Stranger Things season 5, episode 1 was a great way to start off the fifth and final season. The first episode was set to drop Nov. 26 at 5 p.m.; I hit play at exactly 5 p.m. That’s how excited I was, and that’s how the first episode left me, excited for the next.
Stranger Things is a sci-fi horror series set in the 1980’s in the town of Hawkins, Indiana. The show follows a group of kids who face other worldly entities, mysterious government experiments, and a girl with remarkable powers named Eleven. With the show starting in 2016 and sadly ending in 2025, it’s incredible to see how the story and the characters have grown over the years. Watching Eleven (Mille Bobby Bongiovi), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb Mclaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Will (Noah Schapp) and the rest of the gang grow over the years has been such an amazing ride. The series has left a huge mark on pop culture and on fans like me, who’ve grown up watching it. There’s this bittersweet feeling knowing it’s going to be over soon, but there’s also a sense of excitement to see how the final season wraps up all the stories we’ve been following for nearly a decade.
The episode doesn’t start off with any huge action, but it gave me this emotional, dark but intriguing feeling while I was watching. After waiting three years for the season, the episode hit differently, yet I wanted it to start off a bit more exciting. At first, it felt like in the first 15 minutes they forgot that Vecna is still free and terrorizing Hawkins. So many things went unanswered which I didn’t enjoy, but I promise, it does not end like that. Later in the episode, any questions you have will be answered by little clues. There are little moments that you pay attention to. Hinting that something big is coming without spoiling what that big thing actually is, it’s more about setting up the tone, which I think that’s what every first episode of a season does.
The first episode is a slow burn, but in a good way. It doesn’t reveal too much or tries to shock you right away but be aware it will do that in the last 20 minutes of the episode, but it builds so much tension that you want to keep watching. It almost feels like the calming before the storm and this storm is huge. I would say it sets volume 1 well.
I recommend it because it gets you excited for the next episode, to the point where you’ll turn into the Flash because of how fast you’re going to click that next episode button. Volume 1 is playing on Netflix, Volume 2 will be dropping December 25th with 3 episodes, and the season finale will be dropping on the 31st.
