Rating, ranting, and discussing this amazing 6 hours and 52 minutes of my life binge-watching this Netflix show.

Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1

How is this show, actually? It’s amazing — totally recommended. The creators and producers of the show, the Duffer Brothers (Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer), have eaten and left no crumbs. Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 delivers what was promised.
Horror — check
Science fiction — yes, a bit
Mystery — oh my God
Fantasy — check
Coming-of-age drama — oh hell yes

The cinematography is amazing. The cuts are seamless. The VFX/CGI is top-notch.

Volume 1 of Stranger Things has four episodes (The Crawl, The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler, The Turnbow Trap, Sorcerer).

From the very first episode, i.e., The Crawl, the show grabs the audience’s attention. It pulls the audience into its world — mystery, tension, drama, and Vecna. The show has done a great job with exposition. They didn’t spoon-feed information to the audience about what happened, but gave it in a way that didn’t slow the pace. Amazing dialogue writing.

Across all seasons of Stranger Things, what keeps the audience binge-watching isn’t just the flower-headed creature with thorns in its mouth (the Demogorgon) or the mind-controlling psychic, or the terrifying desert version of  white-walker-looking villain Vecna. It’s the bond between the characters.
It’s how the characters react to each other. There is warmth. There is chemistry. There are real emotions.

In Season 5 Volume 1, there isn’t much camaraderie between Dustin and Steve Harrington. There are no fun banters between these two guys like in the previous seasons.

The trio — Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan, and Steve Harrington — works nicely. It was summed up perfectly by this line from Robin to Nancy about Jonathan and Steve:
“What is it about your presence that brings out their inner Neanderthal?”

El and Hopper’s bond is dramatic — stubborn daughter and overly cautious father. But the bond that steals the show is the trio: Robin, Will, and Joyce. The way Robin interacts with Will gives total positive vibes. Robin is such a golden-retriever-Pro-Max character, and Will — damn, he looks snatched. Innocent-looking, green eyes, traumatic past, psychic power he can’t control — who wouldn’t fall for this guy? And ofcourse the bond between will and Mike is special. 

There isn’t much room for criticism, as the first volume delivers what was promised and expected: horror, drama, mystery, and coming-of-age themes with an epic end battle in the military headquarters and Hawkins Lab in the Upside Down.

Waiting for Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 on December 26, 2025. It will be interesting to see what happens when Vecna faces the wrath of the three psychokinetic powerhouses.