When you have a show such as Stranger Things with a large ensemble, it’s not uncommon for characters to come and go over the years. This has been a running occurrence for the show, with many of the show’s secondary characters disappearing, often without any explanation.
There are many characters who once played more notable roles in the show that have faded into the background as the years have gone by. Most of these characters are ones who simply aren’t central to the main storylines and therefore get left on the cutting room floor when it comes to mapping out the season.
But just because a character is gone does not mean they’re forgotten and the Duffer Brothers proved that in the first batch of episodes for the final season, bringing back a character we’ve not seen on the show in six years!
Mr. Clarke returns in Stranger Things season 5
During the third episode of Stranger Things season 5, we get to see the return of Randy Havens as Hawkins Middle School science teacher, Mr. Clarke. In the episode, Mr. Clarke returns to the classroom as we see him teaching Erica and her classmates about wormholes. The action moves on pretty quickly and we don’t see Mr. Clarke again after the scene; however, we get the sense this might not be the last we see of him this season.
Throughout the early seasons of the show, Mr. Clarke played a major role often helping the boys with “science projects” connected to their various quests including their search for Will. After playing a more prominent role in the first two seasons, we only saw Mr. Clarke one time in the show’s third season, and the character failed to appear in season 4 in any capacity. As season 3 dropped in 2019, this means it’s been six years since we’ve seen Mr. Clarke in Hawkins, which is absolutely insane!
Given his return, we have to wonder if perhaps Mr. Clarke will once again be someone the group turns to for assistance. Having previously run the A.V. Club, it would make sense for Will, Mike, and Lucas to once again seek out his help at some point this season, perhaps to try to find a way to get in touch with the group stuck in the Upside Down.
Or perhaps there was a reason we got a glimpse of him teaching his class about wormholes. Was this foreshadowing that Mr. Clarke might help the team come up with a way to create a gate into the Upside Down to get to Dustin, Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, Hopper, and Eleven? It’s another strong possibility which could explain his return.
With this being the final season, we can only hope that more former characters will also pop up along the way as callbacks to past seasons. Even if the return was designed to simply be a cameo, it was certainly fun getting to see Mr. Clarke back after so much time away from the show.