As 2025 comes to a close, so does the long-awaited finale of Stranger Things. The show aired in 2016 on Netflix, leaving a lasting impression on viewers across the globe. The show and its endearing characters have been gracing the screens of dedicated fans for nearly a decade, and on Dec. 31, it will be going out with a bang.
Season five has taken a unique release schedule, spanning two months with three release dates. The first four episodes of Season 5 were released on Nov. 26. The three episodes of the season’s second volume aired on Dec. 25. The final two-hour-long episode will drop at 8 p.m. on Dec. 31.
Many fans have been eagerly waiting for each release, watching as soon as they’re released. Whether you’re completely caught up, need a quick recap, or have absolutely no idea what’s happening whatsoever, here’s all you need to know going into the finale of Stranger Things, and how you can fully immerse yourself in the experience.
Warning: spoilers ahead.
Seeing The Final Fight
Before we get into the recap, you might be thinking about where you’re going to watch the finale. Thought watching from your couch was immersive enough? Local theatres are hosting watch parties at a silver screen near you.
Turn yourself upside down and head to one of these locations to scoop a ticket for you and your eleven friends, an event to end 2025 that you won’t want to go missing for.
Select AMC and Regal theaters in New York City are hosting screenings, as well as the Paris Theater, on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1. At Regal Cinemas, they will have promotional concessions and Hellfire Club t-shirts available for sale at each screening, and you must purchase an $11 concessions voucher to reserve your seat. At AMC, you must purchase a $20 food and drink credit.
For more information, visit the Paris Theater website, the AMC website, or the Regal website.
Stranger Things 101
In season one of Stranger Things, viewers meet the main characters, all of which are still alive going into season five. Will Byers, Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, and Dustin Henderson are best friends with a strong love of the game Dungeons and Dragons.
After Will goes missing, the boys set out on a mission to rescue their friend, all while uncovering the more mysterious reality: there is an alternate universe that directly replicates their beloved town. This alternate universe, however, was created by Eleven, a girl they find on their hunt for Will.
Eleven has escaped the Hawkins Lab, and possesses telekinetic powers. She is part of Doctor Brenner’s harrowing experiment, a militarily sanctioned research mission to create undefeatable war machines.
While the boys are searching for their lost friend, Will’s older brother, Jonathan, is also recruiting a small team to aid his search. Nancy Wheeler, Mike’s older sister, and her boyfriend at the time, Steve Harrington, all become key players in the retrieval of Will. These two groups converge with Will’s mom, Joyce Byers, and Chief of Police Jim Hopper to enter the Upside Down and save Will. Many relationships are made and broken in this tireless pursuit, an essential one being between Hopper and Eleven, who become more like family than strangers.
As the characters grow, so does their friend group. Additional characters join in later seasons such as Robin Buckley, the charismatic coworker of Steve at Scoops’ A’hoy Ice Cream Parlor. She becomes more than just comedic relief, aiding Will Byers in later seasons to navigate his journey of the queer experience in the 1980s. As the seasons progress, we meet more of the main characters’ family members, Lucas Sinclair’s little sister, Erica, and Mike and Nancy’s little sister, Holly, who both play important roles in season 5.
The End is Only Beginning: Season 5 Volume 1 & 2 Recap
Spoilers head! If you haven’t watched and want to, stop here!
Season 5 opens with a flashback of Will Byers trapped in the Upside Down, running from a demogorgon who eventually catches him and takes him to Vecna, season four and five’s main antagonist. Vecna, also known as Henry Creel, is the first successful experiment of the Hawkin’s Lab, the same experiment that the main character Eleven is a part of. Unlike Eleven, Vecna has gone down a path of vengeance rather than assimilation.
The significance of this scene is to draw viewers back to the true beginning of this decade-long story, it started with Will Byers, and it ends with Will Byers. The flashback dates Nov. 12, 1983, six days after Will’s initial capture. This later leads to Lucas Sinclair’s theory that Vecna’s final plan would occur the same date four years later.
Flash to the present, Nov. 3, 1987, the show opens with a chaotic breakfast scene hosted by the Wheelers (Nancy, Mike, Holly, Karen, and Ted), who are housing the Byers family (Will, Jonathan, and Joyce). The Byers home is destroyed in season four, and they are left homeless due to the ongoing quarantine in Hawkins. A freak “earthquake” split the town in two halves, leaving a massive tear that the Military has covered up. Really, it leads to the Upside Down. At this point, Karen and Ted are still seemingly oblivious to the dark side of Hawkins that the rest of the characters are all cued in on.
Holly, the youngest Wheeler, is captured by Vecna. While in the Upside Down, Holly meets Max, a good friend of the boys who in the previous season, was manipulated by Vecna. Here, viewers learn that Max has not been in a state of unconsciousness, but has been trapped in Vecna’s “dream world,” where she has been trying to escape with no avail.
Back in Hawkins, we meet Doctor K, who has taken over for Doctor Brenner, continuing his experiments. Later in season five, Eleven discovers her “sister,” Kali, or Number eight, another victim of Brenner’s initial experiment. She tells Eleven that Doctor K has infused pregnant women with Kali’s blood in hopes of creating more children with the same powers as Vecna. However, these experiments are failing because Kali does not have the same blood as Vecna, but Eleven does.
Eleven must now evade both Doctor K, and escape the Upside Down which she and Hopper are trapped inside of, after a failed attempt to hunt Vecna on Hopper’s end, and a failed attempt to rescue Holly Wheeler, however, Holly Wheeler is not the only child that Vecna is targeting, she is one of twelve that he is recruiting to become members of his world ending army.
It is revealed that Vecna disguises himself as an imaginary friend that the children refer to as “Mr. Whatsit,” a reference to the novel “A Wrinkle in Time,” manipulating them into trusting him. He promises them and their families’ safety and sanctuary from the “monsters” that the town is quarantining from, but first they must “help him” by accompanying him to his “dream world,” the same one that Max is trapped in.
It is then revealed that Vecna is syphoning energy from these children. After a failed attempt at saving the children from capture, Will is forced to face Venca head-on. Vecna claims that the entirety of his plan would have never worked without Will and that his weak mind was the reason he was able to aid Vecna. After Vecna’s departure, he leaves his demogorgons to finish the job, leaving Lucas, Mike, and Robin helpless. This is when Will accepts both his powers and his sexuality as he watches his best friend (and crush) face off with his impending death.
Along with these telekinetic powers, Will also possesses the ability to “tap in” to the hive-mind, a system that connects Vecna to the demogorgons. This serves as a powerful tool, acting as a spyware into the insidious plans of Vecna. The group uses this to their advantage, reviving a demogorgon from the dead to act as a power source to link Will directly to Vecna. In this scene, Will is lucky enough to catch Vecna in the act of hunting both Holly and Max. He uses this to both harm Vecna and send Max a message: “RUN!”
Hopeful after hearing from their friends, Max and Holly restart their escape from “Camazotz,” Holly’s nickname for Vecna’s dream world, after her current favorite read, “A Wrinkle in Time.” They find their respective exits, while back in real life Hawkins, Robin, Lucas, and Robin’s girlfriend, Vickie, are being pursued by the “demodogs,” a hybrid version of the demogorgons. They narrowly escape with the help of Mrs. Wheeler, who is recovering from her own encounter with a demogorgon after fighting to save Holly.
Max is successfully reunited with her body and her boyfriend, Lucas, in a heartwarming, long-awaited scene, yet Holly is not met with this same fate. She is reunited with her body, which is stuck in a cocoon created by Vecna. In an attempt to escape, she runs outside, revealing a new location unknown to viewers and characters alike. The group coins this location, “The Abyss.” She is recaptured by Vecna, who takes her back to “Camazotz,” reuniting her with the other eleven brainwashed children. Amongst them is Derek, a little boy who makes a lasting impression earlier in the season. Viewers are unsure whether or not Derek has his own escape plan which will aid Holly in the finale.
Back in Hawkins, Kali tells Eleven her true fate — that if she doesn’t sacrifice herself in the final battle, then the military will never rest. If she is captured, she will be a key component in creating more of these experiments. She agrees to sacrifice herself alongside Kali, as the group comes up with their final plan. After Will’s heartfelt coming out scene, he believes that with a clean conscience, he will be a necessary element in defeating Vecna alongside Eleven and Kali. With this, the group descends into the upside-down, leading viewers to the long-awaited, two-hour-long finale.
