An era is coming to an end on Netflix in the 2025 TV schedule with the final season of Stranger Things, but the streamer isn’t releasing every remaining episode in one batch this holiday season. Volume 1 debuts with the first four episodes of the fifth and final season on Wednesday, November 26 for fans with a Netflix subscription. Actor Joe Chrest, who has been playing Ted Wheeler since the very first episode all the way back in 2016, spoke with CinemaBlend about one thing he won’t miss about the show after wrapping his time on it.
Chrest, who also opened up about why Ted’s not such a bad dad to Mike and Nancy despite being “sacked out all the time,” has been a memorable part of the cast thanks to some very quotable lines. The A Friend of the Family alum of course couldn’t drop all the details about the final round of the Upside Down when we spoke, but he did weigh in on what it’s been like to keep such massive, high-stakes secrets for so long:
That's the one part that I won't miss. In fact, with this season, I talked to Matt and Ross, the Duffer Brothers, [about it]. Awesome guys. I'll miss working with those guys, too, and I look forward to doing more with them and seeing what they do. They’ve just been slammed with this for their entire 30s. It's been all-encompassing, but I'm eager to see what they do and I hope to be a part of it as well. But I won't miss the secrecy.
For all the hype about Season 5, there really haven’t been a lot of major plot spoilers released by Netflix beyond what can be sussed from the official trailer, and teases from the cast and Duffer Brothers don’t actually give much away. Early footage indicates the trouble is coming for the larger Wheeler family instead of just Mike and Nancy this time, but Ted’s role in it isn’t clear from just the previews. Joe Chrest went on to share his experiences in dodging spoiler requests from fans:
I have kids [and] I teach a class every other year at LSU. I'm around our kind of target base, if there is one. We just have such a wide following, but these kids, they pepper you with questions constantly, and sometimes I'll go, 'Well, I'll tell you, but do you really want to know?' And then they don't! You don't want to ruin it, because the big part of our show is these awesome cliffhangers and seeing what happens next. But I'll be glad to be free of that for sure.
It’s a safe bet that Joe Chrest wouldn’t have started spilling Stranger Things secrets even if students decided that they really wanted to have the final season spoiled, but that won’t be a conundrum for him once the 2026 TV schedule kicks off. As for Ted… well, it remains to be seen if Ted will have as much time to spend in his recliner after how Hawkins was devastated at the end of Season 4. Stranger Things Season 5 is picking up after an 18-month time jump, and Joe Chrest only had good things to say about working with the Duffer Brothers.
They do have a Stranger Things spinoff in the works, but they’re moving on from the Hawkins crew after they “said everything we want to say about those characters and the Upside Down.” While the original series may well be the last time that fans see Ted Wheeler, the Duffer Brothers signed a deal to go to Paramount+ for new projects. For now, though, there are still eight episodes left to see if the characters can turn the Upside Down rightside up before the final credits roll.
You can find the first four episodes of Stranger Things’ fifth and final season starting on Wednesday, November 26 at 8 p.m. ET, followed by the next three on Christmas Day and the grand finale (which clocks in at just over two hours, according to the Duffer Brothers) on New Year’s Eve. In the meantime, you can also revisit any of the earlier episodes streaming on Netflix for a refresher on the state of Hawkins ahead of Season 5.
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