By Angel Efe-Nogo

Everyone’s favorite T.V. series, “Stranger Things,” is back on air one last time with Season 5: The Finale. Mark calendars, set alarms and get your turkey ready because the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 26, the first four episodes will be released. Netflix decided to release this season in a rather interesting way–volume style. The first volume is four episodes, second volume is three episodes and the last volume, the finale, is one episode. 

As some may not know, “Stranger Things” Season 1 premiered July 15, 2016, and if you are not a part of the 104.7 million households subscribed to the streaming service Netflix that have watched the show, this is the place for you. Here is what you need to know, the most important parts of each season so you won’t be confused. So, grab your popcorn, relax and enjoy this recap. Warning–spoilers ahead!

“Stranger Things,” a show based in Hawkins, Indiana, is set on a group of young curious boys who encounter supernatural events, secret government experiments and terrifying creatures from another dimension called the Upside Down.

Starting the show with season one, we are introduced to the main characters Will, Dustin, Mike and Lucas– all 7th graders playing Dungeons & Dragons in a basement, at the hangout house. After the hangout, the boys start their journey home, but Will never makes it home. This leaves the hometown shook, wondering where did Will Byers go? His friends search for him, accidentally finding a runaway strange, mute girl with a shaved head who calls herself Eleven, El for short instead.

Discovering Eleven’s telekinesis abilities, she connects Will’s disappearance to the lab she originally escaped from. Will’s mother, Joyce, and the hometown chief of police, Jim Hopper, discover Will is actually trapped in the Dark dimension called the Upside Down. With Eleven’s help they fight demonic creatures such as demogorgons and rescue Will. In the last episode, Eleven vanishes for her safety and the season ends with hints of Will still being affected by the Upside Down. This is all you need to know about season one.

Onto the important parts of seasons two and three which are very similar. Season two sets off with Will still being connected to the Upside Down and later becomes possessed by the Mind Flayer, the head of demonic creatures in the Upside Down. It uses Will to learn about Hawkins and controls demo-creatures. Eleven returns and learns the truth about her life before she was hidden away in a lab. She closes the gate, the Mind Flayer loses its hold on Will and all is good. Or at least we thought, right?

Season three disappointingly introduces us to Russians who have been operating a machine in the Starcourt Mall to reopen the same gate the characters have been trying so hard to close. The Mind Flayer uses the open gate to build a giant “Flayed” monster made out of melted bodies, controlling Billy, a new character introduced in previous season two, to do the hard work. The group, mostly Eleven, battles the monster inside the mall. Billy, regaining consciousness, sacrifices himself to save the children as he has retained no will to live anymore. Behind the scenes, Joyce shuts down the Russian machine which kills Jim Hopper, wink wink. At the end of the season, the Byers family moves away from Hawkins to start a new life for good.

The latest season gives us what we really need to know to be prepared for season five. A new villain/creature is introduced, Venca from the Upside Down starts killing Hawkins teenagers, targeting the ones with the most trauma. Each kill he collects cracks the barrier between the worlds. Eleven learns that Venca is her “brother” from the lab she escaped from, who she thought was banished from the world. 

Will once again uses his senses to see Venca is the true force behind all bad that has happened in the past four years. Yes, all these killings and disappearances have been in the span of four years. We also are surprised to learn Hopper never died in the explosion of the Russian machine but was kidnapped by the Russians, later escaping the prison with the help of Joyce after fighting multiple demo-creatures. To end the season, the group attacks Venca, only to survive and open a huge rift across town that allows the Upside Down to bleed into Hawkins, leaving us on a cliffhanger to figure out what the group will do this time.

The last four seasons were real heart stoppers. The questions everyone wants to know, though, are who will win the fight, who will die (because at least two people die each season) and will tears be shed? So don’t forget to mark your calendars for Nov. 26 because I know I won’t.

Courtesy of GreekTyrant