It’s the biggest series that Netflix has ever released. One of the biggest shows in history, period. Created by brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, multiple seasons are considered by many – myself included – to be masterpieces. “Stranger Things” took horror television to a level nobody could have expected, a level that looms darker and darker the closer we get to the show’s finale.
But going into “Stranger Things 5: Volume 1,” I wasn’t looking for another masterpiece. It just had to succeed at what so many modern shows fail to accomplish. I needed it, and still need it, to simply wrap everything up. Clean, successfully, responsibly.
Released on Nov. 26, “Volume 1” of the fifth season is filled with the usual camp and quirk the show is known for, now on the largest scale of all five seasons. The show’s heroes are trying to hide from the government and fight the supernatural at the same time. The stakes are at their highest, and with them the production value.
The scale can be appreciated if done right, which I think it certainly has been so far, as in the fourth episode of the new season, “Sorcerer.” The visuals and the action are some of the best any Netflix project has ever produced, and they haven’t abused the action to a point of losing the plot – yet.
Releasing on Dec. 24 is “Volume 2,” followed by the finale on Dec. 31, in which the Duffers might wrap up their career-long project soundly or let everything unravel miserably by the finale. My real fear is for the brothers to lose sight of why their audience was intrigued with their show in the first place: the actual intrigue. The mystery.
In Season 1, nobody knew what was haunting the poor children of Hawkins or what Jim Hopper (David Harbour) and the rest of the local law enforcement could do about it. Now in Season 5, over-emphasizing spectacle instead of the show’s signature mystique would make for a disappointing conclusion to a series that has the potential to be in the television hall of fame.
The ending to “Game of Thrones,” “Dexter” and various other shows have had fanbases on edge for the last decade, and now with the biggest current series coming to an end, the fans deserve a satisfying culmination more than ever. It doesn’t need to reach any heights it hasn’t before. Instead, “Stranger Things 5” has a mission of even higher stakes to accomplish. A mission to end the series with care and keep the rest of the seasons’ legendary legacy as untarnished as possible.
