By Anna Trevathan, Managing Editor
Netflix turned five minutes into hours as “Tudum”, their official companion site for entertainment exclusives, hosted an exclusive livestream for Stranger Things Season Five. The Tudum event was hosted on November 6th, 2025, the same day that Will Byers went missing in season one.
For those out of the loop, Stranger Things is a TV Show launched on Netflix in 2016. The show quickly became a cultural phenomenon; Variety reported that it was the most streamed TV Show in 2022, beating out NCIS, Wednesday, and CoComelon. Stranger Things creators, the Duffer Brothers, put together a perfect homage to the 80s as the show encapsulates everything from Satanic Panic to the rise of Madonna. Alongside this serving of 80s nostalgia, the show follows a group of kids who get entangled in Dungeons and Dragons themed supernatural forces and secret government operations.
The Tudum event, livestreamed around the world, started at 8PM EST. The actual first five minutes of Stranger Things (or 4 minutes and 45 seconds, which fans were quick to point out) were revealed at 10PM.
The livestream, promoted as a digital block party for fans of the series, had viewers tuned in from around the world. Though Netflix promoted this event, many users (myself included) had no idea there was an RSVP required to attend the event which was closed to the public 15 minutes prior to the event. This caused a relative uproar through the fandom, as people found themselves unable to take part in the event. For a series waiting years to release seasons, fans were quick to file back in line for the chance to see the first five minutes of this new season.
Tudum had giveaways, trivia questions on the series, fan-submitted questions answered by the cast, and a star-studded red carpet. Through the night, there was also fan commentary shown in the bottom corner of the screen, sharing all of the nostalgic warm-fuzzies we would come to experience as the event went on.
One of these was from viewer Emma G. who struck an emotional chord with several fans on the livestream, saying “I love being able to grow up with them.” It’s a statement that could have been written by any Gen Z viewer, as we have indeed aged up alongside the cast. Many of us started watching this series in middle school and high-school and are now applying to or going to college. For me, and other viewers, it feels as though these characters are childhood friends that we met while we were growing up, and this shared history between us and the cast is what makes this series coming to an end so powerful.
The Executive Producer of the show, Shawn Levy, spoke on this core concept of the show, stating, “At the root of it all, “Stranger Things” is a coming-of-age story.” This idea echoed through the livestream.
It was clear that this sentiment was shared by several of the cast members in their interviews. Priah Ferguson, who played Lucas’s nine-year-old little sister Erica, is now preparing to graduate high school, stating in her interview that “Stranger Things is part of my childhood. This coming to an end is bittersweet”.
Likewise, Sadie Sink who plays Max Mayfield on the show has grown up alongside the cast. She put this feeling into words saying that this show ending is a “Goodbye to our childhood— we get to share it with everyone, and it’s a part of our lives we have to say goodbye to.” Her comments were, fittingly, right before the five minutes of the show aired.
The First Five Minutes
The first five minutes starts with Will’s makeshift fort in the woods, showing him scared and alone. We see a version of Will from season one, and it’s a hard watch. He’s shivering from the cold as we watch his first experience with the Upside Down, the dark parallel universe that mirrors the real world.
He shoots a demogorgon (a crazy move for baby Will Byers) and we see him running through the forest. A demogorgon is already scary enough, but then we see it doing something we’ve never seen before. It starts climbing a tree, and Will falls running from it, dangling from his backpack straps.
We then see an unconscious Will being dragged through the Upside Down as Vecna approaches him. As Will is tied up and held hostage, Vecna walks up to Will and tells him, “At long last, you and I, we’re going to do such beautiful things together William.” Then the screen goes dark.
These five minutes completely change the last four seasons. Will, being possessed by Vecna, explains how he was able to survive when Barb had died in the Upside Down. Will has survived in a parallel dimension and, finally, we understand why. Will wasn’t a lost boy – he was chosen to be a survivor, a spy for the Upside Down.
When those five minutes flashed across my screen, I felt that this was the beginning of the end for Stranger Things. What I wasn’t expecting was the feeling that this was the beginning of the end for my childhood as well. I’m far from the 15 year old that I was at the beginning of the show, just as our main characters are far from the 12 year olds they were at the beginning of the story.
This opening scene of the final season was disorienting and disturbing, and put a knot in my stomach. A knot from both the danger I see Will in, and from the goodbye that I have been dodging. This season is gearing to be a goodbye to Stranger Things, and a goodbye to the last show from my childhood.
Catch everything after this five minutes, releasing exclusively on Netflix:
Volume One (Episodes 1-4): November 26th, 2025
Volume Two (Episodes 5-7): December 25th, 2025
Volume Three (Episode 8): December 31st, 2025
