First look at Stranger Things season 5 reveals new characters, fan-favorite team-ups, and a possible time jump
Possible spoilers follow for Strange things season 5.
Netflix has a brand new take on Strange things season 5 – and fans of the hugely popular show are busy unraveling its secrets.
The behind-the-scenes (BTS) teaser released yesterday (July 15) on the eighth anniversary of the hit series’ Netflix debut gave us our best look yet at Strange things‘ fifth and final entry. Understandably, the BTS trailer doesn’t reveal anything of a spoiler-based nature. The bulk of the footage is devoted to the series’ main cast, plus showrunners Ross and Matt Duffer, discussing their thoughts and feelings ahead of the show’s final season, with that commentary played over clips that don’t give too much away about the plot.
That said, the two-minute video does give us some interesting new details about Stranger Things 5For starters, it looks like the long-awaited fifth installment will feature a time jump, with fans on Reddit pointing out that Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven Has Longer Hair then she was in Strange things season 4, while Joe Keery’s Steve is spotted with shoes that only came onto the market in early 1987 – a full year after the events of Season 5’s predecessor. Oh, and let’s not forget that, with the show’s young cast aging faster than their fictional counterparts, Stranger Things 5 needs to be moved a year or two into the future so they can grow up in the universe and in real life.
The teaser also confirms that Season 5, as previously discussed by the Duffer brothers, will feature fan-favorite team-ups. From the “core four” — Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Will (Noah Schnapp) — reuniting, to Nancy (Natalie Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) reuniting, Stranger Things 5 goes back to the roots of the beloved group dynamics front.
Who Plays Nell Fisher, Alex Breaux, and Jake Connelly in Stranger Things 5?
Nell Fisher (“Evil Dead Rise”), Alex Breaux (“Waco: The Aftermath”) and newcomer Jake Connelly have joined the cast of #StrangerThings5! pic.twitter.com/aBI6bIVqHqJuly 15, 2024
As the teaser confirms, Strange things season 5 won’t just add one new cast Terminator icon Linda Hamilton. Announced in a press release accompanying the BTS teaser, Netflix also revealed that three actors had joined the cast of the critically acclaimed show: Nell Fisher, Alex Breaux and Jake Connelly.
Fisher, who readers may recognize from 2023’s Evil Dead Riseappears to be playing an older version of Holly Wheeler, Nancy and Mike’s younger sister. In the teaser, Fisher’s Holly sees the lights in the Wheeler household flicker on two separate occasions — we all know what that usually means — before she seemingly stumbles into a less-than-pleasant scene in the kitchen of her childhood home.
As for Breaux (Waco: The Aftermath) and newcomer Connelly, their character identities are a mystery. From the brief clips we see of Breaux, it appears he will play some sort of secret agent, or one of Colonel Sullivan’s military men, investigating what’s happening in Hawkins and/or trying to track down Eleven, who Sullivan still believes is responsible for the many student deaths in Season 4. Connelly appears to be a new companion for Erica Sinclair (Lucas’ younger sister, played by Priah Ferguson). Redditors seem to think his name will be Derek, but Netflix has not officially confirmed this yet.
In August 2022, the Duffer brothers said IndieWire that Season 5 would focus on the show’s core cast, with newcomers only introduced if they would serve the story by being “integral to the narrative.” So it’s clear that this new trio – plus Hamilton’s unnamed individual (at least publicly) – will be important cogs in the storytelling machine. Let’s hope they contribute to the overall story, rather than taking screen time away from the main cast of one of Netflix’s best shows.