The fifth and final season of Netflix's beloved sci-fi drama Stranger Things will arrive later this year. The season is one of the most highly-anticipated TV events in Netflix's history. So far, numerous members of the cast and crew have talked about the emotional farewells they've had to make and the bittersweet ending to the series.
The latest to comment on the ending of Stranger Things is star Noah Schnapp, who plays Will Byers. His character went missing at the very beginning of the series, with the hunt for him serving as the catalyst for the introduction of the hellish Upside Down dimension. Despite being found and saved, Will still has an intrinsic connection to the Upside Down, and his story is set to be heavily influential going into the final batch of episodes.
In the final moments of season 4, the entity known as Vecna, after being revealed to be alive, punches a hole through reality, and the Upside Down dimension begins to spill into the quaint town of Hawkins, Indiana. It's clear that an action-packed final season awaits, but it's going to be a tear-jerker as well. “As sad as it was, I’m so excited to see the world’s reaction to watching the finale because there’s not going to be a dry eye, it’s going to be sad,” Schnapp told The Hollywood Reporter while promoting stage show Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which is now playing on Broadway. “Not to be so negative, it is a really great season and people will love it.”
Co-creator Ross Duffer also shared a brief tease. “It’s the end of a long journey, for everyone who made the show and also for those characters," he said. "It is thrilling and it’s our fastest start we’ve ever had — our heroes are in action right away, but I think ultimately, hopefully, it’s our most emotional season yet. Those final episodes, the goal is that they hit pretty hard because in a lot of ways it’s about the end of this journey we’ve all had and also the end of childhood.”
Sounds like Stranger Things season 5 has a bit of everything, from high-octane action to heartstring-plucking emotional moments. No release date for the final season has been set, but Netflix will hold its annual TUDUM event on May 31. We expect to see a release date and trailer then, although we can already make some guesses about the shape of the season to come.
For the first three seasons of Stranger Things, Netflix dropped all the episodes at once, but starting with season 4, it dividied them up into two chunks. Stranger Things may be the single biggest show Netflix has, so we expect them to use that strategy again for season 5, with some of the final episodes dropping and then the rest coming a month or so later, to keep people coming back. As for the episodes themselves, expect all of them to be lengthy, blockbuster affairs.
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