Which Characters Are in Danger in the 'Stranger Things' Season 5 Trailer?

The trailer for the final season of Stranger Things is here — and no one is safe as Vecna recruits help from an unlikely place.

Netflix released the sneak peek at season 5 on Thursday, October 30, which showed the main characters stuck in Hawkins amid Vecna’s (Jamie Campbell Bower) attempt to take over their world.

“We are really starting to lose it, being stuck in here. There’s no end in sight,” Mike (Finn Wolfhard) tells his friends. “Maybe tonight is our break.”

As the group considers tracking down Vecna, Mike’s sister Nancy (Natalia Dyer) points out that he is “planning to end our world.” Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Will (Noah Schnapp), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Steve (Joe Keery), Robin (Maya Hawke), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Hopper (David Harbour) team up alongside some new faces as they fight for their lives.

Some characters’ fates seem more unclear as they go up against Vecna, and Max (Sadie Sink) still appears to be in a coma for most of the trailer. The biggest surprise is Vecna asking Will for “help” in a parallel to their run-in during the first season of Stranger Things.

Viewers were introduced to the residents of Hawkins, Indiana, when Stranger Things debuted in 2016. The series focuses on a group of friends as a series of supernatural events cause mystery and mayhem.

Creators Ross and Matt Duffer confirmed in February 2022 that season 5 would be the show’s last.

“Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things,” they noted in an open letter. “At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons. It proved too large to tell in four but — as you’ll see for yourselves — we are now hurtling toward our finale. Season 4 will be the penultimate season; season 5 will be the last.”

Later that year, the Duffer brothers opened up about their vision for the final episodes and addressed the decision to split season 4 into two parts.

“The original plan was to release it all at once again. But as we began turning over episodes, everyone began to feel the season was too big to be released in one batch — at nearly 13 hours, it is really more two seasons than one,” they told Variety in May 2022. “Episode 7 is as big as any season finale we’ve ever had, so it made sense to everyone involved to split the season there. Episode 7 really serves as the end of the second act — and we feel that our final act had enough meat on the bone to make up Volume 2.”

Any information about the show’s dramatic conclusion has since been kept under wraps. Even newcomer Linda Hamilton couldn’t share anything about what’s to come.

“I don’t share, but I’m having a really good time,” she exclusively told Us Weekly in February 2024. “I have friends now that will text me and go, ‘Where are you? Or you can’t say?’ But that’s out of respect and love for the Duffer brothers.”

Hamilton, 68, joked that she won’t be able to look at her favorite show the same way again now that she’s part of the cast.

“I’ve watched every season with relish. I just love it,” she said. “So it’s kind of, like, imposter syndrome where I don’t [feel that I] fit in there. That’s a whole world set in the ’80s.”

Hamilton added: “When you really buy into something, you don’t see yourself in it. So I think in a way, it kind of ruined the show for me. I never watch [a project], once I’m in something. It would just completely take me out of the reality of it to see myself in there. So I won’t be watching [season 5].”

Stranger Things premieres in three parts, with Volume 1 on November 26, Volume 2 on December 25 and the finale drops December 31 on Netflix.