STRANGER THINGS: SEASON 5. Noah Schnapp as Will Byers in Stranger Things: Season 5. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025
Stranger Things Volume 2 is here, and it was a frustrating return to Hawkins and the Upside Down. We are sprinting toward the finish, yet the pacing and editing are so jarring that the story often feels stuck in place or going too slowly, considering we’re now at the end. It is time to say it plainly. Splitting this season into three parts was a massive mistake.
If you are like me, you have just devoured all the episodes and are now left waiting one more week for the finale. Unlike after the first four episodes, though, I am nowhere near as hyped. Instead, I am conflicted, a little confused, and frankly tired by what I have seen so far. I cannot shake the fear that we are heading toward another Game of Thrones season 8 scenario. I hope not, but the thought refuses to now leave my head. While this is not a full review, I do want to air out my frustrations, so take this for what it is: a laundry list of thoughts as we wait for the finale.
The core issue is pacing, particularly in Volume 2, which should have been ratcheting up the tension as we barrel toward the final two hours. Yes, we only have a little over two hours left to resolve everything, which is genuinely alarming. Instead of escalation, we get constant retreading of familiar ground, far too many laugh-out-loud moments where you are laughing at the show rather than with it, and a series of questionable writing decisions.
There is no shortage of frustrations. Eleven is sidelined for much of the first half, the adults, especially Joyce and Hopper, feel noticeably dumbed down, and the show continues to indulge in relationship drama while the literal end of the world looms. So much of this feels half-baked. Ultimately, it comes down to scope. Eight episodes simply do not feel like enough given how much ground the story needs to cover, especially with the additional plotlines the Duffers have introduced, including Kali and Dr. Kay continuing Brenner’s experiments (which should be a big deal but is given so little time), all while juggling a massive ensemble cast. There is no room for the plot or the characters to breathe, and that problem traces back to the season 4 cliffhanger.
STRANGER THINGS: SEASON 5. (L to R) Nell Fisher as Holly Wheeler and Jamie Campbell Bower as Henry Creel in Stranger Things: Season 5. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025
Will’s coming-out scene has been the most contentious moment by far.
Saving it for the end and presenting it as a kind of Volume 2 finale felt anticlimactic and jarring. What could have been a sombre, intimate moment, with Will revealing his most personal truth to those closest to him, instead plays out in front of everyone. The reasoning behind that choice is unclear. Yes, it is reassuring to see immediate acceptance, but the stakes never quite make sense. Vecna knows everything about Will, so he has to come out. But why, exactly? Was Vecna going to out him to his friends as a threat? Even for a show set in the 1980s, that does not feel like a particularly compelling or believable plot device. The moment raises more questions than it answers.
Beyond the narrative issues, the editing itself feels off throughout this volume. At times, it feels like watching that looping GIF where a truck is about to hit a post but never does.
More than once, I caught myself rolling my eyes as characters approached a revelation or a decisive action, only for the show to cut away and reset to another storyline. This constant thread-jumping, combined with how often we revisit the same information, makes the season feel stagnant. That frustration is especially pronounced in Vecna’s Mind, where we repeatedly circle familiar ideas, only to be yanked away just as something genuinely revelatory, like the near-reveal of Henry Creel’s full origin, is about to land.
Since the season 4 finale, the show has also struggled to communicate whether there is any real-time pressure on the apocalypse. That lack of urgency is most evident in the final part of escpaing Henry’s mind with Max and Holly in the red hellscape. We cut away from crucial backstory revelations just seconds before, only to return to extended emotional exposition while their escape routes patiently wait. The tension and time imperative is just gone. Henry’s entire strategy involved flushing his enemies out, so surely Max would understand the urgency here.
STRANGER THINGS: SEASON 5. (L to R) Nell Fisher as Holly Wheeler and Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield in Stranger Things: Season 5. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025
Unsurprisingly, these frustrations have spilled over onto social media, with some of the newer episodes already ranking among the lowest-rated in the show’s history on IMDb.
That said, there is still plenty to like. The quieter, character-focused moments remain the show’s strongest asset. Max and Lucas reuniting is easily the highlight of the season so far. Murray continues to be reliably hilarious, particularly in his scenes teasing Mr. Scott Clarke, who is shacked up with the school librarian before vanishing entirely in the final stretch. Dustin has been consistently excellent this season, and his scenes with Steve and dealing with the fallout of Eddie’s sacrifice is very well done.
Was the three-part split strategy for season 5 a mistake?
Some of these pacing issues are almost certainly a byproduct of the split-season release. The reaction today would likely feel very different if we had the context of the final episode. This did not play like a penultimate chapter or even a traditional mid-season finale, despite clearly being positioned as one.
It is worth noting that while release plans for Stranger Things have shifted repeatedly, the season was long expected to be split in two. We even reported earlier this year that Netflix was eyeing an October and November release window. Further leaks and internal documentation sent to third-party merchandise partners supported that plan.
The Duffers have since confirmed that separating the finale was Netflix’s idea, which ultimately led to the theatrical release scheduled for January 1st. In an earlier interview with SFX, they also noted that the season was originally designed as a two-part story from the outset.
The move to split it into three appears to have come late in the process, and it shows. The pacing feels off, and the lack of a meaningful cliffhanger pales in comparison to the near-perfect ending of episode four. If you were going to do the three-parter, it should’ve been designed from the get-go first and foremost and mimicked Cobra Kai which was set across 15 episodes and gave everyone the satisfying fanservice and conclusions that we deserved.
Those are my thoughts on season 5, Volume 2. With any luck, I will be happily eating my words next week.
Rating: TV-14
