Original subtitles

I think what's unique about this season

is that it starts a little bit in chaos.

-Sound at speed. -Marker A.

The stakes feel so high from the get-go.

Everything just feels bigger.

The apocalypse sort of is looming

and we're fighting against this ticking clock.

Vecna, his plan is more dangerous than ever.

They're not experiencing normal life, nothing in Hawkins is normal.

Not only are they active

and not only do they have a drive immediately,

this search for Vecna,

their everyday normal lives are anything but.

When we were talking about what scene

did we want to open the season,

very early on the idea was, "Well, it's gotta be Will."

Because we knew Will was gonna be

really the heart of the season.

It was gonna come full circle

because he was the kid that was taken in season one.

-And roll, please. -Rolling!

-Speed. -And action!

At the end of season four, people would ask me,

"What do you hope for season five?"

And I said, "I feel like Henry and Will

have a lot of unfinished business."

And when we come back to this season,

we see why.

At long last,

we can begin.

Vecna's been with Will all this time.

We didn't know Vecna in season one.

We didn't know really what was going on, why he was there.

So we get to see young Will

in season one

being confronted for the first time with Vecna.

We are going to do such beautiful things together, William.

-All right, cut. -Cutting.

That seemed really good.

Stranger Things 5 is a callback to earlier seasons

in that it is firmly Hawkins-based.

You could say that this season is about

fighting for the soul and the survival of Hawkins itself.

At the Wheeler house, the Byers have moved in,

so we've got a lot of house guests,

which brings us back to sort of the notion and the elements

of season one,

which was coming back to the heart of the story

of the OGs and what we all started with.

It was so beautiful to be with everybody

and I think everyone just felt extremely close to each other,

as you would after ten years of working together.

I'm so sorry I can't help clean up, I'm running late.

It's okay, Joyce, really. I understand.

Good morning, Hawkins. This is WSQK The Squawk.

It's an exciting day for me,

your friend, entertainer, and DJ, Robin Buckley,

nice to meet you, AKA Rockin' Robin.

The great thing about Robin is that she's always got a job.

You are 0 for…

Every season has placed her in a new environment.

She has this absolutely nifty name of Rockin' Robin,

and she is kind of MCing the local radio station.

She was sort of looking for a way out of Hawkins,

now she's looking for a way to save it,

which is a big trajectory shift.

The Squawk this season was...

I think I'm safe in saying that it was our favorite set.

I feel like everyone was like, "Oh yeah, this is Stranger Things."

We based this on an actual radio station that the Duffers liked a lot

that was in North Carolina where they're from.

You can see this photo here

is a photo of the real radio station

they kinda had in their minds when they were writing this.

And so we just put our call letters on it.

So this goes down to the basement of The Squawk radio station.

You went down this far

and then they would cut to the basement on stage as well,

and it would pick them up coming from down the stairs,

so it was split into two pieces.

So Nancy and Jonathan are back in the same space

but there's some distance between them.

I think there's some things that need to be said

that haven't been said.

Emotionally, he's dealing with

where he is with his relationship with Nancy.

Is there a problem?

There's always been the rivalry with Jonathan and Steve,

and, you know, it's very present at the start of the season.

I think this might be a better job for Jonathan Byers.

The transmitter in the radio tower goes down

and, you know, Steve sees an opportunity to match up to him.

I got this, dude. Don't sweat it.

Son of a…

And yeah, they just got this great scene

where they're both trying to climb the tower,

which was super fun to film.

It's actually really hard, you know.

I think me and Joe were also kind of trying to push each other like

how fast can we do this?

Ready and action!

It was a really fun day,

especially just like the physical part of it is really fun.

I think there's a lot of comedy sort of baked into it.

It was cut up into three or four different pieces.

There was the base, which was out on location.

And then we built a couple different pieces here on stage.

-I fixed it! -I fixed it!

I haven't had scenes with Joe since like the first season,

so to go back and get to work with Joe is such a treat.

I'm flying, Jack!

Jack, I'm flying!

Eleven pretty much in the beginning of the season,

it's always lighthearted.

Season one, introduce her.

Season two she's watching soaps in Hopper's cabin.

Season three, she's making out with Mike.

Hey!

Hey!

This season is we're going right into it,

and Eleven is just kind of right into training mode

to become a warrior.

I feel like she knows she needs to fight for her friends and her family.

Emotionally, she doesn't know who she is.

Will she ever become who she is?

Should she, like, morally?

Does she really deserve it?

You have to take it easy on yourself.

You think Henry is going easy?

And then, legitimately,

she is always fighting Vecna and the Upside Down.

Ready and action!

This is like our Eleven obstacle course.

I'm in a full body harness,

and I'm going on a balancing beam right now,

starting from the ground, going up to the car,

having to stop myself at the end of the car

because the directors want it fast, but I can't also fall off the car,

so it's a very exciting happy medium I'm trying to get.

That felt good!

Vecna has gone missing.

They don't know if he's dead or alive but they're searching for him.

They're actively infiltrating the Upside Down

and methodically moving through it.

Lucas, we'll take our usual observation post.

This is the whole plot that we've been planning for months

to defeat Vecna so that we can end everything.

I wanna see Vecna's heart on a platter.

Just wish I could do it myself.

-For Eddie. -For Eddie.

On three, "Kill Vecna."

-One, two, three... -Kill Vecna!

-Great. Cut! -Tarzan!

-Wait up! -Come on! We've gotta go!

We wanted to recapture some of the spirit of season one.

And our way into that, we felt, was to elevate Holly,

Mike's sister, into a major character.

Hi.

Oh, yeah, Ms. Harris…

She's been an important character

who's kind of touched the surface

of this weird, supernatural world.

She saw the Demogorgon through the wall in season one.

In season three, she noticed that the trees were moving.

The trees are moving.

And so she has been part of it, but not really in the middle,

and that's what happens in season five.

She's kind of thrown right into the thick of things.

Holly's had sort of a rough day,

and Mike basically tells her that she should start playing D&D.

Know who I turn to when I get scared?

Mike The Brave.

That's the way that Mike got through school, was being able to fantasize.

And also having the experience of doing these crazy adventures,

and deep down knowing that you're a part of this real-life campaign.

The confidence from that is, I'm sure,

the way Mike got through school.

So he's sort of passing that on to Holly.

She'll keep you safe. I promise.

Are you just going to stand there, Sergeant Ramirez,

or did you have something to report?

We weren't quite sure who Kay was.

We knew we wanted her very different from Brenner.

Brenner, for all his flaws,

was someone who's interested in science

and understanding and exploring.

But we wanted someone who wasn't interested in that aspect of it

and was interested in the military capabilities

of someone, what Eleven could do.

Don't worry. Doesn't bite.

It does, on occasion, strangle.

We don't really know what her real itinerary,

or if there is a hidden itinerary there.

I need the girl.

Very much her mission is to find Eleven

because Eleven has special powers

and she knows that Eleven holds the key.

The idea always was to find an actor who is iconic,

an actor who is someone we grew up with

and a legend in our eyes.

And Linda Hamilton falls into that category.

It was overwhelming.

When they called I was like, "No. I'm a fan of that show."

"I can't be in that show."

So it was a stunning turn of events.

And I was thrilled. Absolutely thrilled.

Gets me every time! Every time he takes a breath.

This is Cobb, playing Jake the Snake.

As you can see, he's a snake.

What's been like a great pleasure and honor,

the most fun thing in the world

has been able to have a lot of my material center around comic relief

and lightening up the situations and having fun.

It was a bit jarring initially

of taking a back seat in that department

and kind of having to explore a rougher side of him.

-Of course, Eddie's like… -Eddie!

Stings pretty hard,

but I think there's an accumulation of trauma,

accumulation of loss over the course of the last few years

that's all starting to build up in each of them,

and kinda bubble to the surface for the first time

where his defense mechanisms kinda seem to crumble a little bit.

I think the scene in the cemetery at the end of the first episode

is kinda a key pivotal moment.

Because it comes out of nowhere and also he brings it on himself.

We always worked in harnesses and stuff,

but I've never had prior rehearsals and stunt training.

B on the mark.

They shot the whole fight on handheld

and learned our choreography, learned it with us.

We learned the day before, we choreographed the whole thing.

And I got to see a bit of a rough cut after we shot it.

Oh, that punch looked so sick!

That punch looked so sick!

It's one of those like, "Pinch me."

"This is kinda sick. My job is really cool."

-My man! -Looked really sick.

So good, dude.

Right off the bat in episode one, Will falls into a trance,

has that Demovision, and now you see

he is connected to Vecna

in a way that we haven't seen before.

Will! Come back!

Will, come on!

Will! Wake up!

What did you see?

The Demogorgon. It's coming for them.

For who? Who's them?

You never know what's going to happen, honestly.

Anybody can get it.

Anybody can get it. It's real.