Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven with Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler in 'Stranger Things' season five. Courtesy of Netflix Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text [This story contains major spoilers from Stranger Things season five, episodes one through four.] Within the first four episodes of their final season, Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer have already turned things upside down. The first batch of the Netflix hit's final season has arrived, with four more episodes still to come (three arriving on Dec. 25, and the grand finale hitting Dec. 31). Already, the wait for the second half feels agonizing, thanks to the Duffers putting the Hawkins gang through their paces and then some. Thus far, some long percolating twists have already unfurled, such as Will (Noah Schnapp) finally channeling the Upside Down and gaining some sorcerous powers of his own. In the Upside Down itself, a familiar face resurfaced, though it's one no one really expected to see again: Kali (Linnea Berthelsen), the central figure of season two's "The Lost Sister," easily the most polarizing episode of the whole series. Not only is she back, but she's seemingly powering the army's ability to navigate the Upside Down - though now that she's reunited with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), the power dynamics are certain to flip. Related Stories TV Netflix Crashes as 'Stranger Things' Season 5 Premieres TV 'Stranger Things' Star Millie Bobby Brown on Current Relationship With David Harbour After Bullying Claims Will's sorcerer turn and Kali's return aren't the only big surprises of the final season so far, with Lord Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) showing up to abduct as many Hawkins' children as possible in the closing moments of episode four, among other brutal developments. (The Wheelers! Somebody think of the Wheelers!) Below, the Duffer brothers break down some of their boldest swings of the final season thus far, and share insight into the work done to bring this last stretch to a satisfying close. *** The world's finally getting their first look at the beginning of the end. How do you guys feel? ROSS DUFFER We're good. We're good. We're excited. I mean, nervous to show it to the world, but we're excited to finally be near the end, but also sad... very confused emotions over here! We'll see how we feel when it's all done. Right now, we still have some work to do, but we're getting near to the end. MATT DUFFER We're still working on it, which allows us to remain in denial. But it's very weird. When I was in school, I was always the last person working on a test, so I hate that someone has to force me to put pencils down, which is inevitably going to happen. Before we dig into the big beats from these first four episodes, I just want to say, how dare you end this show just as soon as you introduce us to Derek (Jake Connelly, the series' latest breakout young actor). ROSS (Laughs.) Jake is a special kid. He had only been in a local Chicago furniture commercial [before this]. We found him and it's different than how we imagined Derek originally, but that's how it was with most of the actors we found. Gaten [Matarazzo] was very different than the Dustin we originally imagined, but what you want to find is someone who you think is special, and then you just write the role to them. With finding this young actor right here at the end, was it at all nostalgic for the way you originally cast the series? MATT Yes. That was one of the reasons we [created this character], and why we made Holly (played by Nell Fisher, in a recasting decision) a big part of the storyline, and her friends. A big part of the story was to recapture some of the feeling of season one. Obviously our "kids" are not kids anymore, so we've lost that element of the show and because we wanted this season to harken back a little bit more to season one, we felt it was very natural to bring in the next generation. The timing worked out in the sense that Holly is very close to the age our boys were in season one. It's not Stranger Things without extraordinary amounts of reckless child endangerment! And where we leave things at the end of the first half of the year, the kids are very much in danger, with mass abductions... the vanishing of Will Byers writ large. How long did you know that this was a direction that the show was going in? ROSS There are definitely elements, like Will's powers and where the show's ultimately going, that we've known for a while. But the Holly and Derek storyline involving all these kids was really formed once we sat down with our writers and started breaking season five. That's really what clicked it all into place, once we realized that and it felt like we brought things full circle. So that was a later idea, but once we had that, that's when season five star