Stranger Things 5 Episode 1 Review – “Chapter One: The Crawl”

More than three years after the end of “Chapter Nine: The Piggyback”, Stranger Things finally returns to resolve its many lingering cliffhangers left in the summer of 2022 – and as one might expect, it is the usual mix of period-appropriate references, ominous foreshadowing, and exposition dumps most season premieres of Stranger Things are comprised of. However, with a much more streamlined narrative in place, and a much more manageable running time to work with, Stranger Things 5 appears to be trying to marry its storytelling styles of seasons one and two, with the much larger, bombastic action film aesthetics of seasons three and four, less weighed down with extraneous subplots and more directly focused on laying the tracks for the story lying ahead of it. Though certainly not a perfect hour, “Chapter One: The Crawl” is a solid (thought stagnant) opening for Stranger Things 5, as it explores a town and people left in figurative purgatory for the past eighteen months and prepares for its own endgame.

The beginning of the end of Stranger Things begins, well, back at the beginning, filling in a small, but important bit of information from in between the season one episodes “Chapter Seven: The Bathtub” and “Chapter Eight: The Upside Down”. Opening on Will’s abduction from the Upside Down Castle Byers, where he’s kidnapped by Vecna as the first step of some still-vacuous master plan, “Chapter One: The Crawl” quickly cuts from there to November 1987, to a Hawkins mostly unchanged eighteen months after the events of Stranger Things 4, everyone wallowing in stasis as Sullivan’s military unit walled in the city, so they could maintain the gate to the Upside Down – and even travel through it, where a Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton, making her Stranger Things debut) is running experiments for some obviously-nefarious reason.

Sure, on the surface some things have changed – like the fact everyone is living inside the Wheeler’s house, much to the chagrin of Ted (and slightly contained joy of Karen), and every actor now looks way too old for high school. Outside of that, but a few things have changed – Robin and Steve work at the radio station, Eleven has reunited with Hopper and is training for some “crawls” everyone keeps talking about – but for the most part, Stranger Things 5 returns with the quarantined Hawkins leaving everyone in some form of stagnation (something Karen Wheeler would be intimately familiar with, of course).

Despite nearly two years passing between seasons, so much of what is happening in Hawkins is the same; the letterman athletes are still violent bullies, Robin is still talking constantly (though has found a much healthier avenue for it as a local radio DJ), and sadly, Max Mayfield still lies in a coma, where Lucas still goes to visit her regularly. As is mentioned with Dr. Kay’s research in the Upside Down, everything has stalled within Hawkins as well, as Vecna lies hidden – and to a degree, certain characters have definitely taken some comfort in that light ease of existential tension, but others, like Dustin, have clearly struggled to adjust to post-Hellfire life in Hawkins, where Eddie is still considered a murderer and villain,

And for good reason, obviously; with Will’s head spinning oddly in the middle of “The Crawl” right before we get a similarly dizzying shot of Holly Wheeler on the playground, (a bit of visual trickery that is either purely aesthetic, or suggesting something connecting Mike and Nancy’s poor little sister to the Upside Down), it’s clear the Wet, Evil One is somewhere near – close enough that the team has run 37 missions in the time between seasons to try and find him in the Upside Down, via the ‘crawl’ that forms the heart of the episode’s climactic act.

How “The Crawl” builds to its titular mission, which turns into a meticulously-planned disaster when the truck Hopper snuck onto gets assaulted by Demogorgons in the Upside Down, is when “The Crawl” really starts to hum, as all of its characters go through their daily motions and preparations, all while discussing the plan to find Vecna in the Upside Down. Instead of scrambling together plans as they’ve done in the past, everyone is working together – adults and children alike, except Eleven, who remains sidelined on Hopper’s orders – to try and figure out where the man formerly known as Henry Creel is hiding.

All that preparation gives time for “The Crawl” to catch up with its characters, while it begins to lay out the central mystery (in many ways, Stranger Things 5 does adhere to familiar formula in its season premiere, which is at times comforting, and at times a bit limiting) of whatever’s happening with Will’s visions of Demogorgons, which obviously has to do with his long-standing connection to the Upside Down – and of course, Holly Wheeler, whose invisible friend is causing her trouble at school, and causing anxiety at home (at least with Karen; Ted still doesn’t remember how old Holly is, unsurprisingly). How these stories are tied together “The Crawl” plays incredibly close to its vest; but it obviously can’t be a good thing, especially with the multiple contrasting shots of Will and Holly throughout the episode.

Of course, it also wouldn’t be a Stranger Things premiere if we didn’t get some romantic tension – and as usual, it is where “The Crawl” stumbles the hardest. ‘Cause when I say not much has changed in Hawkins, I mean not much has changed in Hawkins, led by the world’s most boring love triangle between Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan – which, in this episode, manifests in the two men racing to the top of the radio tower, and a moment where Jonathan notices Nancy and Steve getting a little close while they look for clues. At least they’re both engaged in this story this season – though Jonathan’s anxious uncertainty last season has clearly done nothing but fester for the past year and a half, which has to have made for a lot of exhausting interactions for Nancy.

(also Hopper and Joyce are still a thing… anyone care? Didn’t think so.)

What little time is left between all of these elements comes perhaps the most interesting (if predictable) change of season four; the solemn, dark change we see in ol’ Dustin, who has taken up the mantle of the disbanded Hellfire Club, promising to keep Eddie’s memory alive, even if it leads to him getting into some nasty confrontations with the Psychotic Letterman Club – which, in this episode alone, leads to a snake being killed and its blood smeared across Eddie’s grave, which Dustin discovers before getting the shit beat out of him – causing him to be late to the big mission at the end of the episode, our last sight of him being bloodied and injured as the Letterboys kick the shit out of him (though to his credit, Dustin puts in some serious work trying to fight them all off before succumbing).

Of all the characters struggling to move forward, Dustin’s hit home the hardest, a kid who lost his best friend and has watched the world either villainize him or try to forget him. Though everyone is going through the motions around him like life is normal, Dustin implores the group to remain true to themselves, no matter what – even if that means drawing the ire of people around him, and carrying the legacy of a man whose real story of heroism will never be known to the people of Hawkins.

With characters like Dustin and Holly, Stranger Things 5 feels closest to being a distinct offering from Stranger Things 4 – otherwise, much of the introductions we get back into the world of Hawkins feels like an addendum from “The Piggyback”, with so many of its character stagnating in a way that feels like Stranger Things at its most reductive. Despite a few of those added wrinkles, Stranger Things 5 still feels much like the series it left 1,244 days ago, an enticing, if abundantly familiar, mix of narratives and characters, wrapped in the same luxuriously mystifying score and underlying sense of dread – one that is a bit heightened this time around, if only because we all know this is the true beginning of The End for Hawkins and its characters.

Grade: B

Other thoughts/observations:

• Whether you’re returning after reading season three and four reviews at TILT Magazine back in the day, or joining after the rewatch/review binge of the past month – welcome to the final season of Stranger Things! I strangely did not receive screener access to this final season, so reviews will publish sporadically over the next 48-72 hours.
  
• Has nothing changed inside Hawkins, despite being in quarantine for eighteen months? Seems implausible.
  
• The most disappointing part of the premiere is the noticeable absence of Joyce Byers as an actual, tangible presence in the series. Once the beating heart of the show, Joyce has been mostly reduced to the background, someone for Action Hero Hopper to kiss and someone to remind the audience that these adult actors are still teenagers.
  
• Holly is reading A Wrinkle in Time in multiple scenes, and has named her invisible friend Mr. Whatsit – which, for those who aren’t 80s kids, is a fantasy book about a group of space-travelers looking for their father and fighting a dark enemy. Thankfully, Ted is home safe; however, I can’t imagine the purpose of her ‘invisible friend’ is a pleasant one.
  
• It appears The Duffer Brothers have taken something from the previous season’s absolutely terrible pacing, and is looking to make a leaner final season. Thank goodness, because season four is so long, it is almost unrewatchable.
  
• Who wouldn’t love a bit of Rockin’ Robin on the radio to start the day? I love the sequence of her radio intro with Steve scrambling to produce sound effects. Their friendship remains the standard of Stranger Things, and my god, they better not kill either of these two.
  
• Wait… is Jonathan getting ready to propose to Nancy? Seems like a terrible idea, since he’s obviously very aware of Steve’s not-so-casual flirting.
  
• I love how everyone is like “Will hasn’t had goosebumps in awhile” and then he has goosebumps literal minutes later. Foreshadowing!
  
• Robin made a date at Enzo’s? That’s never a good sign.
  
• What has grown more between seasons: Eleven’s hair or Will’s neck?
  
• Karen is getting a little tipsy; seems the life of an 80s housewife continues to wear on her soul. Will she do anything about it this season?
  
• Lucas gets the single funniest line of the episode: “Snipers chew gun.”
  
• Didn’t burning the gate help spread the tunnels below it in Stranger Things 2? Though I guess its the American military, and they certainly don’t seem to give a shit.