Time to go back to The Upside Down’s roots. After almost an entire decade, Stranger Things is coming to an end. The Netflix show’s cast of plucky tweens are now full-blown adults, and the suburban horror story has evolved into a multiversal saga.
But how do you wrap up a series that has defined pop culture for so long?? The answer is hiding in plain sight. Go back to the beginning. A new behind-the-scenes look at Stranger Things Season 5 reveals the final season is doing just that.
Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy recently released some photos from the set of Stranger Things Season 5, including glimpses of Winona Ryder, Maya Hawke, and the Duffer Brothers. In one image, the show’s iconic alphabet wall with string lights from Season 1 is visible. It’s unlikely the set would be so prominently shown if it was just in storage, so it looks like we’ll see it again in Season 5.
We may not know how this set will be incorporated into Stranger Things Season 5, but it’s likely we’ll see a flashback to Season 1 when Will Byers was first abducted into the Upside Down — unless those wild time travel theories are proven correct. But while we don’t know how we’ll see this, we can narrow down what episode it will appear in. In all four seasons of Stranger Things , Shawn Levy directed Episodes 3 and 4.
If that pattern continues, that’s likely when we’ll see Joyce’s desperate attempts to reach her son back on screen. Will Byers was able to control the light Joy.