Max’s Fate Is Finally Revealed in Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1

Stranger Things 5 swings back to Max and does that maddening thing the show loves: it gives you answers in pieces, then dares you to connect them while your favorite character lies in a hospital bed. If you were hoping for a clean resolution in Volume 1, you’re not getting it. But we do learn a lot about where Max actually is — and it’s not just Hawkins.

So, is Max dead or alive?

Short version: Max is alive, but stuck. Her body is in a coma for all four episodes in Volume 1. Her mind is trapped in Vecna’s headspace, wandering through Henry Creel’s memories and trying to claw her way back to the real world.

"I really did die."

That’s how Max describes what happened in Season 4. She says she felt something calling her back, then came to in the Rainbow Room — but that was inside Vecna’s mind, not Hawkins Memorial.

Where things actually stand in Volume 1

• Max never wakes up in Volume 1. She’s comatose the entire time, with Lucas visiting the hospital and playing Kate Bush’s "Running Up That Hill" like a nightly ritual.
• Her body is healing: the broken bones are set, the neck brace is gone. But she still seems to be blind — fallout from Vecna’s curse in Season 4.
• In Vecna’s mindscape, Max is wandering Henry Creel’s memories, looking for an exit. The show makes it clear this is where her consciousness is parked.
• The music still matters. When Max hears "Running Up That Hill" from the hospital, it cracks open a portal to her room — just long enough to tease an escape before it snaps shut.
• Episode 3 (titled "The Turnbow Trap") drops a big wrinkle: Max finds a cave near the Creel house inside Vecna’s mind where he apparently can’t follow. She decides to hole up there because, in her words, "he can’t get in there." Why he can’t? The show doesn’t say yet.
• There’s a stealth game element to all this. Vecna eventually realizes Max is trying to slip away. Max tells Holly not to tip him off that she knows more than she should, and sends Holly back to the Creel house alone.
• Meanwhile, Lucas has no idea any of this is happening. He keeps playing the song, hoping it’s doing something. It is — he just can’t see it.
• By the end of Volume 1, Max is still out cold in the hospital and still hiding in that mindscape cave. The larger stakes hanging over her: Vecna is moving on a plan that uses the other kids to reshape the world, so Max and Holly need to get out before that train fully leaves the station.
• Volume 2 drops December 25, and that’s where we’ll find out if Max can actually make it back to the real world.

About the Holly of it all

Yes, Max is talking to someone named Holly inside Vecna’s mental maze. If you’re pausing to go, 'Wait, Holly?', you’re not alone. The season plays this close to the vest — she’s there, she’s talking to Max, she’s key to the plan in that cave/Creel house corridor — but the show doesn’t spell out every why and how yet. File it under intentional mystery for now.

The takeaway

Max isn’t gone, but she’s not free either. Volume 1 is basically one long, unnerving setup: her body is mending, her mind is stuck, and the song that saved her once might still be the rope back to Hawkins — if she can reach it before Vecna slams the door for good.