We just got our latest glimpse at Stranger Things Season 5, with co-creator Ross Duffer posting a new gallery of images from behind-the-scenes on his Instagram today. He's been doing that over the past few weeks, but today's batch includes a first look at Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Nancy (Natalia Dyer) in possibly a compromising situation.
The full collection of images, which you can see below, includes one of the two of them looking frightened in the back seat of a car. As Netflix's own X/Twitter account points out, that's Steve Harrington's BMW that they're in the back of.
The rest of the images are pretty standard behind-the-scenes fare, including a shot of the Duffer brothers with Heaton, Dyer, and Joe Keery, and one particularly goofy pre-vis shot of Heaton (a throwback to the pre-vis looks the writers' room posted during last year's actors' strike).
There's not a ton we can glean about the plot just from this image but it, along with Netflix's accompanying caption, certainly plays into the Nancy-Jonathan-Steve love triangle that's existed since Season 1. It also may be the most substantial look we've gotten at Season 5 yet; other BTS shots included a snap of Noah Schnapp (with a new haircut for Will!), a worried Nancy, and a photo of Sadie Sink and Caleb McLaughlin in Max's hospital room (Ross Duffer further clarified that that's Sink and McLaughlin - not Max and Lucas - as Max remains in a coma).
Basically, it ain't much, but these are the best glimpses we have at Season 5 just yet. As Ross Duffer notes, the most recent collection of photos is from weeks 15-19 of filming, as the Netflix hit began filming at the beginning of the year.
Production on Season 5 was long-delayed amid last year's writers' and actors' strikes, with the Duffer brothers among the first to confirm that they would not begin production while the strike was in progress. They've seemingly been full speed ahead since January, though star Millie Bobby Brown said in March that they still had nine months of production ahead of them.
It's unclear when the fifth and final season of Stranger Things will finally premiere, then, although the production schedule would make it seem like sometimes late in 2025 or early 2026, as THR previously noted. To hold fans over in the meantime, those in the U.K. at least have The First Shadow play running through the end of 2024.
IGN gave Part II of Season 4 a 9/10 in 2022, where I wrote that it "brings its most ambitious installment to a satisfying close with more emotion, action, and stakes than ever before."
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
