Warning: Spoilers ahead for Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 1.

While Stranger Things season 5, volume 1 might be a triumph, the show’s final outing has still broken a big promise that its creators made a few years earlier. Over three years after its predecessor arrived to critical acclaim, Stranger Things season 5, volume 1 is finally here. The hype for the show’s final season was almost unprecedented.

Despite this, Stranger Things season 5, volume 1, seems to have largely satisfied the expectations of fans. It wasn’t clear where the show’s story was heading after Stranger Things season 4’s ending, but season 5’s first four episodes did a solid job of reacquainting viewers with the heroes of the series while also introducing a few new characters.

Stranger Things Season 5 Wasn’t Supposed To Introduce New Characters

Of course, this isn’t an entirely uncontroversial decision. Stranger Things has an infamously huge cast, and the show has occasionally struggled to keep up with all of its main characters. The divisive Stranger Things season 3 featured separate storylines for Mike, Will, Billy, Max, Lucas, and El, Hopper and Joyce, Nancy and Jonathan, and Steve, Robin, Erica, and Dustin.

Season 4 was no less disorganized and messy, prompting the show’s creators, the Duffer Brothers, to tell IndieWire that they were trying to steer clear of adding new characters in season 5. Per Matt Duffer, “We’re doing our best to resist for Season 5. We’re trying not to do that so we can focus on the OG characters, I guess.”

Meanwhile, Ross Duffer stated that, ”Whenever we introduce a new character, we want to make sure that they’re going to be an integral part of the narrative… So we’re just very, very careful about who we’re introducing.” This seems like a pretty clear mission statement from the brothers, but it is one that Stranger Things season 5, volume 1 effectively ignores.

Outside a handful of military grunts whom Hopper and El evade throughout the first four episodes, the main new characters are Derek Turnbow, his family, and Linda Hamilton’s villainous Dr. Kay. Holly Wheeler is also recast and given a far bigger role in the story, but this is more easily forgiven since her siblings have been major characters throughout the saga.

Stranger Things’ Final Episodes Will Face A Major Challenge Due To Its Cast Size

Since Stranger Things already had over a dozen main characters and the show now has only four more episodes to tie up all of their individual stories, it is hard to see how the series will do justice to everyone’s plot. These new characters don’t help, even if the runtime of all the remaining episodes will be pretty lengthy.

Now, the final episodes must adequately explain Vecna’s Stranger Things season 5 plan, explore Will’s new powers, address Eleven’s team up with Kali, and still provide fitting endings for Joyce and Hopper, Lucas and Max, Jonathan and Nancy, Robin and Vickie, and many, many other characters. As such, these new Stranger Things characters won’t make things easier for the writers.