After five seasons, Netflix’s Stranger Things is officially coming to an end — but what happened leading up to the show’s series finale?
In case you need a refresher, it’s been nearly a decade since the hit series premiered on Netflix. Stranger Things, which debuted in 2016, focuses on a fictional town where a series of supernatural events take place and cause mystery and mayhem.
Over the course of five seasons, Stranger Things catapulted its cast members — Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton and Joe Keery — to stardom.
Season 5 is finally expected to answer our most burning questions while bringing up the reveals across three parts: with Volume 1 on November 26, Volume 2 on December 25 and the finale dropping December 31 on Netflix.
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Before Stranger Things comes to an end, there will be a time jump to 1987 and one last epic standoff with Jamie Campbell Bower’s monstrous Vecna. When we last left off, season 4 split our ragtag heroes into three locations. The Hawkins, Indiana, squad — Dustin (Matarazzo), Lucas (McLaughlin), Max (Sink), Eddie (Joseph Quinn) and Erica (Priah Ferguson) alongside Steve (Keery), Robin (Maya Hawke) and Nancy (Dyer) — tried to take down Vecna after a string of mysterious deaths.
In California, Will (Schnapp), Jonathan (Heaton), Mike (Wolfhard) and Argyle (Eduardo Franco) rescued Eleven (Brown) after she unlocked her powers again. And Hopper (Harbour) got out of a Russian prison camp thanks to Joyce (Ryder) and Murray (Gelman).
There were several battles which killed off Eddie and severely hurt Max. Eleven saved the life of a comatose Max, but at a cost. And none of this stopped Vecna, who literally cracked open the barrier between Hawkins and the Upside Down to infiltrate the land of the living.
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Before the finale premiered, director Shawn Levy discussed the process of being clued into the show’s conclusion by creators Matt and Ross Duffer.
“No one is winging it. Honestly, I think that the Duffer Brothers have [an idea of how the show end] and they have teased it for me over the past six and a half years. But they keep things very private amongst themselves until it is fully formed,” Levy exclusively told Us Weekly in 2022. “Then they bring it to me and then we take the next steps. It is very, very clear now and it became clear for a while now that we have one season more that feels worth it and reliably amazing.”
Levy praised the hard work that went into making Stranger Things. “We don’t want to be one of those shows that outstays its welcome and is flailing while it searches for a way to stick the landing,” he added. “We really want to stick the landing. I feel like we have been able to do that every season and we also want to do it for the series.”
Stranger Things premieres in three parts, with Volume 1 on November 26, Volume 2 on December 25 and the finale drops December 31 on Netflix.
