By the end of Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 1, the Hawkins campaign against Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) is, without a shade of doubt, well and truly on. Will Byers’s (Noah Schnapp) throwdown of Vecna’s Demogorgons in that spectacular end sequence positions him as a formidable adversary (or is it ally?). But there is still so much that the Hawkins gang doesn’t know about their enemy’s endgame.
The first four episodes of Season 5 are a whirlwind of jaw-dropping action and crucial exposition, introducing terrifying new stakes and also re-establishing where each character stands in this final battle. As is the norm with every Stranger Things season (or half a season, in this case), there are some burning questions that the initial episodes have left us with. t2 highlights a few.
What is Vecna’s ultimate goal?
This season hits the ground running, wasting no time establishing that Vecna’s ambitions go far beyond simply opening a massive rift to the Upside Down. The season opens with a chilling flashback to November 12, 1983 — six days after the kidnapping that changed Hawkins forever — revealing that Vecna force-fed a mysterious substance to Will, hinting at a deeper purpose for his initial kidnapping.
In the 1987 timeline in Season 5, Vecna escalates his plans by systematically kidnapping more children, starting with Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher). He later tells Will that he targets children because their minds are weak and easy to break, and that Will was the first to show him the true potential of his power. A terrifying vision Will has during a seizure reveals the captured children tied to pillars with Upside Down vines connected to their mouths, which suggests they are being turned into vessels for a larger, insidious purpose. It leaves us asking something that elicits both fear and excitement — what exactly is Vecna building towards?
What is ‘The Wall?’
The Upside Down is now more accessible than it has ever been, but its geography has a vexing new addition. While searching for Vecna, Hopper (David Harbour) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) encounter a massive, seemingly impenetrable wall made of pulsating vines. This structure proves to be indestructible, instantly regenerating from any damage they inflict. Later, after a high-speed chase, Steve (Joe Keery), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Co. crash their car directly into the same wall in a completely different part of the dimension.
With Eddie’s (Joseph Quinn) death looming large over him, Dustin may be grouchy this season — he and Steve have been bickering like a married couple — but the genius in him hasn’t dimmed. He is the one who makes a critical discovery, using telemetry data, to calculate that the wall forms a perfect circle around the entire Upside Down version of Hawkins, with the Hawkins National Laboratory at its absolute centre. This suggests the wall is a barrier used to delimit the Upside Down space. However, we still don’t know if the Wall was created by Vecna to serve a specific purpose, or something that emerged naturally when the Upside Down was shaped like Hawkins.
Why Is Vecna afraid of the rock wall in his memory?
While navigating Henry Creel’s (aka Vecna’s) memories, Max discovers a rock wall with a cave that Henry is visibly terrified of. He is unable to enter this space, allowing it to become a perfect hideout for Max’s trapped consciousness. For a formidable antagonist who has demonstrated near-total control over his own mind and the dimension he commands, this unexplained fear represents a significant chink in Vecna’s armour and one which the Hawkins gang is bound to take advantage of in his potential downfall.
What happened at this rock wall in Vecna’s past that could have left such a deep psychological scar? It presents the possibility of past trauma, an indelible failure or even a connection to a power greater than his own. Given how ‘The Wall’ is also a major element of the Upside Down in Season 5, this cave memory could also be connected to it.
What lies ahead for Max and Holly?
Stranger Things 5 provides a definitive answer to what happened to Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) after she was killed by Vecna and brought to life by Eleven. Her consciousness is trapped inside Vecna’s mind, where she was forced to navigate the maze of his memories. During this journey, Max discovers a safe haven inside a memory of a rock wall, the aforementioned location that Vecna himself seems to fear. It is within this mindscape that she encounters Holly, who has been kidnapped and brought to a deceptively idyllic version of the Creel House.
Max — whose reveal at the end of Episode 3 is one of the major highlights of Vol 1 — is able to form an alliance with Holly. Together, they begin to formulate an escape plan from Vecna’s lair. But how will a pair of disembodied consciousness outwit a monster from inside his own mind? We hope Vol 2 gives us that answer.
How Did Kali/Eight end up in the Upside Down?
Kali Prasad/Eight was one of Dr Brenner’s (Matthew Modine) lab ‘children’ that he conducted experiments on. Prior to One/Henry/Vecna killing all the children in the lab, except Eleven, Eight had escaped the lab and collected her own family of misfits in Chicago. In Season 2, Eleven seeks out Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) and they bond over their shared experiences and special powers. They part ways that same season and don’t reconnect till Eleven finds her in Dr Kay’s (Linda Hamilton) Upside Down lab machine at the end of S05V01. Did Kay employ Eight as bait to lure Eleven, while she was experimenting on her, using her as both prisoner and power source for a secret military operation?
What are the limits of Will’s powers?
Will’s tenuous connection to the Upside Down has been a consistently intriguing point in the entire series, with Season 5 finally reframing it as a potential weapon. His ability to sense Vecna’s presence and targets has evolved, with Robin (Maya Hawke) theorising that he acts as a “supernatural radio”, picking up the frequencies of the hive mind. In the final moments of Vol 1, after being taunted by Vecna, Will taps directly into the hive mind and seizes control of a swarm of Demogorgons.
Through his new powers, Will destroys the Demogorgons with a thought, using the same body-breaking method Vecna uses on his victims. This stunning revelation suggests that when Vecna infected him years ago, he may have accidentally granted Will a share of his control over the hive mind and even his psychic abilities. The limits of this incredible new power are completely unknown, but it positions Will as a daunting rival to Vecna’s dominance.
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