Stranger Things S5E4 Ending: The Twist That Changes Everything for Will, Robin, Dustin and Steve

Stranger Things 5, Part 1 leaves Hawkins in a bad place: Vecna finally shows his face, the military might be doing his errands for him, Will levels up in a way that will make your jaw drop, and Eleven finds someone behind a door the show has been teasing for years. Also, Max is alive, but the way she is staying alive is extremely messed up. Full spoilers ahead.

The barn attack, Will's vision, and a very specific headcount

During a Demogorgon hit on a barn, Will gets yanked into Vecna's headspace and sees Holly and three other kids hanging in a giant web, tentacles plugged into them like IV lines. When he snaps out of it, he sketches twelve spires, with four already occupied. Robin, doing the math none of us wanted to do, figures Vecna still needs eight more kids for whatever he is building.

Meanwhile: the military is rounding up children (yes, really)

Under Dr. Kay's orders, the military starts corralling Hawkins kids. Even some of the brass clearly hates this plan. The uneasy truth dawns on our heroes: the government might be hand-delivering exactly what Vecna wants. So a rescue mission is on the table before any more kids disappear.

Dustin's Upside Down road trip and Hopper's big map moment

Dustin, with Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan, tracks a Demogorgon into the Upside Down to find Holly. The creature leads them to a dead end: a massive seamless wall. Dustin calls Hopper for a bailout. Hopper tells them to hold position, then pieces together the weird interference they have been hearing. His conclusion is the kind of eerie logic this show loves: the wall is not a wall, it is a ring. It circles the entire Upside Down, and dead center you have the Department of Energy, the old Hawkins Lab, the spot where all this began. Not a coincidence. The group makes for the lab.

Vecna finally shows up and says the quiet part out loud

After Demogorgons overrun a military base to abduct the kids being held there, Vecna steps through a gate like he owns the place and flattens soldiers with a flick of his hand. Portals burst open across the facility, Demogorgons pour out in waves, and Will feels their pain like it is happening to his own body. Mike hustles the remaining kids toward a hidden tunnel, but an explosion wipes them out cold.

Vecna closes in on Will and lays out his mission: he wants Hawkins children because they are malleable. Will was his proof of concept, the first mind he broke and rebuilt to his design. Then Vecna lets Will go and fades back into the Upside Down as Demogorgons drag the targeted kids through portals. The ones who escaped with Robin and Lucas? They get snatched too.

Will flips the connection and it is terrifying

After years of being an antenna for the Upside Down, Will's link evolves. Throughout Part 1, he sees through Demogorgon eyes, senses danger aimed at the Wheelers, even catches flashes from Vecna himself. The difference this time is Robin. Her blunt kindness gets through to him, and when the Demogorgons are about to slaughter their friends, something in Will finally clicks. His eyes go white, he reaches out, and he puppeteers the Demogorgons the way Vecna did last season. Bones twist, bodies snap, creatures drop. The power burns out as fast as it arrived. Will collapses, nose bleeding, the classic Eleven/Henry aftermath.

Eleven, the vault, and the person behind the door

Trapped in the Upside Down and stumbling onto a hidden military base built inside it, Eleven becomes convinced a sealed vault she could not open earlier is holding someone like her. She and Hopper break back in to find out. Inside, there is a purpose-built device that shuts her down the second an alarm blares. Dr. Kay steps out and coolly admits she has been tracking Eleven for years. At the same time, soldiers jump Hopper and a tentacle from a lab bay wraps around his throat.

Kay presses Hopper on what he knows about the Upside Down and why he would bring Eleven here. El buys him a second, Hopper breaks free, and knocks Kay out. He tells El to get out while he straps on explosives and heads into the vault ready to die if he has to. The gate reopens a beat later and Hopper walks back out alive. El goes in and finds Kali, Number Eight from Season 2, strapped to a machine and kept in stasis.

Earlier, Kay had asked Hopper why he would risk bringing Eleven into the base 'for the other'.

Between that line and what is in the vault, it is painfully clear she meant Kali. And the way this base gets wrecked by Vecna's forces suggests the military had no idea he was already moving inside their perimeter.

Max and Holly inside Henry's memory prison

Episode 4 finally lays out how Max has stayed off Vecna's radar since El saved her. After Holly finds her in this mental maze, Max explains they are walking through Henry's memories. She has three rules: you can give up, you can accept your fate, or you can run. She chose to run, following the music that once saved her through memory after memory, hoping it would pull her back to the real world.

She actually saw a gate once. Right before she reached it, the music cut and Henry appeared. She ran until she found a cave. He would not follow her in. He was scared of it. That was the tell. Max has been hiding there alone ever since. Now she wants out for real, and she needs Holly's help to do it. First step: Holly has to go back to the Creel House memory where Henry first trapped her, so he does not realize Max is still in play.

Where things stand by the end of Part 1

• Will's vision shows twelve spires feeding on kids; four are occupied, which means Vecna wants eight more.
• The military, under Dr. Kay, is rounding up Hawkins children and unknowingly funneling victims straight to Vecna.
• Dustin, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan find a circular barrier around the Upside Down; the epicenter is the old Hawkins Lab/DOE site.
• Vecna storms a base, slaughters soldiers, and has Demogorgons haul multiple kids through portals, including ones who escaped with Robin and Lucas.
• Will briefly turns the connection on the monsters and kills Demogorgons with Vecna-like force, then collapses with a nosebleed.
• Eleven and Hopper infiltrate a secret Upside Down base; Dr. Kay has a device that shuts El down and has been tracking her for years.
• In the vault: Kali, Number Eight, kept alive and wired to a machine. Kay's 'for the other' line was about her.
• Max is alive inside Henry's memory prison, hiding in a cave he will not enter; she needs Holly to help execute an escape plan.

Stranger Things 5, Part 1 is streaming now on Netflix. The back half has a lot of mess to clean up.