**This article contains spoilers for for Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1**
Following a Netflix site crash and nearly 5 hours of TV runtime, Stranger Things Season 5 has skyrocketed to the top of the Netflix charts and is one of the highest-rated IMDb premieres of all time. With such strong critical reviews, Volume 1 sets up the dramatic climax that’s sure to come. Here’s everything you missed and what’s predicted to come in Volume 2.
Stranger Things season 5 Volume 1 recap
Volume 1 opens with an introduction to the military blockade and lockdown in Hawkins, with very few people able to enter or leave the city. We see Robin and Steve have picked up a job at the WSQK Radio Station, as well as Nancy and Jonathan helping them out. Murray has become a smuggler for this crew, bringing them any supplies they need for their missions.
The Wheelers and the Byers are now living together in the Wheeler house, which makes things… a little crowded. The four main boys, Lucas, Mike, Will, and Dustin, are still going to school, and we see Dustin struggling with the jocks there. He fights to keep Eddie’s memory alive and has fallen into a deep depression. He later gets beaten up at Eddie’s grave by the jocks.
The crew is working on “crawls,” missions in which Hopper enters the Upside Down to search for Vecna’s remains. The crawl in Episode 1, however, goes completely wrong when a Demogorgon attacks the Wheelers, and Hopper becomes stranded in the Upside Down.
Holly Wheeler, Nancy and Mike’s younger sister, is also kidnapped by a Demogorgon, only to be followed by Eleven, who also becomes trapped in the Upside Down. Karen and Ted Wheeler are severely injured by a Demogorgon at this point.
After using Will’s connection to the hive mind, the group discovered that Vecna is targeting young children and creates a “Turnbow Trap” using one of his next victims, Derek Turnbow, to track a Demogorgon and find Holly. This plan eventually fails as Steve, Dustin, Nancy, and Jonathan end up stuck in the Upside Down.
Holly is being held in a fantasy-esque world, which ends up being revealed as Vecna’s mind-scape. Later in the season, it’s revealed that this is where Max has been all along, too, which is why Eleven hasn’t been able to find her in The Void. Max explains how she’s been able to hide from Vecna since her “death,” and she and Holly make a plan to escape his labyrinthine mind.
We end Volume 1 with Mike, Robin, and Lucas all simultaneously being attacked by Demogorgons with seemingly no rescue after failing to keep the other kids targeted from being kidnapped. However, at this moment, we see Will Byers tap into his connection with the Upside Down and release his powers. With his newly discovered powers, Will kills the three Demogorgons targeting his friends and embraces his new self. This discovery is the cliffhanger of Volume 1.
Trailers and Theories
Diving into what wasn’t in Volume 1 but hinted at in the trailers, we see scenes of Eleven fighting, and Jonathan, Nancy, Steve, and Dustin still stuck in the Upside Down.
Following Dustin’s big reveal that the center of the Upside Down is the Hawkins Lab, it makes sense that we see the group travel to said location. At the lab, the group, in their same Volume 1 outfits, sees an electrical explosion with red lightning spread all across the sky. This electrical explosion could potentially bring down the huge wall encircling the Upside Down of Hawkins.
There are scenes of Dustin and Steve hugging with a look of pure terror on Dustin’s face, as well as Jonathan and Nancy holding their heads together, crying. It looks like this group won’t get a break this time around in the Upside Down. It also appears that the group might make it back to deceased Eddie Munson’s trailer, as we see them reprise their Season 4 Upside Down combat outfits.
Eventually, this group makes it back to Hawkins as we see Nancy shoot down military officers in the town square, aka the MAC-Z. Dr. Kay, the director of the Upside Down lab, is here as well. We also see Jonathan embrace his brother and his friends in a hug back at the radio station.
The trailer shows Will passed out, with Joyce and Mike looking down on him, presumably resting after discovering his powers and killing three Demogorgons. They’re back at the WSQK, and it looks like morning.
We then see Mike and El before El goes into a bathtub to enter the void and try to reach someone mentally. This confirms that El has come back from the Upside Down, as she’s in a new outfit and is in Hop’s cabin. This doesn’t mean that she didn’t put up a fight to come back to Hawkins, though, as we see her in her Volume 1 outfit fighting a storm in the Upside Down.
The last scene audiences are shown is Lucas helping a comatose Max escape from a Demogorgon attack at the hospital. Lucas carries both Max and her boombox in his arms as he runs from the Demodogs and hides behind patient beds to keep her safe.
One last theory that fans have come up with is regarding Holly and the powers of her Dungeons & Dragons character, which Mike gave her earlier in the season. To escape from Mr. Whatsit, Holly may create her own Dimension Doors like Mike hinted at in their scene in Episode 1.
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 drops at 8 p.m. EST on Christmas Day, with the finale dropping a week later on New Year’s Eve. Tune in to see what happens based on where we left off.
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