Fans were finally given an exclusive first look at Joe Keery's Steve Harrington Season 5 of Netflix's Stranger Things, although it is only a previsualization animated shot.
Now that the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike has ended, fans can expect to see a lot of updates on the status of Stranger Things Season 5.
The Netflix TV show was supposed to begin filming back in June for the fifth and final season, but since both the writers and actors went on strike, everything was pushed to a halt.
The script for Season 5 was almost completed before the WGA strike began on May 2, so some minor details about what is to come in the upcoming installment may be released to the public, generating fan anticipation as high as possible.
The First Look at Stranger Things Season 5
The Stranger Things writer's room X (formerly Twitter) account, @strangerwriters, offered an official first look at the upcoming fifth and final season.
The post featured a gif of Joe Keery's Steve Harrington turning and looking toward the camera, but it wasn't a completed shot as filming still hasn't begun, just an animated previsualization.
The writers were able to make the post since the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike officially ended on September 27, and they joked in the caption that Season 5 would "look like this" if the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) didn't get "a fair deal" to end its own strike.
A second post in the same thread also detailed that the shared shot will be featured in Episode 1 of Season 5, so it is "technically [fans'] first look at" the upcoming installment.
In the image, Steve is noticeably wearing different clothes than the last time fans saw him at the end of Season 4.
It appears as though someone (perhaps Maya Hawke's Robin or Gaten Matarazzo's Dustin) may have said something that caught Steve off-guard, causing his eyebrow-raising reaction.
What Will Steve's Role Be in Stranger Things Season 5?
Joe Keery's Steve Harrington continuously became a fan-favorite character over the course of the Netflix show's first four seasons, and coming into Season 5, it is safe to say that he is one of the most complex people in the entire series.
Steve started out as the unlikeable boyfriend of Natalia Dyer's Nancy Wheeler but then began a journey of his own.
However, he still admitted that he had feelings for Nancy in Season 4, leaving many fans to hope that the two would end up back together by the end of the show in a perfectly wrapped-up happily-ever-after arc.
If the two did get back together in Season 5, though, it would almost diminish both of their character arcs.
Throughout the entirety of the show, each one of them has been forced to learn to live without the other.
This has ultimately made each character stronger, and arguably more interesting, as it broke away from the high school/college love story trope that many stories implement.
However, it is safe to say that the Duffer Brothers already have a plan for the Nancy/Steve storyline, and fans can rest assured that it will be a worthy payoff for both characters.
