Remember when Stranger Things was just a group of kids playing Dungeons and Dragons in a basement? In the first season (which aired nine years ago), Will, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin were just 11-year-olds, biking around Hawkins, Indiana, who accidentally stumbled into an alternate dimension. Now, with the fifth and final season almost upon us, the show’s latest teaser hints at a gritty, somber, and military-fueled finale.
The new teaser sees the children of Hawkins older, much more serious, and increasingly alarmed as Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) threatens to merge the Upside Down with their dimension. Their beloved town is under military lockdown as the government scrambles to figure out how to close the Rift between worlds, and El has gone back into hiding, fearing that the military is after her and her powers.
What’s more, the show’s final season will have to reckon with the aftermath of Season 4. The teaser sees Max (Sadie Sink) still in her coma with Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) sitting by her hospital bedside, while Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) visits Eddie Munson’s (Joseph Quinn) vandalized grave.
No one is cracking jokes or rolling twenty-sided dice in the Stranger Things Season 5 teaser, and I worry that in its rush toward an epic, world-ending conclusion, the show is losing the authentic heart and nostalgic charm that made it so special in the first place. Stranger Things was, at its best, an endearing coming-of-age story of a group of friends not quite sure how to deal with the horrors of growing up, even with the sci-fi horror shell providing chills and thrills.
Netflix’s Stranger Things Season 5 will premiere its first volume (episodes one to four) on November 26. Its second volume (episodes five to seven) will begin streaming on December 25, and its finale will drop on December 31.
