Soon, fans will be able to bid farewell to Stranger Things as the sci-fi show comes to an end with season 5. If you're as keen as I, you've probably already re-watched the series so far in preparation for volume 1. However, there is something quite sad and, pardon the pun, strange, about reliving one of the best Netflix shows of all time, revisiting a world we have spent so much time in and have been obsessing over for almost a decade.
Stranger Things season 5 has quite literally been years in the making. The final showdown will see Millie Bobby Brown's Eleven face off with Jamie Campbell Bower's fearsome villain Henry Creel aka Vecna, one last time, with the help of her friends Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), and Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin). Everything has been leading to this, and I fear that creators Mike and Ross Duffer have not held back when it comes to concluding the series with a bang.
This can only mean one thing: some main characters are inevitably going to die. The impending farewell is made more difficult when one realizes how dark the show has gradually grown over the past four seasons. It makes it all the more bittersweet that we will soon have to say goodbye to the characters we know and love.
Get ready to say goodbye for good
Cut back to season 1, when we met the bright and bubbly Hawkins AV Club, Will, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas playing DnD and cycling around Hawkins. Sure, the stakes were high when Will went missing, leaving a bunch of 12-year-olds fighting off terrifying creatures with the help of a super-abled orphan. However, in the first few seasons, the team was always able to defeat evil and close the gate to the Upside Down.
Fast forward to season 4, the show's darkest installment yet, with more front-standing characters meeting their end than ever before. Not only did we have a beloved character introduced and then violently yanked away from us with Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), but one of the core six kids, Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), was left seriously injured and possibly brain-dead. Until you watch the series as a whole in such a short space of time, you forget how drastic and serious Hawkin's fight against the Upside Down has really become.
Series creators, the Duffer brothers, are already preparing fans for the most shocking and brutal season so far. The duo told The Times that season 5 "has the most violent death of any season." But don't expect the casualties to be left until the finale, as Predator: Badlands' Dan Trachtenberg, who is directing an episode of season 5, has confirmed that the series won't just end in a big blow up: "I don't think Stranger Things falls into a category of television seasons like Game of Thrones where the pilot is cool, slows down, and the last two episodes are the big battle," said Trachtenberg to Variety.
Going out with a bang
This can only mean that there is a flurry of deaths to come in season 5. So, if you have just relived and reconnected with the whole saga, then get ready to have your hearts ripped out of your chests. Reality really hit when the official season 5 trailer dropped, where Joe Keery's Steve Harrington was hardly in the clip, making fans worried that he might be the first to go. This was driven home by the volume 1 teaser, which showed Steve drive himself and Dustin through a portal into the Upside Down, then later the two can be seen consoling one another, battered and bruised. Steve may follow in Eddie's footsteps and go out in a blaze of glory, protecting one of the younger characters.
However, it looks like one of the core six may be in trouble in volume 1, too. In the new trailer, Lucas is seen trapped in a tunnel with a Demogorgon. It has already been rumored that Lucas may not make it to the end of the season, as in a viral interview clip, McLaughlin confirmed that his finale is "different" from other cast members. Please don't tell me that the sweet boy I have just witnessed grow up in seasons 1 to 4 might soon face a violent death.
More gore, guts, and horror
You're probably thinking, wait, did you really believe that none of the main characters would die in the final season? Sure, we have seen TV shows kill off one or more main characters in the final few episodes, such as The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, and Lost, just to name a few. However, following on from other pieces of media centered on a group of teens, I held out hope that the Hawkins six would come out of the other side together, like in The Goonies and The Lost Boys. Hey, even in IT, all of the kids are able to make it out of Pennywise's lair alive (well, until they grow up, that is).
However, we have to face the reality that shows and movies have to go that little bit further nowadays. Modern audiences are numb to gore and emotional travesty, forcing filmmakers to push the boundary even further. HBO's new Stephen King spin-off, IT: Welcome to Derry, completely shocked viewers by introducing a cute gang of kids and then having the shape-shifting entity murder them all in the first episode. I'm not saying that the Duffer brothers are going to go to those kinds of lengths, but they are under a lot of pressure to conclude the series in a big way.
With this in mind, it's no wonder the Duffers would want to shake things up. The duo has already said that no future spin-offs will follow on from Hawkins as we know it, so really, everyone is in danger. It is just absolutely heart-wrenching to have gone on such a long journey with the beloved characters and then see them meet a no doubt horrid end. Who knows, I may be wrong, and Eleven and co may get their fairytale ending. But just to be safe, prepare for the worst.
Stranger Things season 5 Volume One releases on Netflix on 26 November, followed by Volume Two on 25 December, and the finale on December 31, 2025. For more, check out our picks for the best shows on Netflix and best movies on Netflix.
