We have an incoming transmission from Hawkins, Indiana: Stranger Things Season 5 has started filming. Miss your favorite nerds? They’re back, ready (or not) for whatever Vecna has in store for them in the beloved series’ final season.

Here’s everything we know so far about Stranger Things Season 5:

Go Behind the Scenes with the cast of Stranger Things Season 5

When does Stranger Things Season 5 start filming?

It’s already underway! Code red: As of Jan. 8, 2024, Stranger Things is officially back in production. And as of July 15 — the eight-year anniversary of Stranger Things Season 1 — Season 5 is halfway through filming. Take a look at your old Hawkins pals (and some new ones!) filming the series’ final chapter in the video above. 

“We’re just kind of savoring every single moment,” Sadie Sink (who plays Max) says in the video. Back in his famed hair and makeup chair, Jamie Campbell Bower (who plays Vecna) teases that “Season 4 was big. Season 5 definitely feels bigger.” Finn Wolfhard shares that he is particularly excited to film scenes “with the original four” — Will (Noah Schnapp), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Mike (Wolfhard), now that Will returned to Hawkins at the end of Season 4. But “like every season, you never know what to expect,” says McLaughlin.

See a photo of the cast back on set below. 

From left: Noah Schnapp, Millie Bobby Brown, David Harbour, Winona Ryder, Cara Buono, Joe Keery, Amybeth McNulty, Charlie Heaton, Brett Gelman, Maya Hawke, Natalia Dyer, Jamie Campbell Bower, Priah Ferguson, Linda Hamilton, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Ross Duffer, Matt Duffer, Finn Wolfhard, and Sadie Sink of Stranger Things.

Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix

Plus, check out Ross Duffer’s Instagram for more peeks behind-the-scenes: an image of Matarazzo’s Dustin Henderson is captioned, “Hellfire lives!”; another shows Wolfhard’s Mike Wheeler in a room with, unsurprisingly, a Star Wars poster; and another shows Millie Bobby Brown with the Duffers. 

Also look out for Natalia Dyer in an artsy shot worthy of Hawkins High’s newspaper, The Weekly Streak; McLaughlin and Sink together on set in a hospital room; David Harbour’s Hopper looking ready to drive on over to Enzo’s; Schnapp celebrating Will Byers’ birthday on March 22. 

Clay Enos/Netflix

The latest BTS photos are of Nancy Wheeler (Dyer) and Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) looking scared (!) in the back of Steve Harrington’s (Joe Keery) BMW and Keery just generally being a pretty damn good babysitter.

What are the first few lines of Stranger Things Season 5?

At the end of Stranger Things Day 2023, the @strangerwriters Twitter account had one more present for all the fans out there: The first few lines of Season 5, Chapter 1, Scene 1. 

What’s the title of the first episode of Stranger Things Season 5?

On Stranger Things Day 2022, we learned the Season 5 premiere episode title: “The Crawl.” And we hope you’ve been theorizing along with us about what it could mean: What is the Crawl? Who is crawling? Why are they crawling? Where are they crawling to? 

The Stranger Things writers started working on Season 5 on Aug. 2, 2022, almost exactly a month after Season 4, Volume 2 debuted. Since then, they have graced the fans with repeated updates on the writing process of Season 5, from beginning their grid stage of writing each episode (Aug. 25, 2022) to completing that grid (Sept. 20, 2022).

Are there any new cast members in Stranger Things Season 5?

Yup! Nell Fisher, Jake Connelly, and Alex Breaux are joining the cast of Stranger Things Season 5. And Linda Hamilton (The Terminator, Children of the Corn, Chuck) announced that she would be joining the final season at 2023’s Tudum: A Global Fan Event. As for any details about her role — well, that’s as mysterious as the Upside Down. But we do know that she’s a major fan of the series. “I don’t know how to be a fangirl and an actress at the same time,” she said during her video announcement at Tudum. “I’m gonna work on that.”

What’s Stranger Things Season 5 about?

Series creators Matt and Ross Duffer previously told Tudum that they wrote a 25-page mythology document for Netflix back in Season 1 that delves into the mythology and lore of the Upside Down. “We were like, ‘We know what’s going on in the Upside Down, more or less, but we want it to be unknowable. We want it to be mysterious,’ ” Matt Duffer explained. “But they were like, ‘Yeah, but can you write it down?’ And so we wrote it all down.”

While the audience learned quite a bit about the Upside Down in Season 4, there’s definitely more to come in Season 5. “The last remaining questions that are answered in that document, we’ve punted a couple of those to have some big reveals in Season 5,” said Ross Duffer during Geeked Week in June 2022. “And that’s really going to affect what Season 5 is about.” 

To be continued, it seems …

And while you wait for the show’s return, may we suggest a trip to London to check out the Stranger Things: The First Shadow play on the West End? The original stage play production opened on Dec. 14, 2023 at the Phoenix Theatre. Read everything a nerd needs to know about this new dimension of the Stranger Things universe here.

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Crack Up with the Cast of Stranger Things over These BloopersEven Vecna can't keep a straight face.