Welcome back to our spoiler-filled thoughts on Stranger Things 5, continuing to cover the episodes released on November 26, 2025, in the run-up to Vol. 2’s premiere on Christmas evening.
Written and directed by the Duffer brothers
The party are left reeling from the Demogorgon’s attack on the Wheeler household. Eleven heads into the Upside Down. Tensions arise between Steve, Jonathan, and Dustin. Robin takes Will under her wing. Mike and Nancy turn their attention to Holly’s imaginary friend.
The most intense cold open of all time?
Not wasting time on following on from the season premiere’s cliffhanger, “The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler” delivers with a long, and absolutely nerve-wracking opening where Karen and (however briefly) Ted protect their youngest daughter from her monstrous kidnapper. It’s great that the rest of the Wheelers finally got to discover Mike and Nancy’s secret, and Cara Buono looked especially badass participating in the action after so long, but goodness: I genuinely believed she and Ted were goners after seeing them both of them lying bloodied on the floor.
They’re both very lucky to still be alive, and that this isn’t the kind of show to just dispense of longtime cast members, because the showrunners would’ve been fully justified killing them off to establish the stakes going into the final season. Regardless, the danger is now clearly higher than ever, and the enmity between the Wheelers and Vecna has become a lot more personal (especially for Nancy, who had the most reason to hope he was dead after she blew multiple holes in him last season).
Father-daughter time
There’s been some speculation online that Hopper’s solo mission to the Upside Down was a result of having to accomodate David Harbour‘s busy schedule, as he was filming Thunderbolts* around the same time as season five. Whatever the case, he’s not alone for long, reuniting with his adopted daughter when she comes charging in while tracking the Demogorgon, leaving him understandably bewildered, especially with how awkward of a communicator she still is.
The two have an overdue talk while she tends to his bullet wound about why he’s so overly protective of her. It’s wild to look back and realize this is the most screentime they’ve have had together since the start of season three, after he was whisked away at the end to spend the fourth in Siberia, but as with many things on this show, better late than never. The topic of his late first daughter, Sara, resurfaces to pull on our heartstrings all over again: basically, he feels if one of them dies, it better be him than her, as he can’t live through that again.
Afterwards, the pair discover the giant, moist wall of flesh that prevents them from reaching Holly’s location. I was avoiding the comparison earlier while discussing killing characters off, but it has to be said: what is this, Goo of Thrones?
Frayed friendships…
Steve and Jonathan squabble when the former fails to hide his disappointment at his absence from Nancy’s side at the hospital, only finding common ground when Dustin shows up, refusing to give the true reason for his absence during “the [dungeon] crawl,” and the injuries he got fighting the Hawkins Tigers. Firstly, it’s so funny how much Steve’s grown as a person since season one that he’s now the one who rightfully finds Jonathan a questionable boyfriend.
Secondly, it’s sad how much Dustin and Steve have grown apart, after being such an inseparable duo for so long. Hopefully, the ghost of Eddie Munson (figurative or otherwise) convinces Dustin to be truthful (something of a major theme this episode it seems), and not take the surrogate big brother who’s still in his life for granted, just as Jonathan needs to remember “shared trauma” won’t keep him and Nancy together forever.
… and a beautiful new one
It appears Joyce hasn’t seen Back to the Future, because Robin uses its dialogue while concocting a way for Will to leave the radio station, and hunt down Vecna the way he wanted. Robin was pretty high on the drugs the Soviets used on her when she saw the movie in season three, so it’s great she did get to watch it (presumably at the VHS store) without any undue influence. You have to wonder if she’s done this before, given her double life as a lesbian in the 1980s. And on that note, Robin and Will’s friendship is really lovely, even though she probably has no idea he has a crush on Mike yet, and is understandably nervous even asking about what he saw when she was kissing Vickie in the hospital.
The big reveal that doesn’t feel like one
Will & Robin, and Mike & Nancy each uncover that Vecna is still alive, and that Holly is only the first of many children he’s preyed on under the guise of Henry Whatsit (a combination of his birth name, and Mrs. Whatsit from A Wrinkle in Time.) It feels fairly anticlimactic, because it was very unlikely that Mr. Whatsit was anyone other than Vecna (although if he’d been Max, that would’ve been an fun play on her unisex name.) Regardless, the characters, and by extension we the audience, now have an idea of who he’ll strike next, and it’s good the heroes aren’t just waiting around for the next victim like in season four.
And it’s on the creepy note of Vecna/Whatsit taking Holly into the recreation of his childhood home that I leave you all on. See you see next week for a breakdown of “The Turnbow Trap.”
