The long-awaited day has finally come: Stranger Things Season 5 has arrived for everybody with a Netflix subscription, with the four episodes of Volume 1 all available now. More than three years after Season 4 ended with Hawkins a mess, the heroes dealing with their biggest loss to date, and Max comatose with way too many broken bones, Season 5 picks back up after an 18-month time jump.
No need to worry about spoilers here if you haven't seen all four episodes yet. The actors who played the original cast of kids from Season 1 opened up about what's to come without giving the full game away, with more than a little nostalgia. They haven't regularly shared scenes with all of them together in recent seasons, but they were still the first unit of the series.
(Quotes from pre-Season 5 press conferences with the cast are edited for clarity.)
Gaten Matarazzo Hypes The Stranger Things Slow Burn
Gaten Matarazzo has become an icon over the past ten years for playing Dustin, arguably the funniest member of the party back in the first season in 2016. Laughs may be few and far between for him in Season 5 in the wake of Eddie's death (with Joe Quinn not expected back) on top of the general mess that is Hawkins after Vecna's attack in Season 4. Speaking with outlets during a press conference with fellow party members ahead of the premiere, Matarazzo said:
I think there's always a boost of optimism or always has been at the end of seasons where there is a good chunk of victories for the gang and there's a shred of unknown and always a little bit left over that they can pick up on and let grow in kind of a slow burny type fashion as the next season begins. And the last season, it ends with us pretty clearly losing for the first time and us picking it up without really the upper hand.
The happy Season 2 ending with the kids dancing at the Snow Ball feels like a very long time ago, and the Vecna slow burn started building since Season 3 (even though the villain himself didn't appear in Season 4) after getting that boost from Eleven's powers. Matarazzo continued:
We're starting from scratch and that's pretty scary. But I think what's so special is that, of course, in Stranger Things fashion, we, as a gang, go about that challenge with just as much enthusiasm and intensity and fierce desire as we always have. And I think that's a pretty cool place to start, because it's hard to watch. It's hard to watch them struggle.
All hands seem to be on deck in the official Stranger Things trailer, but it can be easy to forget that many of the main characters are still just high schoolers who have been in the Upside Down mix since the age of 12. I think fans will likely agree that it's "hard to watch them struggle."
Finn Wolfhard Gets To Play A Leader Again
As Mike Wheeler, Finn Wolfhard was the leader of the original party back in the first season, which resulted in the kids figuring out a lot of the Upside Down before the teens and adults even knew they were up to anything. (Or that Mike was crushing on the pre-teen telekinetic fugitive he was hiding in the basement.) On the subject of Mike getting back into his role as a leader, the IT star said:
It was awesome to be able to sort of step back into that role and to be able to play this character after so many years, and go back to his roots as a kid. I think was really rewarding. I think what's so cool about the show as well is that you see these people. Because these characters started so young, you see them go through phases. You see them go through changes in the same way that any kid goes through changes.
Wolfhard also boasted about the Stranger Things finale that it has "one of the greatest last episodes of any show," although fans will have to wait until New Year's Eve in the 2025 TV schedule to see just what that means. At the press conference, Wolfhard went on:
In the end, it always comes back that even you as a person, you always come back to your core beliefs and what you think is right. And there's all these different roads you can go down and explore for yourself. But in the end it's like, what are the things that truly matter? And Season 5, I think was a really fun reintroduction of those beliefs that Mike holds so dearly.
"What are the things that truly matter?" may be a question that fans are asking as well over the next month, with the rest of the season releasing in two more volumes. Whether that's from wondering about specifics of the final fight or just hopes about who will survive, there will be a lot to consider after the first four episodes.
Caleb McLaughlin's Lucas Blames Himself
Caleb McLaughlin turns in one of Stranger Things' most powerful performance in the fourth season finale with Lucas' desperate efforts to save Max, with the actor describing it as "one of Lucas' most traumatic moments that happened to him" and "he felt like it was his fault." With Lucas still feeling those effects in Season 5, McLaughlin shared:
He was there to protect her and he failed to do the job, and we capture him in this stoic sensibility of resilience. The soldier that has taken so many tools from the moments in past seasons and I think he's just ready for whatever comes next. He can't complain about the past or this is what happened [to] Max or whatever. He just has the support of his friends, the support from his past, and is just ready for whatever comes next.
Hopefully that support will lead him to somehow bringing Max back to herself, presumably with the help of Eleven. It should be interesting to see how his "stoic sensibility of resilience" after losing Max compares to Dustin's attempts to deal with losing Eddie as well.
Millie Bobby Brown Sees The Group As "Outcasts"
While Eleven wasn't originally part of the party during that first D&D game, she definitely was one of them by the end of Season 1, which Mike repeatedly made even clearer in Season 2. Hidden by the boys (with some understandable protest from Lucas early on) while using her powers to help them, Eleven became an essential member of the team and a pop culture icon. Millie Bobby Brown opened up about the chemistry within the Stranger Things ensemble, saying that in their own way, they're all "outcasts." She explained:
I think that's what speaks so well to the ensemble, but also us as individuals and us as actors. And I think when you bring that together, that is also the DNA of our show. That is also what makes our show so great, is that people and audiences can feel connected to that flawed person, that person who just brings a little bit of Robin or El or Hopper or Joyce, and you go, ‘Wow, I feel incredibly connected to this person.’ … When we're on set, I don't feel like there's any perfect person. That’s what's exciting, that you are able to be entirely vulnerable because we all are. And we're all entirely ourselves.
Brown, who opened up about how she'd "gone insane" after playing Eleven so long with some of her wilder pitches, complimented the dynamic of the entire cast, shouting out Robin, Hopper, and Joyce in particular. With Eleven becoming a daughter to Hopper, she and David Harbour ultimately spent a lot of their screen time together in Season 2. Whether that is true again in Season 5 remains to be seen.
Noah Schnapp Thinks Chemistry Is Crucial
While Will technically wasn't in most of the first season and Noah Schnapp was a recurring actor rather than series regular, he was with the rest of the party (sans Eleven) in the very beginning and very end. Certainly a series regular now and set up for a big arc in Season 5, he had his own take on the chemistry within the cast:
I think it's so crucial to have good chemistry, and that was such a major part of the casting and the chemistry reads that we did back in Season 1, making sure everyone worked so well together. It reads on screen and not just our dialogue that's scripted, but the improv that happens in the moment that we get to do. Because we love each other and because we feel comfortable with each other, it allows for moments like that to shine. And I'm so grateful that we all do work so well together and get along because it makes the job easier.
The cast working well together may have made "the job easier" for Noah Schnapp, but early footage for Season 5 indicates that Will's journey will be far from easy, and his issues will be a lot more serious than goosebumps. (The 5-minute flashback to his time in the Upside Down all those years ago alone was gruesome!
See what's in store for the original party of kids with the first four episodes of Stranger Things Season 5, available streaming now on Netflix. Volume 2, comprised of the next three episodes, will premiere on Christmas day, while the series finale debuts on New Year's Eve.
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