After Watching Stranger Things Season 5’s First Four Episodes, I’m Wondering What Two Big Continuity Errors Mean For Volume 2

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Be warned: this article contains major spoilers for the first part of Stranger Things Season 5, which is now available to stream on Netflix.

The fifth season of Stranger Things is coming in 2025, and the first part was full of surprises, giving fans lots to discuss before the final episodes air on Christmas Day. While the season had some major plot twists, a few smaller details stood out—either as mistakes in the show’s timeline or as clues that bigger problems are coming for the characters in the second half of the season.

Let’s pause the big questions about Will, Vecna, and everything happening in Hawkins – both in the real world and the Upside Down – and focus on a couple of specific scenes. We’ll start with one from Season 2.

What Season 2, Episode 8 Established And Season 5 Changed

In Season 2, Episode 8, Will’s loved ones shared personal memories, hoping to reach him even though he was controlled by the Mind Flayer. Joyce reminisced about a rainbow spaceship he’d once drawn. Mike talked about how they first became friends. And Jonathan recalled building Castle Byers with Will in the woods. Here’s how Jonathan described it:

Do you remember when Dad left? We spent the whole night building Castle Byers, exactly how you designed it. It took forever because you weren’t very good at hammering – you kept missing the nails! Then it started to rain, but we didn’t care and kept building anyway. We both ended up being sick for almost a week, but we just had to finish it, right?

The fifth season’s fourth episode, titled “Sorcerer,” featured a childhood memory of Will’s. This flashback showed Will and Jonathan building Castle Byers, but it differed from how it actually happened – it wasn’t raining, it wasn’t nighttime, and they didn’t feel rushed to complete it.

Will often remembered a joyful moment of connection with his brother to help him understand and control the powers he’d gained from Vecna – it wasn’t about them simply reuniting after their father left. (Also, I didn’t think Will was particularly bad at using a hammer, but it likely won’t matter much in the larger story of Stranger Things.)

What Season 1, Episode 1’s Script Established And Season 5 Changed

From what I remember of watching Stranger Things, the main kids were all around twelve years old in November 1983, making them seventh graders. To be sure, I looked it up in Stranger Things: The Complete Scripts, Season 1. This book includes a foreword by the Duffer Brothers and claims to have the official, complete scripts. It was published in September 2025, meaning it was approved after the fifth season was finished filming.

I believe the official book’s scripts should be considered the definitive source for the show’s details. For example, here’s how Will Byers was first described in the script for the very first episode, titled “The Vanishing of Will Byers”:

WILL BYERS, 12, playing as a wizard. He is soft-spoken, gentle, delicate.

Okay, so in Season 5, Episode 3 – “The Turnbow Trap” – there’s this really interesting scene with Joyce and Will outside the barn where the Turnbows are being held. It’s a vulnerable moment where Joyce actually criticizes her past self, you know, from Season 1 before everything went crazy with the Demogorgon. She basically admits she wasn’t the best mom back then, and it’s kinda heartbreaking. She even messes up and gives the wrong age for Will right after! It just felt so real and human, you know?

I constantly replay that night in my head – the night it happened, the night everything changed. I wasn’t there; my work shift went longer than expected. Now, when I get home, I just try to numb the pain, smoking, drinking, and losing myself in old TV shows until I fall asleep. I didn’t realize you’d been gone for eight hours… How could I not check on my eleven-year-old son?

It seems we’ve found another inconsistency in Season 5, Volume 1 – again, it involves Will. Is this just an oversight that slipped through editing, or could it hint at something bigger happening in Volume 2? Are these simply mistakes, or is Vecna involved in ways we haven’t yet seen?

Continuity Issue Or Clues?

It’s worth mentioning Will’s birthday, as some dedicated fans have pointed out. The episode in Season 2 that showed how Castle Byers was built also revealed Will’s birthday is March 22nd. This made it seem like the California group in Season 4 was inconsiderate for forgetting, but the show’s creators, the Duffer Brothers, later admitted to Variety that they had simply forgotten the date they wrote six years prior.

The Duffer Brothers acknowledged a continuity error shortly after the first part of Season 4 came out in May 2022. It wasn’t a major issue unless you were paying very close attention, as it involved a slight inconsistency with when Will’s birthday occurred relative to Mike’s spring break visit – it wasn’t that everyone simply forgot his birthday.

The creators haven’t explained the changes to Castle Byers or Joyce’s mistake about Will’s age, so these details might have a bigger purpose that will become clear when the second part of the season is released.

Vecna is a uniquely powerful villain with mind-bending abilities the characters haven’t faced before. Plus, Will’s connection to him gives Vecna a new way to operate – drawing power through Will. Because this is completely new territory for the show, I’m staying open to the possibility that Henry is influencing the normal world more than we realize.

Perhaps these errors are minor and ultimately unimportant. Fans have already accepted a significant time jump for the character Holly – she went from being three years old in season one to much older in season five – so maybe we should just overlook these new inconsistencies as well.

I’m willing to ignore a few plot holes if Nell Fisher plays an older Holly Wheeler, and if both of Holly’s parents survived their injuries. It would make the story more satisfying if Vecna was intentionally responsible for altering everyone’s memories.

The next three episodes of the final season of Stranger Things arrive on Christmas Day at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, as part of Volume 2. The very last episode will be released on New Year’s Eve, also at 8 p.m. ET. The creators, the Duffer Brothers, have said the finale is a little over two hours long, suggesting the show will end with a movie-like conclusion. Currently, Stranger Things is unsurprisingly the most popular show on Netflix as of late November.

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2025-11-29 15:11