In episode 7 of Stranger Things Season 5, the Squawkers—that’s what I call the saviors of Hawkins because there are too many characters to name one by one—managed to locate Dustin, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan in the Upside Down and pulled them out into the realm of the mortals. Mike expected Holly to be with them, but they said she was still being held by Vecna in his castle in the Abyss. Holly being pulled into the sky by Vecna, and the existence of a void beyond the fleshy wall surrounding the Upside Down, confirmed the theory that the Upside Down was a bridge dimension between Hawkins and the Abyss. The Squawkers figured out that Vecna was planning to use those 12 kids that he had abducted to merge the Abyss with Hawkins.
To keep that from happening, the Squawkers planned to infiltrate the Abyss, free the kids, kill Vecna, and destroy both the Abyss and the Upside Down on their way out. While all this was going on, Kay was still determined to catch Eleven, because she wanted to use her blood to create more superpowered people and use them in the Cold War or any other international conflict in the future. However, when the Squawkers rolled into MAC-Z to go into the Upside Down through the rift in the library, she and her men were unable to do anything to stop them in their tracks. Hence, they had no choice but to follow the Squawkers into the Upside Down and, I don’t know, stop them from preventing Vecna from executing his plan. Who succeeded and who failed? Let’s recap the events of Stranger Things Season 5, episode 8, to find out.
Spoiler Alert
The Final Crawl Begins
Kay assumes that one of her own men has betrayed the armed forces and let the Squawkers into the Upside Down, but then she notices the shortwave radio kit in the store where she and her subordinate are interrogating a suspect, and she comes to the realization that the gates to the MAC-Z were opened remotely; it wasn’t an inside job. Somehow, she and her men figure out that the radio waves that were used to open the gates originated from the church tower where Erica and Clarke are operating from. After those two are apprehended, Kay notices the WSQK van parked outside the church and realizes that some more of these miscreants might be holed up there. Well, she’s not wrong, because Vic and Max are there. Vic is freaking out, and she communicates with Robin one last time, who tells Vic to keep calm because the show has just started. In the Upside Down, Eleven, Hopper, Murray, and Kali head to the sensory deprivation tank in Hawkins Lab, while the rest proceed to the Squawk in order to enter the Abyss once the radio tower pokes into that realm. Akers notices all of this from afar but prevents his subordinate from informing Kay about it because he thinks that she’ll just slow everyone down; he wants to bag both Kali and Eleven and reap the rewards.
After reaching the radio station, the Squawkers slowly begin climbing the tower so that they can take up positions on the platform at the top when the Abyss comes close to the Upside Down. In the Hawkins Lab, Murray fires up the system, and Eleven prepares to take the plunge into the bath. Hopper tells Eleven that if she hears two slow knocks, that’ll mean that the Abyss is moving. Once she hears three fast knocks, then she and Kali can proceed to attack Vecna. Eleven tells Hopper to not pull her out of the bath until she has completely finished Vecna, and Hopper says that once they are done, they’ll get away from Hawkins and deal with Kay some other day. They shake on it, and while Eleven jumps into the bath, Kali puts on the blindfold so that they enter Vecna’s Mind Lair together. The first thing that they do after entering the void is pull Max into the mix, which gives the nervous Vic the scare of her life because she probably assumes that her mind has been hijacked by Vecna again. Moments later though, she is seen chilling out, eating some cereal, which means that she knows that Max is with Eleven and Kali.
Eleven Pauses the Interdimensional Merging
Eleven locates Vecna and transports herself, Max, and Kali into his Mind Lair. That’s when Hopper informs Eleven that the Abyss has breached the sky of the Upside Down. So, Eleven tells Max to quickly take them to the place where Vecna holds the minds of the kids, because that’s where Vecna’s mind is going to be as well. As the girls are making their way to the Creel house (the one that’s in the Mind Lair), Kay and the military show up at the Squawk, thereby prompting them to hide in the storage room with Max, because if Max is disturbed, she’ll be pulled out of the Mind Lair before she can take Eleven and Kali to the kids. Meanwhile, back at the Upside Down’s radio tower, the Squawkers face an issue: the tower isn’t lining up with one of the rifts. I mean, at least there’s a rift that has conveniently opened up right atop the tower. If the Duffer brothers were actually brave, there wouldn’t have been any rifts anywhere near the tower at all, thereby forcing the Squawkers to actually find a rift they could breach without the help of a tower. Well, at least they allow the top of the tower to get crushed by the base of the Abyss, which destabilizes the platform on which the Squawkers are standing. I expected at least some of the Squawkers to die, because that’s a planet crushing a goddamn radio tower, but no, none of them sustain even a small scratch.
Sure, Eleven, Max, and Kali manage to get to the Creel house, and Eleven chucks Vecna out of the window, thereby pausing the interdimensional merging. But that’s a radio tower platform with way too many people on it. A strong gust of wind should have pushed a couple of people to their deaths, but somehow a whole realm isn’t enough to kill a few characters. That’s the power of plot armor, right there. Anyway, Max hugs Holly, who is relieved to see that she has returned to this hellhole just for her. Some of the brainwashed kids believe that Max is the Black Thing that Vecna was talking about, but Max assures them she’s there to help them, and they immediately believe her. I mean, these kids’ minds had been so heavily manipulated by Vecna that they almost killed Holly because she tried to rebel. But Max just says that she’s there to help them, and they believe it. Yeah, you can say that since Eleven knocked out Vecna, the kids have snapped out of his spell. However, later on, it’s revealed that it’s not Vecna but the Mind Flayer who’s pumping his juices into the kids. So, the kids’ minds becoming “free” just because Vecna is out of action doesn’t exactly make sense; and before anyone says that this is a fantasy show and it doesn’t have to be logical, by “sense,” I mean in terms of the show’s internal logic.
Vecna Tricks Hopper
Lucas informs Hopper that Eleven has successfully stopped the merging and that the Squawkers are entering the abyss. Vecna finds his bearings and re-enters the house. Eleven allows herself to be captured so that Kali can make Max and the kids invisible to Vecna. I guess Kali even mutes the yapping between Max and the kids about how Vecna is the real villain and they all have to get out of his Mind Lair. By the time Vecna figures out that he’s being tricked by Kali and Eleven, Max and the kids escape and start making their way to the caves. Kali attacks Vecna, but he disappears into thin air. So, she and Eleven leave the Creel house, catch up to Max and the kids, and continue their journey to the caves. The Squawkers find Vecna’s cave in the Abyss and prepare to infiltrate it. Vecna, in the meantime, tricks Hopper into shooting at the bath that Eleven is in. Hopper thinks he has killed Eleven, and hence he extracts her from the bath, thereby pulling her out of Vecna’s Mind Lair too, only to find out that Eleven is perfectly fine. Since Kali and Max were in the Mind Lair because of Eleven, they woke up too. The sound of Max waking up gives away her position, and she and Vic are captured by Kay.
Holly takes the lead and tells the kids to follow her to the caves. Vecna finds them and grabs Holly with his tendrils. But, for some reason, Vecna isn’t as strong as Derek, who manages to pull Holly into the cave, and as soon as Vecna’s tendrils touch the shadow of the cave, he has no choice but to let go of her. Yeah, Derek being more powerful than Vecna in Vecna’s Mind Lair totally makes sense. Since the bath has been destroyed, Eleven has no way to approach Vecna through the void. Hence, she decides to join the Squawkers and confront him in the Abyss. Hopper gets into an argument with Eleven because he knows about her and Kali’s suicide mission. This gives Akers and his men the opportunity to reach Hawkins Lab to try and capture Eleven and Kali. As if that’s not bad enough, Will informs the Squawkers that Vecna hasn’t been killed by Eleven, and that he is making his way into the caves. Holly tells the kids to head to the tunnel that can lead them out of the Mind Lair.
Kali Dies
Murray destroys the chopper that has the sonic cannons to dampen Eleven and Kali’s powers, which allows Eleven to kill all the soldiers, including Akers. However, during all this chaos, Akers shoots Kali, and she bleeds to death. After mourning Kali for a few seconds, Eleven apparently jumps on the floating rocks poking through the sky of the Upside Down and goes to the Abyss to kill Vecna. I say “apparently” because we don’t see that happening on the screen; it’s just implied that that’s the method that Eleven uses to get into the Abyss. While the kids make their way out of the Mind Lair, Holly hangs back to stall Vecna with a fire poker. Vecna obviously overpowers Holly and knocks her out. But him being in that tunnel triggers the memory of how he got his powers. Long story short, that guy with the briefcase had a stone from the Abyss. Henry had already been shot in the hand by that guy because he thought that the kid was a spy who was following him. In retaliation, Henry hit the guy with a rock and then proceeded to touch the piece from the Abyss with the hand that had a gaping wound in it.
I don’t know about you, but if I was shot in the hand, I wouldn’t have been using it for a while, let alone picking up an extraterrestrial rock with it. I guess the Duffers had to use the most convenient method to give Henry his powers. So, they forgot about the pain that the kid was experiencing, focused on integrating his blood with the particles of that stone from the Abyss, and then made him channel the Mind Flayer’s powers to kill that dude. From that point onwards, Henry apparently became the Mind Flayer’s slave. Now, all this while, Will has been connected to Vecna’s mind. That’s why he communicates with Vecna as he is crashing out, and he tries to give this mass murderer his redemption arc by saying that he isn’t guilty of any crime because he has done everything that he has done under the influence of the Mind Flayer. Vecna rejects Will’s forgiveness and states that he hasn’t been manipulated by the Mind Flayer; he has willingly embraced the Mind Flayer’s worldview and volunteered to remake Hawkins and the rest of the planet as they see fit.
The Mind Flayer Is A Kaiju
Why do the Mind Flayer and Vecna hate humanity? Well, the show doesn’t provide any in-depth explanation. Vecna cries a little about how broken everyone is, but how’s that reason enough to commit genocide? I don’t know. I think this was the perfect moment to give us an extensive flashback of how exactly Henry was exploited or show us an extended glimpse of all the horrors that the US military has carried out. It’s not like the Duffers were trying to keep the finale short. But I guess they prioritized giving the audience a farewell party for every character in existence over properly fleshing out the show’s villains’ motives. Hardcore Stranger Things fans will probably tell me to watch the play, which explains all this. Well, here’s the thing: The First Shadow isn’t playing in all the places where there are fans of the show, and I don’t think every fan of the show can afford to fly out to the countries where it’s playing. Usually, theater plays are recorded and uploaded online, and, as far as I know, even that’s not something that’s been released.
I guess the Duffers are planning to do a spinoff on how that stone from the Abyss was acquired or how that guy knew about the Mind Flayer. But we don’t know when that’s going to release, or if it’s going to release at all. Until then, these 5 seasons of Stranger Things are going to feel incomplete. If you are okay with that, that’s fine; I, however, am not okay with this style of storytelling. Anyway, Vecna’s acceptance of his relationship with the Mind Flayer unleashes the true form of the creature. Yeah, Vecna’s castle wasn’t actually a castle; it was the Mind Flayer’s body, and he was holding the kids captive in the Mind Flayer’s throat or mouth, which is filled with the dirt that forms the ground of the Abyss, by the way. How many characters does this kaiju version of the Mind Flayer kill? Zero, literally, zero. Robin referring to the Mind Flayer as Godzilla is downright disrespectful, because Godzilla isn’t this inefficient. But in this case, I suppose the power of the plot armor is stronger than the Mind Flayer, which is why the Squawkers get to casually attack the Mind Flayer from the outside while Eleven tears into the creature’s throat, disconnects Vecna from the Mind Flayer, and then fights him.
Vecna Is Dead
Both Vecna and the physical manifestation of the Mind Flayer are killed, the kids are rescued, Murray activates the time bomb, and everyone boards Murray’s truck to head to the rift in the MAC-Z. As soon as they enter Hawkins, everyone, with the exception of Eleven, is arrested by Kay and his men. While standing at the rift, Eleven telepathically communicates with Mike to bid him goodbye, and tells him to convey her regards to the rest. The time bomb goes off, the flesh wall gets destroyed, and it sucks the Upside Down into the void that lies beyond that wall. The rift is closed, and it’s assumed that Eleven died there. However, in the ending of Stranger Things Season 5, episode 8, which takes place 18 months after that incident, during a Dungeons and Dragons session, Mike theorizes that Eleven is actually alive. He tells Mike, Dustin, and Max that Kali didn’t die when we saw her die. She had some life left in her. So, when the bomb was about to go off, she created a projection of Eleven to convince everyone that she’d died, whereas in reality, Eleven made her escape through one of the tunnels in the convenience store in the military zone.
I don’t know why Eleven had to tell such a cruel lie to the ones who loved and understood her, but apparently it was important for her to do that to get Kay off her back. Also, how did Kali create a projection of Eleven even though the rift was so far away from her, and how did Eleven communicate with Mike in the void even though she didn’t have a sensory deprivation bath of some kind? Simple; the plot needed them to do that, and hence, they could. Mike’s theory is that Eleven is in some far-off land where she’s living peacefully. But it’s just a theory; there’s no way to confirm if that’s the truth or not. For all we know, Eleven died along with the rest of the Upside Down and Mike is just saying all this to give himself and everyone some hope. As for everyone else’s fates, all the kids graduate from Hawkins High and go on to live comfortably, Hopper becomes chief of police again and marries Joyce, Kay and the military are nowhere to be seen, Dustin gets a new girlfriend because nobody cares about Suzie, Robin continues to work at the Squawk, Steve becomes a baseball coach, Jonathan becomes an anti-capitalist filmmaker, Nancy becomes a journalist at the Herald, and Holly and her friends continue the legacy of playing Dungeons and Dragons in a basement. The end.
