Note: This story contains spoilers from “Stranger Things” Season 5, Volume 2.
“Stranger Things” Season 5 Volume 2 featured three episodes densely packed with lore and character moments.
The endgame is in sight for Team Hawkins and Vecna as the Netflix hit sprints to the finish line on New Year’s Eve, but the second batch of Season 5 episodes had plenty of mic drop moments on its own. From revealing what The Upside Down really is to Max finally making it back to the real world and big relationship shakeups, a lot happened in these three episodes.
These are the 6 biggest moments from “Stranger Things” Season 4 Volume 2.
The Upside Down’s True Nature Revealed
After five seasons and nine years, the true nature of The Upside Down was finally revealed. Dustin discovers Brenner’s notes in Hawkins Lab that explained it all – The Upside Down was never an alternate dimension but rather a wormhole to another dimension.
The exotic matter hovering over the lab that Nancy shot disrupted the wormhole but didn’t destroy it. If it’s destroyed in the wrong way it would not only collapse The Upside Down but both the real world and the other connecting it. This is why The Upside Down is stuck on Nov. 6, 1983 – it’s the day the wormhole was made. And also how Henry/Vecna, the Demos and The Mind Flayer made contact with the real world again after El threw Henry into Dimension X/The Abyss. The Upside Down became the bridge between those worlds.
Dr. Kay Wants to Restart Brenner’s Project
With Hopper and El finding Kali strung up in Dr. Kay’s lab, it didn’t take much interrogation to find out the hows and whys behind it. It was never experimentation with drugs that gave El, Kali and Papa’s other kids their abilities, but rather infusing Henry’s blood in them.
Dr. Kay wants to restart that project. She captured Kali and had been taking her blood to put into a number of pregnant women in the hope that they’ll make a new batch of Numbers. Unfortunately, Kali never fully aligned with the treatment and although she got powers her blood is only hurting and killing the pregnant women. El became the ideal candidate and the most like Henry, which explains why Kay wants her so badly – El’s blood likely is the key to creating another group of superpowered kids.
Nancy and Jonathan Break Up
All it took was a truly life and death scenario – wrapped in a shroud of life and death scenarios – for Nancy and Jonathan to realize their relationship might have run its course. While thinking that they were going to die in the odd goop runoff from shooting the exotic matter over Hawkins Lab in the Upside Down, the two started making confessions of things about the other that annoyed them.
Among them was the admission that the two had been together for so long in part because of the things they’ve been through. Although they still loved each other, it was feeling like their relationship was coming to an end. Jonathan finally showed Nancy the ring he was going to use to ask her to marry him. He said he wanted to get one last thing right and instead asked if she wouldn’t marry him. It’s probably good for them both to be single for a bit.
Max Returns
It might have taken the majority of the season – and two years of in-universe time – but Max is finally back in the real world. Thanks to Holly cracking the code on Henry’s mind prison, the two found a way for them both to get out. While the two worked to get back to their real bodies, Lucas, Robin and Vickie were hunted by Demodogs in the Hawkins Hospital.
Hiding in the laundry, Lucas refused to turn off the radio playing Kate Bush to guide Max back. With a fiery assist from Karen Wheeler, the Demos were taken care of right as Max found her way home. She might be in a weakened body after nearly two years in a bed but she’s back with the rest of Team Hawkins and ready to help spill the beans on everything she learned while inside Henry’s mind.
Vecna Wants to Merge The Abyss and The Real World
Vecna managed to get his 12 kids at the end of Season 5 Volume 1, and it was thanks to Holly’s spying that the group figured out what he plans to do with them. Much like he did with Will years ago, he wants to siphon power from the kids to enhance his own abilities to enact his final plan.
After cracking Hawkins open in the Season 4 finale with this sacrifice, Vecna has been diligently doing the same in Dimension X/The Abyss. His plan is simple: to move the entirety of that dimension through The Upside Down bridge and merge it with Hawkins and the rest of the real world. That means a planet full of Demos, Mind Flayers and who knows what else – if the Earth even manages to survive a convergence like that in the first place.
Will Comes Out
Will tried to fight Vecna in Volume 2 after tapping into his sorcerer powers proved by his connection to the hive mind. It works to an extent – he helps wound Vecna long enough for Max and Holly to escape, but Vecna traps Will’s mind for a time to make him a spy once more.
Although Will is saved by El, he later explains that Vecna got into his head and showed him visions of potential futures where his secrets would negatively affect the rest of his friends in Hawkins. Before setting out for the final battle, Will gathers his friends and family to tell them that he’s gay and that he didn’t want that to be a secret from them anymore. The group unanimously supports his decision, leaving Will with a clear head and renewed confidence heading into the final battle.
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