‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 Volume 1 Review: The Nostalgia Machine Is Running on Fumes

i used to joke about it stranger things There came into my life a sudden, strangely encouraging clarity about the way some people discover religion. When the first season dropped in 2016, it felt like it was a secret broadcast for kids who grew up digging through their parents’ dusty DVD shelves and cassette collections. It matched my affinity for ’80s pop culture so well that I treated its broken world of dungeons and dragons, walkie-talkies and suburban dread as a kind of initiation rite of passage, and defended it with the zeal of a convert. The Duffers had tapped into that dark, fragile thing in me where childhood still lingered and the darkness (of adulthood) felt beyond half-imagining. A decade later, the show returns for its final performance in a form that resembles its younger self only in outline, like a photocopy that has been run through several machines.

Volume 1 of the final season begins with game of Thrones-The style confidence of a franchisee who expects loyalty. Now a military control zone, Hawkins is wrapped in metal plates and checkpoints – a logical extension of last season’s border breach. The haste with which these details are handled is apparent, and the season barely considers the lived-in impact of such an environment. This is the first sign of a bigger problem: The Duffers have built a world too big for the story’s emotional structure to bear.

The group returns to their place with the familiar rhythm. Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and Eleven have reached adolescence within the story’s time period, while their actors show clear signs of adulthood. It’s easy to understand how the show attempts to reconcile this with digital smoothing during the Old Will flashbacks, oversized costumes to soften proportions and blocking that puts faces in unforgiving lighting, but the effect is still distracting. stranger things Once it was about kids facing fears beyond their understanding, and now kids look like they should be filing taxes.

The premiere revisits the initial trauma of Will’s kidnapping before jumping forward to 1987. Hawkins is placed under the authority of the new Linda Hamilton, Dr. K. Eleven hides in the woods with Hopper and Joyce, training for the inevitable confrontation with Vecna. These developments track directly from where we last left off, but play with the rigor of a checklist, as if the writers were fulfilling obligations before unleashing another CG storm. The intimacy that once defined the show has been painted onto a canvas too large to be painted carefully.

A scene from ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 Volume 1 | Photo Credit: Netflix

Particularly serious dialogue collapses under its own weight. I found myself surprised by the stiffness of the visuals designed merely to repeat information. Will shoulders most of the mental explanations, straining to translate the logic of the Upside Down into lines that sound painfully unnatural. A charming montage sequence at the new radio station where Robin and Steve now work becomes a dispatch center for sending coded messages that quickly turns into a dull exposition device to further the workings of the Upside Down.

The action is a heady rush of references meant to evoke aliens, good Morning Vietnam, home aloneAnd the great EscapeWith callbacks to the show’s first season, but none of that momentum is able to translate into emotion anymore. Long episodes rely heavily on spectacle – with flamethrowers, Demogorgon attacks and military gunfire – yet the imagery feels bland. The soldiers open fire on creatures who are shown to be bulletproof. A Demogorgon ransacks Holly’s room while Mrs. Wheeler is relaxing in the bathtub with ABBA at full volume, before dramatically attacking her with a wine bottle. Government forces behave so incompetently that the suspense evaporates, and the tension of these set-pieces devolves into a blur of melodrama.

A scene from ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 Volume 1 | Photo Credit: Netflix

World-building reaches its end. The once terrifyingly sparse Upside Down has expanded into a vast landscape, traversed for the most part by Hopper and Eleven. Although the show now presents the environment with far greater visual ambition, it still offers no new understanding of how the place works or what it represents. The mechanics remain unchanged, the metaphors are not tested, only the surface becomes larger.

That writing now also includes a strange time-warp that never lets its voice mature, and the script still speaks in childish tones without the semblance of an update. Even the once-catchy barrage of ’80s references has hardened into obligatory tropes, presented with the decency of that opening flashback where Vecna ​​presses down on young Will’s throat, forcing the nostalgia deep inside until we’re silent.

Some arcs still twinkle with stubborn promise. Robin remains the only true joy on screen – a kinetic burst of energy from Maya Hawke, whose ADHD-inclined antics keep drawing my attention back every time she appears. I found myself a little mesmerized (perhaps even harboring the weakest of crushes) as she approached her scenes with the smooth charisma that has always permeated the show’s writing. Through her, Will’s long-delayed coming out journey finally bonds, and watching him move toward honesty under her simple guidance feels like the rare emotional thread this season doesn’t falter. Holly Wheeler’s moments with Max in Episode 4 offer similar glimpses, especially when Sadie Sink anchors the frame with her effortless intensity. Yet these excellent performers struggle against a clumsy structure that keeps pulling me out of their performances.

A scene from ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 Volume 1 | Photo Credit: Netflix

As for Brett Gelman’s Murray, each season has pushed him closer to caricature, yet this also establishes him as the most repellent presence of the group, whose smug self-satisfaction has begun to mirror the worst qualities of the actor’s publicly stated politics. And if Noah Schnapp manages a half-decent performance as Will, it doesn’t erase the dissonance of seeing two actors with deeply troubling public stances occupy such a central emotional place in a story that once boasted a sense of moral clarity.

Max has a moment this season where she murmurs that “Music has a way of finding you even in the darkest places,” and I found myself smiling at the line, partly because there was nothing else in it. stranger things 5 It feels like it’s now able to trace its emotional core, and that’s partly because Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein are the only actors involved who still understand what the series once meant. His gorgeous synth landscapes cut through the clutter like a rescue signal, glowing with the sadness that first drew me in in 2016. A decade in, the show has outgrown its children, its mythology, and perhaps even its purpose, but the music still feels timeless.

Volume 1 ends with the lightest sensations of narrative momentum. The supposed twists and revelations are either overdone due to overexposure or come with a randomness that takes them out of the impact. The pace rarely drags, but the pace feels automatic rather than lively. In small places, I still catch glimpses of the honest sentiment I once defended like a fanatic, but ten years later, the show feels stuck between worlds, trying to remember how it started.

With two sections still standing between Hawkins and the closure, the boulders become heavier, and the hill becomes steeper. Still, one has to imagine Kate Bush is happy.

Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 is currently streaming on Netflix. Volume 2 arrives on Christmas Day, and the third and final volume arrives on New Year’s Eve

published – November 27, 2025 04:17 PM IST