Stranger Things is set to conclude with its fifth and final season almost a full decade after the first season premiered. One of the reasons for the wait ahead of season 5, though, is apparently that the eight episodes in the fifth season are incredibly long.
Maya Hawke, who joined the show as Robin Buckley in its third season, recently appeared on Podcrushed to discuss the upcoming season, and particularly how long it took to make.
“We’re making, basically, eight movies. The episodes are very long,” she explained. Hawke explained that production on the series had basically been happening for all of 2024, and Hawke explained that all the work going into the final season was part of the reason it’s been three years since the last season.
“They are very intense and serious about the quality of the continued writing, and so it takes a long time to write each season and a long time to shoot them,” she explained.
While we still don’t know exactly how long each episode of the new season will be, it seems clear that the final season is going to contain some super-sized episodes. Netflix did reveal the names for each episode in the final season, which are “The Crawl,” “The Vanishing of [Name Redacted],” “The Turnbow Trap,” “Sorcerer,” “Shock Jock,” “Escape from Camazotz,” “The Bridge” and “The Rightside Up.”
While we don’t know a ton more about the final season other than that it’s expected to drop in 2025, it’s clear that the show’s expansive cast and crew have been hard at work on it. When it finally debuts, it may be unlike anything else we’ve ever seen on Netflix.