{"id":229351,"date":"2025-10-16T15:49:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T15:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/229351\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T15:49:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T15:49:09","slug":"stranger-things-season-5-will-bring-barbs-body-back-one-last-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/229351\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 Will Bring Barb’s Body Back One Last Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the earliest signs that\u00a0Stranger Things was going to become a cultural sensation after season one hit<\/a> all those years ago was \u201cJustice for Barb<\/a>.\u201d Shannon Purser\u2019s minor character\u2014Nancy Wheeler\u2019s best friend\u2014became a viral sensation when she was taken into the Upside Down during the first season, never to return as Will Byers eventually did. Her cruel fate, and the lack of acknowledgement by the characters at season one\u2019s climax, saw an outpouring of\u00a0Stranger Things\u2018 first fans looking for answers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There weren\u2019t really any answers to find. \u201cThe one note that we consistently got back was, \u201cWhat about Barb?\u2019 And we\u2019re like, \u2018It\u2019s a show about Will,\u2019\u201d Ross Duffer recently reflected to TIME magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNetflix kept harassing us about it,\u201d his brother and fellow producer, Matt, added. \u201cAnd it turns out they were right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The viral outpouring<\/a> for Barb has led to the character getting grim nods ever since season one sidestepped the fact that she was gone for good (no lab-made fake bodies for her, unlike Will). After we left her corpse in the Upside Down during season one\u2019s climax, she\u2019s appeared a few times, through archival footage and photographs, and, well, as a corpse. Barb\u2019s most prominent appearance was in season four\u2019s midseason climax, which saw poor Nancy tormented by big bad Vecna about his plans for abducting victims from Hawkins over the years\u2026 including Barb, whose rotting body makes an appearance in Vecna\u2019s hallucination.<\/p>\n

Although Barb\u2019s embrace by the audience has now seen her passing acknowledged<\/a> as part of Stranger Things\u2018 grander mysteries (without her death, Hawkins National Lab\u2019s experiments would never have been exposed, and she gets a proper funeral sendoff in season 2), fans have constantly wanted to see more of her, even if it is mostly just as a dead body. Now, it seems something similar, at least, will be making an appearance in the upcoming fifth and final season: TIME Magazine\u2019s set visit explicitly describes Barb\u2019s body being covered in \u201cinky-black vines\u201d and \u201chalf buried in the ground\u201d for a set that is, presumably, part of the season\u2019s exploration of the Upside Down.<\/p>\n

We already know that this final season wants to give some kind of explanation<\/a> for what the real nature of the Upside Down is, so it\u2019s not surprising that it\u2019ll involve making a return trip. Will Barb be a blink-and-you\u2019ll-miss-it cameo? Will, all these years later, her decaying corpse be the key that unlocks all the show\u2019s mysteries? Are the Duffer Brothers rejoicing over finally being free to not have to talk about Barb ever again?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll begin to find out when\u00a0Stranger Things returns to Netflix for season 5 starting November 26, with more episodes coming December 25 and December 31.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the earliest signs that\u00a0Stranger Things was going to become a cultural sensation after season one hit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[128192,88,217,13671,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-229351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-barb","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-netflix","11":"tag-stranger-things","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}