Stranger Things Co-Creator Teases Game-Changing Season 5 Volume 2 Episodes

Stranger Things is about to put the screws to us. Ross Duffer just popped up on Instagram to say Season 5 Volume 2 is finished, darker, and a lot more intense. This is the final season, and you can feel the show winding the spring tighter. Also: there are some eyebrow-raising director choices and a tease that suggests the true finale lands days after Christmas.

"Chapters Five, Six and Seven: locked, mixed, scored, colored... Volume Two is DONE."

"It's gonna be a long six day wait for the finale..."

When it drops

Netflix already rolled out Volume 1 of Season 5. Volume 2 brings three new episodes on December 25. Yes, Christmas Day. And based on Duffer's sign-off, it sounds like the actual series finale may hit six days later. He didn't spell out that date outright, but the tease reads like a countdown.

What's in Volume 2

Duffer laid out the episode titles, who directed what, and the vibe for each. There's a lot to chew on, including a return from a very notable filmmaker and a promise that the middle entry is the big one.

• Chapter Five: 'Shock Jock'
  Picks up immediately after 'Sorcerer'. Frank Darabont is back behind the camera, but Duffer says this one is a different beast than the Darabont-directed 'Turnbow Trap' earlier in the season: darker and scarier.
• Chapter Six: 'Escape From Camazotz'
  Directed by Shawn Levy. Duffer calls it the biggest episode of the three, and apparently the cast goes for the jugular here — he says their performances make the team cry every time they rewatch it.
• Chapter Seven: 'The Bridge...'
  Co-directed by Ross Duffer, Matt Duffer, and Shawn Levy. No plot specifics, but he frames it as one of the season's heaviest hitters emotionally — second only to the actual finale.

The tonal shift

Duffer isn't being coy about the direction: Volume 2 leans darker and more intense across the board. Between the horror-forward talk on 'Shock Jock', the tear-jerker promise for 'Escape From Camazotz', and the three-way team-up on 'The Bridge...', this feels like the stretch where they try to break us a little before the last curtain call.

Bottom line: three new chapters land December 25, including what Duffer says is the biggest episode of the batch. Then, if his tease means what it sounds like, brace for a short, twitchy wait before the true finale closes the book on Hawkins.