The small town of Hawkins, Indiana, has been through a lot. In the years since 1983, when a young boy disappeared, its citizens have faced down countless otherworldly ghouls, crazed scientists and government officials – and, after all that, find themselves locked in military quarantine. This is, after all, the world of Stranger Things – a horror-tinged subversion of America’s Reaganite boom years – which returns, nine years after it began, for its final season.
Even though the show’s neon title card bears the branding “Stranger Things 5”, this is really a direct continuation of the show’s fourth outing. Its final boss villain, Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), is still lurking in the Upside Down, the ashen underworld beneath Hawkins. On the surface, the gang plot his demise. Hopper (David Harbour) has built a dojo to give his telekinetic ward Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) the skills needed to take Vecna down.
