Warning! Spoilers ahead for Stranger Things season 4.
Stranger Things season 5 will see the original Hawkins gang back together again, promise creators Matt and Ross Duffer. After quickly becoming popular with the release of its first season in 2016, Stranger Things is now one of Netflix's biggest shows, with season 4 recently hitting 1.5 billion hours viewed. The most recent season sees Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Max (Sadie Sink), and the others facing off against a new threat in the form of Jamie Campbell Bower's Vecna, with action taking place across the U.S. and in Soviet Russia.
After seemingly being vaporized at the end of Stranger Things season 3, Hopper (David Harbour) returns, held captive in a Soviet prison, far from Hawkins. Although Eleven starts out the season in California, she is soon taken to an underground lab in Nevada before then escaping and embarking on a road trip back home to Hawkins. After spending most of the season separated, the Stranger Things season 4 finale finally sees Hopper and Eleven reunited back in Hawkins, along with Mike, Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Will (Noah Schnapp), Steve (Joe Keery), Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Robin (Maya Hawke), and Joyce (Winona Ryder).
In a new interview with Collider, the Duffer Brothers reveal that, after keeping different groups separated in season 4, Stranger Things season 5 will see all the core characters once more reunited in Hawkins. They explain that, like in season 1, the season 5 episodes will explore the familiar dynamic between Eleven and the core group of boys, Mike, Will, Lucas, and Dustin. Check out the full comment from Matt Duffer below:
"I think one of the things that's exciting about Season 5 is [that] Season 4 was interesting to us because everyone was scattered to the winds. That's what was unique about it. But this is about everyone finally coming back. Coming back together, coming back to Hawkins. Hopper is back in Hawkins. The original group [is] back together—the original group of boys plus Eleven. The OG group. There's something interesting to re-explore some of the Season 1 dynamics again, except on this grander scale."
Compared to season 4, season 1 of the Duffers' hit series is very contained, with action taking place exclusively in Hawkins as Eleven, Mike, and the rest of the gang face off against the Demogorgon. With Stranger Things season 5 already confirmed to be the show's last, it would seem that the Duffer Brothers are going back to the show's roots, at least in some ways. After wide crevasses appear across the streets of Hawkins at the end of season 4 and the Upside Down begins to seep through, it would seem that Stranger Things season 5 will very much see the core characters once more facing off against a Hawkins-centric threat.
Although many fans were undoubtedly happy to find out that Hopper was alive after the events of season 3, the character's Soviet Union plotline did sometimes feel disconnected from the events of the rest of the show. With the Stranger Things season 4 finale finally seeing the character back in Hawkins and reunited with Eleven, season 5 can potentially avoid feeling disjointed in that same way. Similarly, after Mike and Eleven's relationship took a bit of a backseat season in season 4, it sounds like Stranger Things season 5 will once more explore that dynamic, much as it did in season 1.
Source: Collider