Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2: The ultimate finale or a disappointing end?
TOI GLOBAL DESK | TOI GLOBAL | Dec 26, 2025, 19:41 IST
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 has landed on Netflix, igniting a whirlwind of discussions across social media. While some fans are in raptures over the Duffer Brothers' eerie tales, others have voiced their frustrations regarding the story's flow and resolution.
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 has been released, marking the conclusion of the acclaimed Netflix series. The Duffer brothers' creation, starring Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard among others, has garnered mixed reactions from fans online, with some expressing disappointment over the writing and pacing of the final episodes. The season, divided into three volumes, is now available for streaming on Netflix , with the final episode set to premiere on New Year's Eve in the US.
The much-loved Netflix series has officially entered its closing chapter, marking the end of one of the most successful shows in streaming history. The cast of Stranger Things includes Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin, Sadie Sink, Gaten Matarazzo, Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton and Joe Keery.
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 is finally streaming on Netflix for viewers in India and fans have already started giving their reviews online. The final season of Stranger Things includes a total of eight episodes, divided into three different volumes.
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 has received a mix response from netizens as many of them expressed disappointment over the ending and writing of the show. While one fan is not happy with the Duffer Brothers' work, another one reviewed that the final stretch failed to impress the fans.
"Unpopular opinion: Stranger Things 5’s ending was rushed and Eleven’s arc felt forced. Vecna carried the season! Best finale ever or total letdown? strangerthings5."
"Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 isn’t just a finale it’s the moment we say goodbye to Hawkins, to our childhood, to the friends we grew up with, to every laugh, every scream, every monster that taught us courage, and realize that some endings don’t let you rewind."
"The last 20 minutes of episode 6 in stranger things season 5 have some of the most lazy bullshit writing I’ve ever witnessed in my life. The Duffer Brothers are cowards."
"I JUST WATCHED Stranger Things S5 Episode 7. THIS IS UNREAL I couldn’t resist and started watching from the end…At the end of Episode 7, I literally almost lost my mind. The Duffer Brothers actually kept their promise. I expected a lot, but the fact that someone would die…NO ONE DID So what does this give us? The “Who will die in Stranger Things: Season 5?” market is still very much alive:
Eleven – 64%
Jonathan Byers – 24%
Derek Turnbow – 22%
Holly Wheeler – 21%
Steve Harrington – 19%
The funniest part is that we only got one real hint at a potential death in the final episode: Derek Turnbow and Holly Wheeler being left alone with Vecna at the end of the episode. But maybe nothing will happen? January 1st final can’t come soon enough, ladies and gentlemen."
"strangerthings5 So…they teased byler for the last however many episodes of S4, barely addressed it in S5 part 1 and then (apparently) completely killed it in part 2…THEY WROTE IT IN WHY DO THAT TO THEN WRITE IT OFF?? At least put more effort into Mike and El then omg."
The Guardian’s 3-star review of Stranger Things Season 5 Vol 2 said, “Stranger Things is one of those shows that, when it gets everything rolling in the right direction, absolutely slaps. It’s a grand, pedal-to-the-metal spectacle where everything is maxed out to the nth degree. The action sequences are beautifully choreographed. The nostalgia remains extremely effective. The emotion rarely drops below operatic. On a second-by-second basis, Stranger Things is amazing.”
At the end of Stranger Things 5 Volume 2, your favorite nerds clear a small but important hurdle in their last stand against Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower): They make it through the heavily guarded MAC-Z gate with the whole party intact.
But that victory is short-lived as Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) feels uneasy about the sacrifice her sister, Kali (Linnea Berthelsen), has asked her to make.
"At the end of [Episode 7], there’s a sense of dread or uncertainty that pervades," series co-creator Ross Duffer says. "There’s a look and a moment between [Eleven] and Kali where it seems as though Eleven has agreed to Kali’s plan to stay in the Upside Down when it explodes. So, even if they are to succeed, there’s a big question mark in terms of what’s going to happen to Eleven."
Meanwhile, at the Creel House in Camazotz, Vecna (aka Henry Creel) has gathered his kidnapped children to cast a powerful spell that will set his ominous plan in motion.
What is Vecna’s ultimate plan?
Henry reveals in Episode 4 that he intends to reshape the world using 12 children, whom he deems the “perfect vessels” because they’re easy to control. To remake the world, Henry wants to merge Hawkins with another world called the Abyss.
This plan requires a tremendous amount of energy, and that’s where the kids come in. When Vecna first took Will (Noah Schnapp) back in Season 1, he channeled his thoughts through the boy to amplify his power. Now he’s going to do the same with Holly (Nell Fisher), Derek (Jake Connelly), and the other children he kidnaps at the end of Volume 1.
In Episode 5, Henry frames his sinister plan as a last resort to save the world. "An evil darkness is spreading across not just Hawkins, but the whole world, and soon it will be too late to stop it," he tells the children in Camazotz. He compares the darkness to the “black thing” in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time the classic novel Holly is reading throughout Season 5. Henry notes, “Just as the black thing threatened Meg’s family, so does the darkness threaten yours. But I believe I have found a way to defeat this darkness.”
After traveling “far and long, beyond our dimension,” Henry says that he’s discovered another world that is like Earth only free of monsters and darkness. "It is the light," he says. Like the character Meg in A Wrinkle in Time, the 12 children he handpicked have special powers. These powers are dormant and can be awakened if they all work together. When the kids channel this energy they can draw in the new world “the light will expel the darkness” and their loved ones will be saved.
In the last Stranger Things episode The Finale, arriving on New Year’s Eve at 5 p.m. PT, the crew faces the most powerful darkness it has ever known. Keep reading for a deep dive into Volume 2 of Stranger Things 5, now streaming only on Netflix.
The much-loved Netflix series has officially entered its closing chapter, marking the end of one of the most successful shows in streaming history. The cast of Stranger Things includes Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Caleb McLaughlin, Sadie Sink, Gaten Matarazzo, Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton and Joe Keery.
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 is finally streaming on Netflix for viewers in India and fans have already started giving their reviews online. The final season of Stranger Things includes a total of eight episodes, divided into three different volumes.
Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 has received a mix response from netizens as many of them expressed disappointment over the ending and writing of the show. While one fan is not happy with the Duffer Brothers' work, another one reviewed that the final stretch failed to impress the fans.
"Unpopular opinion: Stranger Things 5’s ending was rushed and Eleven’s arc felt forced. Vecna carried the season! Best finale ever or total letdown? strangerthings5."
"Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2 isn’t just a finale it’s the moment we say goodbye to Hawkins, to our childhood, to the friends we grew up with, to every laugh, every scream, every monster that taught us courage, and realize that some endings don’t let you rewind."
"The last 20 minutes of episode 6 in stranger things season 5 have some of the most lazy bullshit writing I’ve ever witnessed in my life. The Duffer Brothers are cowards."
"I JUST WATCHED Stranger Things S5 Episode 7. THIS IS UNREAL I couldn’t resist and started watching from the end…At the end of Episode 7, I literally almost lost my mind. The Duffer Brothers actually kept their promise. I expected a lot, but the fact that someone would die…NO ONE DID So what does this give us? The “Who will die in Stranger Things: Season 5?” market is still very much alive:
Eleven – 64%
Jonathan Byers – 24%
Derek Turnbow – 22%
Holly Wheeler – 21%
Steve Harrington – 19%
The funniest part is that we only got one real hint at a potential death in the final episode: Derek Turnbow and Holly Wheeler being left alone with Vecna at the end of the episode. But maybe nothing will happen? January 1st final can’t come soon enough, ladies and gentlemen."
"strangerthings5 So…they teased byler for the last however many episodes of S4, barely addressed it in S5 part 1 and then (apparently) completely killed it in part 2…THEY WROTE IT IN WHY DO THAT TO THEN WRITE IT OFF?? At least put more effort into Mike and El then omg."
The Guardian’s 3-star review of Stranger Things Season 5 Vol 2 said, “Stranger Things is one of those shows that, when it gets everything rolling in the right direction, absolutely slaps. It’s a grand, pedal-to-the-metal spectacle where everything is maxed out to the nth degree. The action sequences are beautifully choreographed. The nostalgia remains extremely effective. The emotion rarely drops below operatic. On a second-by-second basis, Stranger Things is amazing.”
At the end of Stranger Things 5 Volume 2, your favorite nerds clear a small but important hurdle in their last stand against Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower): They make it through the heavily guarded MAC-Z gate with the whole party intact.
But that victory is short-lived as Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) feels uneasy about the sacrifice her sister, Kali (Linnea Berthelsen), has asked her to make.
"At the end of [Episode 7], there’s a sense of dread or uncertainty that pervades," series co-creator Ross Duffer says. "There’s a look and a moment between [Eleven] and Kali where it seems as though Eleven has agreed to Kali’s plan to stay in the Upside Down when it explodes. So, even if they are to succeed, there’s a big question mark in terms of what’s going to happen to Eleven."
Meanwhile, at the Creel House in Camazotz, Vecna (aka Henry Creel) has gathered his kidnapped children to cast a powerful spell that will set his ominous plan in motion.
What is Vecna’s ultimate plan?
Henry reveals in Episode 4 that he intends to reshape the world using 12 children, whom he deems the “perfect vessels” because they’re easy to control. To remake the world, Henry wants to merge Hawkins with another world called the Abyss.
This plan requires a tremendous amount of energy, and that’s where the kids come in. When Vecna first took Will (Noah Schnapp) back in Season 1, he channeled his thoughts through the boy to amplify his power. Now he’s going to do the same with Holly (Nell Fisher), Derek (Jake Connelly), and the other children he kidnaps at the end of Volume 1.
In Episode 5, Henry frames his sinister plan as a last resort to save the world. "An evil darkness is spreading across not just Hawkins, but the whole world, and soon it will be too late to stop it," he tells the children in Camazotz. He compares the darkness to the “black thing” in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time the classic novel Holly is reading throughout Season 5. Henry notes, “Just as the black thing threatened Meg’s family, so does the darkness threaten yours. But I believe I have found a way to defeat this darkness.”
After traveling “far and long, beyond our dimension,” Henry says that he’s discovered another world that is like Earth only free of monsters and darkness. "It is the light," he says. Like the character Meg in A Wrinkle in Time, the 12 children he handpicked have special powers. These powers are dormant and can be awakened if they all work together. When the kids channel this energy they can draw in the new world “the light will expel the darkness” and their loved ones will be saved.
In the last Stranger Things episode The Finale, arriving on New Year’s Eve at 5 p.m. PT, the crew faces the most powerful darkness it has ever known. Keep reading for a deep dive into Volume 2 of Stranger Things 5, now streaming only on Netflix.