The fifth and final season of Netflix's Stranger Things arrives this November, and Empire Magazine has unveiled a new look at the incredibly popular sci-fi horror series via its latest covers.
A lot of characters have come and gone over the course of the previous four seasons, but this artwork highlights the original core five of Mike Wheeler, Eleven, Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, and Will Byers, aka "The Party."
“Now we’re in the final season, we don’t have to hold anything back,” co-creator Matt Duffer tells Empire. “We didn’t want to tie everything into a perfect bow, but I think we answer most questions and resolve every arc,” adds his brother Ross. “It was our intention to write a definitive ending to this story.”
There is obviously a lot of pressure on everyone involved with the series to deliver a satisfying conclusion, and Finn Wolfhard (Mike) admits that there was some concern heading in that fans would give the final season the Game of Thrones treatment.
“I think everyone was pretty worried, honestly. The way that Game of Thrones got torn to shreds in that final season, we’re all walking into this going, ‘We hope to not have that kind of thing happen.’ But then we read the scripts. We knew that it was something special,” the actor said in an interview with Time Magazine.
According to the official synopsis: “The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding."
“As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they’ve faced before. To end this nightmare, they’ll need everyone — the full party — standing together, one last time.”
In the season 4 finale, Eleven and her friends managed to defeat the evil entity known as Vecna, but at great cost. Eddie was killed (there's been some speculation that he might return, but we're not buying it), and Max was left blind, broken and in a coma.
Vecna - who was ultimately revealed to be the deranged Henry Creel - was vanquished, but It was only a temporary victory, as the concluding moments of the episode confirmed that dark forces in the Upside-down are amassing for what will almost certainly be a massive final battle.
Are you up to date with Stranger Things? If so, what do you hope to see from this final season?