Season Review: Stranger Things Season 5

Welcome back to the blog readers. This is not something I have had the opportunity to really talk about on this blog, but I have been a fan of Stranger Things (2016-25). It has been a very fun throwback to the best of the 1980s while pretty much becoming a cultural phenomenon. The world has fallen in love with these characters and it has created some major stars in the business: Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, David Harbour, and Joseph Quinn, just to name a few. I was very late to the party, having caught up before the fourth season came to end, and I have never been super high on the show but have come to enjoy it a good amount. Knowing that the show was coming to an end was always going to be bittersweet, especially because we were being promised an epic conclusion. Would that be the case in the end? Stick around to find out.

Stranger Things was created for television by Matt and Ross Duffer, credited as the Duffer Brothers, who also served as showrunners for the fifth and final season, marketed as Stranger Things 5. The season featured direction from the Duffers, Frank Darabont, and Shawn Levy. The season stars Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, Brett Gelman, Priah Ferguson, Linda Hamilton, Cara Buono, and Jamie Campbell Bower. In the season, set in the fall of 1987, the party attempts to seek out and kill Vecna following the opening of the rifts throughout Hawkins. As the anniversary of Will Byers' disappearance draws nearer, the military is hunting Eleven and the group must unite for one final battle that has world-ending implications.

NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, so DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the season.

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As I mentioned in the introductory paragraph, I have been a fan of this show. While I never thought it was the kind of show that would change my life, I enjoyed myself while watching it. I can definitely understand why it was going to be a cultural phenomenon. It was so much so that WWE ran a terrible collaboration with the series for an episode of Monday Night Raw (1993-) (that CM Punk and Bron Breakker match was damn good, though). Going into this fifth season, I was curious as to what the Duffers would deliver to bring this entire saga to a close, and I have to say that this was a worthy finale. I very much enjoyed the performances (especially from Noah Schnapp and Jamie Campbell Bower) and the conclusion of the story that had been told for just about ten years.

I want to start this review (very late, by the way) by talking about the performance of Noah Schnapp. Yes, Schnapp has been in projects like Hubie Halloween (2020) and The Tutor (2023), but he was also in the film Bridge of Spies (2015), a film that won Mark Rylance an Academy Award. And yes, I am absolutely not a fan of Schnapp's politics (refer to the video of him distributing "special" pins). But there is no way to dance around the fact that his performance as Will Byers has been the linchpin of this series. And his performance in this final season has been nothing short of revelatory. The Duffers knew that Will was going to be a central focus of this season and he was written like it, but Schnapp is able to bring a maturity to the character this season that left me very impressed. There are times in this season that Will is presenting the idea that he is still a scared teenager in the 1980s with complex emotions, and Schnapp is able to portray all these emotions perfectly in my opinion. Then, there are the moments when Will is coming off as the more confident person he was always meant to be, and Schnapp again pulls this off flawlessly. Some of the moments this season that really express my point regarding Will include:

• getting on his mother Joyce regarding her priority to keep her son safe as opposed to really taking the fight to Vecna in the third episode;

• his conversations with Robin regarding his sexuality throughout the season, but especially their conversation in the tunnels in the fourth episode;

• speaking of the fourth episode, the epic conclusion of that episode when Will unlocks his potential and reveals he can access the hive mind to steal Vecna's powers;

• his emotional and tear-filled coming out scene in the seventh episode;

• and his acceptance of his lack of fear for his abuser in the finale.

As you can see, you can believe whatever you want regarding Noah Schnapp's personal life or his politics, but you cannot deny that he is a gifted actor. I think he really needs another project or two that is different enough from Stranger Things that will really showcase what he can do as an actor.

The next person I want to bring up in terms of praise has to be of our main villain. Jamie Campbell Bower is someone who has been in the industry for a few decades but has never really broken out in a way. His first film was Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), and he has been in three Twilight films: New Moon (2009), Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011) and Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012); and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010). Taking on the role of Henry Creel / One / Vecna was always going to be interesting, but he crushed it in the fourth season. He crushed it so much I was looking forward to seeing what he could pull off in this season, and it was straight magic. There were not any specific moments from this season that really stood out to me like there were for Noah Schnapp a paragraph ago, but I do want to talk about the two completely different characters that Bower plays. As Henry Creel, Bower is able to bring a sort of charm to the role, but there is also a bit of sinisterness that he delivers to the performance that will creep you out. But as Vecna, it is terror incarnate and he absolutely delves into the role full force. He delivers the role with such conviction and such power that you are left to ponder what he is capable of. I hope he gets more roles to sink his teeth into in the future, because he can absolutely kill it given the chance.

I also appreciate how the Duffers were able to bring this monumental show to a close while giving a conclusion to almost every character. One of the things that many fans have had an issue with in regards to this series is the fact that the number of main characters has exponentially increased from season to season, meaning that some of the characters were going to feel sidelined. This season, we get introduced to some more main characters such as Holly Wheeler, Derek Turnbow and the other children abducted by Vecna, Dr. Kay, Robert Akers, Vickie, and Kali, meaning that some of our main cast were going to feel sidelined. I definitely feel as if some of the characters felt this way, especially Lucas, Steve, Joyce, and Kay. Everybody else was mostly given an arc and something to do in this season, and even three of these four got awesome conclusions as well. I will not discuss every character and their conclusion because that will just be a waste of everyone's time, but I do want to highlight just a few of them, beginning with Eleven.

Millie Bobby Brown is one of the people who rose to superstardom with the creation of this show, and she has proven herself to be able to hang with the greats. I believe the story of Eleven is one that really needs to be talked about, and I will go into full detail with a "career retrospective" of the show that will come later in the year. In terms of this season, Eleven has sort of reverted to having a father figure that is being overprotective and hard on her. She is able to have enough power to be able to make Hopper trust her and the decisions she makes leading us to the ultimate sacrifice. There are theories flooding the internet on whether Eleven is actually alive or not, but I personally choose to believe that she is. El was a very strong character and some more representation for young girls that they can be trusted to make decisions for themselves in a world that is slowly reverting back to a male-dominated one. I think her conclusion and ambiguous future is going to be talked about for a long time after the end of this show.

Another character that I want to talk about is the one who this show all started with. The first episode of this show is literally called "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers." Will has been one of the focal points of this show, from his isolation in the Upside Down for a whole week to the growing distance between him and his friends in later seasons. When we got concrete proof that Will was gay in the fourth season, we were waiting for the inevitable moment where he would admit his feelings to at least someone. In all fairness, some people were taking this way too far and feverishly "shipping" Will and Mike despite there being no solid evidence or clues that would remotely link the two friends romantically. Those are some of the people behind this ridiculous "Conformity Gate" conspiracy that there is more to the story than initially shown to us. Not only is that stupid, and not only do we get a natural conclusion to the Will coming out aspect of the story, we also got a Will that has embraced who he is in physical ways as well, leaning into the power of the hive mind and getting himself some nice, fancy powers. Not only that, but he was finally able to accept who he is and no longer be afraid of Vecna. Amazing character development for someone who this all started with.

In conclusion, the fifth and final season of Stranger Things is packed with heart, humor, and all the things Stranger Things fans would (and should) come to love. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post. Also this is the 400th post on the blog!