Misfits are back to save the day

'Stranger Things' returns with the first part of its final season. So far, it looks epic.

- LORRAINE ALI

Netflix MIKE (Finn Wolfhard, front) and friends see some scary stuff in Hawkins, Ind.

Seasons change. Kids grow up. Monsters evolve. Beloved TV series end.

"Stranger Things'" fifth and final season kicked off Wednesday after a nearly three-and-a-half-year absence. It's a welcome but bittersweet reunion for fans of the show who've spent the last decade watching a gaggle of misfit kids (now teens) weaponize their nerd skills against supernatural and mortal enemies in the fictional town of Hawkins, Ind.

Will (Noah Schnapp), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Max (Sadie Sink) and their superpowered friend Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) are now poised for a final battle against their mind-bending nemesis, Vecna, after the season's Volume 1 arrived with four new episodes; Volume 2 (three episodes) drops Christmas Day, and the finale arrives Dec 31.

I might complain about the staggering of episodes - all timed for a holiday, of course - but the strategy gives sentimental viewers (my hand is raised) a bit more time to emotionally uncouple with the show.

The end of Netflix's oddball-to-blockbuster series marks the end of an era, and surely the last generational touchstone to come out of series television. Gen Z, which grew up in the dawn of YouTube and, later, the emergence of TikTok, has generally favored shortform content over lengthier productions; however, "Stranger Things" became the exception. Young fans stretched their attention spans, watching entire seasons of a show where episodes might range anywhere from an hour to two hours plus. The Upside Down, a dark, gooey parallel universe of Hawkins, and its predatory demogorgons became part of their middle school vernacular, in the same way that pre-streaming generations used "isms" from their favorite shows: ("Just MacGuyver it, dude").