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 by Caitlin Schneiderhan
Directed by Frank Darabont
The party plots to spirit away Vecna’s next victim, school bully Derek Turnbow (Jake Connelly), and implant a tracker in the Demogorgon that’s going to take him. Eleven and Hopper continue to run into resistance in the Upside Down, while Holly makes herself at home in the Creel residence.
Welcome back Frank
This episode marks the first work directed by Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist) since 2013’s Mob City. It’s something of a homecoming for him, given he wrote A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, and his association with major series inspiration Stephen King, but what makes his presence even more awesome is how he got to direct what’s arguably the most funny and unhinged scene in the entire series to date.
Erica drugging the whole Turnbow family is staged so much like a slasher film it’s incredible, and more than any other scene on Stranger Things, it’s the one that would be the most interesting to share out-of-context with someone who hasn’t watched the show. Just imagine if it was the first footage you ever saw from it! The show can be quite funny and dark, but never to the level of the jawdropping combination here until now.
Erica and Mr. Clarke too!
As you might have surmised, Erica Sinclair’s return after her absence in the season’s first two episodes was well worth the wait, although it does feel a bit cartoonish that she’s so reluctant to help her brother and his friends rescue Holly until she realizes it’s a chance to enact revenge on Derek’s sister Tina (Caroline Elle Abrams). I get she’s meant to be only 13, but this is serious!
Her entrance also sees the return of Randy Havens as science teacher Scott Clarke, who was absent from the fourth season as a result of the boys and Max moving into high school. Whether or not he makes a bigger comeback later in the season, let’s hope he’s continuing to enjoy his life of ignorant bliss offscreen, still listening to Weird Al, and subjecting his dates to horror movies while explaining the visual effects in them.
Stranger danger
Vecna is arguably creepier as a Pied Piper figure “befriending” children than a rotting Freddy Krueger analogue. His Whatsit persona, complete with hat, feels like a pastor, whose positions of trust and authority have been exploited by predators to harm children in the real world, especially in the era when Stranger Things is set, before those abuses became widely reported. There’s something very Bluebeard about the way Holly inherits his sister’s clothes too, bringing to mind the problem of child “brides” in the States.
His clothing, glasses, and high voice also (surprisingly) resembles Michael Jackson. Admittedly, Jackson wore sunglasses, not regular ones, and his suits/hats were very specific to certain eras, but it’s an pertinent comparison given the allegations about him. You have to wonder if the creators considered emphasizing the parallel by having Vecna’s alter-ego appear to adults as well as children, only to realize it would’ve raised too many suspicions from the main characters.
“And we took it personally”
Stranger Things has sometimes been dubbed conservative or libertarian thanks to its setting, the way everything that transpires is the government’s fault, and the Soviets’ villainous role. (Speaking of whom, where are Antonov and his family now?) It seems the Duffers began to respond last season, with the incorporation of the Satanic Panic into the storyline, and we get another acknowledgment of the decade’s toxic side with Derek’s parents being Republicans (“Tina, get the door, and be polite. Unless it’s a Mormon. Or a Democrat”), indirectly explaining why the boy is such an awful little shit.
And then there’s the villainous role the US military itself plays, which culiminates in the sequence here where Hopper and El interrogate the captured Lt. Akers (Alex Breaux). It’s an intense and morally murky scene, where it becomes readily apparent that Akers truly has no idea who or what Kay has secured in her facility, no matter how much El presses on his mind while Hopper begs and pleads for him to relent. Still, we’re not really meant to sympathize with Akers, whom Hopper characterizes as a freak who loves indulging in war crimes, reinforcing how Ronald Reagan is as much of a big bad here as Mikhail Gorbachev.
Other assorted things…
The episode’s titular climax is absolutely terrific, as is the sequence where Hopper goes Rambo on Akers’s men while Eleven is immobilized by their high-frequency weapons. Virtually everything with Robin, Will, and Joyce are wonderful too, including the scene where he finally stands up to his mother about being overly protective of him. There’s also the excellent reveal that Jonathan plans to propose to Nancy, the cliffhanger of Derek prematurely waking up, and Max’s surprise comeback at the end.
Sometimes, when a show as entertainining and enjoyable as Stranger Things has as much going on as it does, it’s hard to break down and deconstruct every single aspect of it, so all you can do is sit back and smile.
See you all soon for the breakdown of the midseason finale, “Sorcerer.”
