Review of STRANGER THINGS season 5 part 2 (2025)

Score: 6/10

Less action-packed than chapter one, chapter two of season 5 is primarily concerned with three long-delayed conversations. The first is between Nancy and Jonathan, whose relationship chemistry has been put under questioning by the writers this season. Their fateful dialogue happens in an inventive landscape of dripping and oozing matter transformed by a mysterious energy force from above. The production crew does a good job of bringing this epoxy deathtrap to life, even if the concept verges on the silly. The second conversation involves Will finally telling his circle of loving friends the truth about his feelings and identity. Not that he needed an extra reason, but the writers cleverly weave Vecna’s bullying presence and mental menace into Will’s choice to seek transparency. The third conversation finds Dustin and Steve burying the hatchet on their bickering and remembering what made them unlikely buddies in the first place.

In chapter one we acquainted ourselves with Max living inside Vecna’s mindscape, as a refugee in her desert hideout. In chapter two she sets into motion her carefully laid plans to return to the world of Hawkins. In chapter one, Eleven’s ‘sister’ Kali/Eight made a shocking return. Now we get to know her again and her unique perspective on Vecna which threatens to sow discord among the band of heroes.

One of the startling things about chapter one is how many assumptions made by our heroes about the mysterious landscape of the Upside Down and about the whereabouts of Vecna turned out to be misunderstandings. Chapter two continues to build on these mysteries, creating a cosmology as elaborate as Dante’s multitiered poetic landscape. Devoting so much new energy to this world-building in a final season with an underwhelming episode count is a risk. It reminds me of JK Rowling’s The Deathly Hallows, when the author turns her characters from the search for the horcruxes to devote a whole new mythology to the three hallows and thus reboot the quest. We shall see if the new architecture defining the Upside Down and Hawkins place in the universe pays off!

REEL JAPAN

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