Potential spoilers follow for Stranger Things season 5.
Netflix has revealed a brand-new look at Stranger Things season 5 – and fans of the hugely popular show are poring over it in a bid to unearth its secrets.
Released yesterday (July 15) on the eighth anniversary of the popular series' Netflix debut, the behind the scenes (BTS) teaser delivered our best look yet at Stranger Things' fifth and final entry. Understandably, the BTS trailer doesn't reveal anything of a spoiler-based nature. The bulk of the footage is dedicated to the series' main cast, plus showrunners Ross and Matt Duffer, discussing their thoughts and feelings ahead of the show's last season, with said commentary played over clips that don't give away too much about its plot.
That said, the two-minute video does provide us with some new interesting details about Stranger Things 5. For starters, it appears that the highly anticipated fifth installment will feature a time jump, with fans on Reddit pointing out that Millie Bobby Brown's Eleven is rocking longer hair than she was in Stranger Things season 4, while Joe Keery's Steve has been spotted wearing footwear that wasn't released until early 1987 – a whole year after the events of season 5's forebear. Oh, and let's not forget that, with the show's young cast aging faster than their fictional counterparts, Stranger Things 5 needs to move a year or two into the future to accommodate them growing up in-universe and in real life.
The teaser also confirms that season 5 will, as previously discussed by the Duffer brothers, feature fan-favorite team-ups. From the 'core four' – Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Will (Noah Schnapp) – reuniting, to Nancy (Natalie Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) pairing up once more, Stranger Things 5 is going back to its roots on the beloved group dynamics front.
Who are Nell Fisher, Alex Breaux, and Jake Connelly playing in Stranger Things 5?
Nell Fisher ("Evil Dead Rise"), Alex Breaux ("Waco: The Aftermath"), and newcomer Jake Connelly have joined the cast of #StrangerThings5! pic.twitter.com/aBI6bIVqHqJuly 15, 2024
As the teaser confirms, Stranger Things season 5 won't just feature one new cast addition in Terminator icon Linda Hamilton. Announced in a press release accompanying the BTS teaser, Netflix also revealed that three actors had joined the critically acclaimed show's cast: Nell Fisher, Alex Breaux, and Jake Connelly.
Fisher, who readers might recognize from 2023's Evil Dead Rise, appears to be playing an older version of Holly Wheeler, the younger sibling of Nancy and Mike. In the teaser, Fisher's Holly notices the lights flickering in the Wheeler household on two separate occasions – we all know what that usually means – before she seemingly stumbles on a not-too-pleasant scene in her family home's kitchen.
As for Breaux (Waco: The Aftermath) and newcomer Connelly, their character identities are a mystery. From the brief clips we see of Breaux, it appears that he'll play some kind of secret agent, or one of Colonel Sullivan's military men, who'll be investigating what's going on in Hawkins and/or trying to track down Eleven, who Sullivan still believes is responsible for numerous student deaths in season 4. Connelly seems like he'll be a new companion for Erica Sinclair (Lucas' younger sister, who's played by Priah Ferguson). Redditors seem to think he'll be called Derek, but Netflix hasn't officially confirmed this.
In August 2022, the Duffer brothers told IndieWire that season 5 would focus on the series' core cast, with newcomers only being introduced if they would serve the story by being "integral to the narrative". Clearly, then, this new trio – plus Hamilton's unnamed individual (publicly, at least) – are set to be important cogs in the storytelling machine. Let's hope, though, that they add to the overall narrative, rather than taking screen time away from the primary cast of one of the best Netflix shows.
