It’s almost hard to believe that Stranger Things began almost nine years ago. Well, not so much when you look at the cast, who have all aged significantly in that time. But it’s been a few years alone since Stranger Things 4 arrived, dialling up the horror with the arrival of Vecna – and teeing up a high-stakes final run. Yes, the long-awaited Season 5 will close the story of Will Byers, Eleven, and the rest of the Hawkins crew for good, and a new trailer has confirmed some more details: it’ll arrive in 2025, and consist of eight episode. What’s more, the names of those eight episodes have now been unveiled. Watch the teaser here:
So there we have it: the final episode of Stranger Things will be titled ‘The Rightside Up’. And preceding that will be: ‘The Crawl’, ‘The Vanishing Of [REDACTED]’, ‘The Turnbow Trap’, ‘Sorcerer’, ‘Shock Jock’, ‘Escape From Camazotz’, and ‘The Bridge’. Just whose vanishing will it be? If you cast your mind all the way back to the summer of 2016, you’ll remember that the very first episode of Season 1 was titled ‘The Vanishing Of Will Byers’. Does ‘shock jock’ refer to something radio-related? What, exactly, does the mention of folkloric bat demon Camazotz mean in this context? And does ‘The Bridge’ refer to an actual bridge, or will it be something more like ‘The Gate’ to the Upside Down? We’ll find out in 2025.
While we haven’t seen a single frame from Stranger Things 5 yet, Netflix has released a fresh batch of cast photos:
The final bit of info we have for now about Season 5: it’ll be set in 1987, meaning the show as a whole spans four years, having opened in 1983. And since the show often nods to the cinematic hits of the era, could we be looking at nods to Predator, The Lost Boys, and John Carpenter’s Prince Of Darkness? Will the Nightmare On Elm Street vibes of last season carry on into Dream Warriors territory? Here’s some advice for Eleven and co in taking down Vecna: if it bleeds, you can kill it. Bring on the grand finale.