5 Clues That All But Confirm Eddie’s Return To Stranger Things

Stranger Things keeps telling us Eddie Munson is gone, but the show also keeps winking at anyone who is still holding a candle (and a Hellfire Club tee) for him. We already watched Dustin grieve in the new season, the creators have said the door is shut, and yet... the show’s own choices keep nudging the fanbrain. If your timeline is full of frame-by-frame trailer breakdowns and metal album deep dives, I get it.

"Sadly, RIP. He’s fully under that ground."

— the Duffer Brothers to The Empire

For context: Stranger Things is the Duffer Brothers’ supernatural hit starring Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, and Caleb McLaughlin. It’s now in its fifth season and sits at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. And even with the showrunners saying no, fans keep finding little tells that feel a little too intentional to be nothing.

So why are Eddie truthers still convinced?

• The Iron Maiden album in Season 4 wasn’t just set dressing. When Nancy needed music to pull her out of the Upside Down in Episode 8, Eddie’s holding Iron Maiden’s Peace of Mind. Robin’s asking where the music is, and plenty of us were thinking the same thing. Here’s the odd part: Iron Maiden’s undead mascot is named Eddie, and he carries the same chaotic metal energy and look. This show doesn’t drop names by accident, and it loves using music to foreshadow arcs. Tying Eddie Munson to a mascot that basically never dies is… suggestive.
• The D&D Kas theory fits a little too well. In Dungeons & Dragons lore, Kas is the warrior who was once aligned with Vecna and later turned on him. Eddie died fighting Vecna’s forces. You can see where the fandom goes with this: a return as a transformed, darker, stronger, revenge-forward version of that archetype. Even the way Dustin talks about Eddie’s last stand echoes that kind of defiance. Stranger Things constantly blends its monsters with D&D mythology, so this doesn’t feel random — it feels like setup.
• Peace of Mind also has The Trooper — and the lyric hits hard. The song drops the line "You’ll take my life, but I’ll take yours too." That is basically Eddie’s whole deal in one bar. He sacrifices himself to save his friends, but that lyric reads like a promise to finish the fight. This is the same show that turned Running Up That Hill into a literal lifeline for Max; musical breadcrumbs matter here.
• Iron Maiden’s 1986 cover art literally says "Eddie Lives." Somewhere in Time has that exact phrase scrawled on its cover. With the show already tying Eddie to Maiden, this feels like a deliberate Easter egg placement. Stranger Things loves its metal references and blink-and-you-miss-it graffiti. If the genre’s most famous Eddie "lives," it’s not crazy to think the Duffers are planting hope, or at least having fun messing with us.
• The Season 5 trailer’s fire blast looks like a Kas callback. There’s a shot of Vecna unleashing a wave of flame — a move that mirrors how Vecna attacks Kas in D&D before Kas strikes back with the magical Sword Vecna forged. The series even seeded this ages ago when Mike, mid-campaign, says "Vecna was killed by Kas." That’s either extremely convenient or very intentional. If Eddie is the show’s Kas analogue, that fiery beat could be pointing straight at his comeback moment.

What I’m watching for

Maybe this is all misdirection and the Duffers are just enjoying the speculation. But tying Eddie to Iron Maiden’s immortal mascot, quoting a lyric that reads like his epitaph-and-epilogue, name-dropping Kas in the kids’ game, and then showing a Kas-style attack in the trailer — that’s a lot of smoke for no fire. Or, you know, a very specific wave of it.

Stranger Things is streaming on Netflix. Think Eddie’s really coming back, or are we all chasing shadows in the Upside Down? Tell me your best theory.