Linda Hamilton Joins Netflix's 'Stranger Things' for Its Final Season

There's a new player coming to Hawkins! Netflix has announced that Linda Hamilton will join the cast of Stranger Things for the fifth and final season of its hit sci fi-thriller series,. 

In addition to Hamilton, fans will see the return of the main cast they know and love including including Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Joe Keery and Maya Hawke.

As the gang failed to defeat Vecna in season 4, Jamie Campbell Bower will also return as the Big Bad.

Though the 66-year-old Terminator star is joining the ranks, back in August 2022, the Duffer Brothers revealed they were trying their best not to add any new characters into the new season in order to be mindful about wrapping up the stories for the current players. 

"We're doing our best to resist [adding new characters] for Season 5," Matt told Indiewire. "We're trying not to do that so we can focus on the OG characters, I guess." His twin Ross added, "We've got a great cast of characters here, and actors, and any moment we're spending with a new character, we're taking time away from one of the other actors."

Following the release of the show’s penultimate fourth season in July 2022, the Duffers revealed that the highly anticipated fifth installment would be its last the following February. 

"Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things. At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons," they wrote in a statement at the time. "It proved too large to tell in four, but — as you'll soon see for yourselves — we are now hurling toward our finale."

The siblings also confirmed that season 5 will feature a time jump to give a more accurate portrayal of the show’s once child stars as they’ve grown up with the show. 

"Ideally, we'd have shot [seasons 4 and 5] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that," Ross told TVLine. "So these are all discussions we're going to have with our writers when we start the room up."

While plot details have remained closely guarded, the show creators and cast members have teased that viewers are in for an emotional finale.

Ross revealed that a few Netflix executives teared up when they announced their plans for season 5.

"We do have an outline for season 5 and we pitched it to Netflix and they really responded well to it," he told TheWrap. "I mean, it was hard. It's the end of the story. I saw executives crying who I've never seen cry before and it was wild."

Harbour affirmed the emotional finale to come, telling Variety in May 2022 that he knows how the series ends — and "it's quite moving and quite beautiful."

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Seasons 1–4 of Stranger Things are currently streaming on Netflix.