The episode title was revealed on November 6, 2022, as part of Stranger Things Day 2022.[3] For Stranger Things Day 2023, the first few lines from the script were revealed by @strangerwriters:
DARKNESS The sound of COLD WIND. GROANING TREES. And… A CHILD'S VOICE. Singing a familiar song:
— The very beginning of "The Crawl"
According to the Duffer Brothers, the script for "The Crawl" was completed in late September of 2022.[4]
In an interview with Collider, Matt Duffer hinted towards the opening scenes of Season 5:
“
Season 5 is going to start pedal to the metal. We're not going to do the ramp-up. There's no time. There's no normalcy, obviously, once you've reached the end of four. It's not like there's going to be time to explore our characters' love life, and how is Steve’s dating going? There's going to be none of that, it's just going to be going 100 miles an hour from the beginning. We have the opening scene for five mapped out. I don't know if it'll stay like that, but it's pretty wild. It's going to be intense from beginning to end with not so much ramp-up.
