Spoilers ahead for Volume 1 of Stranger Things Season 5, available streaming with a Netflix subscription now if you haven’t checked it out just yet.
The first four episodes of Stranger Things‘s fifth and final season may have turned a lot of Thanksgivings completely Upside Down with its release on November 26 in the 2025 TV schedule, and that was the first of three holidays to take fans back to Hawkins this year. The wait is currently on for Volume 2, comprised of the next three episodes, and some comments from the Duffer Brothers about the family relationships of Season 5 have me thinking about Hopper and Eleven. They had a solid bond in Volume 1, but I’d love for one thing to change moving forward.
But first things first!
What The Duffer Brothers Said About Hopper And Eleven
The Duffer Brothers spoke with outlets during a Stranger Things press event ahead of the Season 5 premiere, with Matt Duffer weighing in on the use of Dungeons & Dragons as a means “for the kids to be able to reference in order to help them understand what was going on,” as well as specifically “to help Eleven [undertand] what was going on.” That’s certainly the case with Vecna, who El and Hopper spent much of Season 5, Volume 1 chasing. (Or at least trying to.)
On the subject of how parental connections between the various characters – Hopper and Eleven, Joyce and Will, even Karen and Holly – resonate with audiences, Ross Duffer named Hopper and Eleven’s relationship as a little family unit as important for Season 5. He began:
You know, at its heart, this really is a show about family. So yes, it is about those friendships when we were young, but from early on, we saw this as a multigenerational show. And I think it’s one of the reasons we got so excited to tell the story in the first place is, yes, it’s inspired by these films where we grew up, but it was a new format in that we’re telling these stories that are eight or more hours long. If this was a film, it woulda just been about the kids or just been about Hopper.
It’s no secret that classic ’80s films have inspired elements of Stranger Things, with the Duffer Brothers previously listing movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), The Thing (1982), Romancing the Stone (1984), and the Indiana Jones classics (1981, 1984, 1989), to name just some. The family relationships seem pretty unique to the Netflix show, however, and Ross Duffer went on to explain the importance of Hopper and El in Season 5:
And we can bounce around, get to know all these people, but also we can then put them together. And I think as we moved into season five, those relationships continue to be important. Hopper and Eleven probably being the most important just because they’ve had a long journey. Eleven, her mom was taken from her. She didn’t have anyone. Her one father figure, Papa, was really messed up. And so she found someone in Hopper who had lost a daughter.
Before the release of Volume 1, I would have assumed that Joyce and Will would have the most important parental relationship of Season 5 just based on what the trailers revealed about the ordeal that Will would be going through. Having seen the first four episodes, however, Hopper and El spent almost all of their screentime together, which isn’t the case for any other parent/child relationships so far. Ross went on:
I think we’ve seen that relationship change and evolve over the years. And how it plays out is really important for both of their characters in the final season.
Given that the Duffers dropped their comments ahead of the Season 5 premiere, it wasn’t too surprising to see ways that the Hopper/Eleven relationship had evolved during the time skip from spring of ’85 – fall of ’87. They didn’t have anybody else to bounce off of other than enemy soldiers for most of their scenes. I think it’s safe to say that the brothers weren’t just trying to obscure spoilers when they indicated the importance of Hopper and Eleven, a.k.a. the only parent/child relationship of the series that involves adoption rather than blood relation.
But with so much emphasis on their importance and how Hop has been rubbing off on Eleven in some pretty endearing (and other more stubborn) ways, I’m ready for something to change in the coming episodes.
What I Want To Change For Volume 2 And The Finale
We got some great focus on Hopper and Eleven in Volume 1, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel the emotional gut-punch of him saying “I love you, Jane” before going off on what he fully expected to be a suicide mission to save her. I reached for some tissues at that point! But I’m ready to see both characters interacting with some of the others in Volume 2.
Stranger Things has a trend of splitting Eleven away from most of the ensemble for a lot of a given season, presumably because her powers would make it too easy for them to win if they had her on hand. That was especially the case in Seasons 2 and 4, and could well have been the case in the first four episodes of Season 5, Volume 1.
But this is the very last season, and I want to see more of El with her friends, and Hopper should spend some screen time with at least Joyce. Besides, with Will now developing the ability to siphon Vecna’s powers, there’s already a twist on Stranger Things needing to hold her back until the day needs to be saved.
Fortunately for me, some trailer footage has confirmed that the duo won’t spend the next four episodes in the Upside Down. There’s one shot of a quiet scene between Eleven and Mike in a trailer that’s definitely in the Rightside Up, and I’m assuming that’s not going to be in the last twenty minutes of the last episode. Plus, the discovery of Kali at the end of Episode4 surely means some interactions between the sisters. Most other trailer footage of Hop and El was already revealed in Volume 1; it seems that there are just a lot of secrets for their stories moving forward.
I hope that Stranger Things can maintain that importance of their relationship while still letting them interact with the other characters. Time is running out on this show, after all. For now, we can all count down the days until Volume 2 premieres at 8 p.m. ET on Christmas Day, followed by the two-hour series finale on New Year’s Eve.