One of the most popular pop culture sensations, Stranger Things, is returning for its fifth and final season. The show started in July of 2016, and has since been a hit with people. Since the last season came out in May of 2022, fans have been dying to get the new season.
When the release dates of season five came out finally, fans were ecstatic. The season will be released in three volumes, the first coming out on Thanksgiving, the second on Christmas, and the finale coming on New Years Eve.
For anyone that has not seen Stranger Things yet, they are missing out. The show has become such a big thing ever since its release in 2016. When the last season was released, the show held the number one spot on Netflix’s weekly top ten charts for a significant amount of time.
The show became the most watched English series on Netflix just in the first 28 days of season four’s release, passing Bridgerton. Season four was so watched that Netflix crashed during the release of volume two.
The show is so well liked by millions of people across the world, primarily for the nostalgic feeling of the 80s it gives people. The show is set in the 1980s, and everything in it uses the visuals, sounds, and feelings to capture the essence of the 80s, and give the viewers something that draws them in.
There is a special aesthetic to the show that really captures fans in, giving them a familiar feeling of nostalgia, which makes them want to watch more.
The throwback soundtrack throughout the show adds to this nostalgic feeling of the 80s, from artists like The Clash, Kate Bush, Duran Duran, and so many more 80s songwriters.
The unique characters and jaw-dropping plot also draw the fans in. The show explores horror, romance, drama, and comedy aspects, which make it so highly likeable among people because there is something for everyone in Stranger Things.
The actors in this show are also such a huge part of why the show is popular. Stars like Winona Ryder, Millie Bobby Brown, David Harbour, and more always deliver outstanding performances every season.
The creators of the show, the Duffer Brothers, have a keen eye on knowing what to add that will draw millions of viewers in, adding more depth to each season as they go.
Stranger Things is definitely a show that once someone starts watching it, they can’t stop. The series does an amazing job at keeping the viewers entertained and interested; there is never a dull moment in Hawkins.
Even after nine years, the show is still relevant today. The show has gained so much popularity that it always sneaks its way back into the charts. Stranger Things is truly a cinematic masterpiece.
Due to the massive amount of fans the show has gained over the years, the show has won multiple awards, including four Emmys for ‘Outstanding Drama Series.’
The show is even so popular that there is a play based off it, called Stranger Things: The First Shadow. This play goes back in time to explore the earlier days of characters like Joyce and Hopper. The play also explains the backstory of Vecna and what made him become a villain, revealing the truth about how the Upside Down came to be.
Monsters, parallel universes, and friendship
In the small town of Hawkins, Indiana, a young boy named Will goes missing, and the town spends days and nights looking for him, but they can’t seem to find him. What Will’s friends and family don’t know is Will was taken to the parallel universe, the Upside Down.
The Upside Down is the home to monsters that will later terrorize the town, which is where a young girl named Eleven comes in. Eleven has telekinetic powers, which the young boys soon find very useful to fight off the monsters of the Upside Down.
The supernatural elements and monsters of the Upside Down will continue to haunt the town of Hawkins for years, even after Eleven fights them off to save her friends and family.
Once Eleven and Will’s family and friends solve the mystery of the Upside Down, they find Will and take him back home. While Will is physically back in Hawkins with his family and friends, a piece of the Upside Down is still with him, which will continue to haunt him for the rest of the show.
The final chapter
While fans are excited for the new season to come out, many fans will be devastated after the release. The show has become such a big thing in pop culture, and knowing that the end is almost here is a sad feeling for not only the fans but the actors as well.
Most of the actors in the show grew up on set while filming it. Stars like Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Schnapp, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matterazo, Caleb McLaughlin, and Sadie Sink were all around the age of 12 and are now all in their 20s.
The cast is so grateful for the experiences they got while filming, and they created a family with all of the cast members. Matt Duffer, one of the creators of the show said in an interview with Variety, “It was really hard. Each day was saying goodbye. Each of those actors only had to say goodbye once. Ross [his brother] and I had to do it four different times.”
The ending of Stranger Things is for sure a bittersweet thing. While the fans and cast members are so sad to leave it, the show left such a big impact on the fans and the actors.
Maya Hawke, who plays Robin, said, “I think it changed me as an actor forever. I am a different actor because of that opportunity to do a scene that was on such a high-stakes emotional day of my life that was also a high-stakes emotional scene. It was just this extraordinary gift. But I did spend 12 hours in a rolling cycle of weeping.”
Stranger Things was a lot of the cast members’ first big project. When they first shot season one, they did not think it would be a 10-year experience, and they did not know how it would erupt to become one of the most popular shows in the world.
The Duffer Brothers stated that this season will be the biggest one yet, telling fans to make sure they have tissues ready. They also stated that this season will have the ‘most violent death’ yet. Although the season is going to be violent, the Duffer Brothers gave every character a perfect final bow, since they have been working on this show for a decade.
Season five is going to pick up a year after season four ended, which will land in fall of 1987. The anniversary of Will’s disappearance from season one is coming up, which leaves the characters with a sense of dread. The final battle with season four’s villain, Vecna, is coming, and it will be more deadly than anything.
This season will be the end of the decade of hard work the cast and crew has put into the show, which according to the producers and cast members, will blow people away.
Long waits for the new seasons
Stranger Things typically takes a couple of years for the new seasons to come out, which is kind of frustrating to some fans. Season three came out on July 4, 2019, and we didn’t get the fourth season until May of 2022. Now, it has been three years again since the last season.
The actors obviously have grown since the previous seasons, so it is kind of confusing having them be 16-17 in the show but around 20-24 in real life. However, the Duffer Brothers do a great job of making sure the ages they are in the show look real.
One of the reasons this season took a while was because of the 2023 Hollywood actors and writers strike, which delayed the production of the show for a little while. It also depends on the budget and the runtimes of the episodes; season five is supposed to be one of the longer-length seasons, still with nine episodes, but longer in duration.
The show’s high-quality production and visual effects take a while to do as well, which requires a lot of extensive work to do after the show is finished being filmed.
However, the Duffer Brothers said that this hiatus was on purpose for the final season. They wanted to keep the suspense and not rush the show, but some Stranger Things fans have not kept their suspense for the show.
Some fans think that it’s like waiting for a whole new show to come out and that they have lost interest in the show. These long delays also make it harder to remember what happened in the previous seasons, which makes it a continuous cycle of rewatching past seasons to get a refresher of what happened last.
Stranger Things, while it tends to leave fans waiting for a while, is one of the most highly watched shows in the world, gaining more traction and fans every season. The finale of Stranger Things will leave the world in shambles and will give fans the ending they have waited a decade for.
