Every Stranger Things Plotline That Vanished Into the Upside Down, Ranked

Stranger Things gives us monsters, mixtapes, and a whole lot of heart. It also leaves the occasional storyline in the Upside Down, never to be seen again. With the fifth and final season on deck, it feels like a good time to poke at the threads the show dropped along the way — the ones fans still argue about, meme to death, or quietly hope the Duffers will fix.

1. Hopper breaks his ankle... then forgets it exists

   In Season 4, Hopper purposely fractures his ankle to slip his cuffs in that grim Russian prison. We watch him limp through snow in serious pain. Cut to later: he is scrapping with a Demogorgon like nothing happened. When Joyce finally tends to his wounds, the ankle is somehow not worth a mention. I get that this show is juggling Russia, California, and Hawkins at once, but a throwaway line about him pushing through a break would have kept the continuity from faceplanting.

2. Nancy and Jonathan hit pause while Steve hits the gas

   After building Nancy and Jonathan for three seasons, Season 4 separates them by a few time zones and vibes. Jonathan quietly applies to a California community college instead of following Nancy to Emerson while getting high with Argyle. Meanwhile, Nancy teams with Steve in Hawkins and he straight-up admits he still loves her, going full RV-and-six-kids fantasy. When Nancy and Jonathan finally reunite, the awkwardness goes unresolved — Jonathan is still lying about school, Nancy is clearly conflicted, and the whole romance feels iced until the writers decide what to do with it.

3. Why did the Demogorgon pick Will, rule-breaker edition

   The show teaches us early that the Demogorgon is attracted to blood — that is how it gets Barb and how Nancy and Jonathan bait it. Will’s abduction breaks that rule. The creature tracks him from near the lab to his house and into the shed with zero blood in play. Joyce calls Will a "sensitive kid," which felt like a planted clue at the time. Was Will vulnerable to the Upside Down in a way the others weren’t? Psychic potential? Destiny? The show never circles back, even though Will’s targeted pursuit is way more methodical than its other kills.

4. Hawkins, population: zero follow-up questions

   Season 1 ends with a staged body, a funeral, and then — surprise — Will is alive. What did the town think happened there? What story did Joyce tell at the grocery store the next week? We know Hopper cut a deal with the feds to bury things, and Season 2 has Nancy push to expose the lab, but the bigger picture never really lands. For a small town where gossip travels faster than a bike chase, Hawkins shrugs off apocalyptic weirdness like it is a pothole on Maple Street. That reluctance to show the community processing trauma is a missed layer.

5. Eleven’s vocabulary does the time warp

   Season 4 flashbacks show young Eleven speaking in full sentences in 1979, following complex instructions, and interacting with the other kids. Then in 1983, fresh out of the lab, she is down to "bad" and "mouth breather." The regression is never explained. You can headcanon it as trauma from banishing One/Vecna or some Brenner-induced suppression, but the show doesn’t give us that line. For a series that is careful with emotional logic, this one sticks out.

6. The Upside Down is frozen in 1983... except when it isn’t

   Season 4 drops a cool mythology bomb: the Upside Down is stuck on November 6, 1983 — the day Will vanished and Eleven first made contact with the Demogorgon. Great idea. Problem: in Season 1, Will communicates with Joyce using her Christmas-light alphabet wall, which she painted days after November 6. Those letters should not exist in a frozen-copy Hawkins. Fans have pitched clever workarounds, like light in our world creating energy clusters in the Upside Down that Will manipulated to mimic letters. Smart theory. Not canon. If you freeze time that precisely, you owe an explanation for how cross-dimensional signals like that work.

7. Vecna’s final fight: big bad, small effort

   Season 4 builds Vecna into the ultimate mastermind. He shapes the Mind Flayer, opens the original gate, and puppeteers events for years. Then the finale lets Steve, Nancy, and Robin pelt him with Molotovs while he basically stands there. Vines choke them and then let go for no reason. He absorbs one flaming bottle, then another, then another, without throwing back so much as a psychic flick. The charitable read is that he was distracted battling Eleven inside Max’s mind. The show never actually says that. For a villain this calculated, the passivity feels like plot armor for our heroes.

8. Will Byers and the birthday the show forgot

   Season 2 locks in Will’s birthday as March 22. Cut to Season 4 at Rink-O-Mania: the camera timestamp reads March 22, 1986 — his 15th — and not one person mentions it. No cake, no card, not even a "hey man." The Duffers later admitted they just blew it while mapping the timeline for the season. Matt even joked about whether to digitally tweak the earlier dialogue to change the date.

   "We were debating whether to George Lucas it and change the date... or just let it be really sad." And yes, Ross called it "obviously a mistake" and apologized to fans — and to Will.

   It is funny and brutal all at once, which is kind of Will’s brand in this show. At minimum, they have a clean setup to acknowledge it in the final season.

9. #JusticeForBarb got half a victory lap

   Barb appears in three episodes and becomes the show’s first viral cause. Season 2 gives Nancy a righteous arc exposing the lab’s role in Barb’s death and delivering Barb’s parents closure via a toxic-spill cover story. Season 4 rubs salt in that wound by having Vecna torment Nancy with visions of Barb’s decaying body. Still, Barb ends up more symbol than character — fuel for Nancy’s growth instead of a loss the town truly honors. She deserved more than meme immortality and a footnote in a conspiracy settlement.

10. Kali, the sister the show left behind

    Season 2’s standalone detour, The Lost Sister, introduces Kali/Eight, an escapee with illusion powers who bonds with Eleven and teaches her to weaponize anger. Then: nothing. She vanishes from Seasons 3 and 4. That’s especially strange because the Season 4 lab flashbacks, which cover the 1979 massacre, never mention her even though the timeline says she escaped before it. Inside baseball: back in 2017, the Duffers told THR they intended to pay this off.

    "Chances are very high she comes back... it feels weird to me that we wouldn’t solve [her] storyline."

    Kali’s abilities are tailor-made to counter a psychic predator like Vecna, and she is one of the few survivors who knew Henry Creel before he became the monster. Her dynamic with Eleven — vengeance vs. connection — begged for a proper return. Instead, The Lost Sister is still the show’s lowest-rated episode and its biggest narrative dead end. If she doesn’t show in Season 5, that’s a permanent whiff.

None of this sinks the show — Stranger Things is still a blast — but when the Duffers take big swings, they sometimes leave interesting crumbs behind. The final season is the last shot to sweep a few of these into place. Will deserves a proper spotlight (and someone to remember his birthday). Kali deserves closure. And we all deserve a clean breakdown of how the Upside Down’s rules actually work.

What loose end bugs you the most? Do you think Eight pops back in for the finale? Drop your theories. And if you feel like hunting for these gaps yourself, Seasons 1–4 are streaming on Netflix. Season 5 is the last ride — timing still TBD — so now’s a good time to dust off the Eggos.