Stranger Things Season 5 Teaser: Upside Down Invades Hawkins

Netflix has released an extended teaser trailer for Season 5 of Stranger Things, the fifth and final season of the critically acclaimed horror series. The new footage, which officially confirms that Season 5 will indeed arrive in the fall as promised, is packed with all the good stuff: more tear-inducing cute-dogs, Mike and Eleven chemistry, Hawkins kids looking tired and battle-worn, and a thrilling peek at the full-on attack that the show’s fans have been waiting to see since the very first episode of Stranger Things.

Kicking off with classic, atmospheric-yet-spooky Hawkins fog, the teaser hits the ground running and wastes no time ramping up the dread. A montage of rapidly spliced snippets shows the Upside Down once again making its way further into Hawkins. We see high-stakes sequences of the Hawkins kids and new faces brandishing flamethrowers. There are also shadows of what look like demo-dogs slinking around Hawkins’ darkened hallways.

One of the more memorable introductions in the teaser is actor Linda Hamilton, a massive name for the Stranger Things series. Fans will recognize Hamilton from her work in iconic films like The Terminator and more recent films like Wyatt Earp. In the teaser, she shows up heavily armed and ready to fight, shouting “death to all who oppose us” and raising a fist.

Recapping from Season 4’s explosion of an ending, we know that Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), the season’s villain and a nightmarish entity with omniscient knowledge of Hawkins’ past, present, and future, has ripped open a massive gate in the Upside Down and Hawkins, opening the floodgates for the Upside Down to fully seep into Hawkins.

Season 5 will pick up some time after the Vecna-gate apocalyptic climax, but the teaser has given viewers a glimpse at where and when it all takes place. As of this teaser trailer, we know the season will be set in Hawkins during the fall of 1987, which in Stranger Things time is the third anniversary of Will Byers’ (Noah Schnapp) disappearance. Byers’ disappearance at the hands of the Demogorgon, of course, is the inciting incident that set the show in motion back in Season 1.

Netflix promises eight episodes for the show’s fifth and final season. But each episode won’t be an ordinary television runtime. Instead, Netflix has said that each of the eight episodes of Stranger Things Season 5 will be feature-length, turning the season into what is essentially eight Stranger Things movies.

Netflix has also provided an official description of what Season 5 will look like, though very little of it is a surprise. Hawkins has changed forever now that the Rifts have been opened up and terrorized the town. The Hawkins gang, joined by other new and returning allies, is now focused on a singular goal: to find and kill Vecna. Except, no one knows where Vecna is or what his next move is.

But it’s not just Hawkins they have to worry about: the U.S. government has placed a military quarantine around Hawkins and is redoubling its efforts to catch Eleven and her friends, meaning they will have to go further underground than ever. It’s the third anniversary of Will Byers’ disappearance, and things are about to get worse before they get better.

As more and more of the pieces start to click together, the only thing that is left to be said is what this teaser spells out loud and clear: this is it. The full party is back, and it’s finally time for all of the good guys to come together and kick some major ass against the Upside Down. The Upside Down’s been getting the better of Hawkins for a while now, so this time it’s personal. Vecna is the scariest iteration of the Upside Down we’ve faced so far, and if the heroes want to win this time, everyone is going to have to be at their strongest. The teaser even shows a familiar face in Mike’s slow-motion death drop “you’re gonna die” moment from the Season 4 finale, when he and others battle a horde of the Upside Down’s demodogs in Hawkins National Laboratory.

All of the main cast will return, and several main recurring characters will reprise their roles for the fifth season as well. Amybeth McNulty, who plays the Hawkins Middle School principal, Vicki, will reprise her role from previous seasons as a main character in Season 5. So will Gabriella Pizzolo (Suzie), Dustin’s girlfriend, who has been a recurring character for the entirety of the series. Jamie Campbell Bower, who had a standout Season 4 as the main antagonist, Vecna, will also be back for the final season.

But the Stranger Things Season 5 cast isn’t just returning names, it’s getting major character upgrades. The teaser trailer has shown off a few of these big names from outside the world of Hawkins who have been tapped to join the Hawkins crew in their final battle. Linda Hamilton is the first name to call out, but she’s not the only one. Nell Fisher will play a new character named Holly Wheeler; Jake Connelly will play a new character named Derek Turnbow; and Alex Breaux will play a new character, Lt. Akers.

Fans who are only now discovering Stranger Things will likely feel the nostalgia pull of the trailer differently. But for fans who have been on the Upside Down train for all four previous seasons, Season 5’s teaser also features a note of tragedy as well. Eddie Munson’s (Joseph Quinn) gravestone, which has already been defaced with the words “Burn in hell,” is shown. It’s a necessary reminder that Eddie, the Dungeons & Dragons-playing hero who performed the sacrifice that brought an end to Vecna and earned the mass support of the Stranger Things fanbase in the fourth-season finale, is still very much a villain in the eyes of Hawkins.