It’s only fitting that the final season of Stranger Things takes us right back to the beginning. In the first five minutes of the premiere episode — which debuted during the Stranger Things 5 virtual watch party — we were transported to 1983, when the town of Hawkins was first torn apart following the mysterious disappearance of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp).

Titled “The Crawl,” the episode opens somewhere deep inside the Upside Down’s forest. Will is alone and terrified, huddled inside a makeshift fort when an eerie cracking sound causes him to bolt upright. A menacing Demogorgon is just outside and ready to attack, forcing Will to run through the forest and up a tree. The Demogorgon catches up and drags him into Vecna’s decrepit lair, made even creepier as red lightning flashes overhead.

There, our villain emerges from the shadows. If you need any kind of reminder of just how uneasy Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) is on the eyes, well, here you go. The gruesome figure approaches Will, who’s wrapped up in his vines. “At long last, we can begin,” he says, before snaking one of the vines directly into Will’s mouth and overpowering him. As Will gasps for air, Vecna runs a clawed hand across his forehead. “You and I, we’re going to do such beautiful things together.” 

Chills. We’ll have to wait until Nov. 26 at 5 p.m. PT, when the first four episodes of Stranger Things 5 are released, to find out what happens next — though we do have a few hints of what’s to come.

After that initial terrifying flashback, Vecna is nowhere to be found. Our heroes are left scrambling and — to make matters worse — the government has placed Hawkins under military quarantine. “As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread,” the official synopsis reads. “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.”

There won’t be any prelude to the action this season: Expect to be thrown headfirst into chaos. “We usually set up their normal life and how they’re going about school, and then we introduce the supernatural element,” series co-creator Ross Duffer previously told Tudum. “But in this case, this season is sprinting from the start.” 

Series co-creator Matt Duffer added, “Nothing in Hawkins is normal anymore…their movement is restricted, and there are Big Brother cameras everywhere. So not only are they active — their everyday, normal lives are anything but.”

The Upside Down will be more fully explored as well, with lore pulled from a 25-page mythology document the Duffer brothers wrote for Netflix back in Season 1. “The last remaining questions that are answered in that document, we’ve punted a couple of those to have some big reveals in Season 5,” Ross Duffer said. “And that’s really going to affect what Season 5 is about.”

Will the Hawkins crew defeat Vecna once and for all? What other secrets lie inside the dark, twisted world of the Upside Down? Tune in for the first four episodes of Stranger Things 5 on Nov. 26, followed by three episodes
on Christmas, and The Finale
on New Year’s Eve. Find out when new episodes arrive in your part of the world here. If you need a refresher on everything that went down in previous seasons, be sure to check out our recaps for seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4.