Stranger Things 5: Worth the Wait?

Participants bike past a poster during the Netflix x CicLAvia-Melrose Ave: Stranger Things 5 One Last Ride down Melrose Avenue on Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, in Los Angeles. Fans dressed up to ride bikes, walk and skate down a 4-mile stretch of the street to celebrate the last season of "Stranger Things." (Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

One of the most impactful series of the 2010s and Netflix's biggest show in its history, just recently came to an end with the conclusion of its fifth season.

Ever since the release of its first season, Stranger Things has been a huge phenomenon that skyrocketed Netflix's popularity and left a huge impact on the nostalgia for 80s culture. It also appealed to a wide variety of audiences, from the chemistry between the main cast to draw in younger audiences, to the mystery and horror that attracted other general audiences, with each season making the show bigger and bigger.

And since the announcement of the final season in 2022, fans have been generating insane amounts of hype. Not to mention Netflix's extensive marketing, including screening the finale in over 3,500 showtimes across the U.S. and Canada. But was it able to stick the landing?

Thoughts

While there are some fun moments that felt like the old seasons with the Turnbow Trap and the whole escape plan at the military base, the main issue with the fifth season is that it just doesn't feel like the same show anymore. Way too many characters, a whole convoluted storyline with the military, and the decision to focus on a completely new character to follow. The old cast doesn't even feel the same, with a lot of them having random new arcs that come out of nowhere.

You can also feel the emotional core slipping away. Earlier seasons worked because everything was grounded in the kids, their friendships, and the small-town stakes of Hawkins. Season five trades that intimacy for spectacle, constantly jumping between locations and plot threads without letting anything breathe. Big moments happen, but they rarely land because there’s no time to sit with the characters or feel the weight of what’s happening. Instead of building tension through quiet dread and character moments, the show leans hard into scale and chaos, and in doing so, loses the charm and focus that made Stranger Things feel special to begin with.

There’s also a major problem with stakes, or really the lack of them. For a season that keeps trying to feel bigger, darker, and more dangerous, it never truly commits. No major characters die, and it becomes impossible to believe anyone is actually in danger. The plot armor is insane, with characters constantly surviving situations that should have real consequences. When every close call ends the same way, the tension disappears, and what’s left feels hollow. The show keeps telling us how high the stakes are, but it never shows us, making the entire season feel less impactful than it desperately wants to be.

The scope got way too big and it feels like the Duffers lost what made Stranger Things special in the first place.

• Best episode: Chapter Four

• Worst episode: Chapter Seven

• rating: 5/10

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