Throughout Season 5 of Stranger Things there’s been a bubbling sense of finality. Any scheme could be the last one, any battle with Vecna could be the one where he’s conquered. However, in the first “volume” of episodes released on November 26, it was very clear that nothing was going to be the last time, as there were still four more episodes to fill. So while the story continued with the characters we know and love, it did little more than set up the next episodes.
Unfortunately, Volume 2, now streaming on Netflix, suffers from a similar problem. While there are some concrete answers given about the Upside Down itself, everything feels like a buildup for a battle that won’t happen until the finale on New Year’s Eve. It’s a natural consequence of this stuttering release structure, though the show still finds moments to shine (along with some that just feel downright painful).
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 picks up right after Volume 1 ended, with the group reeling from the emergency of Will’s powers. Will may have defeated the Demogorgons, but Vecna was able to get away with all of his chosen “vessels” that will join Holly. Dustin, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan are stuck in the Upside Down, and while they find some actual solid evidence of what the Upside Down is, it’s bogged down by scenes of Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Dustin bickering because nobody is good at communicating their feelings.
Max continues to be the highlight of the season, and it’s her Jumanji-like knowledge of “Camazotz” that helps her crack an escape plan with Holly. But much like every Stranger Things scheme, not everything goes as planned. Their journey is the most surreal one we’ve seen, often echoing the flashbacks of Season 4, but getting to see it through the eyes of these relatively new characters makes it sing.
But it’s hard to ignore the scenes that feel obligatory, like Will revealing a secret in a long, overwrought monologue “because Vecna could use it,” or Jonathan finally addressing what he’s been carrying around in that cassette case all this time. Emotional moments are a key part of the Stranger Things formula, but these scenes feel like just checking boxes, even if they technically do evolve characters past where we met them first.
Most of the truly great moments of this Volume are just preludes to the finale, like the formulation of the final plan, the reunification of certain characters, or the raised stakes of the final showdown with Vecna. It’s hard for this in-between portion to feel like a complete arc as the first half did, because the last chapter isn’t coming out for a week. It’s the television equivalent of holding in a sneeze: completely unsatisfying and leaving you feeling weird.
And while we get actual plain-English explanations for what the Upside Down is, we’re still left with a bunch of questions that seem unlikely to get addressed in the finale, like what happened to Max’s mom? How come we’ve never seen her by her bedside? Who is running the radio station while Robin is running around doing schemes? Is Dustin still with Suzy? With only one episode left, there’s a lot to tie together and only two hours to pull it off.
Maybe the finale will be amazing and will justify all the filler scenes in these three episodes, but no amount of lore-dumping or worldbuilding can replace the fact that they just don’t do much more than plod the story onto the next logical place. Perhaps, as a whole, Season 5 will be one of the best seasons of the show, but on its own, the middle chunk doesn’t hold up under close scrutiny.
