Picture: SFX Magazine
Over the past few weeks, numerous outlets have led extended coverage previewing what’s to come in the fifth and final season of Stranger Things. It’s going to be a juggernaut of a season, and this week, we got even more insights into what’s coming up in season 5 courtesy of a cover story on SFX Magazine (a part of CinemaBlend) in the United Kingdom. Here’s what we learned.
There’s a bunch in this 20-page feature, which features interviews with some of the main cast and The Duffer Brothers, and it’s well worth picking up if you can, as we’re only going to cover the tip of the iceberg. SFX issue 398 is now available in most UK shops, and you can also find it on services like MagazinesDirect or Readly. You can also find a bunch of their coverage online via the SFX hub on CinemaBlend, with their article on the new issue being here.
Darren Scott, editor at SFX, says the team has been gearing up for this moment for a long time. “Just like season five, our coverage of the Stranger Things finale has been years in the making, quite literally, as conversations with Netflix span right back to the end of season four! What a journey… if you think the kids have aged, you should see me now.” He adds that SFX has been with the show since the very beginning. “SFX has supported Stranger Things right from the launch of season one, we’ve provided multiple covers and huge amounts of features. And quite right too, it’s a modern phenomenon. In the 30 years SFX has been in print, we’ve only seen such a response to a handful of shows, like Buffy, The X-Files and Doctor Who, so our coverage had to reflect that for the season five finale.”
That scale of response led them to go big. “That’s why we decided to go all out, with 20 pages of exclusive new interviews, variant covers, new photos and specially created posters, stickers and an art card that you can’t get anywhere else.” And it is only the beginning. “But of course that’s not all, we’re planning to do it all again for Volume Two! Yes, that means more covers, more interviews, more goodies… Oh those SPOILERS! Our lips are sealed!” He notes that coordinating it across two releases has taken real strategy. “So it’s been even more planning than we’d anticipated, because we needed to ensure we were hitting the correct points with the cast and crew for Volume One and then again for Volume Two, and tie that all in with the release dates.” Scott ends with a playful rallying cry: “Hopefully everyone will think it’s worth it and pick up the issues so we’re still here to do it all again for Tales From ’85 next year… Buy magazines, nerds!”
Picture courtesy of SFX Magazine
Cast Revelations from Stranger Things Season 5 SFX Issue
Throughout their coverage, they spoke to four of the main cast members: Finn Wolfhard in a piece labeled The Paladin, Caleb McLaughlin in The Ranger, Noah Schapp as The Cleric, and Gaten Matarazzo as The Bard.
Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike, will play a leadership role in season 5, according to his sit-down interview with the outlet. After professing his love to Eleven, Mike is now more assured and focused on defeating Vecna, stating, “We’re all just on a mission to finish this and try to find Vecna.” This season promises to blend high-stakes action with personal stakes, as Wolfhard notes, “It becomes personal in a lot of ways.” Wolfhard also teased that sets for this season “are out of control,” going on to explain how they’re some of the biggest in the series’ history.
He also suggested that many of his scenes were shot practically and on location rather than on greenscreen. Asked about the tone and themes of the new season, Wolfhard couldn’t exactly answer what movie the season could be compared to, but did describe the new episodes as being “almost Coen Brothers-y,” suggesting that they’re taking big story swings.
Asked about where Mike ends up and whether he’s happy with his character’s resolved arc, Wolfhard says, “I was definitely, definitely pleased with it. And it was something that I feel was bigger than I could have imagined. I couldn’t have imagined how big that moment felt, reading the final thing, and it ended in the best way it could have, when it comes to my character. Reading that for the first time was definitely a super-emotional experience.”
Picture: SFX / Netflix
Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Lucas in Stranger Things, shared how the final season feels like a return to where the show began, while carrying the weight of everything the characters have endured. He described the final season as a blend of “season one and four,” calling the upcoming episodes “grounded” and noting that everyone has “darkened over the seasons.”
The emotional stakes are heavy, especially for Lucas, who is still grappling with Max’s condition. “He thinks it’s his fault because he could have helped her… there’s a lot of trauma for him in that way,” McLaughlin said, adding that Lucas’s grief has curdled into something more purposeful. “There’s definitely some vengeful thoughts, even in his heart, and he wants the revival of Max and her well-being.”
Reflecting on returning to the role, McLaughlin said filming the final chapter pushed him in meaningful ways. “I wanted to ensure I delivered Lucas’s character authentically, especially since this is the last season.” He noted that shooting across a full year was a “good challenge,” not just for him but for the entire cast. “We’re adults now. We’ve all grown so much, and our characters have darkened over the seasons due to their experiences.” That real-life growth, paired with years of character history, looks to give the final season an especially emotional resonance.
Noah Schnapp echoed that idea when discussing Will’s arc. Season 5 will finally address why Will was the one the Upside Down latched onto from the beginning. The season opens with a de-aged Will reliving moments from Season 1, acting as a direct mirror to the show’s earliest mysteries. “Why him? Why was he the first kid?” Schnapp said to SFX Magazine, adding that filming those callbacks felt like stepping back into “a film and a time.” Beyond the mythology, Will’s feelings for Mike will be explored further. “We’ve always known Will has these feelings… and they finally explore that and they take it to a place that’s very real.” Schnapp described the season as one that “hits a touch on every emotion you could think of: fear, heartbreak, anger, trauma,” with a stronger focus on character intimacy over spectacle.
Gaten Matarazzo shared how Eddie’s death continues to shape Dustin in deep and sometimes surprising ways. Usually the group’s emotional glue and comic relief, Dustin begins the season carrying a lot more weight. “Dustin, seeing that up close… it happened with him, like he was the only one really there,” Matarazzo explained. The grief has left him more withdrawn and short-tempered, which the actor sees as a realistic reaction for someone his age. Dustin even starts to take on pieces of Eddie’s personality. “It’s a pretty natural process for somebody that young who is grieving to try to physically embody somebody they’ve lost,” he said. That shift gives Dustin a new edge that Matarazzo finds both painful and fascinating. “It’s funny to think that Dustin’s edgy now!”
Additional insights from the interviews are that the Duffer Brothers essentially “tricked” the director Frank Darabont into coming out of retirement to shoot two episodes this season, even though he initially wasn’t keen on night shoots.
The pair mostly covered season 5 but did touch on Stranger Things: Tales from ’85, releasing in early 2026. While we’ve known much about the story before, we haven’t heard the Duffers explain succinctly the purpose of the series quite as well as they did in this particular excerpt: “The cartoon goes back and fills in a six-month gap that we weren’t able to explore,” Ross Duffer told SFX, “It’s fun because you get to see them as little kids again, but it’s not really again.”
Will the characters ever come back? SFX’s interview suggests no. “This really is the end of the story of Eleven and Mike and Lucas and Dustin and Steve and all these characters, and Hawkins specifically,” the duo said.
In case you’ve missed any of the other big revelations from recent Stranger Things cover stories, we’ve got a big recap of those in the link provided.
Are you excited for Stranger Things Season 5? Let us know in the comments.
