Whether loving homage or overt shout-out, “Stranger Things” is built on the back of references. The show, created by Matt and Ross Duffer, frequently alludes to film, television and the broader world of popular culture from throughout the 1980s and beyond. Of course, much of the show derives its lore from Dungeons & Dragons nods, with the central characters using the tabletop game as a reference point for the horror that befalls the town of Hawkins, Indiana.
Now, as “Stranger Things” enters its final season, these pop culture nods certainly aren’t slowing down. “Stranger Things 5” is filled with allusions to Dungeons & Dragons, 80s movies, horror media and beyond — including a central text that takes the place of D&D as a character’s primary point of understanding new lore.
Here are some of the biggest pop culture references in “Stranger Things 5.”
“A Wrinkle in Time”
By far the most overt and frequent pop culture references in “Stranger Things 5” come from “A Wrinkle in Time.” Holly Wheeler (a surprising focus of the final season, now played by Nell Fisher) is shown reading Madeleine L’Engle’s young adult sci-fi/fantasy book early in the season. Thus, when Holly begins getting pulled into the strange world of the Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) and the Upside Down, this novel — not Dungeons & Dragons — becomes her main point of reference for the events unfolding around her.
Early in the season, Holly begins referring to her unseen friend (later revealed to be Vecna) as “Mr. Whatsit” (as if he needed another name). This is a reference to Mrs. Whatsit, one of three otherworldly beings in “A Wrinkle in Time” known as the Ws alongside Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which. When a Demogorgan throws Holly against a shelf in her bedroom at the start of the second episode, the board game “Whatzit” quickly falls next to her in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment.
In the final episode of Volume 1, when Holly discovers Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) trapped in the strange realm adjacent to the Upside Down, they begin referring to the world as Camazotz, a “Dark Planet” that has fallen to the “Black Thing” (more specifically, its extension known as “IT”) the children face in the book.
“A Wrinkle in Time” makes sense as a source for “Stranger Things” to draw from. Like the show (and Dungeons & Dragons, is a larger-than-life, sci-fi infused story about good battling evil, one where children rebel against the status quo and institutions of conformity to save the day.
The book could also potentially give hints into what’s to come in later installments of “Stranger Things 5.” In “A Wrinkle in Time,” the primary characters travel across vast distances to different planets by using a tesseract in a process called “tessering.” “Stranger Things,” not oft to throw in details without reason, features a key scene early in the fifth season where Mr. Clarke (Randy Havens) teaches his students about wormholes — which, as Erica (Priah Ferguson) points out, have the ability to do the same thing. Some fans have noted that Mr. Clarke’s drawing bears a resemblance to a painting Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) creates depicting an unknown element of Vecna’s plan.j Another scene shows Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) showing Holly her own D&D character he created for her, one named “Holly the Heroic.” Mike mentions that one of Holly the Heroics ability is to “cast a dimension door, which can teleport you to anywhere you visualize.” Sounds a lot like tessering to me.
Austin Millbarge
“Stranger Things 5” places Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman) into the role of a courier, having the character ferry things in and out of the now-quarantined Hawkins for the main characters in the guise of a store supplier. Murray also uses this assumed identity to provide the main party information regarding military activity in Hawkins. When Murray is shown making his first drop of the season, he uses assumed the name of “Austin Millbarge,” a reference to Dan Aykroyd’s character in the 1985 film “Spies Like Us” (I guess Murray is hoping there aren’t any cinephiles in the military). Appropriately, the character that provided the basis for Murray’s alias is a wannabe secret agent.
Peanut Butter Boppers
On Murray’s first supply run, he provides Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) with a special treat — Peanut Butter Boppers. This Nature Valley snack, a rod of creamy peanut butter surrounded by crunchy, crispy coating, was first introduced in 1985, placing it two years behind the events of “Stranger Things 5.” While the snacks are only briefly referenced in the season premiere, they later make a comeback in a big way, with Steve using their makeup (tough on the outside, soft and gooey on the inside) as justification to drive his car into a silo in the hopes of penetrating a gate into the Upside Down (imagine if that didn’t work). As the resident Peanut Butter Bopper fan of the Party, Steve may want to stock up — these snacks were strangely discontinued years after their inception and remain off the shelves today.
Jake the Snake
The “Stranger Things” kids seem incapable of naming any creature without making some kind of pop culture reference (types the writer who named his dog “Kal-El”). Many of the show’s villains, including Vecna, the Mind Flayer and the Demogorgons, are named by the central Party based on monsters from Dungeons & Dragons. In “Stranger Things 2,” Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) discovers a “Demodog” and names it D’Artagnan after feeding it a Three Musketeers bar (D’Artagnan being the fourth Musketeer and protagonist of Alexandre Dumas’ novel). When Dustin first gets D’Artagnan, he places him in a tortoise tank belonging to his other pet, Yurtle the Turtle.
Now, in “Stranger Things 5,” Dustin introduces a new creature to the mix — a class pet at Hawkins High named Jake. Jake is, appropriately, a snake, clearly referencing the WWF fighter Jake “The Snake” Roberts, who was popular around the time that Season 5 takes place. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Dustin somehow picked this class pet’s name. Unfortunately, the corn snake is not long for this world, meeting an untimely end after Dustin uses Jake to prank a school bully.
Dr. Kay
“Stranger Things” loves to place beloved actors of the 80s in key roles, with new familiar faces cycling in each season. Of course, Winona Ryder of “Beetlejuice,” “Heathers” and “Edward Scissorhands” fame plays one of the show’s central characters, Joyce Byers. The first season also featured Matthew Modine (“Full Metal Jacket,” “Vision Quest”) as Dr. Brenner, appearing all the way through the fourth season. “Stranger Things 2” brought both Paul Reiser (“Mad About You,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Aliens”) and Sean Astin (“The Goonies”) into the fold, while later seasons would add Cary Elwes (“The Princess Bride”) as the Hawkins mayor and Robert Englund (Freddy Kruger himself) as Henry Creel’s father.
Now, one of the series’ final villains has arrived in the form of Dr. Kay, a Major General portrayed by Linda Hamilton. Surely most “Stranger Things” fans are aware of her claim to fame, but in case you don’t know, Hamilton portrayed Sarah Connor in the “Terminator” films (with a particularly “bitchin’” role in “T2: Judgment Day”).
Eleven’s Training Uniform
Have you spent most of “Stranger Things 5” wondering why Eleven is dressed like that? You may be (un)surprised to learn that it’s an 80s pop culture reference — specifically, to “The Goonies.” Eleven’s combination of sweatshirt + sweatpants + shorts on top is evocative of an outfit worn by a young Josh Brolin in Richard Donner’s 1985 treasure hunting adventure. I suppose Donner had a thing for having characters wear trunks on the outsides of their costumes. For “Stranger Things,” a “Goonies” reference like this is pretty on-Brand (get it?).
Dungeon Crawls
The first episode of “Stranger Things 5” is titled “The Crawl,” named after a series of sweeps the central party (specifically, David Harbour’s Hopper) conducts throughout the Upside Down. Like many a piece of “Stranger Things” terminology, this phrase is adopted from a Dungeons & Dragons concept: the dungeon crawl.
Dungeon crawls are pretty much exactly what they sound like — instances where players enter mazelike dungeons filled with traps, enemies and loot and comb through them to see what prizes await. The dungeon crawl isn’t exclusive to D&D (other examples include “Hades,” “The Legend of Zelda” and “Rogue”), though it is a key aspect of the game. The analogy is apt for “Stranger Things 5,” as the characters’ “crawls” involve Hopper sweeping sections of the Upside Down chunk by chunk to locate evidence of Vecna and his horde.
Flux Capacitor
If you wondered why everyone was treating Joyce like she was stupid during Robin (Maya Hawke) and Will’s excursion, you must not have seen “Back to the Future.” Robin uses a broken “Flux Capacitor” as an excuse to get Will out of his mother’s sight to initiate his plan. What Joyce doesn’t know, clearly, is that there is no such thing as a Flux Capacitor — it’s an invention of Doc Brown that allows his Delorean to travel through time in Robert Zemeckis’ iconic 80s film (featured in “Stranger Things 3”). No one ever accused Joyce of being the most up-to-date member of the Party.
The Hedgehogs
“Stranger Things 5” introduces a “Kryptonite” for Eleven previously unseen in other seasons — sound cannons affixed by the military that allow them to disrupt the young telekinetic hero’s powers. In the third episode of the season, one of the soldiers refers to the device by its name, calling it a “Hedgehog.” It seems likely that the Duffers arrived at the name Hedgehog since the devices are apparently sound-based … or, “sonic.”
It would not make sense for the Hedgehogs to be reference “Sonic” in-universe considering the game series did not launch until the 1990s. As such, the military would not be using this point of reference for their creation (and are likely simply using military terminology for devices that immobilize tanks, submarines and larger weaponry). However, it would be surprising if the Duffers, who largely grew up in the 90s, didn’t make the video game connection themselves.
Bueller … Bueller … Bueller …
The third episode of “Stranger Things 5” makes a few references to “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” a John Hughes film that would’ve released a year before the new season is set. To begin with, the episode features the song “Oh Yeah” by Yello, which is famously used throughout “Ferris Bueller.” In the episode (titled “The Turnbow Trap”), the song plays when Dustin devises a plan to affix his telemetry tracker to the roof of Steve’s Beamer (an idea Steve is not overly fond of).
Later in the episode, Steve drives his BMW around Hawkins in pursuit of a Demogorgon using said telemetry tracker. As he follows Dustin’s directions, Steve drives the Beamer through a number of Hawkins residents’ yards, crashing through gates and cruising through lawns. It’s a scene evocative of Ferris Bueller’s own run through neighbors’ yards at the end of the Hughes film — no doubt an intentional parallel after the use of “Oh Yeah” earlier in the episode.
“The Great Escape”
In one particularly memorable scene from “Stranger Things 5,” Robin attempts to explain the plot of the 1963 John Sturges/Steve McQueen film “The Great Escape” so the Party can attempt their own prison break (unfortunately for Robin, she stumbles into a few euphemisms when referencing a tunnel named “Dick”). During this scene, viewers unfamiliar with the film may not know that Elmer Bernstein’s iconic score plays in the background of the scene, as it does in many a “Great Escape” parody. If you really want to feel old, “The Great Escape” is only 24 years in Robin’s past, while “Stranger Things 5” is 38 years in ours.
Veronica?
As Max explains her time in Camazotz to Holly, a series of flashbacks shows Max reliving some of Vecna’s memories (with several allusions to the “Stranger Things” play “The First Shadow,” FYI). In one of these memories, Max finds herself in Hawkins High School — that is, the Hawkins High School of 1959, when Henry Creel was a student.
In this time period, Max runs into a young version of Joyce Byers, here played by the UK singer Birdy. In the scene, Birdy bears a remarkable resemblance to Winona Ryder’s own young performances — particularly, in films like “Beetlejuice” and “Heathers.” Apparently, no CGI was needed for this to feel like an actual de-aging.
Groovy House
The fighting of the Demogorgon at the Turnbow house has a few moments that should remind audiences of other iconic films from the 80s and 90s. The entire setup of the house as a Demo trap feels similar to “Home Alone,” which (despite its 1990 release) doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch, since the episode already references the work of screenwriter John Hughes. The sequence also features a moment where Steve pointedly grabs a chainsaw off the wall, as if he’s all but dying to say a Bruce Campbell “Groovy” a la “Evil Dead 2.”
Speed Round
Of course, there are a number of quick nods to popular culture throughout “Stranger Things” that don’t necessarily warrant their own entries — among them, references to movies (Holly’s “An American Tail” poster or Debbie Miller watching “The Sword in the Stone”), TV shows (a “Miami Vice” marathon or a “Mission: Impossible” shout-out), music (Diana Ross’ “Upside Down” being instrumental to the Party’s efforts or Robin’s “Rockin’ Robin” persona) and general iconography (like a can of Coke Classic popping up here and there).
Quite a few lines from notable horror franchises are nodded to or, at the very least, mirrored throughout “Stranger Things 5.” At the top of the second episode, as Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono) defends Holly from a Demogorgon, she shouts “Stay away from my daughter” in a moment evocative of Ripley’s “Get away from her, you b—h” in the film “Aliens.” In the Volume 1 finale, Will warns his mother of the impending Demogorgon horde by saying, “They’re here,” clearly referencing the classic 1982 horror movie “Poltergeist.” This one might be a bit of a stretch, but when Dustin is told in the season premiere that “Hellfire dies with you, Henderson. And it dies tonight,” it could be a nod to the instantly-iconic (and quickly made fun of) “Evil dies tonight” line repeated throughout “Halloween Kills” — a later installment of a horror franchise “Stranger Things” has already referenced through moments like Vecna’s disappearance at the end of Season 4.
