All good things must come to an end—even Stranger Things. The hit Netflix sci-fi thriller, which first arrived in the summertime of 2016, will conclude with its fifth season, which has no release date yet. The show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, announced the news with a bittersweet letter to fans on February 17, 2022.
“Seven years ago, we planned out the whole story arc for Stranger Things,” they wrote. “On the time, we predicted the story would last 4 to 5 seasons. It proved too large to inform in 4, but—as you’ll soon see for yourselves—we are actually hurtling toward our finale. Season 4 might be the penultimate season; season 5 might be the last.”
With Stranger Things’ season 4 now within the books (with quite the jam-packed finale), the wait for the subsequent and final chapter is on. Here’s what we all know thus far.
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When will Stranger Things 5 be released?
It’s too early to say, but we will look to past seasons for reference. Because the Duffers say of their letter, it took almost two years to create the fourth season, which was released in two parts, on May 27 and July 1, 2022. While filming ST4 throughout the height of the pandemic and lockdown surely involved its own delays, producing a large finale season will likely require a protracted wait, too. The earliest we will expect to see ST5 is probably going late 2023, if not well into 2024.
David Harbour all but confirmed this theory. “I believe we’ll [shoot] next yr. They’re ending writing it this yr, and so they must prep and stuff, so hopefully it’ll be this yr,” he told GQ. “But I believe that’s the plan. So it’d probably come out mid-2024, based on our track record.”
What’s going to the ultimate season be about?
How do you sum up this epic story, one which transcends dimensions and stretches far beyond the borders of Hawkins, Indiana? The Duffers have a plan; we’re just not aware of it yet. We do know one thing, though: Expect tears.
“We do have an overview for season 5 and we pitched it to Netflix and so they really responded well to it,” Ross Duffer told The Wrap in May 2022. “I mean, it was hard. It’s the tip of the story. I saw executives crying who I’ve never seen cry before and it was wild.”
Actor David Harbour, who plays Hopper, had previously confirmed to Variety that he’d learned the season 5 ending and thought it “quite moving and quite beautiful.”
Within the Duffer Brothers’ February letter to fans, they added, “There are still many more exciting stories to inform inside the world of Stranger Things; latest mysteries, latest adventures, latest unexpected heroes.” Might that mean a spin-off in the long run? “But first we hope that you just stick with us as we finish this tale of a strong girl named Eleven and her brave friends, of a broken police chief and a ferocious mom, of a small town called Hawkins and an alternate dimension called the Upside Down. As all the time, we’re gracious in your patience and your support.”
The showrunning duo also confirmed there could be no “reset” going into season 5. Matt Duffer told Empire, “Normally at the tip of a season, we tie things up with a pleasant bow, before somewhat tease that claims, ‘Hold on, something is unraveling.’ As we move into season 5, we won’t have to do this. There won’t be a reset from where we finish this season [season 4].” And the Duffers kept their word: Season 4 ends with a cliffhanger, because the Hawkins crew prepares for one last battle with the Upside Down.
Finally, we will expect Will Byers to finally come out of the closet. As actor Noah Schnapp confirmed to Variety, “it’s 100% clear that he’s gay and he does love Mike,” later adding, “There’s so many alternative things they’ve to deal with. Obviously, we hope for a coming out scene, and I also wish to see them address this connection to the Mind Flayer and the way that matches into the world. And I’ve all the time been wondering, why was Will the primary victim and the primary one captured?”
Vecna also is not necessarily gone for good. Jamie Campbell Bower told NME, “I don’t think he’s slunk off licking his wounds in misery. He’s rebuilding, and he’s out for blood.” In order that he could stronger than ever in season 5.
What number of episodes will there be?
The Stranger Things writers hinted that there will be eight episodes once they tweeted a photograph of a whiteboard separated into eight columns, each numbered from episode 1-8.
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They later tweeted the primary page of the script for season 5, episode 1 on Nov. 6. It’s titled “Chapter 1: The Crawl.”
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The episodes will probably be shorter than season 4’s super-sized ones—aside from the finale.
“The one reason we don’t expect to be as long is, this season [season 4], in the event you take a look at it, it’s almost a two-hour ramp up before our youngsters really get drawn right into a supernatural mystery. You get to know them, you get to see them of their lives, they’re scuffling with adapting to highschool and so forth, Steve’s trying to seek out a date, all of that. None of that is clearly going to be occurring [in season 5],” Matt Duffer said on the Pleased Sad Confused podcast, per Deadline. With regards to the series finale, “We’re more prone to do what we did here, which is to only have a 2.5 hour episode,” he added.
When will season 5 be set?
Probably not immediately after the events in season 4, if that is what you’re expecting. Ross Duffer told TVLine, “I’m sure we are going to do a time jump.” Which is sensible, given how quickly our lead actors are growing up. “Ideally, we’d have shot [seasons 4 and 5] back to back,” Ross added, “but there was just no feasible option to try this.”
He continued that “these are all discussions we’re going to have with our writers once we start the room up,” meaning the season was not yet completely written by the point of the June 7 interview. The wait is on!
Is Stranger Things season 5 filming yet?
Not yet, but we’ll get there eventually. The writers tweeted on August 2, 2022 marking day one in all the season 5 writers’ room, which implies we now have a bit to go before cameras start rolling. Still, the small update got fans excited.
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Harbour shared that filming is ready to start in June 2023, and so he’s about to start training to prep for production.
“We’re walking into season five. I’ve got a pair more months to coach. We start shooting that in June, though, and that might be the ultimate season,” he said on the Middle East Film & Comic Con in March, per Collider.
Will there be a Stranger Things spin-off?
Yes. We just don’t know what it’s going to be about yet. (Though Finn Wolfhard has apparently already figured it out.)
“There’s a version of it developing in parallel [to season 5], but they might never shoot it parallel,” Ross Duffer told Variety. “I believe actually we’re going to begin delving into that soon as we’re winding down and ending these visual effects, Matt and I are going to begin entering into it.”
Matt Duffer added, “It’s going to be different than what anyone is expecting, including Netflix.” Intriguing indeed.
Who might be within the forged of season 5 of Stranger Things?
Clearly, Harbour will there if he’s already prepping. And most just like the major forged will return: Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Finn Wolfhard (Mike), Noah Schnapp (Will), Natalia Dyer (Nancy), Sadie Sink (Max), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), Joe Keery (Steve), Priah Ferguson (Erica), and Winona Ryder (Joyce).
In a recent interview, Brown admitted to Seventeen that she’s ready for this to be her last season.
“I’m definitely able to wrap up. I feel like there’s plenty of the story that is been told now,” she said. “It has been in our lives for a really very long time. But I’m very able to say goodbye to this chapter of my life, and open latest ones up.”
Brown added, “I’m in a position to create stories myself which can be necessary to me and deal with the larger picture. But I’m really grateful [for the show].”
Erica Gonzales is the Senior Culture Editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage on TV, movies, music, books, and more. She was previously an editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com. There’s a 75 percent probability she’s listening to Lorde at once.
Culture Author
Lauren Puckett-Pope is a staff culture author at ELLE, where she primarily covers film, television and books. She was previously an associate editor at ELLE.
