What you need to know
Linda Hamilton has entered the world of Stranger Things.
The popular action star, perhaps best known for her role as Sarah Connor in the Terminator movie series, made her debut in the first batch of episodes dropped from Season 5 of the hit Netflix series.
Hamilton, 69, joins the cast as Dr. Kaye, the military scientist antagonist who hunts down Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). Kei will make her series debut in the premiere episode, “Chapter 1; The Crawl,” but her involvement in the series has long been hinted at ahead of the first volume’s release on November 26th.
“She has special plans, but it’s kind of been on hold for most of the season,” Hamilton previously told Netflix’s Tudom. “That’s all I can say about that. But she was a lot of fun to play. They gave me good things. I had to mix it up a little bit.”
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Hamilton’s first scene shows her dissecting a creature from the Upside Down. This creature does not bite, but “strangles”. She is irritated with the sergeant who says he has failed in capturing Eleven. “Tell the commander we’re hitting a wall here,” she tells the sergeant. “Innocent people are dying. I need that girl.”
Hamilton will appear in the series about 10 years after the series was first released in 2016. Hamilton told Variety that he has been a fan of the show “from the beginning” and that his love for Stranger Things “never waned.”
As she recalled, Hamilton called her agent a month before landing the role and broached the idea of retiring (partially due to “a really bad problem with my hip” and her travel schedule). But then she got a call about Stranger Things.
“There’s a part of me that would rather watch it than be in it, because once I’m in it, I can’t watch it anymore,” Hamilton told Variety. “I don’t watch my own work. I can’t separate myself and my critical inner person from the people who enjoy it. And I really enjoy watching this show.”
She added, “So during the script reading, I’m watching everything because you never see it on screen or see it unfold.”
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Matt Duffer described Dr. Kaye’s character for Empire as “very intelligent and intimidating” and a scientist who knows “how to shoot a gun”.
He told Tudum that while Hamilton was technically the “last to arrive at the party” in terms of casting, he had “a lot of fun” on set, despite being “a little nervous at first.”
According to Netflix’s official synopsis, Season 5 of Stranger Things begins in the fall of 1987, after Vecna ”disappears” with “unknown plans”. This is the show’s latest installment since Season 4, which ended in July 2022, and also marks the end of the series.
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Brown, 21, told PEOPLE at the season premiere in Los Angeles on Nov. 6 that building a family on the show since its debut has been “probably the best part” of the experience. “I learned a lot about being a professional, an actor, and a friend,” she said. “My life has given me amazing people to call when I need it most, and that’s my family.”
Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 1 is now streaming on Netflix. The second volume will be released on December 25th, and the final volume will be released on December 31st.
