Getty Images/Netflix/Ringer illustrationBy Miles SurreyDec. 26, 1:00 pm UTC • 8 min
It’s all come down to this: After 41 episodes over nine years, Stranger Things is, at long last, gearing up for its grand finale. Another showdown with Vecna that could determine the fate of the world awaits, and once again, our heroes are hell-bent on stopping him. Of course, the best-laid plans of Eleven and men often go awry, and without future seasons in the works, all bets are off. (Hopefully, Hawkins’s funeral services won’t find themselves busier than usual.)
For now, though, we’re left to wonder: Will the destination be just as rewarding as the journey? We’ll have to wait until New Year’s Eve to find out, but between Vecna holding dozens of children captive, nearly every character in the show’s ever-growing ensemble venturing into the Upside Down, and the military still maintaining a menacing presence in Hawkins, Stranger Things is juggling more plates than ever.
However you shake it, the series finale is gonna be a doozy. And with so much to keep track of, what better way to prepare for the end of Stranger Things than to speculate about what everything is building toward? In between mouthfuls of Eggo waffles and Peanut Butter Boppers, these are the six most pressing questions I have for the series as we bid adieu to Hawkins and 2025.
Will Eleven and Kali break the cycle?
When Eleven and Jim Hopper infiltrate the military’s base in the Upside Down, they assume that because Vecna/Henry is nowhere to be found, he’s been captured and experimented on as the military searches for a way to nullify Eleven’s powers. Well, they got it half right: Linda Hamilton’s Dr. Kay did have a telekinetic individual tucked away in her lab, only it was Kali. Yes, a character from Stranger Things’ most polarizing episode who looked like she stumbled off the set of The Warriors might be essential to the show’s endgame.
As Kali explains to Eleven, in addition to all the awful experiments they put her through, her blood is being used on pregnant women in an attempt to create new superpowered individuals like them. Here’s where things get complicated: Eleven and Kali didn’t innately possess these abilities—they inherited them from Henry’s blood. This is why the military is hell-bent on tracking them down: Without access to their blood, Dr. Kay and Co. stand no chance of creating more psychic children to do their bidding (i.e., attacking Soviets at the height of the Cold War).
With that in mind, Kali says that if they defeat Vecna, she and Eleven should stay behind in the Upside Down when the gate closes for good. Otherwise, it could be only a matter of time before the government tracks them down and keeps the experiments going. “With these children, they will open more gates, more worlds,” Kali tells her. “It’s a cycle. A terrible, vicious cycle.” Kali’s pitch to Eleven is brave and selfless, but it’d require her to leave Mike Wheeler, Hopper, and the rest of her loved ones in the rearview. Is that a sacrifice she’s willing to make?
What role will the military play?
Speaking of the military: With all the attention paid to Vecna, it’s easy to forget that Dr. Kay and her seemingly endless supply of expendable soldiers are still lurking about. We now know that she’s trying to re-create Dr. Brenner’s experiments with psychic kids and that the government is providing a ton of resources to make that happen. At the same time, Dr. Kay doesn’t seem all that concerned about Vecna slaughtering a bunch of her men and posing an existential threat to humanity. If the military sends more soldiers into the Upside Down in the finale, they won’t be there to stop Vecna: They’ll be in it for Eleven and Kali.
This predicament reminds me a bit of Game of Thrones’ final season, in which defeating a supernatural force (the White Walkers) was the most urgent concern for our heroes, but there were more battles to be fought in King’s Landing afterward. I can envision a scenario where Eleven and Co. expend all their energy killing Vecna and have nothing left in the tank when Dr. Kay’s men stand in the way of their return to Hawkins. Either that, or the military is dumb enough to challenge Vecna to a rematch, which, considering that the villain’s lair feels reminiscent of the Xenomorph nest in Aliens, isn’t going to go well for them.
Is the Upside Down hiding any more secrets?
As the Duffer brothers have teased in the lead-up to Season 5, Stranger Things has more secrets to spill about the origins of the Upside Down. (The cocreators made a 25-to-30-page document for Netflix breaking down the Upside Down’s mythology, which is the kind of detail-oriented nerdiness I can get behind.) Well, we finally got our answer: The Upside Down isn’t an alternate dimension—it’s a wormhole.
When Eleven banished Vecna to another world in that epic Season 4 flashback, we assumed he landed somewhere in the Upside Down. Instead, we’ve learned that he was in what our heroes coined, in the spirit of the show’s Dungeons & Dragons–themed lore, the Abyss, a sinister home to creatures like the Demogorgons. The Upside Down was created when Eleven made contact with the Abyss, connecting our world to the Demogorgons’ through Hawkins. It’s a pretty shocking turn of events, and you can’t help but wonder whether the Duffers have anything else up their sleeves. What’s the deal with the Abyss? Are there other creatures lurking there that we don’t know about? What will it take to close the rift between the Abyss and Hawkins for good? Hopefully, the series finale will provide some answers—and if Stranger Things ever gets the spinoff treatment, perhaps future government experiments will open a portal to another Lovecraftian hellscape.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?!
With Holly Wheeler and Max Mayfield trapped inside the world of Vecna’s memories—a.k.a. Camazotz—their best chance of finding a way out is by uncovering the villain’s traumatic origins. Max has searched throughout Camazotz for clues but, with the exception of a cave system that Vecna is incapable (afraid?) of entering, has found nothing of note. Then Holly discovers a mine shaft within the cave that leads to a memory of a bloodied scientist carrying a mysterious briefcase in one hand and a gun in the other.
Little Henry, at the time a Boy Scout, stumbles upon the scene and tries to help the man. Sadly, the scientist is so paranoid—insistent that “they” sent him—that he shoots Henry in the hand. Before the man can fire another shot, Henry bludgeons him to death with a rock. So … yeah, totally understand why this memory is so traumatic that Henry/Vecna would rather not revisit it. But what’s truly fascinating about this sequence is that Henry doesn’t appear to have telekinetic powers—otherwise he could’ve flung the gun out of the dude’s hand with his mind—and that whatever was inside that briefcase could be what made him who he is. (The scene cuts away before we see what’s inside it.)
This could be a game changer, because if whatever that briefcase contained gave Henry powers, who’s to say it can’t be re-created in a lab? If that’s the case, then Eleven and Kali ensuring that they don’t fall into the hands of the military wouldn’t even matter. And who the hell is “they,” anyway?
Who will die?
Stranger Things isn’t against killing off characters—see: Barb, Bob, Billy—but with every season, it adds more to the ensemble. Now, whenever our heroes gather everyone to discuss their game plan, there are enough bodies to fill out a baseball roster. You could argue this lack of bloodlust is because Stranger Things is a show meant for children, to which I’d counter that we just watched Vecna snap limbs and pop eye sockets last season, so the Duffers aren’t against appealing to the sickos.
Do I want to see some beloved characters die? Not necessarily, but somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like the Upside Down. When I look back at Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s finale, I think of losing Spike and Anya and how emotionally affecting their deaths were. (Ditto for Thrones and Jon Snow killing Daenerys Targaryen for the good of the realm.) Unless the Duffers are absolute cowards, this is the covenant between an audience and a series with life-or-death stakes baked into the plot. The question is: Who’s the likeliest to die in the finale?
I said it in my Season 4 recap, and I’ll say it again: Steve Harrington feels marked for death. It wouldn’t surprise me if we lost one of the adults—Murray Bauman is kind of expendable?—and, if Stranger Things is really trying to tug at the heartstrings, the show could put one of the original kids in jeopardy. With everything Will Byers has endured, killing him off one episode after he comes out to his friends would be needlessly cruel, so I’ll nominate Mike Wheeler. If Eleven is going to ensure the government can’t get its hands on her, wouldn’t the decision be easier to stomach if she lost the love of her life? The one thing we can all agree on: Vecna is a goner, and I reckon that Dr. Kay is a dead scientist walking.
Will Stranger Things stick the landing?
The strange thing (sorry) about series finales is that they carry so much weight with audiences—and more often than not, they don’t live up to the enormous expectations thrust upon them. Good or bad, a finale will linger in our minds as an intrinsic part of a show’s legacy. This is why the end of Stranger Things feels so precarious: If the Duffers don’t stick the landing, the show could become a piece of monoculture that draws unfavorable comparisons to Thrones. Even the cast is aware of this.
The solution: Make a good ending. Simple, right? The Duffers have said that they’ve known what the final scene of the show will be for a long time, so hopefully they haven’t twisted themselves into knots to reach that destination. (Lest we forget that Stranger Things was originally intended to be a limited series, so it’s not like everything has to be preordained.) But with all the goodwill that Stranger Things has earned with viewers, I’ll remain cautiously optimistic that the finale can roll a natural 20.
Miles Surrey
Miles writes about television, film, and whatever your dad is interested in. He is based in Brooklyn.
