Linda Hamilton is joining the cast of “Stranger Things” Season 5, adding yet another genre icon to the Netflix series’ ensemble for its final season. Details on the “Terminator” actress’ role in the series were not revealed, but she joins the likes of Paul Reiser (“Aliens”) and Sean Astin (“The Goonies”) in the show that’s essentially a love letter to 1980s cinema.
Season 5 of the popular sci-fi fantasy series paused development (it had not yet started production) in solidarity with the WGA writers’ strike earlier this year. Season 4 was released in two parts in 2022.
Many questions were left unanswered at the end of the Duffer brothers’ penultimate season, such as the fate of Max (Sadie Sink) and how Eleven can stack up her returned powers against those of Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower).
Vecna’s identity was thoroughly explained by the dark creature himself, originally Henry Creel, or One, the first child that Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine) conducted experiments on to encourage psionic abilities. Henry, who went by Peter Ballard in the Hawkins Lab when he helped Eleven strengthen her own telekinesis, already possessed the ability to move things with his mind even before Brenner discovered him.
It was Eleven who sent him to the Upside Down to become slimy Vecna, who rearranged and controlled the realm at the whim of his many tentacles.
Since the end of Season 4, the Duffer brothers have announced multiple new projects in the works under their shingle, Upside Down Pictures, which they launched in July 2022. The slate includes a live-action spinoff of “Stranger Things,” a Curtis Gwinn-led adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s “The Talisman” and a British play set within the world of “Stranger Things.”
The brothers will also spearhead an adaptation of the Japanese manga/anime “Death Note.” An animated spinoff of “Stranger Things” has since been announced as well as “The Boroughs,” which the Duffer brothers will executive produce from showrunners Jeffrey Addiss and Wil Matthews.
Read everything we know about “Stranger Things” Season 5 here.
