Stranger Things is back with a new season, and I believe this time around we will find out if El and her companions are able to take down Vecna and save the world from its wrath or not. In season 4, for the first time, El confronted Vecna, aka Henry Creel in his demonic form. Henry was the first patient to be taken in by Dr. Martin Brenner, and he was subjected to tests in the Hawkins National Laboratory. I believe that some people are inherently evil, and no matter what they are told, they venture down a path of destruction and find sadistic pleasure in the misery of others. Henry was one of those people, and for the longest time he wanted El to accept that they both were alike. Maybe El too felt those inclinations, but what differentiated her from Henry was that she didn’t give in to her impulses. She could tell right from wrong, and she chose love over hatred. El had theoretically killed Henry back at the laboratory, but that encounter had opened a portal to a dimension we know as the Upside Down. Henry went there and started raising his own army of Demogorgons and other evil entities. Then he happened to latch himself onto Will, and the poor boy served as his source of energy. Vecna preyed upon those individuals who had a traumatic past or something else haunting them. That was why he targeted Max, but luckily he wasn’t able to kill her. Whatever had happened in the previous season of Stranger Things had made the residents of Hawkins realize that they would have to find a way to kill Vecna, otherwise he would establish his dominion and take control of the entire world. Until last season at least, world domination was the end game for Vecna, and I believe he would have achieved it had El not come in his way. So let’s find out what happened in the first episode of Stranger Things season 5, which is titled The Crawl.
Spoiler Alert
Why had the military taken over Hawkins?
After the carnage of the previous season, I expected Hawkins to be left in ruins, something like a war-torn land where state institutions had collapsed and chaos and anarchy prevailed. But no, apparently they were doing quite well, and the city had managed to get back on its feet. Children went to school; there was a shortage of supplies at times, but it wasn’t so bad that the people started to panic. The only change that had happened was that the military, under the leadership of Lt. Col. Sullivan had established a military access control zone, which they referred to as Mac-Z. There was only one entrance leading to the Upside Down, and that was inside the military zone itself. The soldiers went into the Upside Down on a regular basis, and apparently they had established their base there (though I can’t understand how). Robin, Jonathan, Steve, and Nancy ran a local radio station, and apart from music and daily news, they used the radio waves to send secret messages to one another. Lt. Col. Sullivan was on the lookout for Eleven, which was why Hopper and Joyce made sure that she kept a very low profile and didn’t come out in the open. The entrance to the Upside Down was only opened when supplies had to be taken inside for the soldiers. The trucks that carried the supplies always followed the same route, which Hopper and the others had obviously figured out. Hopper frequently went to the Upside Down whenever the supply trucks used to enter, which he referred to as “the crawl”. When Hopper was inside, Dustin Henderson and Steve made sure that they rode their signal van on the same route as the military trucks but in the mortal world. That was how they made sure that Hopper was always in touch and never lost signal. It had been some time since there was any news about Vecna. There weren’t even any reported sightings of Demogorgons, and there were some who believed that Vecna died after his combat with Eleven. But that was not so, and soon everybody got to know about it.
What happened between Andy and Dustin Herderson?
The people who had been in the Upside Down knew the sacrifice that was made by Eddie Munson. When the time came, the boy didn’t care about his life. He was a true friend and one who could be trusted. Nobody could relate more to Munson than Dustin Henderson. The fact that the people still believed Munson had a role to play in whatever had happened back in the day infuriated him. They were prohibited from wearing the hellfire club tshirt shirt, as people felt that that game and Munson were the reason why their town was in shambles. In season 5 episode 1, Henderson intentionally wore that shirt to irk Andy, one of the bullies, who was Jason Carver’s friend and teammate. Andy would have hit Henderson, but Mike, Will, and Lucas arrived at the scene and told him not to lay a finger on their friend. Henderson was agitated, and that feeling of helplessness was quite visible on his face. He was irritated because he couldn’t do anything to make the people realize that Munson was a true friend, a martyr. Henderson put his pet corn snake in Andy’s locker, and the latter didn’t hold himself back from retaliating. Andy killed Henderson’s snake, used its blood to write the words “Burn in hell” on Munson’s gravestone, and then beat Henderson with a bunch of guys to the point the boy became unconscious. Because of that reason, Henderson wasn’t able to arrive on time for Hopper’s crawl. Henderson was the one that managed the signal, and so without him, Jonathan had to take the lead and ride the signal van with Steve.
What happened during Hopper’s crawl?
Eleven was preparing to go to the Upside Down. She was really stretching her limits and practicing every day. But Jim Hopper didn’t want to take her, even when he knew that she was ready. Hopper wanted to protect his little girl as long as he could. He knew that eventually she would have to face Vecna, but until that moment, he wanted to keep her safe. Murray Bauman informed Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Robin that military supply trucks were supposed to go into the Upside Down that night. Also, it was big cargo, which meant that the military was preparing for something important. Hopper got ready for the crawl, and he was able to get into a truck without anybody noticing. But something unprecedented happened this time around, which I believe Will already had an intuition about. For the longest time Will hadn’t gotten those visions that he used to get when Vecna was around. He hadn’t gotten those chills that he got on the back of his neck, which made him realize that something bad was going to happen. Will suddenly felt dizzy, and for a moment he thought that he would have a seizure. He didn’t, but it was a warning that all of them should have paid more attention to. What it told them was that Vecna was coming out of its slumber. Once Hopper went inside the Upside Down, the supply trucks were hit by an unknown entity, and it came to be known that a demogorgon had attacked them out of nowhere. Hopper got stuck inside the Upside Down, and Jonathan lost track of his movements and so lost the signal too. Meanwhile, Will got a seizure, and everybody knew what that meant.
Why Did The Demogorgon Target Holly?
Holly, Mike and Nancy’s younger sister, believed that she had an imaginary friend who she called Mr. Whatsit. Her school teacher saw her talking to herself, and she called Holly’s mother to tell her about it. I believe that that was a signal that Holly, just like Will, was going to be used as a vessel, a source of energy for Vecna. Also, the poor girl was traumatized by the constant fights her parents had. Probably that was why she created her own imaginary world where she could hide safely. It was an escape for her, as she didn’t know how to resolve the situation at home. At the end of Stranger Things season 5 episode 1, we saw that the demogorgon opened a portal right above Holly’s bedroom. I believe that Holly would be taken to the Upside Down, as Vecna was amping up its game and once again trying to establish its dominion. But what I don’t understand is why the Demogorgons (which I presume are acting on the order of their boss, Vecna) are targeting kids. At the beginning of the episode, we were shown how Will was taken by Vecna and then how he sucked out life from him to fuel himself. Now, several years later, Holly has disappeared around that same time, and I don’t think that was a coincidence. Speaking of coincidences, I think that Holly’s imaginary friend was not so imaginary after all. I don’t think she was making things up when she said that her friend told her that there were monsters at her school. Mike obviously didn’t believe her but I think that Holly seeing things is related to whatever had happened and the other kids immediately need to find more information about Mr. Whatsit. There is definitely a larger plan at play, something which the others didn’t see coming. Maybe it was through Will that the hive mind got activated and the Demogorgons were able to come out of the mortal realm. Maybe Will held the key to everything and he would have a crucial role to play in the forthcoming battle.
Moreover, Holly’s disappearance made one thing clear that Vecna was not dead. Maybe Vecna, after the fight he had with El, was weak and needed an energy source to get its powers back. Or maybe there was some other sinister plan brewing, which El and the others didn’t have any idea about. But in the end, what it meant was another kid was taken to the Upside down, and I cannot even begin to imagine the kind of damage it would do to Holly. Also what it meant was that humans had only one portal that they could use to go inside the Upside Down that lay inside the military base but the Demogorgons could penetrate inside the mortal realm from wherever they wished. This too will be a great disadvantage for El and others. With Hopper stuck in the Upside Down, it has become even more difficult for El and the others to come up with a plan to defeat Vecna. They have to get Hopper out of there at all costs, because in that hostile environment he won’t be able to survive for long.
