After three years of waiting. After endless fan theories, behind-the-scenes photos, and promises this would be worth the gap. After the Duffer Brothers swore they’d stick the landing. Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 finally dropped on Netflix November 26, 2025. And it earned an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Eighty-five percent. The lowest score in the show’s history. Season 1 had 97%. Season 2 earned 94%. Seasons 3 and 4 both landed at 89%. And now, the final season, the one that’s supposed to wrap up nearly a decade of storytelling and close out Netflix’s most valuable franchise, comes in below all of them.
But here’s where it gets complicated. Because 85% isn’t bad. It’s still “Certified Fresh.” Critics are calling it “thrilling,” praising the emotional depth, celebrating the return to form. The BBC said it’s setting up “an all-time great TV ending.” Consequence highlighted genuine character moments. Multiple outlets praised the ramped-up horror and massive visual effects.
So why the lower score? Because Stranger Things Season 5 is divisive in ways previous seasons weren’t. Critics who love it LOVE it. They’re calling it exactly what the series finale should be. But critics who have problems with it have SERIOUS problems. Bloated writing. Excessive exposition. Characters standing around info-dumping instead of doing anything. Awkward performances from actors who’ve outgrown their roles. Lore that nobody asked for about Vecna’s backstory when the show works better with faceless monsters.
It’s not unanimous praise. It’s not universal hatred. It’s split. Passionate on both sides. Which might be the most fitting way for Stranger Things to go out. Because this show has always been divisive. Season 1 was lightning in a bottle. Every season since has been trying to recapture that magic while expanding scope, budget, and mythology. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Season 5 Volume 1 is both simultaneously.
And the wild part? Only four episodes have dropped. Volume 2 releases Christmas Day. The series finale hits December 31 in theaters and on Netflix. The story isn’t over. The ending could redeem everything critics currently hate. Or it could make everything worse.
Share this with your Stranger Things group chat because the next month is going to be intense and everyone needs to prepare.
What’s Actually Happening In Season 5 (Without Major Spoilers)
The season picks up 18 months after Season 4’s apocalyptic ending. That time jump solves the aging cast problem that’s plagued the show for years. The kids aren’t kids anymore. They’re teenagers legitimately looking like teenagers rather than 20-somethings pretending to be 14. The Duffer Brothers made smart choice letting time pass naturally instead of pretending Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown haven’t visibly aged three years since last season.
Hawkins is under military quarantine after the gate between reality and the Upside Down tore open. The government is trying to contain the “portal disaster” while hunting Eleven, who’s gone into hiding. Vecna has disappeared. His location and intentions are unknown. And as the anniversary of Will’s original disappearance approaches (callback to Season 1), familiar dread returns.
The gang needs everyone. The entire crew. One last time. To end this nightmare with darkness more potent and lethal than anything they’ve faced before. That’s the official synopsis. In practice, it means massive set pieces, Demogorgon hordes attacking soldiers, Vecna looking “incredibly fierce” during assault sequences, and Karen Wheeler (Nancy and Mike’s mom) finally getting to actively protect her family instead of being background parent.
The first four episodes run over four hours total. These aren’t tight 45-minute episodes. These are feature-length installments that the Duffers clearly see as movie chapters rather than traditional TV. Some critics love the cinematic scope. Others feel it’s bloated indulgence that needed editing.
The episode titles for Volume 1 are Chapter One: The Crawl, Chapter Two: The Vanishing of [REDACTED], Chapter Three: The Turnbow Trap, and Chapter Four: Sorcerer. Volume 2 drops Christmas with Chapter Five: Shock Jock, Chapter Six: Escape from Camazotz, and Chapter Seven: The Bridge. Then New Year’s Eve brings the series finale: Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up.
That final title is perfect. The Rightside Up. After eight years in the Upside Down, the show promises to flip everything and end where it began. Whether it actually delivers on that promise remains to be seen.
Don’t miss what critics are specifically praising because it’s the character moments everyone’s been waiting for.
The Stuff That’s Working (And Why It Matters)
The Horror Is Back And It’s Genuinely Scary
Multiple critics highlighted the ramped-up horror. The Demogorgon doesn’t just appear. A HORDE of them attacks. And they don’t just rip at flesh like previous seasons. They pierce it. The violence has escalated. The stakes feel real. The creatures are legitimately terrifying in ways they haven’t been since Season 1 when we didn’t know what they were yet.
One review specifically praised seeing the Demogorgon up close for extended periods. “That thing is absolutely terrifying.” After seasons of the Mind Flayer and Vecna being the primary threats, returning to the original monster and making it scarier than ever is smart choice. Nostalgia mixed with genuine fear.
Character Relationships Over Plot Mechanics
When Season 5 Volume 1 focuses on character dynamics instead of exposition, it soars. Robin and Will having a heart-to-heart where Robin discusses her identity in ways that matter for both plot and character development. That’s the show at its best. Consequence called it “genuine and human and real.”
Natalia Dyer as Nancy continues being underrated MVP. Her emotional center grounds the chaos. Steve Harrington remains fan favorite because Joe Keery understands the character’s heart underneath the hair jokes. Dustin’s grief over Eddie’s death (from Season 4) is aggressive and abrasive, but Gaten Matarazzo makes it palatable because he’s such likable presence.
These moments work because they’re what Stranger Things has always been about: kids (now teens) using their bond to survive impossible circumstances. When the show remembers that, it’s magic. When it forgets and becomes lore dump about Vecna’s backstory, it loses itself.
The Visual Effects Have Reached Movie-Level Quality
The production value is insane. The sets look incredible. The CG is mostly seamless. The scale is massive in ways television usually can’t achieve. Netflix clearly gave the Duffers blank check for this final season and they spent every penny on making it look like MCU-level spectacle.
Whether that serves the story is debatable. But nobody can argue the show doesn’t LOOK phenomenal. The fight sequences. The creature design. The Upside Down environments. All gorgeous and terrifying and expensive as hell.
The Series Knows It’s Ending And That Focus Helps
Three-year break and clear ending date gave the Duffers time to plan properly. Season 4 was sprawling, putting thousands of miles between character groups and losing narrative cohesion. Season 5 is geographically focused. Everyone’s in or near Hawkins. The scope is simultaneously bigger (in terms of threat and visual scale) and tighter (in terms of character positioning and plot focus).
That discipline shows. The pacing is better. The character groupings make more sense. Having everyone in proximity allows for team-ups and dynamics that weren’t possible when half the cast was in Russia and the other half was in California.
The Stuff That’s NOT Working (And Why Critics Are Frustrated)
The Writing Is Bloated With Exposition
Multiple reviews hammered this point. Characters stand around info-dumping to drive plot forward, which ironically grinds plot to halt. Instead of showing through action, the show tells through dialogue. Instead of trusting audiences to infer, it explains everything explicitly.
This has been Stranger Things problem since Season 2. But in the final season, when every minute should count, the excessive exposition feels especially frustrating. One reviewer called it “checked-out line deliveries” where actors seem bored explaining plot points they know are tedious.
Nobody Cares About Vecna’s Backstory
The season apparently spends significant time on Vecna/Henry/Number One’s origins and motivations. Critics universally agree: nobody wanted this. Sometimes villains work better as faceless evil. The Demogorgon was scary because it was unknowable alien threat. Vecna is less scary the more we understand him.
The show works best when heroes face monstrous otherworldly beasts, working together to defeat them. The elaborate villain backstory and motivation doesn’t enhance that. It distracts from it. And in a final season that should be about character resolution, spending time on villain lore feels like misplaced priorities.
Some Performances Haven’t Kept Up
This is harsh but multiple critics noted it: not all the young actors have developed at the same pace. Millie Bobby Brown was once the series’ highlight. Now she’s dealing with awkward writing and character regression. Finn Wolfhard and Noah Schnapp, while likable, struggle with deeper emotional material the season apparently demands from them.
This creates problem because Will Byers is central to Season 5’s endgame. The final moments of Episode 4 reveal Will has powers connected to his time in the Upside Down. He can control elements of the hive mind. This is HUGE plot development. But if Schnapp can’t carry the emotional weight that revelation requires, it threatens the entire final arc.
Meanwhile, actors like Natalia Dyer, Joe Keery, Gaten Matarazzo, and Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas) maintain ease and comfort in their roles. The disparity is noticeable.
It’s Trying To Be Too Many Things
One review perfectly captured this: Stranger Things Season 5 is “caught in murky CG expanse that looks big but feels small, full of scenes that look sort of like life from a distance but don’t feel much like it up close.” Translation: the show has gotten so big, so expensive, so effects-heavy that it’s lost the intimate human moments that made Season 1 special.
The corny one-liners. The predictable plotlines. The Netflix-ification of TV aesthetics where everything looks expensive but nothing feels earned. These are problems that plague modern streaming television generally. And Stranger Things, as Netflix’s flagship, exemplifies both the best and worst of that model.
Share this with your binge-watching friend because the debate about whether this season works is going to define December.
The Big Reveals And Where The Story Is Heading
Will The Wise Has Powers Now
Episode 4 ends with Will embracing his true identity and unlocking abilities he didn’t know he had. His connection to Vecna and the Upside Down isn’t just trauma. It’s actual psychic link he can weaponize. Matt Duffer explained: “Will has been grappling with so much throughout the previous four seasons. We aimed for him to evolve as a person and become complete version of himself. Once he achieves that, he can channel these remarkable powers.”
This sets up Will as potentially the key to defeating Vecna. Not Eleven alone. Not the group alone. But Will, the character who started everything in Season 1 by disappearing into the Upside Down, being the one who ends it. That’s thematically satisfying if executed well.
Max Is Trapped In Vecna’s Mental Prison
Remember when Max fell into coma at Season 4’s end and Eleven couldn’t reach her consciousness? She’s been trapped in Vecna’s mental prison this whole time, hiding in cave system he inexplicably fears entering. She almost escaped during memory of the night he tried to kill her, but the portal closed just as “Running Up That Hill” ended in her hospital room.
This reveal answers Season 4’s biggest cliffhanger while creating new tension. How do they rescue Max? What is she learning while trapped? Is she still herself after months in Vecna’s mind?
The Military Knows Everything
The government has established full military quarantine around Hawkins. They know about the Upside Down. They’re hunting Eleven. The conspiracy that’s been background element for four seasons is now front and center. And it’s making the heroes’ job infinitely harder because they’re fighting threats on two fronts: supernatural and governmental.
The Finale Will Be Theatrical Experience
December 31 at 5pm PT, the series finale drops on Netflix and in 350+ theaters across US and Canada. The Duffers said: “Experiencing it in theaters, with outstanding audio, visuals, and crowd of enthusiastic fans, feels like the ultimate way to commemorate conclusion of this journey.”
That theatrical release tells you everything about their ambitions. This isn’t just TV finale. It’s cinematic event. Whether it lives up to that ambition or collapses under weight of expectations will define the show’s legacy.
The Verdict (So Far)
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 is good but not great. Entertaining but flawed. Exactly what you’d expect from final season of show that’s been running on nostalgia and goodwill for years. The highs are very high. The lows are frustratingly low. And whether the whole thing works depends entirely on Christmas Day’s Volume 2 and New Year’s Eve finale.
85% Rotten Tomatoes score is the series’ lowest. But it’s still fresh. Still recommended. Still worth watching if you’ve invested eight years in these characters. The question isn’t “is it good?” It’s “is it good enough to honor what came before while sticking the landing?”
Nobody knows yet. But on December 31, 2025, we’ll find out if the Duffer Brothers pulled off one of TV’s most anticipated finales or fumbled at the goal line after decade of buildup.
Drop a comment: Have you watched Volume 1 yet? Team “it’s great” or team “it’s disappointing”? What are your finale predictions? Share this with every Stranger Things fan you know because the next month of theory-crafting and debate is going to be wild and everyone needs to be prepared for either triumphant ending or crushing letdown. There’s no middle ground with finales this big.
Follow for Volume 2 coverage Christmas Day and finale breakdown New Year’s Eve. Because when Stranger Things ends December 31, the entire internet is going to implode and you want to be part of that conversation with actual informed opinions instead of just recycled takes from Twitter.
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 isn’t the ending yet. It’s the setup. The pieces are moving into place for final confrontation. The character moments and reveals and horror that justify three-year wait while simultaneously reminding everyone why three-year gaps between seasons kill momentum. The Duffer Brothers have four more episodes to prove this was worth it. To demonstrate they knew where they were going all along. To give Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max, Steve, Nancy, Robin, Jonathan, Joyce, and Hopper the endings they deserve. Whether they deliver remains to be seen. But on December 1, 2025, with Volume 1 out and Volume 2 coming Christmas, one thing is certain: the final month of Stranger Things is going to be the most analyzed, debated, and emotional viewing experience Netflix has ever produced. And whether the 85% Rotten Tomatoes score goes up or down with subsequent volumes, nothing changes the fact that this show shaped streaming television, defined a generation’s nostalgic relationship with the 80s, and proved genre television could be both massively popular and genuinely good. That legacy is secure. Now it’s just about sticking the landing.
