Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, and Noah Schnapp as Will Byers in the premiere of "Stranger Things" Season 5.
Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield and Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair in the premier of "Stranger Things" Season 5.
Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven and Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler in the premiere of "Stranger Things" Season 5. Cr.
Nell Fisher as Holly Wheeler in the premiere of "Stranger Things" Season 5. Cr.

Spoiler alert! The following contains details from "Stranger Things" Season 5, Episode 1, "The Crawl."

Once again, everything in the world of "Stranger Things" has been turned, well, upside down.

It's the beginning of the end for Netflix's juggernaut sci-fi and horror show, as the first part of the final season was made available the day before Thanksgiving in case you needed an excuse to get out of your family dinner. The fifth and final season is being released in three parts, on Nov. 26, Dec. 25 and a finale episode on Dec. 31. Netflix is seemingly giving you three times the excuses to spend time with your friends from Hawkins, Indiana, instead of with your family over the major winter holidays. Seasons greetings to us all, with a demogorgon on top.

In the first of four episodes of "Vol. 1" of Season 5, creators Matt and Ross Duffer are busy setting their version of a Thanksgiving table by putting all the pieces in play for a final battle between ultimate series baddie Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). It's an episode all about reminding viewers what the stakes are. With a few smuggled grenades, a radio tower and a maladaptive telekinetic teen, our rag-tag team of heroes do their best to save the world from a veiny, noseless psychopath. Nothing can go wrong, right?

'Stranger Things' Season 5 goes all the way back to the beginning

The Season 5 "Stranger" premiere starts at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start.

Flashing back to November 1983, we see a tiny Will Byers (Noah Schnapp, de-aged to prepubescence thanks to CGI and a younger body double), stuck in the Upside Down (the show's very moist alternate dimension) after his original kidnapping. He's hunted down by a big, bad, petal-faced demogorgon, and brought to the lair of none other than Vecna himself.

Vecna helps hook up Will to the super gross Upside Down mainframe, and does some evil-guy monologuing about how he and Will will do "beautiful things" together.

Hawkins is under military control, and everybody is waiting for things to go wrong

Four years later in 1987 (yes, apparently only four years have passed, but tell that to the married adults now playing high school students), the Wheeler house still has the same suburban charm but now the Byers family of Will, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Joyce (Winona Ryder) are camping out in the basement, because Hawkins is under military quarantine. If you recall at the end of Season 4 Vecna opened gates to the Upside Down that literally shook Hawkins and created chasms in the small midwestern town. Now everybody is pretending everything is normal even as tanks patrol the streets and nobody is allowed to leave.

The younger kids − Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) − are still going to school amidst the chaos, although Dustin is having trouble moving on from the death of their friend Eddie (Joseph Quinn) in Season 4. Little sis Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) is now old enough to be more than set dressing. Our older adolescents − Steve (Joe Keery), Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Jonathan and Robin (Maya Hawke) − are running the local radio station as cover for their anti-Vecna activities. Eleven is training for an eventual confrontation with Vecna with the help of Hopper (Jim Harbour) and Joyce, but in secret because she's still being pursued by the military. Murray (Bret Gelman) is the gang's smuggler-in-chief, bringing them grenades and guns by posing as food deliveryman.

Oh and Max (Sadie Sink) is still in a coma, still a fan of Kate Bush. Lucas is still pining for Max and depressed. On our other romantic fronts Mike and Eleven are still in a chemistry-less relationship, Steve and Jonathan are still in a macho competition for Nancy, and Robin and girlfriend Vickie (Amybeth McNulty) are better than ever, but Will might have caught them kissing at the hospital. That discovery is clearly giving Will some big emotions, and considering how the series has heavily implied his character has feelings for Mike, it's likely we'll be returning to this sub plot.

Our heroes have a plan to find Vecna, even if it's taking awhile

It's just another day in quarantined paradise until Murray brings news that the military is making an incursion into the Upside Down that very night, meaning our heroes have to mobilize for a "crawl." What's a crawl you ask? Part of a systematic search of the Upside Down by Hopper looking for Vecna.

Robin gets on the radio offering a very obvious code to all units of Team Take Vecna Down, and everybody rallies to get ready for the big show that night, with cute little secret plans. Everyone except Dustin, who gets himself beat up by a bunch of jocks for defending Eddie (most of Hawkins still thinks Eddie committed the murders in Season 4, but our heroes know it was Vecna and Eddie died to save the world). Will has a weird heebie-jeebie feeling that maybe has something to do with Holly, who has been having a recurring vision of a man no one else can see, but everyone will ignore those things because logic has never been this group's strong suit.

We also get a peek at our military antagonists this season: Linda Hamilton of "Terminator" fame steps up as the requisite 1980s Hollywood icon joining the cast as stoic military leader Dr. Kay, intent on tracking down Eleven. Kay is manning a secret base inside the Upside Down that is definitely not doing evil experiments on bits and pieces of the monsters.

Dustin fails to report for duty that night on account of being bruised and battered, so Jonathan takes over his role in the scheme (Joyce won't let Will sub in because, as Hopper points out, she's basically got him bubble wrapped). Likewise Hopper won't let Eleven join his recon missions either, even though she's physically and mentally never been more prepared. Parents, am I right?

Hopper takes a midnight stroll in the Upside Down, until it all goes wrong

Everybody plays their little secret agent roles nicely for Hopper's "crawl" at the start. Mike and Lucas spy on the military, Steve and Jonathan track Hopper with Dustin's radio.

But then a demogorgon attacks the convoy, and by extension, Hopper. Will starts convulsing and suddenly he can see from the perspective of the monster itself. The electricity in the radio station goes haywire and they lose contact with Hopper.

When Will comes back to himself he knows exactly what's going on: The demogorgon is heading for the Wheeler House, where clueless parents Karen (Cara Buono) and Ted (Joe Chrest) are chilling alongside Holly. But then a gate to the Upside Down begins to open in her bedroom ceiling as the episode ends.

Hmm, maybe they all should have been paying more attention to the weird quiet kid. That's a lesson they could have learned from Season 1.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Stranger Things' Season 5 premiere recap − A crawl to the finish

Reporting by Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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