Chapter One: The Crawl

"Chapter One: The Crawl" is the first episode of the fifth season of the American science fiction horror drama television series Stranger Things. The 35th episode overall, the episode was written and directed by series creators The Duffer Brothers, and was released on November 26, 2025, on Netflix alongside the subsequent three episodes as part of volume one of season five. Set in 1987, 19 months after the events of the previous season, the team continue their search for Vecna, embarking on periodic "crawls" into the Upside Down from Hawkins, which has been quarantined by the US military, in order to find and destroy him. "The Crawl" received a positive critical reception, with reviewers praising the performances of the cast (particularly Linda Hamilton, Maya Hawke, Joe Keery, and Gaten Matarazzo) but with some criticism towards the amount of exposition.