Stranger Things Season 5 Teaser Hints at a Character’s Disappearance

Things are only getting Stranger. 

Stranger Things’ final season will release in 2025, and a teaser from the Netflix series has revealed new details about what is in store. 

In the Nov. 6 teaser trailer, all eight episode titles for the upcoming season are revealed, including one that hints at the disappearance of a character. Indeed, episode two will be titled “The Vanishing of—,” but the character in question’s name is blurred out. 

As for who the mystery person could be? The series includes a strong ensemble cast including the signature group of “kids,”—who have now, evidently, all grown up after eight years on the series—including Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven, Finn Wolfhard as Mike, Noah Schnapp as Will, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas, Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin, as well as Sadie Sink as Max, who joined the series in season two. 

Given that Will, Max and Eleven have already fought their battles with creatures from the Upside Down, it’s possible that the blurred-out character could be one of the remaining three characters from the show’s center group to disappear.

After all, it would make sense that writers would want to keep that detail under wraps—plus, the series premiere of the show was, indeed, called “The Vanishing of Will Byers.”

However, Stranger Things also includes important fringe characters like Joe Keery’s Steve, Maya Hawke’s Robin, Winona Ryder’s Joyce, David Harbour’s Hopper, as well as Natalia Dyer’s Nancy and Charlie Heaton’s Jonathan—who could also be the name behind the blur.

Of course, other minor characters like Shannon Purser’s Barb in season one or Dacre Montgomery’s Billy in season two have also proven to be major players in the show before their inevitable demises.

It’s worth noting that Nell Fisher was recently recast as Mike and Nancy’s younger sister Holly, so she—or other new cast members Jake Connelly and Alex Breaux—could also end up playing a big role in the upcoming season by disappearing. Whomever it could be, fans will have to wait until the episode drops on Netflix to know the character’s identity for sure. 

Meanwhile, other titles for the upcoming series include “The Crawl,” “The Turnbow Trap,” “Sorcerer,” “Shock Jock,” “Escape from Camazotz,” “The Bridge,” and “The Rightside Up."

And while the latest tease is sure to get fans excited for another trip to the Upside Down next year, it isn’t the only thing to know about the upcoming season. Indeed, Winona recently teased that the cast is still wrapping up filming on the beloved series—and what fans can expect. 

“We're still filming,” Winona told E! News in an exclusive August interview. “It’s still happening till the end of the year. It’s going to be bittersweet.”

Beyond the series being slated for a 2025 release, no official drop date has been set. Keep reading to see everything to know so far about Stranger Things season five.

While Max's fate is still up in the air, Matt and Ross Duffer told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) is dead "for real this time." As they said, "He's toast."

Same goes for Eddie (Joseph Quinn), who sacrificed himself to the Demobats to buy time for the rest of the kids fighting. Joseph told E! News he's still hoping to reappear in the show, saying, "I'd be very up for it. But yeah, let's see."

As for Max (Sadie Sink), the brothers aren't giving up on her just yet. "She's brain dead, but yeah, she's alive," they said. "She's blind and all of her bones are broken." 

While Max is technically still alive, there's no knowing if she'll ever wake up from her coma. "I have no idea what's coming in five and what that looks like," Sadie said in an interview with Deadline. "Max's storyline is very up in the air, 'cause obviously she's in a coma and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) can't find her in the void. So who knows where she is and what state she's in."

Even Natalia Dyer is confused about who Nancy belongs with. On one hand, she thinks Nancy and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) are a good match, but she also sees that Steve (Joe Keery) has grown up. And there's a part of her that thinks Nancy shouldn't be with either one of them. "It's really tough," she told Variety. "I don't know. It feels like she's been in a relationship for a while so maybe she needs some self discovery time."

She continued, "Whatever happens, I would hope that she does it with integrity. I personally had some crunchy feelings about how the whole Jonathan thing started sort of behind Steve's back. I can't believe she did that. I mean, I can."

In the season finale, Will (Noah Schnapp) confirmed he and Vecna are still connected after they were linked to each other in season two. When asked if fans will see the two characters interact in season five, Jamie Campbell Bower told E! News, "We all know by now that Vecna and Will have history. So it would be a joy to to get back in there, as I'll gently put it."

In fact, Jamie remained secretive throughout the entire interview, but promised the Duffers have got it all thought out. "My lips are sealed," he said. "You'll have to wait and see. I think Matt and Ross got something beautiful cooking and they'll let us know in good time."

While Joyce (Winona Ryder), Will (Noah Schnapp), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) initially sought to start anew in California, it seems the Byers family is missing Hawkins and their hometown friends. So, they're leaving their California home and returning to Indiana, alongside Hopper and Eleven, in season five.

"It's mostly in Hawkins, and there's a lot obviously in the Upside Down," Matt Duffer told Collider about their season five plans. "But this is about everyone finally coming back. Coming back together, coming back to Hawkins.

The Duffer Brothers have mostly planned out season five, the final installment, but there's no knowing when filming will begin. 

"This last season took two years in total, so who knows how long season five will take," Sadie Sink told Deadline. "The Duffers definitely know the fans will be eagerly awaiting a fifth season, but I don't think they're gonna rush it. They wanna make the best final season that they could possibly make."

They may not rush the process, but it seems they're cutting down on the amount of scenes in the final season. The Duffer Brothers promised the upcoming episodes will be slightly shorter, though they anticipate the finale is going to be another feature-length episode. 

"The only reason we don't expect to be as long is, this season, if you look at it, it's almost a two-hour ramp up before our kids really get drawn into a supernatural mystery," Matt Duffer told the Happy Sad Confused podcast. "You get to know them, you get to see them in their lives, they're struggling with adapting to high school and so forth, Steve's trying to find a date, all of that. None of that is obviously going to be occurring [in season 5]."

On Jan. 8, Netflix confirmed that production on the fifth and final season of Stranger Things is underway by sharing a sweet group photo of the Hawkins crew. 

"THIS IS A CODE RED," the streaming service announced on social media. "STRANGER THINGS 5 production has officially begun!!!"

In an exclusive interview with E! News, Stranger Things executive producer Shawn Levy promised that season five "will answer all remaining questions," adding, "we are in the business of satisfying viewers."

On Nov. 6, fondly known as Stranger Things Day, Netflix revealed that the first episode of the final season will be titled, "Chapter One: The Crawl."

It appears that Will Byers will be the key to how Stranger Things wraps up its run on Netflix. On what fans can expect from the final season, star Noah Schnapp teased to Forbes, "I think they did a great job with Will's character this season, and beautifully addressed everything they needed to. The way they closed the show is just perfect—the story started with Will, and it'll end with Will."

Maya Hawke recently revealed the upcoming series is "basically eight movies."

As she explained on Penn Badgley’s Podcrushed in June 2024, “The episodes are very long.”