Stranger Things Season 4 Recap and Ending Explained: How Hawkins’ Red Sky Raises the Stakes for Eleven and Will
Hawkins is about to blow. Stranger Things returns this fall for an eight-episode endgame rolling out in three drops, starting with Volume 1 on November 26 and its four-episode Thanksgiving kickoff, with two more waves to decide the town’s fate.
Stranger Things left Hawkins basically held together with duct tape, and now the final season is rolling in to finish the job. Netflix is dropping Season 5 in three chunks this fall, and yeah, they picked the holidays on purpose. Consider your free time booked.
When and how to watch Season 5
Eight episodes total, released in three drops: four on the night before Thanksgiving, three on Christmas Day, and a standalone finale for New Year’s Eve. Here’s when they go live where you are:
- US (ET): Volume 1 - Nov 26 at 8:00 PM; Volume 2 - Dec 25 at 8:00 PM; Finale - Dec 31 at 8:00 PM
- US (PT): Volume 1 - Nov 26 at 5:00 PM; Volume 2 - Dec 25 at 5:00 PM; Finale - Dec 31 at 5:00 PM
- UK (GMT): Volume 1 - Nov 27 at 1:00 AM; Volume 2 - Dec 26 at 1:00 AM; Finale - Jan 1 at 1:00 AM
- Europe (CET): Volume 1 - Nov 27 at 2:00 AM; Volume 2 - Dec 26 at 2:00 AM; Finale - Jan 1 at 2:00 AM
- India (IST): Volume 1 - Nov 27 at 6:30 AM; Volume 2 - Dec 26 at 6:30 AM; Finale - Jan 1 at 6:30 AM
Quick refresher: where Season 4 left everyone gasping
Season 4 splintered the gang across California, Russia, and Hawkins while opening with a gut-punch flashback: Dr. Martin Brenner doing his calm morning routine on September 8, 1979, right before we see Eleven standing in blood and bodies at Hawkins Lab. Out in Lenora Hills, El tried to convince Mike via cheery letters that life was great, even as Angela made it miserable. Meanwhile, Joyce got a creepy Russian doll that basically screamed: Hopper is alive.
Back in Hawkins, Chrissy’s horrific death in Eddie Munson’s trailer set off a full-blown panic. Eddie was instantly the town villain, and Jason Carver used the chaos to point fingers at Dungeons and Dragons. Max, already drowning in grief over Billy, started showing the same Vecna symptoms as Chrissy and Fred. Her save via Kate Bush’s 'Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)' turned into the season’s heartbeat, where the show quietly said: trauma is the battlefield.
Team Scoops and Hellfire (Steve, Robin, Nancy, Eddie, Max, Lucas, Dustin, Erica) pieced together that Vecna’s kills punch open gates. That led them to Lover’s Lake and a portal under the water that they, in very Hawkins fashion, nicknamed Watergate. Nancy clocked something crucial: the Upside Down is frozen in time on November 6, 1983 — the day Will disappeared — which tightened the show’s original mystery back around the current nightmare.
How Henry Creel became 001, then Vecna
Season 4 finally pulled the mask off the big bad. Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower) was playing house as the Creel family son before he became Brenner’s first subject, 001. Eleven, reliving buried memories in the Nina Project, removed Henry’s Soteria device out of sympathy. That good intention unleashed the actual monster inside Hawkins Lab. Brenner tried to recreate Henry’s power with the numbered kids, but Henry’s massacre exposed what he really wanted: control. El’s last-ditch blast didn’t kill him — it flung him into the other dimension, where he reshaped the raw landscape and evolved into Vecna. Now he feeds on trauma, each kill widening his reach and ripping open the town, painting the sky a very literal red.
Russia, a Demogorgon pit, and the reunion that hurt in a good way
Joyce and Murray’s Alaska detour went sideways fast thanks to Yuri, who sold them out, which led to a crash landing and, somehow, a backdoor into a Russian prison. Hopper and his reluctant ally Antonov fought a Demogorgon in a bone-strewn arena like it was their day job, and Joyce and Murray stormed in just in time to yank them out. Hopper and Joyce finally reunited — a small, needed win — right before Hawkins started cracking open from Vecna’s fourth kill.
El gets her power back, Papa runs out of time
Inside Nina, Eleven rebuilt her powers and learned the thing that’s haunted her wasn’t true: she didn’t kill the kids in the lab. Dr. Owens wanted her back in Hawkins immediately. Brenner said absolutely not, because of course he did. Then Lt. Colonel Sullivan rolled in, turned the desert into a war zone, and mortally wounded Brenner. El swatted a helicopter out of the sky, and that’s when Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle finally caught up to her. With no plane back to Indiana, El improvised the wild plan: fight Vecna from inside Max’s mind. Argyle being Argyle, he turned a Surfer Boy Pizza freezer into a DIY isolation tank. Pizza oven in the front, psychic war in the back.
The finale you felt in your spine
Eddie went out on a screaming guitar solo, pulling the demobats away and refusing to run for once. Lucas threw hands with Jason while Max floated and snapped like a marionette as Vecna completed kill number four. El refused to let Max die: she pushed her consciousness somewhere so deep she couldn’t find it again. Max lived, but not really — she’s in a coma El can’t reach. That fourth death tore Hawkins open in massive cross-town ruptures. Spores drifted through a crimson haze. The dust settled just long enough for a group hug and Hopper’s return before Will quietly confirmed what we all suspected: the chill in his neck is back. The danger didn’t end. It paused.
So what does the red sky actually mean?
It’s not a metaphor. It’s a breach. The red storm, the tremors, the spores — the Upside Down is seeping into Hawkins in the most literal way possible. Vecna didn’t lose; he retreated and waited. El’s stronger, but if she can’t find Max in the void, even she might not understand what she did to save her. And Will’s connection to that place is clearly hot again. He may feel the threat before anyone else, which is useful and terrifying. Translation: the clock is ticking, and Hawkins isn’t a battleground-in-waiting anymore. It’s already occupied.
Where we go from here
Season 5 will either turn El’s growth and Will’s sixth sense into Hawkins’ last line of defense, or those same ties become the weak links Vecna exploits. Either way, we’re headed for the big swing.
Drop your wildest theories and Hawkins survival plans below. Stranger Things is streaming on Netflix.