All you need to know about season five

It’s been more than three years since Stranger Things fans last visited Hawkins, Indiana.

The fictional American town is home to one of Netflix’s biggest hits, and the long wait for its blockbuster final series is almost over.

But, you’d be forgiven for forgetting what Eleven and her bike-riding friends were up to when we were last in their troubled neighborhood.

Here are the key questions you might be asking if your memory has become a little rusty due to the show’s hiatus.

The first four episodes of the fifth season of Stranger Things will be released on Netflix in the UK on Thursday 27 November at 01:00 GMT.

It’s late night for any UK fan who wants to avoid spoilers, but that’s because the series is releasing at the same time globally. For example, the start time will be at 17:00 on Wednesday for spectators in Los Angeles and at 20:00 on Wednesday for fans in New York.

But, bingers beware, you’ll have to wait until Christmas Day for episodes five, six, and seven.

The final series will conclude on New Year’s Eve with its eighth episode, The Rightside Up.

The full story of Stranger Things will be told before 2025 is out, but how many of its beloved characters will be with us until New Year’s Day?

The season four finale involved the gang splitting up to bring down Vecna.

We learned that Eleven essentially created the villain herself, using her powers to send Henry Creel tumbling through dimensions.

Henry targeted Eleven inside a research facility where experiments were conducted on her and her superhuman abilities.

Burning down on his way to the Upside Down, he turns to Vecna ​​and later focuses on finding a way back through Eleven’s friend Max, whom he (briefly) kills.

While their friends destroy Vecna, Eleven’s intervention to revive Max gives the villains a lifeline.

The divide between the Upside Down and Hawkins is wide open as fields of flowers fade, clouds darken and bright red flashes of lightning fill the sky.

Or should we call it a forest? Or Vecna?

Henry Creel gained powers when he went into an alternate dimension for 12 hours.

Outcast Henry’s life doesn’t get any better when his family relocates to Hawkins, where he spends his free time hanging out with spiders in an attic.

During a spectacularly disastrous family dinner, Henry uses his powers to kill his parents and finds himself on the radar of the Hawks National Lab staff.

Once there, Dr. Brenner names Henry his first research subject, “001” or “One”.

Dr. Brenner suppresses Henry’s powers by placing a chip in his neck and turns his attention to the other children, including Eleven.

Henry spends his time observing other subjects closely before befriending Eleven.

She helps him regain his powers, which ends badly and their fight sends him crashing and burning towards transforming into Vecna.

Stranger Things is one of the biggest jewels in Netflix’s crown, and became one of the streaming giant’s earliest original hit series in the mid-2010s.

Netflix’s own stats say that the show’s fourth season alone was viewed more than 140 million times, or about 1.8 billion viewing hours.

As the show’s fan base grew, so did the profile of its predominantly young cast.

Since 12-year-old Millie Bobby Brown first appeared as Eleven in 2016, she has become one of Hollywood’s brightest stars.

The British actress has appeared in two Godzilla films and a Sherlock Holmes spin-off based on the detective’s teenage sister, Enola.

Meanwhile, Stranger Things spawned the West End production The First Shadow and revived the career of two-time Academy Award nominee Winona Ryder.

David Harbor’s performance as Jim Hopper has proven to be his gateway into blockbuster hits including the Marvel films Black Widow and Thunderbolts.