Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS ARE AHEAD for Volume 1 of Stranger Things Season 5, available streaming now with a Netflix subscription.
The fifth season of Stranger Things has finally arrived in the 2025 TV schedule, and Volume 1 packed in enough that fans have plenty to theorize about until Volume 2 debuts on Christmas Day. Despite some huge twists, however, there were a couple of small moments that are either notable continuity errors or hints that there's more amiss for the characters in Volume 2 than they even realize.
So, take a break from thinking about Will vs. Vecna or any of the other major events of the Upside Down and Rightside Up in the first four episodes, and let's dig into these two moments, the first of which takes us back to Season 2.
What Season 2, Episode 8 Established And Season 5 Changed
Back in Episode 8 of Season 2, Will’s nearest and dearest were telling personal stories to try and connect with him despite the Mind Flayer possessing him. For Joyce, that was a story of a rainbow spaceship that he drew. For Mike, it was how they’d become friends. For Jonathan, it was the story of how they’d built Castle Byers together in the woods. Here’s how Jonathan put it:
Do you remember the day Dad left? We stayed up all night building Castle Byers, just the way you drew it. And it took so long because you were so bad at hammering. You’d miss the nail every time. And then it started raining, but we stayed out there anyway. We were both sick for like a week after that. But we just had to finish it, didn’t we? We just had to.
In the fourth episode of Season 5, called "Sorcerer," Will’s emotional flashback to when he was a kid included scenes of Will and Jonathan building Castle Byers, but it wasn’t in pouring rain or the middle of the night, and there was no sense of urgency that they had to finish it in that one night.
It was a happy memory of brotherly bonding that Will used to help accept himself and channel Vecna’s powers, not the brothers coming together in the rain because their dad abandoned them. (I also didn't really get the sense that Will was that terrible at hammering, but that’s probably not a game-changer in the grand scheme of Stranger Things.)
What Season 1, Episode 1’s Script Established And Season 5 Changed
As far as I could recall from watching (and rewatching) Stranger Things, the kids in Season 1 were all 12 years old in early November of 1983, putting them in seventh grade. I wanted something a little more definitive, however, so I checked out an excerpt from Stranger Things: The Complete Scripts, Season 1. The book features an introduction straight from the Duffer Brothers, is listed as containing the “complete, authorized scripts,” and was published on September 2, 2025, meaning that it was approved for publication after the fifth season had already been filmed.
Basically, details from the scripts in the authorized book should be taken as canon to the show, as far as I’m concerned, and here’s how the very first description of Will in the script for the premiere – called “The Vanishing of Will Byers” – goes:
WILL BYERS, 12, playing as a wizard. He is soft-spoken, gentle, delicate.
In Episode 3 of Season 5, called “The Turnbow Trap,” Joyce and Will had a conversation outside of the barn where the kidnapped Turnbows were still knocked out. Criticizing her pre-Demogorgon Season 1 self as a bad mother (and following it up by giving the wrong age for her son), Joyce said:
I think about that night all the time. The night it came for you. The night all this started. I wasn’t even home. My shift ran late. When I finally do get home, what do I do? I smoke cigarettes, drink cheap wine, and watch Cheers reruns until I pass out. I didn’t know you were missing for eight hours… What kind of mother doesn’t check on their 11-year-old boy?
Well, well, well! That is another canon contradiction we have from Volume 1 of Season 5, once again involving Will. So, should we take these two instances as mistakes that weren't caught before the final edits of the episodes, or as signs of something supernatural that will be revealed in Volume 2? Were there two accidental sloppy moments made it in to the finished product, or is Vecna up to more than we know?
Continuity Issue Or Clues?
I’d be remiss here if I didn’t address something that diehard fans might be thinking of: Will’s birthday. The same episode of Season 2 that included the origin of Castle Byers also featured Joyce’s reveal that his birthday was March 22, which initially made the California group in Season 4 look pretty awful by forgetting the big day... until the Duffer Brothers admitted to Variety that they as writers and creators “forgot about Will’s birthday,” with Ross stating that it was “six years ago that I wrote that date!” at the time.
So, that was a continuity mistake that the Duffers admitted to not long after the first volume of Season 4 released in May 2022. It didn’t really change anything as long as you weren’t too much of a stickler for the details and could just accept that his birthday wasn’t supposed to happen over Mike’s spring break visit and it wasn’t a case of all of his loved ones forgetting his birthday.
But the Duffers haven’t said anything about the Castle Byers change or Joyce misremembering her youngest son’s age, so perhaps there is a higher cause behind these choices in Volume 1 that will be apparent once Christmas rolls around with Volume 2.
Vecna does have abilities to mess with minds that the characters didn’t have to deal with in the first three seasons, and we’ve never had a character whose connection to the villain meant the ability to draw from his powers. There’s no precedent for Will on this show, so I’m going to keep an open mind to any reveals that Henry is at work on the Rightside Up more than we knew.
Or maybe it was just a pair of mistakes that don’t actually matter that much in the grand scheme of things. After all, fans are already suspending their disbelief about Holly’s age jump from 3 in Season 1 to double digits for a more prominent role in Season 5, so perhaps this is another case of us needing to let it go.
If I can be fine with Nell Fisher playing an older Holly Wheeler and accept that neither of the Wheeler parents died from their Demogorgon-inflicted injuries, I can overlook some continuity issues. It’ll just be more fun if Vecna had a hand in messing up memories deliberately.
Find out with Volume 2 of Stranger Things, which releases with the next three episodes of the final season on Christmas Day at 8 p.m. ET. The series finale releases on New Year’s Eve at 8 p.m. ET. The Duffer Brothers already confirmed that the finale clocks in at just over two hours, so the popular series (currently and unsurprisingly ranking at #1 on Netflix’s end of November Top 10) could come to a pretty cinematic ending.
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