Picture: SFX Magazine
Over the past few weeks, numerous outlets have led extended coverage previewing what’s to come in the fifth and final season of Stranger Things. It’s going to be a juggernaut of a season, and this week, we got even more insights into what’s coming up in season 5 courtesy of a cover story on SFX Magazine (a part of CinemaBlend) in the United Kingdom. Here’s what we learned.
There’s a bunch in this 20-page feature, which features interviews with some of the main cast and The Duffer Brothers, and it’s well worth picking up if you can, as we’re only going to cover the tip of the iceberg. SFX issue 398 is now available in most UK shops, and you can also find it on services like MagazinesDirect or Readly. You can also find a bunch of their coverage online via the SFX hub on CinemaBlend, with their article on the new issue being here.
Darren Scott, editor at SFX, says the team has been gearing up for this moment for a long time. “Just like season five, our coverage of the Stranger Things finale has been years in the making, quite literally, as conversations with Netflix span right back to the end of season four! What a journey… if you think the kids have aged, you should see me now.” He adds that SFX has been with the show since the very beginning. “SFX has supported Stranger Things right from the launch of season one, we’ve provided multiple covers and huge amounts of features. And quite right too, it’s a modern phenomenon. In the 30 years SFX has been in print, we’ve only seen such a response to a handful of shows, like Buffy, The X-Files and Doctor Who, so our coverage had to reflect that for the season five finale.”
That scale of response led them to go big. “That’s why we decided to go all out, with 20 pages of exclusive new interviews, variant covers, new photos and specially created posters, stickers and an art card that you can’t get anywhere else.” And it is only the beginning. “But of course that’s not all, we’re planning to do it all again for Volume Two! Yes, that means more covers, more interviews, more goodies… Oh those SPOILERS! Our lips are sealed!” He notes that coordinating it across two releases has taken real strategy. “So it’s been even more planning than we’d anticipated, because we needed to ensure we were hitting the correct points with the cast and crew for Volume One and then again for Volume Two, and tie that all in with the release dates.” Scott ends with a playful rallying cry: “Hopefully everyone will think it’s worth it and pick up the issues so we’re still here to do it all again for Tales From ’85 next year… Buy magazines, nerds!”
Picture courtesy of SFX Magazine
Cast Revelations from Stranger Things Season 5 SFX Issue
Throughout their coverage, they spoke to four of the main cast members: Finn Wolfhard in a piece labeled The Paladin, Caleb McLaughlin in The Ranger, Noah Schapp as The Cleric, and Gaten Matarazzo as The Bard.
Finn Wolfhard said that Mike returns to a leadership role this season, similar to how he was in the early days of the show. With Hawkins under quarantine and Vecna’s threat escalating, Mike is firmly in “mission mode.” “We’re all seeing red,” Wolfhard told SFX. “We’re all just on a mission to finish this and try to find Vecna.”
He noted that the season draws clear parallels with season one, both in character dynamics and emotional tone, while also being the biggest yet in terms of action and set scale. “The set builds for this season are out of control,” he said, adding that much of his storyline was filmed on large practical sets rather than greenscreen.
Wolfhard noted that prior seasons have all had their own themes, but wasn’t sure what applied to season 5. He went on to describe that parts of the season as having an “almost Coen Brothers-y” vibe and quality. As for Mike’s ending, Wolfhard was deeply moved by how it concludes. “It was bigger than I could have imagined. Reading that for the first time was definitely a super-emotional experience.”
Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Lucas in Stranger Things, shared how the final season feels both like a return to the show’s beginnings and a culmination of everything the characters have endured. He described it as “a mixture of season one and season four” and noted that it feels more grounded now that the cast has grown up and the characters have “darkened over the seasons.”
The emotional stakes are especially heavy for Lucas, who is still grappling with Max’s condition. “He thinks it’s his fault because he could have helped her,” McLaughlin told SFX. “There’s a lot of trauma for him in that way.” That pain has sharpened into determination. “There’s definitely some vengeful thoughts, even in his heart, and he wants the revival of Max and her well-being.”
Reflecting on filming the final chapter, McLaughlin said, “I wanted to make sure I delivered Lucas’s character,” explaining that the cast spent an entire year shooting. It was “a good challenge,” he explains, that pushed him, especially knowing this was his last opportunity to fully express who Lucas has become.
Noah Schnapp said season five digs deeper into why Will was the first taken and how his connection to the Upside Down has evolved. “They definitely get into more of the why? What? Why him? Why was he the first taken?” he told SFX, adding that revisiting early settings felt “full circle and nostalgic.” The season opens with a de-aged Will, created by mapping Schnapp’s expressions onto a younger actor, resulting in “this cool little flashback scene” that echoes the show’s earliest mysteries. He added that Will’s emotional arc, including his sexuality, has always been part of the plan. “As we’ve gotten more recent, they’ve explored it more because our show is ending, and they have to close up the story.” Playing that journey, he said, “helped me fully feel more confident in my own.”
Speaking about letting the character go, Schnapp said, “I’ve played him for so long, I’m so ready to play another character. Will Byers is my baby; I love him dearly. But is it hard for me to let go? I’d say I’m more excited to explore what’s next for acting purposes, but I love him, and he’s shaped me, and I’ve shaped him, and I’m so thankful that I’ve gotten to play that character for all these years.”
Gaten Matarazzo shared how Eddie’s death continues to weigh heavily on Dustin in season five. Traditionally, the group’s comic relief, Dustin, begins the season in a far more withdrawn state. After witnessing Eddie’s death “up close,” Matarazzo said Dustin is left carrying something no one else can quite understand. “It happened with him, like he was the only one really there,” he explained. The actor also told the outlet filming season 5 was like “filming eight movies,” echoing Finn’s earlier sentiments that everything feels bigger. Teasing the final season, he said, “Five is definitely higher-stakes and has a lot of action and builds on what season four laid the foundation for.”
When asked about the ending, Matarazzo said, “It was definitely hard to sit with,” referring to reading the final script, adding that the cast all read the scripts for seven and eight in confined spaces over separate days. “That was a big day,” referring to reading the final episode, “A long day.”
Additional insights from the interviews are that the Duffer Brothers essentially “tricked” the director Frank Darabont into coming out of retirement to shoot two episodes this season, even though he initially wasn’t keen on night shoots.
The pair mostly covered season 5 but did touch on Stranger Things: Tales from ’85, releasing in early 2026. While we’ve known much about the story before, we haven’t heard the Duffers explain succinctly the purpose of the series quite as well as they did in this particular excerpt: “The cartoon goes back and fills in a six-month gap that we weren’t able to explore,” Ross Duffer told SFX, “It’s fun because you get to see them as little kids again, but it’s not really again.”
Will the characters ever come back? SFX’s interview suggests no. “This really is the end of the story of Eleven and Mike and Lucas and Dustin and Steve and all these characters, and Hawkins specifically,” the duo said.
In case you’ve missed any of the other big revelations from recent Stranger Things cover stories, we’ve got a big recap of those in the link provided.
Update: Some quotes were incorrect; they have been corrected.
Are you excited for Stranger Things Season 5? Let us know in the comments.
Rating: TV-14
