First Teaser Appears For Stranger Things Season 5

Ho boy, I woke up this morning to see the Stranger Things Season 5 teaser is out. This is the one video I’ve been waiting three long years to see, a possible answer to all my questions, and a possible downer to my day if it reveals something awful. With great nervousness and trepidation, I hit the Play button. Here goes nothing!

One of the biggest questions that has been hovering over this season is what, exactly, will be the state of Hawkins in 1 1/2 years. The way Season Four ended, the situation seemed pretty urgent! The clouds and ash were billowing from large cracks in the ground! The scenery was rapidly transforming! If there was really going to be a time skip, wouldn’t the place be an uninhabitable wasteland by 1987? Yet early footage of filming suggested no such thing. We saw the core gang in school. How could they still be going to the same school?

Here’s what happened: the military got the situation under control. Kind of. They beat the Upside Down back with fire and now, periodically, they roast the contamination zone, which has been blocked from public access. This is obviously not a permanent solution and when Vecna gets better — and he clearly will, if those last few seconds are not a dream — everyone and everything is toast. Unless our heroes can find a solution.

The new footage doesn’t tell us much beyond that. Most of the scenes are of people running and hiding from stuff, and…well, wouldn’t you? We do know a large radio tower will play a role. It’s prominent in the footage and it’s visible in the poster Netflix revealed yesterday. But one of the BIGGEST questions — where the whole thing with Max is going — remains a complete mystery. The season’s second episode had part of its title blanked out: “THE VANISHING OF _______.” My theory is that the missing name is Max Mayfield, and that she becomes the newest body for the Mind Flayer to possess. But I’ve been wrong before. It’s actually a good thing I’m uncertain about Max or about the resolution as a whole. You don’t want the show to be predictable.

Wait a minute…rewind tape.

It’s Lucas hiding from a Demodog and…is that Max? Has he got Max? That doesn’t look like her hospital room either. She’s still in the gown, she could still be comatose, but…what if she isn’t? Where’s this leading?

I just hope for one thing in the end: that no one sacrifices themselves. El must live!

With this teaser comes specific numbers for how Netflix will roll this out. The season is eight episodes long. We’ll get four episodes on November 26, three on Christmas, and the last one (which is sure to be longer than most movies) on New Year’s. In the meantime, you can jam to new Stranger Things adventures, which are set back in 1985, on my webcomic. New issue comes soon!