It is early in the holiday season, and before any of us started to prepare for Thanksgiving, the first four episodes of the final season of Stranger Things were released on Netflix. After more than nine years, everyone will start to see the end of one of the first great Netflix originals. We’ve seen the Party grow up and face the difficulties of life, and we’ve also seen them kick major Demogorgon butt with the help of Eleven/Jane Hopper (Millie Bobby Brown) and other notable characters. Now, the final battle with last season’s threat, Vecna/Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower), has begun, and the fate of Hawkins, Indiana, and the world rests on the Party once more. As the first half of the season progressed, questions were answered, and more mysteries arose as the stakes grew higher than ever before. And everything leaves us aching for the thrilling climax of the overarching story coming soon on Christmas Day, let alone the two-hour finale on New Year’s Eve.

We begin the season with a time jump to eighteen months after the events of Season 4, where the almost apocalyptic result of Vecna’s plan brings Hawkins into heavy military quarantine. As most of the town adjusts to this abrupt change in life, our heroes have been secretly scoping the Upside Down so they can finish off Vecna for good. However, familiar obstacles lie in the way, from Eleven being hunted by the military to the return of the ever-ferocious Demogorgons. And while the Party’s plans get carried out, Vecna starts carrying out a new scheme for dominion over all of reality, and it starts with sending a Demogorgon to attack the Wheeler residence and kidnap Holly (Nell Fisher), the younger sister of Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Nancy (Natalia Dyer). Now, the Party splits up for one last time as Eleven hunts down Vecna in the Upside Down with her adoptive father Jim Hopper (David Harbour), and the rest of the crew figure out how to dispel the newest threat Vecna is scheming involving Holly and the other children he is targeting. And while all of this happens, strange revelations about the Hive Mind’s lasting influence on Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) begin to surface. And so, the last race against time begins as the mystery pieces itself together at record pace until everything comes to a head before the day Will first vanished.

As the season’s halfway point is reached, I was almost at a loss for words as to how everything is handled with the Duffer Brothers’ pride and joy. Everything that made Stranger Things what it has remained true to form with these four episodes and then some. The biggest compliment this series ever gets is the writing and overall story arcs, and the Duffer Brothers did not disappoint. The story goes from creating newer threads that flesh out the intentions of Vecna’s endgame to bringing forth plot elements from previous seasons that few fans expect ever to be brought up again. It just goes to show how dedicated the creators are to this show compared to other showrunners, by taking the effort to tie up all the loose ends and build up to something grand to complete the saga. If the first four episodes were this exciting, then I hope the last four will keep things consistent and let the tension and excitement build up by themselves.

Of course, the story can’t be brought to life without the incredible actors behind it all. While we reunite with our longtime favorite characters from the beginning, as well as recurring allies and threats, we get to enjoy some fresh faces just in time for the endgame to play out. Take the aforementioned Holly Wheeler. We only got brief glimpses of her in the past four seasons, albeit played by Anniston and Tinsley Price, so it comes as a surprise when she becomes a major focus for a rescue mission from Vecna’s grasp. Seeing her character arc develop when she realizes the situation, she’s in was encouraging, especially as she gets inspired by Mike’s words and receives some guidance from Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) while they are trapped in the mind prison. Holly’s story leaves me intrigued to see if she can live up to the heroic character Mike created for her. Another major surprise was the introduction of Derek Turnbow (Jake Connelly). His development has to be one of the fastest seen on any show, as he goes from being an obnoxious little bully to defiant and delightful in just the short time, we’ve known him. It may have been too swift, but he does bring a nice change of pace in the Party dynamic, as time is running out faster than they think. The Party may be growing by the season, but everyone involved has brought a certain quality that stuck through, and the new additions keep up with the tradition.

I can’t appreciate the season without looking at the elements behind the scenes, of course. Location, editing, and set design were top-notch as usual, bringing a nice bout of realism in Hawkins and a familiar menacing dread in the Upside Down. But props must be given to two new locations in particular: the Mind Prison and the military compound in the Upside Down. The compound suggests the tense atmosphere of Hawkins Lab in seasons past, but with the imminent danger of interdimensional entities being analyzed. It serves as a perfect blend of sci-fi and horror. But the Mind Prison is the highlight of the season, with a mind-bending element of shifting between Vecna’s memories from a repurposed Creel House to the cave Max uses as her hideout. The cave itself feels a bit out of place unless one is familiar with a prequel stage show the Duffer Brothers made after Season Four, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, making casual viewers miss crucial context as to why Vecna avoids the place. But it does leave me intrigued as to whether it could be explored in the last four episodes. Either way, every setting manages to fit with the Duffers’ overall style for the show.

And there’s nothing that fits a show like Stranger Things than the music and sound design. Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein did a fantastic job with the original score in the soundtrack, keeping up with the heavy 80s aesthetic and nostalgia with bouts of synthwave and orchestral elements to ramp up the tension and set the scenes. And viewers should never count out the recognizable hits from Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, ABBA, and even Tiffany, to fully immerse us in the period. They may not get the same revitalized commercial treatment as Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” did last season (though we do hear that song for a bit, too), but it helps that every song choice fits in with the atmosphere and the situations. If there’s one thing that I would miss after the show is over, it would be the soundtrack as a whole. Not so much with the screams of Demogorgons. The sound design for those creatures continues to feel all too real and nightmarish. Perfect for such a dark alternate dimension like the Upside Down. All in all, the show’s sound design continues to be exceptional on all levels to the end.

Overall, the first volume of Season Five brings an intense but exciting start to the ultimate endgame of Stranger Things. The story remains intriguing and addictive as old and new elements come together to start tying off all the loose ends from seasons past. Even all the visual and audio details remain top-notch when it comes to special effects and the overall atmosphere of the show. We started off seeing the Party as just a bunch of curious children, investigative teens, and concerned adults involved in a disappearance case almost a decade ago. And over time, everyone got to see them grow up as more developed personalities and incredibly courageous heroes that the entirety of Hawkins never knew they needed. Not yet hopefully. The actors retained their most iconic performances yet, and it feels almost satisfying to see their skills become more complex and varied throughout the years. After seeing everything that the first four episodes have brought, the latter half of the season is starting to look more and more exciting as the remainder of the holiday season approaches.