Stranger Things Season 5 Vol 1 review: The journey to the end has begun and it couldn’t get any better!

Vol 1 of Stranger Things Season 5 is for the fans who’ve been waiting for answers and for the loops in the story from Season 1 to finally be filled!

If you’ve followed Stranger Things long enough, you know one thing for sure - even though the show has taken nearly a decade to reach its endgame and stumbled across the way, it somehow always knows how to bounce back. The running joke currently is that Millie Bobby Brown has lived an entire life - marriage, kids and the works while Eleven is still stuck saving Hawkins. Yet the Duffer Brothers manage to make that joke feel irrelevant! They take all those complaints about delays to turn the years-long wait into a kind of time capsule of yearning with a payoff that feels earned with Stranger Things Season 5 Vol 1. It answers all the fan theories that have been swirling around for years, only to push the story further and spark a fresh round of theories for Vol 2 and The Finale.

We pick up a few years after the earthquake that cracked open Hawkins in the last season as most residents fled, and the military moved in. Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Will (Noah Schnapp) are all back in the same town again yet everything feels different. Eddie’s (Joseph Quinn) death still weighs heavily on Dustin, while Lucas waits and prays for Max (Sadie Sink) to wake up from her coma. Mike and Will are living together, while Eleven continues her training, building strength for the inevitable fight, with Hopper (David Harbour) and Joyce (Winona Ryder) backing her. Meanwhile, Robin (Maya Hawke) and Steve (Joe Keery) are secretly running an underground radio show with Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), trying to keep communication alive in a military-controlled Hawkins. And then there’s Dr. Ray, completely convinced she has all the answers but, like every adult in Stranger Things, ultimately becomes just another obstacle in the fight against Vecna aka Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower).

Also Read: POV: Stranger Things is our very own Back to the Future

This season functions much like every Stranger Things season before it as life stubbornly goes on, even when everyone knows the Upside Down is a very real present threat. But with Vecna’s shadow still looming over Hawkins, no one is pretending anymore. Everyone is prepared as they are travelling through tunnels like Mind Flayer vines, or stocking up on tools and gearing up to fight Demogorgons. What’s surprising now isn’t that something unbelievable exists but that there might be even more to it! And this is where the Duffer Brothers’ storytelling instinct shines. They’re fully aware that the “kids” we met in Season 1 are no longer kids, they’re grown up adults, just like the audience that grew up alongside them. So instead of forcing the illusion, they expand the world. New characters enter the picture, including a grown-up Holly (Mike’s sister) and kids her age who now occupy the innocent space that Mike, Will, Lucas, and Dustin once did and they become a part of Vecna's plan!

And none of it feels random as every addition is rooted in logic, grounded in some sort of tribute, whether to ‘80s games, comics, pulpy magazines, classic sci-fi films, or even science itself, which has always been the MO of the show. But that’s what also gives the show its heartbeat as it becomes a love letter to nerds, to detail-oriented people, to those who believe in the wildest corners of imagination even when the world rolls its eyes. Season 5 once again reminds us that doors open for those who know how to look. And in that sense, Vol 1 is rewarding, especially for longtime fans. As every theory, no matter how wild, gets some kind of nod while the Duffers still manage to surprise us. For instance, the first five minutes of Episode 1 (released on YouTube) teased that Will Buyers would be “the key.” And yes, he is crucial, but not exactly in the way we would've guessed. 

But given the time gap, buying into this world again can feel like a challenge. That’s why the season’s narrow focus of just Hawkins and the Vecna-controlled Upside Down works well. By stripping away the noise and even the parents, it guides us straight back into the story we’ve been following from the start. Even if the plot doesn't lurch forward too dramatically as we see the same people doing all the same things they've doing in the past 4 seaons yet the nostalgia of growing up with these characters fills the gaps. Then every new hint or comeback feels like a thread pulling you back to the beginning, as if the plan had always been this intricate. And with four episodes laying the groundwork and ending in an all-guns-blazing setup, Vol 1 becomes less of a conclusion and more of a renewed beginning towards Vol 2 and the inevitable finale.

Stranger Things Season 5 Vol 1 becomes about celebrating the believers - the fans who held on, theorised, rewatched, and kept faith through long waits, as if the Duffers are tipping their hats to every Stranger Things nerd who kept the unbelievable alive because they did too!

Stranger Things Season 5 Vol 1 is currently streaming on Netflix!

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