- calendar_today August 25, 2025
Stranger Things Finale Teaser Features Return of Demo-Dogs
Netflix has finally released the official Stranger Things Season 5 teaser. The season is still scheduled for late 2025, but fans now have a better idea of what’s to come in the fifth and final installment. In short: everything.
The preview sees the kids and Hawkins crew being torn apart one last time, with Hawkins continuing to be slowly devoured by the Upside Down and the creatures and demons inside it.
The Upside Down is seeping more into Hawkins than ever before. Demo-dogs prowl the shadows. A flamethrower-wielding Steve Hawkins comes at you with a big old grin. An armed Linda Hamilton steps out of a military vehicle, guns-a-blazin” and ready to rumble with the baddies.
In the final season of Stranger Things, the adventure comes full circle.
Season 4 ended with Vecna, the big bad villain behind all the horror (played by Jamie Campbell Bower), tearing open a giant gate that allowed the Upside Down to seep out into the real world of Hawkins. Season 5, we now know, is set in the fall of 1987. Fans will have noticed that, per the teaser trailer, this marks the third anniversary of Will Byers’ disappearance. It was the catalyzing event for Stranger Things Season 1 and the incident that set the stage for all subsequent adventures.
Eight Episodes. Eight Movies.
Netflix describes Stranger Things as “eight feature-length episodes.”
This is a slight misnomer. Each episode is a movie in its own right, but they are not full-fledged feature films.
In total, the final season of Stranger Things will have eight episodes and a running time of eight hours. This includes the mid-season break when Netflix will drop the second batch of episodes (three at once). That means for those that want to make a Stranger Things viewing event out of it (and we support this), there will be two big Stranger Things nights in 2025, then a third one on New Year’s Eve.
For those not up on the premise, this is what we know so far.
Hawkins is changed forever. The Rifts have opened. The Hawkins crew and their new allies are more determined than ever to find and kill Vecna, but no one knows where he is or what he might do next. As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance nears, the tension ratchets even higher. The U.S. government has quarantined Hawkins with the military and is redoubling efforts to capture Eleven. She is on the run, and her friends know it.
It’s no secret that the final battle between Hawkins and the Upside Down will be bigger, darker, and more intense than anything our gang of heroes has ever faced. In order to defeat the darkness, it will take the full party. All of the Hawkins crew. And we do mean all.
The Returning Cast, The New Faces, and The Sad, Sad Eddie Details
The central Stranger Things characters return. This includes Amybeth McNulty, who will be returning to Hawkins to play Viccki (as every kid who remembers Nicktoons calls her). Gabriella Pizzolo, who played Dustin’s girlfriend Suzie in previous seasons, is also returning.
The real headline actor is Jamie Campbell Bower, who will return as Vecna. Bower’s performance was one of the most anticipated aspects of Stranger Things Season 4.
Bower’s casting was one of the major developments in Season 4 teasers and trailers, which hinted at the villainous masked figure being much bigger and badder than a simple monster. And judging by this preview, he will not disappoint.
Fans are going to see a lot of new faces in Season 5. Linda Hamilton plays Dr. Kay. And we can only assume that Dr. Kay means Linda Hamilton. Other newcomers include Nell Fisher (playing Holly Wheeler), Jake Connelly (playing Derek Turnbow), and Alex Breaux (playing Lt. Akers).
Lots of quick, fun, and exciting cameos and details pepper the new Stranger Things Season 5 trailer. Early on, Lucas and a gaggle of other characters are seen hiding from an army of demo-dogs, which is played for big laughs. There’s also a callback to one of the most iconic scenes in cinematic horror. Lucas is in the kitchen, and the camera pulls back to show the demo-dogs creeping up behind him like the T-Rex running down the kitchen at the dinner table in Jurassic Park.
If you’ve already seen the trailer, you know that the show’s producers love giving us our chills on the cheap and exploiting Jamie Campbell Bower’s VO talent for all its worth. Hearing that gravelly “found you” does the trick every time.
But for every bit of fun or jump scare, there’s a real sense of gravity in the trailer. Eddie Munson’s grave is shown being desecrated with the words “Burn in hell” spray-painted on it. There’s a reminder that Eddie was vilified in Hawkins for all his sins against Vecna and the Upside Down Church, even though he selflessly sacrificed himself to save the others in the final season of Stranger Things.
