episode Four), “The Spy” (Season Two, Episode Six), “The Massacre at Hawkins Lab” (Season Four, Episode Seven), and “The Piggyback” (Season Four, Episode Nine).
Is Eddie Munson coming back?
Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) won’t be coming back from the grave. The beloved metalhead and leader of the Hellfire Club in Season Four, who ultimately sacrificed himself in the Upside Down to protect his friends, is “very much six feet under”, according to Ross.
Why a three-part season release?
The creators have emphasised that breaking the final season into three parts was necessary because of the volume and variety this season, being the finale, offers. They spent a full year filming this season, capturing over 650 hours of footage. “Needless to say, this is our biggest and most ambitious season yet. It’s like eight blockbuster movies. It’s pretty insane,” say the Duffers.
We are in the FROW!
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