Entertainment
The 5 Stranger Things Season 5 Questions Netflix Wants You To Ask After Watching
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Netflix made the bold decision to split Stranger Things, Season 5, into three parts, with the first four episodes dropping earlier this week. It didn’t take the fandom long to devour these episodes like they were a box of tasty Eggo Waffles, and everyone is counting down until the next three episodes drop on Christmas. Until that happens, though, the fandom has been left with some seriously burning questions.
What questions are we talking about? Grab your bike and bring some tissues for any nosebleeds as we dive into the biggest questions we still have (beware spoilers, y’all) after the premiere of Stranger Things, Season 5!
1. What Is The Military Actually Up To?
In the fifth season of Stranger Things, the Army has quarantined the town of Hawkins and is conducting weird experiments on the Upside Down. These experiments are led by Dr. Kay, a creepy scientist played by franchise newcomer Linda Hamilton. She has a lab inside the Upside Down, and she’s learned enough to partially control some of its creatures, like when she uses one creepy creature’s tentacles to choke a hapless Hopper.
With that being said, we don’t know what the goal of her experiment is. Is she (in the fine tradition of movies like Aliens) trying to find a way to weaponize the Upside Down on behalf of the government? It’s also not clear what she’s doing with Eight, Eleven’s similarly psychic-powered “sister.” For that matter, since Eight can project mental illusions, we’re not entirely sure how much of what happened with Eleven and Hopper in the lab was real and not some sort of psychic projection.
As for Linda Hamilton, we’re confident that (to paraphrase one of her more famous costars), “she’ll be back,” and we’ll get answers to some of these questions in the next few episodes.
2. What’s Up With That Flesh Wall?
One of the most visually striking things in Stranger Things Season 5 is the flesh wall that seems straight out of a David Cronenberg movie. This organic wall surrounds the Upside Down and Dr. Kay’s creepy lab. Speaking of the demented doctor, we see her conducting experiments on the wall, which is where she gets the creature she uses to attack Hopper.
But is this wall where Vecna is keeping those kids he has kidnapped? Is it the same wall that we saw him attach Will to in the flashback sequence of the first episode? Does this huge wall have anything to do with the fact that Vecna is a mass of muscles by the time he shows up to kill one poor soldier after another?
So far, we have more questions than answers about the wall. It’s a safe bet that the answers to these questions are the key to solving some of the show’s craziest mysteries.
3. Is Max In Dimension X?
Season 5 of Stranger Things reveals that Max’s body is still in a coma but that Eleven successfully sent her mind elsewhere. She shows up to guide young Holly Wheeler, herself one of the children kidnapped by Vecna for unknown reasons. While their interactions are fun and the show is clearly setting Max up to play a big role in Vecna’s defeat, we’re left with a more fundamental question: where, exactly, is she?
She appears to be in Vecna’s memories, and Vecna himself was originally sent to Dimension X, where he got his freaky powers in the first place. So, is Max in Dimension X, or the villain’s mind, or maybe both? The answers to this question will likely be tied to whether or not she wakes up “normal” in the real world or if she has been forever changed by the psychological scars of her experiences.
4. What’s The Deal With Will’s New Powers?
The most crowdpleasing moment of Stranger Things, Season 5 (so far, at least) was the revelation of Will’s own, Eleven-style psychic powers. Toward the end of the fourth episode, all hope seems lost: most of the children have been kidnapped by Vecna, and his Demogorgons are about to devour our main characters. Suddenly, though, Will’s eyes go white, and he channels some newfound mental mojo to kill these creatures, twisting their limbs in a way that would have made Vecna proud.
It’s a truly awesome moment, but it raises a few major questions. Does Will now have the same power set as Eleven (he even rocked her trademark nosebleed), and if so, did Vecna give him these powers? Why, then, would Vecna make his first victim super-powerful unless he plans on later weaponizing Will? Or are Will’s powers limited to the Demogorgons and other Vecna minions because of the weird psychic link they share?
If Vecna was deliberately giving young Will such fantastic powers, it might indicate that he wants to do the same thing with all the children he abducts. That may mean he’s raising an army against the most unexpected Big Bad of all: the Mind Flayer.
5. Vecna Or The Mind Flayer: Who’s The Boss?
Stranger Things has had several retcons related to its villains: after Season 1 made the Demogorgon a self-contained bad guy, we were later introduced to the Mind Flayer as the show’s true Big Bad. Or is he? Season 4 introduced the idea that Vecna was the ultimate Big Bad, one that had been manipulating the Mind Flayer for his own nefarious purposes.
However, the play Stranger Things: The First Shadow introduced the idea that Vecna (back when he was just Henry) first encountered the Mind Flayer’s powers in a cave in Nevada. From there, the Flayer gave the young man the powers that he used to murder his family, eventually becoming the Carrie-esque figure whose blood is used to give Eleven and others their own fantastic powers. In Season 5, we see Max hanging out in Vecna’s memories (or maybe Dimension X), and she sometimes hides in a cave that Vecna is afraid to enter.
The area looks like Nevada, and that would make this the same cave where Henry was exposed to the Mind Flayer’s powers, kicking off the journey that would transform him into Vecna. This has led some fans to think that if Vecna is still scared of the Upside Down’s resident monster, the Flayer might actually still be in charge. This could tie into why Vecna is kidnapping children: if he shares his blood with them while twisting their minds, he might have an army that could finally destroy the Mind Flayer, freeing him from its clutches once and for all.
