Stranger Things season five volume one was released Wednesday Nov. 26. While each episode ran between 55 and 85 minutes, that did not stop me from completing all four episodes on the release date. As someone who has been waiting for this season to come out since July of 2022, I can confidently say that I am not disappointed. This volume honestly lived up to all my expectations and everything I didn’t even know I was hoping for.
Every single episode of this release was so unique and honestly unexpected, so I’ll have to rate each episode separately to be able to even attempt to give this a proper review. This review will contain spoilers.
Episode 1 – The Crawl:
This episode is set eighteen months after the conclusion of season four, depicting the city of Hawkins in a state of quarantine. But before this, we see a baby Will Byers (not actually baby) stuck in the upside down for the first time where he meets Vecna who the audience had no idea of until season four. What the heck Duffer Brothers, Byers has been through too much since the beginning.
Mike Wheeler, Will, Dustin Henderson (who is acting like a butthead after Eddie Munson’s death (me too)) and Lucas Sinclair are back at school while still continuing to try and kill Vecna. While this group is still at school, they listen to the radio show run by Robin Buckley and Steve Harrington giving undercover hints to that group, along with Eleven, Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers stating information about an upcoming crawl through the upside down.
Once this information is shared, the group gets together to plan their – some number over 30 – th crawl. While planning, Will gets a weird “vision” when he looks up and sees the sky spinning. This is weird because it kinda relates to the “now memories” he had back in season two (which I honestly don’t think enough people paid attention to, me included).
Eventually, Hopper ends up entering the upside down while the government is performing a “burn” and ends up getting stuck there after the military members are killed by a demogorgon. This same demo starts to attack him and we see this happening through Will’s perspective. What? Apparntly Will has even more “now memories” which most likely stem from the hive mind. Scary.
Anyways, a lot more stuff happens, but probably the most important part of this episode is Will seeing the demo head toward the Wheeler’s house, trying to get to Holly Wheeler.
Then the episode ends. Like, hello? Will has more insight to the hive mind than ever and sees the demo about to attack Holly and it just stops. Honestly, it would make me mad if I couldn’t have watched the next episode immediately.
All in all, this episode was really interesting and helped fill in a lot of blanks I could have had after years of not seeing this show.
Episode 2 – The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler:
Oh my lordy this scene was amazing. After the demo crawls through poor Holly’s bedroom wall, Holly runs to her mom, Karen “walk-’em-down” Wheeler, who becomes an absolute BOSS when she realizes her daughter is in danger. As they are trying to escape the demo, Ted Wheeler realizes something is wrong – about dang time – and tries to beat the demo with his golf club. It doesn’t work. The demo ends up attacking Karen who then stabs it with her broken wine bottle which unfortunately doesn’t do much. This scene ends with the demo dragging Holly to the upside down, while Eleven and Nancy Wheeler find her parents in critical condition.
Eleven ends up following the demo to the upside down where she then finds Hopper who was trapped there at the end of the last episode.
Meanwhile, in the not upside down world, Will realizes his vision of the sky spinning was from Holly’s perspective, relating her to the hive mind. He also realizes that the next person to be targeted is Derek Turnbow.
Speaking of which, Holly quickly became one of my favorite characters this season, while “delightful Derek” Turnbow followed slowly behind.
Nancy and Eleven talk to Karen in the hospital and realize that Holly’s imaginary friend, Mr. Whatsit, is in fact Vecna and that is why she got taken to the underworld.
This whole episode was really eye-opening and we learned a lot about the most likely plot for the rest of this season. New characters and a new version of Vecna all led to a great episode.
Episode 3 – The Turnbow Trap:
After realizing that Turnbow was Mr. Whatsit’s next target, Will, Joyce, Lucas, Erica Sinclair, Mike and Nancy decide to lure a demo to Turnbow’s house to trap it and plant a tracker in it to find vecna’s lair. Lowkey a genius plan if you ask me. We get to see Erica being an absolute queen again AND Nancy with her shotgun, all is well.
Holly is lowkey living her life in the upside down as Mr. Whatsit, A.K.A. Henry Creele, A.K.A. Vecna is acting as a charming host for her stay, claiming that he’s keeping her safe from the monsters. Pardon? He is THE monster mind you.
One part of this that is mad confusing to me is the fact that he literally gives her her favorite music, obviously knowing that is the one way to escape him. So why does he do this? I genuinely could not tell you right now but I really want to know.
Remember Max Mayfield who ended up in a coma at the end of season four after her encounter with Vecna? Apparently she’s been existing in the version of the upside down that Holly is currently stuck in. The Duffer brothers go into excruciating detail about how close she made it to making it out of both the upside down and her coma and back to Lucas, seemingly just to make me and others upset.
Meanwhile, in the messed-up and real version of the upside down, Hopper and Eleven are fighting for their lives not just against the dome’s but also the military. Apparently the military has been creating a basically Eleven nullifying technology that seems to put her in excruciating pain.
They later capture a military member and interrogate him about what is happening in the upside down and they find that something, or someone, is hidden in a locked room that has to do with this technology that is hurtful to Eleven. Both her and Hopper think this must be Vecna, as they have not been able to find him.
This episode as a whole really helps to move the plot along and gets the watchers interested in the many different plotlines of the season so far.
Episode 4 – Sorcerer:
If you have watched this volume already you probably know exactly what I am wanting to talk about right now but obviously have to wait to talk about until later. Although, I am [probably gonna skip a lot of this episode to get to the major parts – there are too many.
Will has another vision and sees this thing in the upside down with 12 spires, each holding a different kid, including Holly and Turnbow. At the same time, they realize that the government is taking in all kids around the age of nine and ten and this leads the group to wonder their reasons for doing this.
Because of this, the group hatches a plan revolving around Turnbow, who they still have with them. They plan to send Turnbow in to where they are holding all the other kids and hopefully get them all out. This plan has many different parts, including Murray Bauman who has to bring in a lot of supplies.
Will and Mike are going to meet the kids in an escape tunnel Turnbow sends them to, while Lucas will lead them out and Bauman and Buckley will drive them away.
While concocting this plan, Eleven and Hopper make it to the room holding the unknown object/person. Hopper reveals a large set of bombs on his person, letting Eleven know that if Vecna is in there, he is planning on killing Vecna in the most efficient way, taking himself down in the process.
Now WHY the heck the Duffer brothers would do this to us, I don’t know. But I do know that I was legitimately crying over this scenario for far too long.
After Hopper enters this room, he quickly returns and makes Eleven come with him. Together they go into the room where they find 008, Eleven’s sister from season two, where they thought Vecna would be.
What the heck? Obviously this is gonna play a big role in the upcoming season, but I fear what happens next is MUCH more important.
Basically, the group’s plan goes to poop and demos and Vecna appear on the military base. After Vecna 2.0 shows up, showing off his skinty waist and new shoulder pads, he proceeds to tell Will he is weak and just sends his demos after everyone.
Pretty much everyone is going to do . . . AND THEN WILL.
Will gets powers that are very similar to both Eleven’s and Vecna’s. He stops literally all of the demos from all over the place with his mind and then Vecna-style kills them by snapping their bones. He does all of this with so much sass and glazed over eyes and basically just killing them with vibes.
The episode and volume end with a shot of Will wiping blood from his nose, just the same way Eleven does.
This scene had both me and my sister jumping for joy as this was entirely unexpected and just so awesome.
To end this release like that was honestly diabolical because obviously everyone wants the rest ASAP. I think that this whole volume was absolutely amazing and honestly have no notes. I literally cannot wait until Christmas. Not for the holiday of course, but for volume two to finally come out.
