Stranger Things 5 gets insane three-part release date announcement

The Upside Down is coming to Hawkins, Indiana, and soon so are we! Tonight, Netflix finally announced the release dates for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, its flagship sci-fi horror series from creators Matt and Ross Duffer. Yes, release dates, plural. Stranger Things 5 will drop in not one, not two, but three batches of episodes. Volume I premieres November 26, Volume II will follow on Christmas Day, and The Finale premieres on New Year's Eve.

Stranger Things is arguably the most popular original show in Netflix's stable, so it's no surprise that they're going all out for the end of the series. But this is still an eye-brow raising announcement from the streamer. Volume I drops the day before Thanksgiving, so they're marking out all three end of the year holidays for Stranger Things. And on top of that, these episode drops all happen at 5:00 p.m. PT / 8:00 p.m. EST. That's a primetime television slot, something Netflix has never traditionally used for its new releases.

On top of all of that, Netflix also confirmed the episode count and how it breaks down into the three releases. Stranger Things 5 will span for 8 episodes total. Volume I contains four episodes, Volume II will have three, and then The Finale drop will be the final episode, which will probably be a pretty long and epic affair.

So get ready to spend your holidays in Hawkins this year! Netflix made this announcement with a retrospective video looking back on the show's iconic run, which wrapped up with the release dates and our first glimpse of season 5 footage. Watch:

Stranger Things 5 will be a massive television event

The fourth season of Stranger Things aired over the summer of 2022. It left off on a massive cliffhanger, as the monstrous Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) succeeded in his plan to tear down the dimensional wall between our world and the Upside Down. All our heroes reassembled back in Hawkins following the ensuing natural disaster, but they won't be able to catch their breath for long.

Season 5 looks darker and scarier than ever. We see Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) wielding an axe as something looms outside a barn door:

Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono) clutching her daughter Holly (Nell Fisher) to her in terror:

Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin) sitting at Max Mayfield's (Sadie Sink) bedside, waiting while she remains in a coma:

Steve Harington (Joe Keery) and Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) staring up at a ceiling as Upside Down particles drift around them:

Eleven (Millie Bobbie Brown) screaming as she clutches her ears, while Jim Hopper (David Harbour) hugs her. Netflix has also released a clearer screenshot of these two, presumably from the same scene:

Hopper and Eleven use flashlights to look at a big, gross wall of fleshy tentacles;

Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Joyce Byers, and a group of new kids scrambling backward as a monster starts to burst out of the floor beneath a squadron of soldiers:

And lastly, Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) screaming for his friends to run:

It's certainly enough to get the hype train rolling, and now that we know when Stranger Things 5 is coming out, it probably won't be too long before we get a proper full-length trailer for it. It's hard to believe that the show is coming to an end this year, but it sounds like it's going to be an epic finish befitting one of the biggest genre television shows of the past decade. I can't wait to watch it.

One more time for the road, Stranger Things 5 premieres Volume I on November 26, Volume II on December 25, and its finale on December 31. Who wants to bet that finale is going to be a movie-length affair?

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