The final episode of the fifth and final season of Stranger Thingsone of the most famous and followed TV series on the platform. The episode will last 2 hours and 6 minutes, and in theory it will answer all the questions left unanswered and will definitively close the questions that the creators of the series, Ross and Matt Duffer, have opened since the first season, almost 10 years ago.
The title of the final episode is The real worldtranslation of the original The Rightside Upwhich in English is kind of the opposite of Upside Downthe Upside Down, that is, the terrifying parallel world whose discovery began all the events told in the series. Given that the characters, narrative threads, mysteries, plans and theories have multiplied in the last few episodes, even for those who have followed all the episodes well it could be useful to take stock of the questions that are still open.
From here on there are obviously many spoilers and what follows is the trailer for the final episode.
So what really is the Upside Down? And that impassable wall? And the huge red sphere Nancy shot at?
The sixth episode of the fifth season opens with a huge revelation, which makes the entire geography of the world of Stranger Things much more complex and confusing than it seemed. Up to this point in the series, the characters believed that the Upside Down was some kind of dimension parallel to the real world, ruled by Vecna, inhabited by monstrous creatures and pervaded by toxic spores. However, by reading the notebooks of Doctor Brenner (the scientist from the Hawkins laboratory who died in the fourth season), Dustin discovers that the Upside Down is actually not a dimension in itself, but a sort of wormhole – in English “wormhole” – that connects our dimension to another.
– Read also: What are wormholes, if they exist at all?
Dustin has named this other dimension “Abyss”, taking inspiration as always from the role-playing game that he and his other friends love, Dungeons & Dragons. The discovery of the Abyss explains where Vecna was hiding and why he seemed to have disappeared, and what the impassable and thick slimy wall into which Steve’s car crashed is, or the barrier that contains the Upside Down, which in fact is not an infinite world but a kind of tunnel.
The Upside Down is precariously kept intact by a sphere composed of exotic matter (which has a negative mass and therefore modifies spacetime), which is suspended above the roof of Hawkins’ laboratory, also in the Upside Down. When Nancy shoots at her, a small glimpse opens in the wall and we get a glimpse of how the Upside Down would eventually collapse if the sphere were permanently destroyed.
Ultimately, therefore, the characters of the series now move between four different dimensions: the normal one of Hawkins, the Upside Down, the Abyss and the mind of Vecna (we’ll be back).
(©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection/contrasto)
What is Vecna’s plan? Why are the children of Hawkins attached to those tentacles?
In the fifth season it is also revealed that Vecna does not want to destroy the Earth, but merge it with the Abyss. To do this he is using the 12 children he kidnapped, considered the perfect “go-between” because they are still innocent and easily corruptible. However, it is not yet clear what exactly this means: Vecna has named latent powers in children, which however can be awakened and through which he will be able to bring the two worlds closer together.
It is also unclear why the children are “asleep” and attached to what appear to be the vine tendrils of an enormous entity – which the Duffers brothers have called the Tree of Sorrow – connected to Vecna and a giant beating heart above him. The tentacles are the same ones that Will was also attached to as a child, when he was kidnapped in the first season.
What is the plan to stop Vecna?
Hawkins’ team devised a particularly intricate and dangerous plan to achieve its goal, that is, “climb 2,000 feet high, find the way to the Abyss, free Holly [la sorella piccola di Mike e Nancy, ndr] and the children and kill Vecna, all before our worlds merge.” The plan is based on Lucas’ theory that Vecna will attempt to fuse Earth and the Abyss together on the day the final episode takes place: November 6. November 6th is in fact the day Will was kidnapped in the first season, in 1983.
The plan therefore involves letting Vecna bring Hawkins and the Abyss (where he is) closer, because only when he is physically close enough will the team of friends be able to reach the Abyss from the highest point of the Upside Down, the radio tower (which however has never been shown so far), and save the children. At that point the Abyss will be close enough to the Upside Down and Eleven (Eleven) will be able to enter Vecna’s mind from the sensory deprivation tank of the Upside Down laboratory. Kali (“sister” of Eleven who grew up with her in the laboratory and with her own powers) and Will (who in the fourth episode of the season discovered he can connect with Vecna) will also participate in the attack on Vecna’s mind. Max will guide them through the mind of Vecna (or Henry), which he knows by heart because it’s where he spent almost two years while in the real world he was in a coma.
Finally, when the children are freed and Vecna defeated, Dustin proposed placing a bomb with a timer near the exotic matter of the Upside Down, to destroy everything: the Abyss, the Upside Down and all the monsters that inhabit them.
What does the memory of the scientist in the cave that Henry (i.e. Vecna) killed as a child have to do with it? And the cave that Vecna is afraid of?
In the sixth episode, while Max and Holly are still in Vecna’s mind together with the kidnapped children, they witness an old memory of hers: in an underground tunnel, when Henry is still a child, they see him kill a scientist and take a briefcase from his hands (only Holly sees this), the contents of which, however, are not shown to us. In the last episode we expect to understand what it contained and whether this memory of Henry has anything to do with his final plan to create a new world. Furthermore, it remains to be understood why Henry is afraid of entering the cave where Max has taken refuge, and which negative memory it is connected to: it is likely that the information collected by Max and Holly on Henry’s traumatic memories will come in handy in the final episode, to defeat him.
(©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection/contrasto)
Why did Kali’s character return? What are his intentions?
A “new” character who appears in this season is Kali, a girl with psychokinetic powers who grew up in Hawkins’ laboratory, who Eleven had already met in the second season of the series. Kali tells her that she was captured by the army, which controls Hawkins, and that she was once again locked in the laboratory and subjected to continuous blood draws. Only when she managed to escape, before meeting Eleven, did she discover that her blood was being transfused into the bodies of a series of pregnant women to give birth to children with powers like theirs.
Kali joins the team but Hopper doesn’t trust her, because he suspects she’s plotting something behind their backs, and that this could involve and put Eleven in danger. Indeed, in one of the last scenes of the seventh episode the girl privately suggests to Eleven that the two of them, after defeating Vecna, will have to die. This, according to Kali, is the only way to prevent the military from capturing them in the future, using their blood to give birth to new children with telekinetic powers, starting a new cycle of experiments in Hawkins’ laboratory and risking giving birth to monsters like Vecna.
©Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
Who will die?
Before the release of the fifth season, series creators Ross and Matt Duffer had anticipated that there would be the most violent death of the entire series. So far none of the protagonists have died yet, although several have come close and are more or less seriously injured: Hopper was attacked by the military in the laboratory and was ready to sacrifice himself by exploding a bomb, Lucas, Mike and Robin were attacked by demogorgons before Will saved them, and Max was almost strangled by Vecna. The Wheeler couple were also brutally injured by a demogorgon, and it is not yet known whether Ted Wheeler, who is in hospital, actually survived.
However, all the characters seem very determined and ready to act in the last mission. However, a rather solemn and intimate exchange of words between Dustin and Steve did not go unnoticed by many fans: the two friends made peace after a period of tension and promised each other: “if you die, I die too”.
Jonathan’s “non-proposal” of marriage to Nancy
After shooting the giant sphere of exotic matter, in the fifth episode Nancy and Jonathan remain trapped in a room that slowly fills with thick, sticky and whitish liquid, that is, walls and other parts of the building that have melted due to the interaction with the exotic matter. Thinking he is about to die, Jonathan hands Nancy what was supposed to be their engagement ring, telling her that it is a “non-marriage proposal.” The Duffer brothers cleared up fans’ doubts about the scene, confirming that Nancy and Jonathan’s relationship is over.
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