Recalling the first time I was exposed to the vulnerable cold of Stranger Things is like blowing the dust off an old tome. My sixth-grade self, entranced by the occult atmosphere, finished all four seasons in a single summer. From the minds of the Duffer Brothers, the Sci-Fi TV show Stranger Things first came out on Netflix in 2016 and quickly rose to a major pedestal of pop culture. Season four, the pinnacle of the show, premiered during late May of 2022 and promoted the show to a household name. According to a 2022 IMDb article by Tony Maglio, the debut weekend of Stranger Things 4 Volume 1 was the biggest ever for Netflix viewership, which reached 286.79 million hours. You, reader, might even recall the “song of the summer” of 2022, which social media deemed “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush as a musical paragon of the Stranger Things Season Four era.
After a long three-year wait, the first volume—episodes one through four—of the highly anticipated Stranger Things Season Five dropped on November 26 this year, welcoming the internet back into the entrancing realm of supernatural chaos and beloved characters. The second volume of season five will air on December 26, and the finale will come out on New Year’s Eve. Everyone online is boiling and boisterous over the first volume, a commotion that raises one question: will Stranger Things Season 5 be bigger than Season 4?
As you scroll on TikTok or Instagram after finishing episode four of the first volume, your whole for-you page may overflow with Stranger Things content: memes, reviews, edits, and so on. It seems that the show will live on not only as the talk of the winter season but also as a TV show that will dwell in our minds until we choke out our last “Should I stay or should I go?”
So far, the durations of Season Five episodes always stayed close to one hour. Each episode feels like a movie itself, delivering the nuanced sense typical to the show. The first episode, “The Crawl,” runs very fast-paced. The happenings of our favorite characters after Season Four overwhelm us, and the outlook seems depressing among tense and austere character dynamics. The tone of the second episode, “The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler,” is heavier and more nuanced. After finishing this episode, I was reminded that the Duffer Brothers are good—very good—at exploiting music. A notable song from this season, “Mr. Sandman” by the Chordettes, decorates the end credits for the second episode, for example. The Duffer Brothers are talented in eliciting a specific vibe through music and on top of those skills, they know what music to use to add finishing touches to the show. The second episode enters into a tragic and melancholic hour, as the title suggests. An impending doom that involves more than just Holly Wheeler befalls our protagonists.
The third episode, “The Turnbow Trap,” introduces us to a fan-favorite that quickly stole the hearts of all of the media upon their release so many years ago. Although many would consider this episode as foundational for episode four, arguably the best episode of the entire series, episode three offers just as much excitement with the same monstrous thrill and a huge indulgence of the “Upside Down” ambience. Finally, the most exciting episode yet, the fourth: “The Sorcerer.” This episode refers to Will Byers’s role in Dungeons and Dragons (DnD), a much beloved game in the friend group. “The Sorcerer” fortified many character arcs, introduced theatrical action, and most crucially, revealed numerous cliffhangers that rendered me unable to sleep at night between sessions. This episode left me no time to relax, in both an anxious and a comedic way.
The first volume of Season Five was exquisite. This proclamation is simple, but sometimes simplicity is the way to go. The music usage, plot development, action scenes, character dynamics, and the nostalgia of past childhood screenings made this season unforgettable. Just listening to the intro of Stranger Things transcends me to the inexplicable feeling of supernatural delight.