Stranger Things Season 5 Review: The Netflix Series Races Towards A Big Finale
by Chris Evangelista · /FilmWhen "Stranger Things" first arrived all the way back in 2016, it was on seemingly no one's radar. I recall that Netflix made screeners available rather early, before a trailer had even dropped, and I started watching them on a whim without knowing much about the series. I was immediately charmed by the show's "Stephen King meets Steven Spielberg" atmosphere, and I obviously wasn't alone: "Stranger Things" became a mega-hit; a full-blown cultural phenomenon. But has it overstayed its welcome? I guess that depends on who you ask. But it probably doesn't help matters that long stretches of time have passed between seasons, and the actors, who are primarily supposed to be kids, all seem to have aged out of their roles.
"Stranger Things" season 4 dropped in 2022, which feels like a lifetime ago in our current jumbled timeline. Now, the series is coming to a close with season 5, which has been split into three distinct parts featuring big-budget super-sized episodes, some of which have a feature-length runtime. Netflix will, of course, find ways to keep the show alive — there's already an animated prequel series on the way, and talk of spin-offs run rampant. For now, though, the flagship "Stranger Things" series is approaching some sort of ending, which means it has to wrap up a bunch of loose ends.
The Duffer Brothers, who created the show and write many of its episodes, have opted for a kind of speed-run approach. Yes, even though many of these final episodes are quite long, they move at a breakneck pace, rushing from one big action set-piece to the next as characters shout out exposition to fill in the blanks. It's fun to watch, and it's never boring. But it's also a bit exhausting. On top of that, the final season (of which I've seen the first 4 episodes) also has a bad habit of giving us too many answers. I'm not going to dip into full-blown spoilers here, but I found several explanations to be a touch unnecessary. It's almost as if the Duffers are afraid of leaving no stone unturned and must show everything to the viewers. It's okay to leave a little mystery.
Stranger Things season 5 backtracks a bit as it begins
Season 4, which I enjoyed, left a lot of threads to pull. Poor Max (Sadie Sink) was left in a coma after briefly dying; the otherworldly realm known as the Upside Down began to leak through into the small town of Hawkins; and the show's big bad, Vecna aka Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower), thought defeated, was revealed to be still alive and kicking. This was all pretty exciting, which makes the opening moments of season 5 slightly ... strange.
Seemingly unable to commit to what they unleashed, the Duffers backpedal a little bit and reveal that while Hawkins is now under a military-ordered quarantine, things have more or less reverted back to normal. Yes, that's right, several people — including many of the parents of our young heroes — remain completely oblivious about the Upside Down and all the supernatural forces within. Daily life in Hawkins continues on almost as if nothing major happened.
After a lengthy "let's catch you up on where everyone is now!" montage, "Stranger Things" season 5 starts sprinting towards whatever its finale might be. The show has amassed a large ensemble of characters, which means they all have to go off on their own little side-quests to give the actors enough to do. I don't want to get too lost in the weeds here by breaking down everything going on, and that's not the point of a review anyway. But I'll tell you that our heroes are still trying to find a way to stop Vecna, and Vecna is still trying to do evil things that could leave several of the characters resting in pieces. Can Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) use her special powers to stop Vecna once and for all, if her adoptive father Hopper (David Harbour) stops being so overprotective of her? Will poor, tormented Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) ever catch a break? Will Max ever wake up from that damn coma if Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) keeps playing that Kate Bush song? We'll see!
Stranger Things season 5 plays the hits with a few new touches
Like the reuse of that Kate Bush song, "Stranger Things" season 5 frequently feels like it's playing the hits — giving fans exactly what they expect. That's not to say the show isn't trying out some new material here and there. For one thing, Holly Wheeler, little sister of Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Nancy (Natalia Dyer), is elevated to a main player this time after spending previous seasons hanging out in the background.
As played by Nell Fisher, Holly suddenly finds herself beset by the dark forces of the Upside Down — a change-up that confuses our core team of heroes who don't quite understand why she's suddenly so important. Fisher is quite good here, playing up Holly's confusion and terror as the character gets put through the wringer on several harrowing occasions.
But a somewhat unexpected issue begins to arise as these mega-episodes unfold. Everything is so fast-paced, so action-packed, that there's almost no room for emotional stakes. To be fair, maybe the show finds the right balance in its remaining episodes. But the first half of the final season keeps unleashing one big action scene after another on us, occasionally having characters stalk off to the side to share an awkward heart-to-heart. It's hard to become invested in any of this, even though we've spent several years with most of these people. It ends up giving season 5 an oddly weightless quality — it's difficult to get really excited about anything happening because we can't really stop and absorb it all.
The final Stranger Things season is rushed but fun
But even after all this time, I still enjoy spending time with most of these characters. I continue to get a kick out of Maya Hawke's Robin Buckley, and I like how Hawke brings a hyper-caffeinated motormouth energy to the role. And Winona Ryder's Joyce, who has felt kind of underused in previous seasons, gets to be surprisingly funny this time. On the flipside of things, every time the show keeps trying to shoehorn in Brett Gelman's Murray Bauman as "comic relief," I groaned inwardly — this character didn't need to stick around this long.
There's also some exciting direction on display here — long takes, big intricate set-ups, lots and lots of chase sequences. A real stand-out is an episode directed by Frank Darabont, which employs a house full of booby-traps that will immediately have you thinking of "Home Alone." Darabont hasn't directed anything since 2013's TV series "Mob City," so having him back at all is worth celebrating.
Ultimately, it feels like "Stranger Things" season 5 is too big to fail. If you've spent the last several years growing to love these characters and their Amblin-inspired adventures, you're pretty much in the tank and ready to get swept up in all the action one last time. But there's a weariness at play here, too — a sense that the show probably should've wrapped things up already. Better late than never.
/Film Rating: 7 out of 10
"Stranger Things" season 5 Volume 1 drops on Netflix November 26, 2025, with Volume 2 on December 25, 2025 and The Finale on December 31, 2025.