Nearly a decade after its debut, Stranger Things is coming to a close. The Netflix sci-fi series announced Saturday, during the streaming company's Tudum 2025 live fan event, that the eight episodes of the show's fifth and final season will be released in three batches, USA Today reports: Volume 1 (four episodes) on Nov. 26, aka "Thanksgiving Eve"; Volume 2 (three episodes) on Christmas, and the final episode on New Year's Eve. The episodes will reportedly drop at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific on each of those three dates. Season four, which was released in 2022, concluded in March 1986, Business Insider reports. Sadie Sink's character, Max, was left in a coma after the series' villain, Vecna, took control of her body, Variety reports.
Per a Netflix synopsis, season five opens in fall, 1987, with the show's heroes "united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished—his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding. As the anniversary of Will's disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming—and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they've faced before. To end this nightmare, they'll need everyone—the full party—standing together, one last time." (More Stranger Things stories.)