‘Stranger Things 5’ first look at Vecna ‘rebuilt’ and more Duffer secrets from trailer (exclusive)

“At long last, we can begin.”

Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) arrives in full view in the new Stranger Things season 5 trailer, which sees the transmogrified form of Henry Creel (a.k.a. One) come face to face with Will Byers (Noah Schnapp). Levitating an immobilized Will towards him, the living nightmare ominously declares, “You are going to help me…one…last…time.”

The fifth and final season picks up in the fall of 1987, which is more than a year after the events of season 4. Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is back in hiding, training up for Vecna’s eventual re-emergence, while dodging the government’s hunt for her and the military occupation of Hawkins.

Matt and Ross Duffer, the sibling filmmaking duo and creators of Stranger Things, sit down exclusively with Entertainment Weekly to break down some of the big reveals from the new trailer.

Will and Vecna face to face

According to Ross, the key to understanding Vecna’s line to Will lies in season 2, episode 6, “The Spy,” when the Byers boy was brought to Hawkins Laboratory for evaluation. He calls it “the most important episode,” teasing, “Will was really working, in a way, for the Mind Flayer.” 

Now in season 5, Ross adds, “We start to learn more about what happened and what the connection is to all of this and Vecna.” 

The trailer reaffirms that Will is crucial to the conclusion of this story that began nine years ago when the show premiered on Netflix. “Because the story really began with Will and his disappearance, it felt, in order to go full circle, it needed to really end with him in so many ways,” Matt says. “In the last couple seasons, we hadn’t really centered much of the show on Will. So there was so much to explore with him from a character perspective and plot perspective.”

Stranger Things first introduced Vecna/Henry Creel/One in season 4, while Will was off in California, but the character returned to Hawkins in the finale — a distinction that yielded “really rich territory to explore their connection and relationship,” Matt adds. 

It’s also why the final season begins in the fall of 1987, near the anniversary of Will’s disappearance in the Upside Down. “So much of the season was built around the idea of coming full circle, answering many of the questions that were posed all the way back in season 1,” Matt continues. “I think the two biggest questions that we didn’t really answer in season 1 that we do answer this season is ‘what is the Upside Down, truly?’ and ‘why was Will taken?’” 

An “undefeatable” Vecna glow-up

Vecna is sporting a new look these days. In the years since we last saw him, he apparently has been hitting the Upside Down gym, his body visibly caked with thicker tendrils.

Matt says the team “wanted to reinvent his look a little bit; level him up, so to speak.” He also confirms there’s “a whole backstory” about why he’s been away for as long as he has, which will be unveiled piecemeal throughout the season. 

“We wanted him to be scarier,” Matt continues. “So much of season 4, he was attacking you within the mind. One of the differences this season is he’s also attacking in the real world. Because of that, we needed to take his abilities to a new level.” 

Story wise, Ross points to how Nancy (Natalia Dyer) burned and shot Vecna before he fell out a window in season 4. “So the idea being more that he has rebuilt his body, which is why there are still literal holes and you can see through pieces of his body,” he says. “He’s lost what remained of his human body and has become more a part of the Upside Down. If there is any humanity left within him, it’s diminished.” 

Viewers will spot the unconscious (or perhaps dead?) bodies of soldiers littering the pavement around Vecna in the trailer. It’s clear humanity’s military efforts are woefully unprepared for this monster’s might. “We wanted him to feel really undefeatable,” Matt explains. “We thought a lot about Terminator, Terminator 2, specifically, and also the relentless quality of the bad guys in those films.”

Ross mentions another cinematic reference for Vecna 2.0: Darth Vader’s dramatic arrival in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) — “to really see his powers in full display and how exciting that was,” he says. “You certainly see Vecna’s full powers on display in this.”

“A lot of this season takes place in the Upside Down”

The military is turning Hawkins upside down — and even entering the Upside Down.

Certain trailer shots showcase Eleven using her telekinetic powers to propel her over a high fence into some kind of army compound, which certainly looks like it’s in the Upside Down beneath that alternate dimension’s dark sky crackling with red lightning. The Duffers don’t want to dig into that too much other than to point out the obvious. 

“These gates have opened up. We have a full military present in Hawkins and it’s under quarantine,” Ross comments. “I will say, of course the military is doing stuff in the Upside Down, but it really is a mystery to our characters and the audience for the beginning of the show.” 

Matt chimes in: “A lot of the season takes place in the Upside Down. If I have to look at one more visual effects shot, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. We will never make anything else with floating anything. Snow, spores, ash, I’m done with all that.”

And what about floating islands? Another snippet from the trailer shows someone falling from the sky in the Upside Down as hovering masses of land bob around the clouds. That’s another piece the Duffers decline to talk much about. “As you start to discover more about the Upside Down, that’s when that imagery comes into play,” Ross says. 

“We reveal really everything about the Upside Down, all of which was planned out in season 1,” Matt adds. “It was fun to finally pull back the curtain on all of that.”

Dialing up the powers to Eleven

Like Vecna, Eleven is getting a power boost this season. One of her new tricks is this telekinetic leap of hers. It’s like Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff in the MCU, but circa Avengers: Infinity War. 

“It’s like she’s pushing down at the ground and having that energy propel her up, in a way,” Ross describes. “So she’s not really flying, but she is boosting herself and getting some serious air.” 

The duo wanted to “level her up” but in a way that felt “within the realm of possibilities of what we’ve shown in the past,” Matt adds. “We didn’t want her flying around like Superman. She’s just using those abilities in new ways.”

Volume 2 lookahead

Among the shots the Duffers don’t want to say much about just yet is that red energy pulse emanating from a giant antenna. “It plays a very important role on the show,” Matt comments. “You’re not gonna see that in Volume 1, either. It’s in Volume 2.”

The first four episodes of the final season will be released as Volume 1 on Netflix on Nov. 26, while the next batch of three will release as Volume 2 on Christmas Day. Then on New Year’s Eve, the series finale will screen simultaneously in movie theaters and on Netflix. 

From the trailers released so far, Matt confirms the footage has mostly been from Vol. 1. However, “There are shots from every single episode, including the finale.” This new one in particular “has something from [episodes] 7 and 8. So I think every episode is accounted for,” Ross says. “The marketing team actually hasn’t seen the finale, but we did send them a couple shots that we thought could work. They’re in there, but I’m not gonna tell you which shots.”

Fatalities

Being that this is the final season, everyone is wondering who will make it to the finish line. There have been a number of important character deaths on the show thus far, from Barb (Shannon Purser) to Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), but the core crew stuck it out. Will that change by finale’s end? 

“I don’t know if we want to say, but certainly the stakes are higher and it’s more dangerous than ever before,” Ross says. “What it really comes down to for us is stories and the situations.”

Nancy features in one dramatic shot from the trailer, in which she’s crying while rinsing blood off her hands in a bathroom sink. “How do you know that’s blood on her hands and not paint?” Matt jokes. “Maybe she’s just upset ’cause she got splattered with paint. Who knows?”

Ross does concede, however, “It’s a brutal season, I will say that.” 

“Yeah, it’s very brutal,” Matt continues. “It’s violent. The stakes are higher than ever. Because you’re hurtling through the end, a lot more is on the table, I will say. Hopefully it’s surprising and earned, what’s happened. We weren’t going for shock value.”

The Duffers don’t take death lightly. Exploring the death of a main character often felt “so heavy,” Matt admits. “It feels like it completely changes what the show is. So we’re just very careful about when we do it and who dies.”

For example, the loss of Eddie, who died from Demobats in the season 4 finale, “affects the entirety of season 5,” Matt notes. “There is no season 6, so we need to make sure, if and when there are deaths, that it makes sense in terms of where we want our characters to end up at the end of the show. That was a lot of the discussion this year.”

Max-ed out

Max’s fate is still a big mystery on Stranger Things. She technically died back in season 4, but she managed to bring herself back at least to coma status. She’s been in this unconscious state ever since and fans are eagerly awaiting that reveal. 

The Duffers already worked out the answer back in season 4, Ross confirms. “We hadn’t fully figured out the plot of 5 at that point, so we didn’t know exactly how it was gonna factor in,” he says. “But, yeah, it’s been planned for a while.”

Is her fate tied directly to Vecna’s larger plans for Hawkins? “Could be,” Matt replies, playing coy once again.

Dr. Kay

There are many Terminator references on Stranger Things this year. Even Nancy’s hair this season, Matt points out, “is based on Linda’s hair from Terminator 1.” But there’s no more overt nod than the arrival of Sarah Connor herself. 

In the absence of Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine), who died at the end of season 4, the Duffers needed a replacement. Enter Linda Hamilton’s Dr. Kay, who’s leading the government’s investigation into the Upside Down and the strange occurrences in Hawkins.

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“Usually when we’re casting these new roles, we’re working with our casting director to come up with the actor before we write the roles,” Ross says. “When Carmen Cuba, our casting director, suggested Linda, we got really excited because she’s very, very different from Modine. She’s equally intimidating and intelligent, but she can fight. If it comes down to it, she can shoot a gun, she can get in a fist fight, she can kick your ass.”

Matt clarifies Hamilton isn’t channeling Sarah Connor, noting an “unhinged quality” she brings to Dr. Kay. “Part of the reason she’s scary,” he adds, “is that she, unlike Dr. Brenner, has no emotional connection to Eleven. There was that paternal quality that Brenner had. Dr. Kay has none of those feelings. She really views her just as a weapon that needs to be acquired.”