There's a strange comfort in returning to Hawkins, like visiting your childhood home only to discover the wallpaper has changed, the backyard has been fortified with barbed wire, and the family dog is now a fully grown Demogorgon.
Stranger Things Season 5 arrives not as the wide-eyed, Goonies-coded adventure we fell for in 2016, but as a creature shaped by time: bigger, darker, louder, and determined to convince us that the magic we once felt is still there, buried somewhere beneath the CGI sprawl and the weight of its own legacy. And unexpectedly, often improbably, it is.
Set roughly a year and a half after the explosive events of Season 4, the final season begins in a Hawkins swallowed whole by the aftermath of Vecna's (Jamie Campbell Bower) assault. The town is no longer the suburban idyll of Christmas lights, arcades and school dances; it's a militarised quarantine zone patrolled by soldiers and surveillance towers.
Families are trapped inside a version of their own lives, unable to leave town, unable to pretend everything is fine. The older fans will immediately sense the tonal shift; this is no longer the show where kids pedal away from danger on BMX bikes. This is a war story wrapped in supernatural dread.
The core ensemble - now visibly older, even as the narrative insists only four years have passed - continues to work in secret as Hawkins' underground resistance.
Eleven trains with Hopper (David Harbour) and Joyce (Winona Ryder) to prepare for the inevitable final confrontation. Robin (Maya Hawke) and Steve (Joe Keery) run the local radio station, doubling as a covert comms hub. Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Hopper plan incursions into the Upside Down, while Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Will (Noah Schnapp) juggle school by day and supernatural reconnaissance by night.
The season wastes no time in propelling them into danger: demogorgon attacks, mysterious disappearances, and deepening rifts-both literal and emotional - push them back into battle mode before they've even had the chance to process the trauma of last season.
The shadow of age - of the actors, of the franchise, of the show outgrowing its original premise - hangs heavily over these episodes. In some scenes, there is a self-awareness bordering on melancholy.
The Duffers seem to recognise how surreal it feels to watch adults playing characters still meant to be teenagers mapping out missions using walkie-talkies, D&D metaphors and improvised traps. And yet rather than awkwardly ignore the elephant in the room, the show leans into reinvention.
Younger characters step to the forefront, most notably Holly Wheeler, now old enough to participate in the supernatural chaos, as if the series is quietly passing its torch to a new generation of wide-eyed adventurers. It's clever, a bit cheeky, and surprisingly moving.
What ultimately anchors the sprawling, sometimes unwieldy narrative is the cast's sheer emotional clarity. Even with a large ensemble and multiple storylines branching in different directions, the performances feel grounded.
Will's storyline, growing into his queerness while grappling with his psychic tether to Vecna, finally gives Noah Schnapp the material he has long deserved. Eleven's (Millie Bobby Brown) arc shifts her from a traumatised child-soldier to a determined warrior, confident and empathetic in equal measure.
Lucas remains steady, loyal and quietly heroic. And Dustin's grief-fuelled transformation into a hardened, Eddie-coded version of himself gives the season some of its most painful, compelling beats.
The action is bigger than ever: sometimes breathtaking, sometimes exhausting. The Upside Down, once eerie and mysterious, is now an operatic hellscape of grotesque set pieces and monstrous armies.
The season's large-scale battles and visual ambition often border on overwhelming, but despite the CGI-heavy chaos, the emotional throughlines rarely get lost.
When the show slows down, even for a moment, when characters simply talk, reconnect, admit fear, joke around, or offer comfort, it reminds you why this world mattered in the first place.
But for all its strengths, Season 5 Part 1 is not immune to criticism. The pacing, despite being more focused than Season 4, still struggles under the weight of too many characters and too many narrative threads.
Some relationships feel stretched thin, some emotional beats feel repeated, and certain sequences rely heavily on convenience rather than logic. The military occupation storyline is visually striking but not always coherent.
And while the show works hard to recapture the early seasons' magic, you can occasionally feel the strain nostalgia doesn't hit the same when everyone looks ready to file taxes.
Still, the season succeeds where it matters most. By embracing risk rather than retreating into fan service, it finds drama in the unexpected.
By allowing the characters to grow emotionally, not just physically, it gives the story the maturity the timeline demands. And by leaning unapologetically into spectacle, heart and chaos, it sets the stage for a finale that could truly close the loop on nine years of television mythology.
Stranger Things may have outgrown its training wheels, its D&D metaphors and even its early-season innocence. But in this sprawling, sometimes messy, often thrilling penultimate chapter, it proves that a show can age and still hold onto its soul. Whether the final episodes deliver greatness or just a satisfying goodbye remains to be seen.
For now, what we get is a strange, fascinating middle ground: a show at war with time, still reaching for the lightning it once bottled, and, in flashes, catching it again.
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Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp