To love Stranger Things is to spend most of your life waiting to watch Stranger Things. The show hasn’t released that many episodes since it premiered way back in the summer of 2016. And the series’ fifth and final season will debut more than nine years after it began. But the show is ending its run by doing something we’re not used to: giving us something early. You can now watch the first five minutes of Stranger Things 5.
This early look is really a look back to when Will Byers found himself trapped in the Upside Down.
Stranger Things 5 will open in its twisted dark realm. But not in the present day. It’s going back to when Will Byers was lost and alone in the Upside Down. In this scene, we see him try to escape a Demogorgon. When his otherwise deft tree climbing goes wrong, rather than eat Will, the Demogorgon drags his unconscious body to the realm’s leader. Vecna uses his vines to tie Will up before directing one into the boy’s mouth with an ominous warning they can “begin.” The former Henry Creel then promises Will that the two of them will “do such beautiful things together.”
This scene helps explain how Will managed to survive his time in the Upside Down. The monsters there weren’t trying to kill him. They were trying to trap him. This also shows how Will ended up trapped in those vines, which is how we saw him when his mother and Hopper rescued him in season one’s finale. And this shows why Will had a type of psychic link with the Upside Down in season two, something that has never fully gone away.
It also sets up the rest of Stranger Things 5, which we don’t actually have to wait for much longer. Volume 1 (of 3) debuts on November 26.