‘Stranger Things’ Season 5: What We Know About the Final Season

Our adventures in Hawkins will soon be coming to a close—but not immediately! Stranger Things was renewed for season 5, and while we’re not ready to say goodbye, it’s almost time to do so. But until we have to officially leave Hawkins, we can thank the Demogorgon that there’s still more to come.

“Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things,” Matt and Ross Duffer wrote in an open letter to fans, per the Hollywood Reporter. “At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons. It proved too large to tell in four, but—as you’ll see for yourselves—we are now hurtling toward our finale.”

Here’s everything we know—in case you need intel immediately.

Season 5 will be Stranger Things’ final season

It’s bittersweet but probably for the best. The young cast is much older now. I can’t wait to see what they do next. Heck, I can’t wait to see what the Duffer Brothers do next!

Even if it’s a Stranger Things spin-off, which Variety says might be happening. “We do have an idea for a spin-off that we’re super excited about…but we haven’t told anyone the idea yet, much less written it,” the Duffers revealed. “We think everyone—including Netflix—will be surprised when they hear the concept because it’s very, very different.”

One person did figure it out though. “Finn Wolfhard (Mike)—who is one crazy-smart kid—correctly guessed what it was going to be about. But aside from Finn, no one else knows!”

What’s going to happen in season 5?

TBD, but the Duffer Brothers have already revealed that a time jump might take place between the seasons to help complete the story.

“I’m sure we will do a time jump,” Ross told TV Line. “Ideally, we’d have shot [seasons 4 and 5] back-to-back, but there was just no feasible way to do that.”

After spending the entirety of season 4 jumping among different locations, the Duffers revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that season 5 will take place only in Hawkins. They also hinted at going back to their season 1 roots, especially when it comes to our favorite characters.

“We wanna go back to a lot of the things we did in season 1,” Matt said, per Entertainment Weekly. “A lot of the original groupings and pairings that we had in season 1—there’s something nice about coming full circle.”

The Duffers also revealed to Collider that things will be moving fairly quickly, even if they do have long run times like in season 4.

“We have the opening scene for 5 mapped out. I don’t know if it’ll stay like that, but it’s pretty wild. It’s going to be intense from beginning to end with not so much ramp-up,” Matt said.

Who is joining season 5?

At the 2023 TUDUM event, Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that his former Terminator series co-star, Linda Hamilton, will be joining the show and she had a special video message to all the fans.

Who she’s playing is still a big mystery, but considering the stakes, it will definitely be big!

When is season 5 happening?

According to Variety, sooner rather than later. “During the six-month pandemic hiatus, we outlined season 5 and pitched it to Netflix,” the Duffers also told Variety, “…but the gap should be quite a bit shorter this time due to the fact that we already have an initial outline and we can’t imagine there will be another six-month forced hiatus.” I should hope not!

Have they already started writing the scripts?

Back on August 2, 2022, the show’s writers revealed that they have begun working on season 5.

They haven’t given many updates after that, but things seem to be moving along smoothly as they’ve moved on to the grid stage, which also gives us a big clue for the final season. There will be at least eight episodes, and fans are also wondering about a mysterious double line that seems to split the season into two.

The writers confirmed that it isn’t a time jump but might mean something else. Does this mean we’re getting another split season?

For Stranger Things Day 2022, the writers gave us a major clue by revealing the name of the first episode of the fifth season, which will be called “The Crawl.” Your guess is as good as ours about what or who is crawling, but clearly, it can’t be good….

Since the beginning of the Writer’s Guild of America strike, fans have been wondering if it would have any effect, as several other shows have shut down production. The writers of Stranger Things revealed on May 6 that the production would not stop until a deal was reached.

“Duffers here. Writing does not stop when filming begins. While we’re excited to start production with our amazing cast and crew, it is not possible during this strike. We hope a fair deal is reached soon so we can all get back to work,” they revealed on Twitter. “Until then—over and out. #WGAStrong”

How long is the season going to be?

I DON’T KNOW AND I’M SCARED. The final episodes of season 4 were supersized—and how are they gonna top that in season 5? They’re definitely going to try to top that in season 5, right? Jeez Louise. That “Are you still watching?” Netflix thing is gonna pop up mid-episode.