In Review: Stranger Things: Season Five — Volume One

Synopsis: Season Five opens in November 1987. The gang evades the military to scour the Upside Down for Vecna–but fails to notice a threat lurking closer to home.

The Story

Set two years after the events of season four, the story opens in 1987 with the entire town of Hawkins under strict military quarantine and complete lockdown. The group continues performing covert crawls into the Upside Down in their desperate search for Vecna. Jim Hopper infiltrates the Upside Down on one of these missions — but things go sideways fast, forcing his friends to launch a rescue.

Meanwhile, Eleven — now very much a target for the military — risks exposing herself by re-entering the fight. She attempts to help Hopper unravel the deeper mystery behind Vecna’s disappearance and a strange new military operation that seems far more interested in studying the Upside Down than stopping its monster.

Parallel to these events, we learn that children — including Holly Wheeler — are being targeted and trapped inside a sinister mental labyrinth maintained by Vecna under the guise of an “imaginary friend,” Mr. Whatsit. Will, who was the first child taken back in season one, still has a psychic connection to the Upside Down and is able to sense which children are being targeted.

In the mid-season finale, Vecna resurfaces and reveals that Will Byers has been central to his plans all along. Will taps into a hidden psychic potential and, unexpectedly, channels enough power to destroy a group of Demogorgons — shocking everyone. No major core characters die (for now), but Hawkins is left shaken as the military’s containment fully collapses, setting the stage for an all-out showdown in Volume 2.

Acting

The acting performances throughout this series continue to be strong. Gaten Matarazzo once again excels as Dustin Henderson, portraying the complexities of a boy caught between adolescence and adulthood. We see him desperately trying to keep the Hellfire Club alive even though his friends have largely moved on. His efforts to revive it bring their own problems, however, as he inadvertently makes himself a target for the Tigers. Even so, Dustin remains at his best when the group is in crisis, serving as one of the key brains of the operation — especially when it comes to anything technical. His fractious friendship with Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) continues to add plenty of comic relief.

Noah Schnapp delivers a standout performance as Will Byers, who truly comes into his own this season. His heartfelt pleas for his overprotective mother to trust him add real emotional depth, and his scenes with Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke) are among the strongest, as she is one of the few who recognises that he’s carrying heavy burdens.

Millie Bobby Brown continues to shine as Eleven, who struggles to understand why Hopper (David Harbour) keeps holding her back from joining the Crawls. We also get a strong performance from Linda Hamilton as Dr. Kay, the military scientist studying the Upside Down — and one of the surviving children who underwent experiments alongside Eleven.

Overall

Stranger Things Season 5 continues to feel like true event television as the core group of characters grows in ways that go far beyond simply battling the Upside Down and its monsters. I love how each character has been given their own emotional arc, illustrating the very real growing pains they face while simultaneously trying to stop their home of Hawkins from falling apart. It’s this balance of personal struggle and apocalyptic stakes that keeps the show compelling.

I’m very much looking forward to Volume 2, which is due out on Christmas Day — though I doubt I’ll be watching it on Christmas Day, as I’ll probably be seeing the Upside Down for real by then.