Stranger Things’ Upside Down reveal is disappointing and changes nothing

Ever since its very beginning, the core narrative of Stranger Things has been driven by a single question: what is the Upside Down? While there have been endless bits of theorizing and speculation over the years, both from fans outside of the show and from characters and dialogue within the series, the answers had never been definitive, until the release of Stranger Things 5. In Volume II, it is finally revealed with certainty what the Upside Down truly is, and I can’t help but feel incredibly disappointed by it.

For years, Stranger Things creators the Matt and Ross Duffer have said in interviews that they knew exactly what the Upside Down was, but were keeping those cards close to the chest until late in the show’s run. As the creators recently put it in an interview with IGN, “Netflix came to us very early on in the writing of season one and were just asking us to explain some mythology. We said, ‘Well, we don’t want to tell the audience everything in the first season.’ And they said, ‘That’s great, but for us, you write it down.”

As such, the ultimate truth about the Upside Down has apparently been established lore within the Stranger Things creative team and the walls of Netflix offices for years. But if so, why then does the reveal feel like a lateral move at best?

Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson in Stranger Things: Season 5. | COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025

Stranger Things’ Upside Down reveal doesn’t change anything

During Volume II of Stranger Things 5, a number of characters get stuck in the Upside Down and decide to venture to the Hawkins Lab location within it to search for answers. Among these characters is Dustin, who upon going to the deepest levels of the lab, finds Dr. Brenner’s old notebook, which happens to be full of answers about the Upside Down. So already, this is not a great way for this critical information to be revealed in a dynamic way, but then the actual content of the reveal makes things feel even less impactful. Because as it turns out, the Upside Down is not a parallel dimension as everyone, within and without the show, had been presupposing for years; it’s actually a bridge to another dimension.

While this does give the team the opportunity to do a truly insane shot immediately after (props where props are due, that shot of the fleshy tunnel connecting literal galaxies from the exterior is really pulpy and exactly what I’m looking for out of a Stranger Things experience), it feels insanely lackluster. What actually is the difference between the Upside Down being a parallel dimension and it being a bridge to a parallel dimension? Nothing. It’s still an alternate dimensional space, in which monsters lurk as they cross over. The reveal of this new actual dimension, called The Abyss, just needlessly complicates the whole story if anything. It doesn’t raise the stakes in any new way, it doesn’t change anyone’s perception of how the Upside Down functions; it means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

This wouldn’t be such a problem if it hadn’t been something that the Duffers and the show at large had seemed so concentrated on keeping a secret for so long. It’s the equivalent of showing the audience a mystery box ten years ago, constantly bringing it up and reminding them it hasn’t been opened yet, and then opening it to reveal there’s nothing inside it. If this is the truth of the Upside Down, then it wasn’t ever really a mystery at all.