Once upon a time, Stranger Things was a show about a group of kids. When one went missing, the others met a girl with special powers—and discovered the government lab in their small town was poking into an alternate dimension they dubbed the Upside Down.
From that relatively simple “us against the world” adventure, the show—which is wrapping up its run after nearly 10 years, five seasons, and unprecedented pop culture domination—has become more about “us saving the world.” It’s a task that’s never been more urgent as the characters we’ve come to know (and in many cases, see grow from tweens into twentysomethings) uncover the true nature of what they’re up against, which is the main thrust of this second batch of episodes continuing season five’s saga.
The episodes dropped last night, and we won’t be spoiling any plot points here in case you’re still playing catch-up from the holidays. Fortunately for fans, though, volume two is an easier binge: just three episodes, with a total viewing time of about three and a half hours. (The finale, we already know, will be a feature-length two hours and eight minutes.)
But while season five’s breaks between volume one, volume two, and the finale gave fans time to breathe, they also might make a viewer wonder if so many minutes are really necessary—and if Netflix and Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers are stretching out the show’s last stand. Volume two suggests there’s some of that going on; for every win our heroes score, there are many more scenes of someone needing a pep talk, someone litigating a festering beef from a previous season, or someone needing to be reassured that whatever catastrophe just happened was not (entirely) their fault.
You could also center a drinking game around how many times someone says “We need a plan” and render yourself more incapacitated than the Turnbow family got after eating that drug-laced pie earlier in season five.
However, we get it. The endgame is looming. It’s high time to work through the bullshit and figure out what’s most important; in the world of Stranger Things, that’s often some combination of learning to trust in others while realizing you have to dig deep inside yourself if you’re ever going to succeed. Also, given the timing, lots of plans need to be made, argued about, revamped, and enacted—and, inevitably, shoved aside once they’re completed for the next challenge that arises.
And the Stranger Things gang faces a lot of challenges across these three new episodes (“Shock Jock,” “Escape From Camazotz,” and “The Bridge”), proportionate to the amount of characters (tons) and parallel quests (ditto) season five has swirling around in its narrative.
“Shock Jock” picks up immediately after “Sorcerer,” finding Will (Noah Schnapp), Joyce (Winona Ryder), and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) dazed and dazzled by Will’s sudden display of demo-destroying powers. We see Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) in his natty Henry disguise, feeding the kids he’s just kidnapped his fairy tale about saving them from monsters and doubling down on his A Wrinkle in Time analogy, telling them the world is under threat from something very much like the novel’s dreaded Black Thing.
We find Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton), who lost many soldiers in “Sorcerer,” seething when she realizes Kali, aka Eight (Linnea Berthelsen), has escaped the lab in the Upside Down with the help of El (Millie Bobby Brown) and Hopper (David Harbour).
Also still rattling around the Upside Down are Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), Steve (Joe Keery), and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo); rather than linking up with Hop and company, they decide to investigate Dustin’s theory about the fleshy border wall, which leads them to the Upside Down version of Hawkins Lab.
The rest of the characters not already mentioned above—Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Erica (Priah Ferguson), Robin (Maya Hawke), and Murray (Brett Gelman)—assemble with Will, Mike, and Joyce at WSQK, the good guys’ headquarters, to regroup and figure out what to do next.
And, yes, there’s one more storyline on top of that, since Max (Sadie Sink) and Holly (Nell Fisher) are also trying to find their way out of Vecna’s golden-hued mind palace, which Holly has dubbed “Camazotz” after the evil planet in A Wrinkle in Time.
It is a lot, and for a good portion of season five, volume two, there’s a frustration that comes with the audience knowing way more than the characters—including that everyone has just one fragment of the information needed to effectively thwart Vecna’s scheme. And Stranger Things realizes this, made clear when Hopper comes right out and says to Mike, “I’m as confused as you … it’s like there’s a missing piece of the puzzle. A big piece.”
However, Stranger Things does have a fixed end point, and it’s coming fast. Volume two eventually gets around to fitting that puzzle together so that the show is primed for its finale. We get a very necessary, exposition-stuffed scene that outlines exactly what’s at stake, involving a huge plot reveal so carefully explained (and then explained again) you can almost overlook what a retcon it is.
We finally get to see some key members of the supporting cast—including Robin’s candy-striper girlfriend Vickie (Amybeth McNulty) and Erica’s science teacher Mr. Clarke (Randy Havens)—learn what’s really going on in Hawkins and bring their own talents and skills to the cause. We also get a much-needed moment of catharsis from one of the main characters, a scene that Stranger Things handles with the nuance it requires.
That said, we get no nuance whatsoever when it comes to Dr. Kay, a paper-thin, cartoonish villain lacking the moral complexity of her predecessor, Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine), or the sympathetic tendencies of Dr. Owens (Paul Reiser). Her true intentions get a full reveal in volume two, and though they’re less extinction-level than Vecna’s, they’re no less devastating. And her apparent motive, taking the ’80s Cold War-era war machine goals to the extreme, is simply… getting an upper hand in Moscow. If we’re lucky, perhaps we’ll learn anything more about her in the finale.
Volume two ends exactly where you’d expect: poised to plunge into one last big battle, with the urgency higher than it’s ever been. The Hawkins gang is finally united and ready to act on their craziest plan yet. Their success in saving the world seems assured—does anyone really think Stranger Things would dare end on a full-blown apocalypse?—but it’s going to be a wild road to get there.
Stranger Things season five, volumes one and two, are now streaming on Netflix. The finale arrives December 31.
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