The series finale of Stranger Things premieres on Netflix on December 31 at 8:00 p.m. ET and 5:00 p.m. PT.
Before the final episode airs, it’s important to remind ourselves of what this finale is all about. The Upside Down. The Abyss. The Mind Flayer, Vecna, Eleven, Will and how everything is connected.
To understand Stranger Things, you have to go back to the early 1950s.
The Cave Incident That Started Everything
In Rachel, Nevada, a young boy named Henry Creel explores a nearby cave on his eighth birthday. Inside that cave, Henry is confronted by a Russian spy. The man shoots Henry in the hand. Henry responds by killing him with a rock.
Then Henry opens a mysterious silver suitcase.
That moment transports him to an alternate reality known as Dimension X, now referred to as the Abyss. All we know about Henry’s time in Dimension X is that he was missing for 12 hours. During that period, he was exposed to the influence of a shadowy entity we refer to as the Mind Flayer.
When Henry returns, his personality is colder. His blood type has changed. He later develops powerful psychokinetic abilities. After Henry loses control and injures another boy from his school, the Creel family leaves Nevada for Hawkins, Indiana for a fresh start.
Dr. Brenner’s Obsession
Unfortunately, the move to Hawkins doesn’t free Henry from the Mind Flayer’s corruption.
Worse, Dr. Martin Brenner develops an interest in Henry.
Brenner has been investigating the cave incident and Dimension X for years. Virginia Creel calls him, terrified of her own son. Henry overhears his mother telling Brenner she wants him to take her son.
Brenner manipulates Virginia to gain access to Henry, then takes the boy to Hawkins National Laboratory. Brenner runs a series of experiments that test Henry’s abilities. When Brenner tries to force him to kill a prisoner, Henry snaps. He stabs two guards and escapes.
When Henry returns home and reads his mother’s thoughts, he learns she plans to send him back. At that point, the Mind Flayer takes control. It’s implied that the shadowy entity made Henry kill Virginia and his sister Alice.
Henry tries to escape Hawkins with his girlfriend Patty Newby, but Brenner confronts him during a school play. The Mind Flayer takes control again, making him attack Patty by throwing her off the stage (she survives). Henry loses consciousness and Brenner takes him back to Hawkins Lab.
The Hawkins Lab Massacre
Over the years, Brenner uses Henry’s altered blood to create a generation of psychic children, including Kali and Eleven.
In 1979, Henry, (now working as an orderly at Hawkins Lab under the alias “Peter Ballard”), befriends a young Eleven. He bonds with her over “being different” after he witnessed her being bullied by the other test subjects.
He manipulates Eleven into removing the Soteria chip Brenner had implanted in his neck, which suppresses his powers.
Once his powers are restored, Henry goes on a massacre. He kills nearly all the other test subjects and lab personnel (except for Dr. Brenner and Kali, who had already escaped by then).
He asks Eleven to join him in eradicating humanity, but she refuses.
In an epic psychokinetic battle, Eleven overpowers Henry and blasts him through a gate into Dimension X/the Abyss.
The Birth of Vecna
When Henry arrives in the Abyss, the toxic environment and lightning begins to transform him. He mutates into a disfigured, humanoid creature known as Vecna.
There he encounters a swirling cloud of sentient particles. Drawing from his obsession with spiders, he shapes that cloud into the form we recognize as the Mind Flayer.
While Henry gave the Mind Flayer its shape, the show is vague on whether he’s in control or just the Mind Flayer’s puppet.
The Upside Down Isn’t What We Thought It Was
Season 5 finally answered one of the biggest questions in the show. The Upside Down is not a separate dimension.
It’s a wormhole acting as a bridge between Hawkins and the Abyss.
The Upside Down was created on November 6, 1983 when Eleven was forced to make psychic contact with a Demogorgon while searching for Vecna.
Will’s Abduction Was More Important Than We Realized
Will Byers’ disappearance happened on the same night the Upside Down was created.
When Will was taken in Season 1, Vecna connected him to the hive mind.
Throughout the series, Vecna uses Will to spy on his friends and build tunnels in Hawkins that lead back to the Upside Down.
More importantly, Will was the first prototype. Vecna learned that by tormenting the mind of a traumatized child, he can use Will as a vessel to enhance his own powers.
Using this knowledge, Vecna enacts his plan to merge Hawkins with the Abyss so he can create a new world.
In season 4, he murders four teenagers dealing with trauma or grief. He uses their deaths to create new gates that weaken the barrier between the Upside Down and Hawkins.
In season 5, Vecna kidnaps twelve children since their minds are easier to manipulate. The goal is to use the children as vessels to strengthen his powers so he can complete the merger.
In Season 5, Will learns to channel Vecna’s power through the hive mind.
The Point of It All
Just about every major event in Stranger Things traces back to that cave in Nevada.
Henry’s corruption. The experiments at Hawkins Lab. Eleven’s creation. Will’s abduction. The creation of the Upside Down.
The whole series is about dealing with the consequences of one incident decades later.
Whatever happens in the series finale of Stranger Things, the story needs to end where it began. Inside the yellow-skied, desert-like expanse of the Abyss.
