Warning: Major spoilers ahead for the first four episodes of Stranger Things Season 5, previous Stranger Things seasons, and Stranger Things: The First Shadow. Proceed at your own risk.
The first four episodes of Stranger Things Season 5 didn’t just raise the stakes — they detonated them. Max is alive but trapped inside Vecna’s mind prison, Holly Wheeler’s been snatched into the Upside Down’s flesh wall (AKA your average Tuesday night in Hawkins), Will apparently has powers now, and the town itself is collapsing under the weight of a war that’s finally breaking through. With only two volumes left until the end of the entire series, every tiny detail suddenly feels suspiciously important, and naturally, the internet has taken the time to switch into full-detective mode.
Since the episodes dropped, fans have been dissecting Volume 1 frame by frame, uncovering some of the most compelling (and honestly, shockingly plausible) theories about how the last two volumes might end. From hidden references and chilling parallels to the kind of blink-and-you-miss-it dialogue details that the Duffers love sneaking into every episode, these clues might actually be pointing us toward the show’s final major twists.
Here are the 12 wildest, most convincing theories that actually hold up — and what they might mean for the ending of Stranger Things.
1.
There are several instances where Upside Down creatures avoid liquids or even react violently to them, suggesting that fluids might be the key to defeating Vecna in the final volumes.
In Volume 1, episode 2, Lt. Acres urinates on the Upside Down’s fleshy wall, causing it to sizzle. This is worth noting because, earlier on in the episode, The Demogorgon backs away from the bathtub where Molly and Karen are hiding, even though it most likely knows they are beneath the water. You could argue that it steps back because it hears Ted Wheeler calling from the hallway, but considering the Upside Down has no running water — evident in empty pools and dry lakes — the creature’s avoidance of liquid seems intentional.
2.
The show keeps highlighting Will’s eyes in suspicious ways, possibly foreshadowing a major (and likely tragic) fate for him.
Throughout the entire series (including Season 5), Will is repeatedly framed with one eye hidden, shadowed, or lined up with sharp, rod-like objects. This pattern is even harder to ignore when paired with an early-season classroom lesson about Phineas Gage, in which the camera sets on Will right as Mr. Clarke explains that a “large iron rod was driven completely through his head.”
The “Eye of Vecna” could also be interpreted in a metaphorical sense, pointing to the moment Will’s eyes turn fully white in episode 4 (just like Vecna’s) as evidence he may already be slowly transforming into the villain’s ideal vessel. A subtle moment in episode 3 further reinforces this notion: Joyce is shivering in the cold and urges Will to wear a jacket, but he barely reacts to the temperature, mirroring the time when a younger, possessed Will says he (as in Vecna) “likes it cold.” This seemingly small detail could suggest that Vecna is still residing inside him, gradually taking pieces of Will’s agency.
3.
The season keeps dropping hints that music will be used as a weapon again — except this time, Vecna will be more than prepared to fight against it.
In Season 4, the song “Running Up That Hill” saved Max’s life by opening a portal out of the Upside Down. When she reappears inside Henry’s mind-prison in Season 5, she explains to Holly that the song should have worked again — Kate Bush, the singer, nearly pulled her back to the real world and out of her coma — until something went wrong: the song mysteriously cut off, almost like a certain someone shut it down on purpose.
On the other end, Holly’s stuck in Vecna’s mind-home listening to “I Think We’re Alone Now,” a cassette handpicked by Henry to keep her tamed, calm, and distracted. This detail makes it clear that Vecna is now using music as a weapon, too — just like the heroes did against him.
Through a later note, Holly is secretly instructed by Max to leave the house and “walk uphill” until reaching the rock wall. This can be considered a cheeky nod to “Running Up That Hill,” the very same song that helped Max escape Vecna last season, ultimately signaling that the heroes are once again using music to break from his spell. Two can play the same game, am I right? The question is: who’s bound to win this time?
4.
Volume 1 makes multiple references to A Wrinkle in Time, heavily implying that time travel will be central to Parts 2 and 3.
In episode 1, Holly (first to be taken by Vecna) is seen reading A Wrinkle in Time, and her “imaginary friend” Mr. What’s-It (later revealed to be Henry/Vecna) is a direct nod to the book’s Mrs. Whatsit — a guide who teaches kids how to travel across space and time using a tesseract, or an extra dimension. No more than two episodes later, Derek (second to be taken by Vecna) is seen building a tesseract in class. Yes, the same four-dimensional cube used for time-folding in A Wrinkle in Time.
5.
Holly compares Max to Mr. Murry from A Wrinkle in Time, and if the final two volumes follow the book’s blueprint, one of our faves may have to enter Henry’s mind-prison and risk submitting to Vecna to save Max and Holly.
In the novel, Meg, Charles, and Calvin travel across space and time to save Mr. Murry from an evil entity known as “IT”, but the mission goes awry when Charles, convinced that his intelligence can overcome anything, deliberately allows IT to enter his mind — a fatal act of pride that leads to his possession. If Stranger Things follows the same logic, it might mean certain characters may need to “play” the roles of Meg, Charles, or Calvin and intentionally enter Vecna’s mind-prison to save Max and Holly.
6.
A Wrinkle in Time‘s “IT” villain suggests Vecna may have been secretly manipulating everyone’s emotions all along, and will continue to do so in the final volumes (which all but guarantees more tragedy is coming).
In the novel, IT maintains control by draining its victims of hope, numbing their emotions, and rendering despair a natural feeling. Looking back at Stranger Things from the very beginning, Vecna’s influence appears to work in a similar manner: ever since Will vanished, the group has been caught in an unending cycle of loss and trauma. By Season 5, many major characters feel dulled, defeated, or “not quite themselves,” and none of this reads as random — at this point, it feels orchestrated.
7.
Henry’s terror of the Nevada cave strongly suggests it’s going to be one of the most important locations in Parts 2 and 3 — possibly even the key to escaping Vecna’s control.
Max realizes that Henry is deeply afraid of the cave, and the play The First Shadow confirms the reason why: the site is where 8-year-old Henry was briefly pulled into Dimension X, in which he encountered the Mind Flayer and first gained his dark powers. Keeping this context in mind, we know the cave isn’t just a random landmark — it’s the birthplace of Vecna, and the precise spot where Henry’s life split into two timelines: the boy he was, and the monster he became.
When Holly finds Henry’s old spyglass in his mind-prison, it has the exact same shape as the cave’s opening. The show didn’t replicate that shape by accident — it’s intentional visual mirroring to underline that this place is going to matter again.
8.
Holly’s “cleric” role and her obsession with A Wrinkle in Time foreshadow that she’ll be the one to open a crucial dimension door in the cave.
At the beginning of Volume 1, Mike gifts Holly a D&D figurine and dubs her “Holly the Heroic,” a cleric whose big spell lets her teleport anywhere she can picture. The following episodes follow through on that idea: inside Henry’s mind-prison, Holly gets hold of a spyglass, a compass, and a map, which suddenly gives her all the tools she needs to “visualise and travel,” exactly the way her cleric class suggests. In that moment, Holly unknowingly takes her first real step into the “Holly the Heroic” role Mike predicted for her.
Later on, at the cave mouth, Holly drops the spyglass in the exact same spot Henry did before he was taken into Dimension X as a child. The parallel is way too precise to be random — it feels like the show is telling us Holly will eventually follow Henry’s same path, meaning that at some point, she may actually be able to travel between dimensions from inside the cave.
9.
Mr. Clarke’s teachings and Will’s sketch of Vecna’s lair hint that Vecna is building a human-powered wormhole, using the 12 children as living anchors.
We already know that Vecna is collecting 12 children as vessels so he can “refashion the world.” But how exactly does he plan to pull this off? Mr. Clarke’s wormhole lesson in episode 3 might just offer the neatest clue yet. He explains that a wormhole can theoretically allow someone to travel to another place or “even another time.” However, he also warns that wormholes are violently unstable and collapse almost immediately unless they’re fed a massive, constant energy source to keep them open.
Suddenly, Will’s drawing of that giant, circular structure he saw in Vecna’s lair — and how closely it echoes Mr. Clarke’s wormhole sketch (only with a subtle hint of Mind Flayer) — feels a lot less symbolic and a lot more literal. If we really think about it, the flesh wall surrounding the Upside Down is shaped like a giant, organic wormhole, and Vecna is positioning twelve kids inside it, like the numbers on a clock.
10.
Volume 1’s Back to the Future references hint that it won’t just be Vecna bending time — the Hawkins crew might try to rewrite the timeline, too.
Stranger Things Season 5 is packed with nods to Back to the Future. Robin name-drops the flux capacitor — the same device that makes time travel possible in the film — and on the other end, we’ve got Steve, Dustin, and Jonathan attempting to reach 88 decibels on their tracking device, a clear parallel to the DeLorean having to hit 88 mph to time-jump. The season even echoes the movie’s exact imagery: Steve crashing through fences the same way Marty barrels through Hill Valley, “Mr. Sandman” playing (the same song that scores Marty’s arrival to the past), and characters tossing out lines like “Great Scott!” and “precisely,” which are straight-up Doc Brown references.
But here’s the twist: these references might not just be foreshadowing Vecna’s own time-hopping plan — they might be setting up the heroes to do it too. In Back to the Future, Marty doesn’t just prevent disaster — he rewrites fate by returning to one pivotal moment — and with all these breadcrumbs scattered throughout Volume 1, it’s starting to feel plausible for the Hawkins crew to do the same.
11.
Volume 1 sets up several possible character deaths — and so far, the clues point directly at Steve, Jonathan, Nancy, and Robin.
Steve’s potential death is strongly foreshadowed at the radio tower, when Robin warns him not to shock himself on the high-voltage equipment. He brushes her off immediately, but in a show where throwaway lines are rarely accidental, this moment lands like ominous foreshadowing — especially when electricity is already a major part of the season’s wormhole mechanics.
Then we have Jonathan and Nancy, who also seem to be tempting fate to an extreme degree. Jonathan secretly keeping an engagement ring feels less romantic and more like a death flag, because we all know that in TV language, no one pulls out a ring in the middle of the apocalypse unless something tragic is about to happen. It suggests that one of them may not survive long enough for a proposal, and the narrative tension surrounding their relationship this season lends it an intentional feel.
Meanwhile, Robin sets off her own alarm bells the moment she makes plans to go on a proper date with Vickie after “everything is over.” Yeah, right…The last time the show used this exact setup was back in Season 3, when Hopper and Joyce finally scheduled their date at Enzo’s, only for Hopper to “die” moments later. Robin repeating the same hopeful beat, at the same restaurant, and even at the same time, feels less like optimism and more like deliberate foreshadowing that she won’t be able to make it to the date.
12.
The cast list and date on the school-play flyer from Henry’s memories expose a shared past between Vecna and the kids’ parents, hinting that everything happening to the gang may be part of a much larger, decade-long vengeance that will only continue to turn more deadly.
Walking through one of Henry’s memories, Max witnesses a young Joyce Byers handing out flyers for the school play she’s directing, and the cast list is truly jaw-dropping. We have James Hopper Jr. (Hopper), Karen Childress (Karen Wheeler), Ted Wheeler, Patty Newby (Bob Newby’s sister and Henry’s first love), Alan Munson (Eddie’s father), and Henry Creel (Vecna) himself starring as the lead. This memory directly correlates to the play The First Shadow, which reveals that all the parents attended Hawkins High with Henry long before he became Vecna. More so, the date on the flyer — November 6th — is the same date Will went missing.
From Henry’s perspective, Joyce, Hopper, Patty, Bob, and the rest of the cast list were the reason why he returned to town that night, which makes them the people who handed him over to the very man who destroyed his life. That makes Vecna’s later pattern of kidnapping Holly, killing Eddie, and choosing Will as his vessel on the very same date of his downfall look far less random and more like a calculated, decades-long retaliation plan. Think about it: nearly every adult connected to Henry’s past has been left alive — deliberately spared — while it’s their children who keep getting taken, hunted, or killed.
With all these outright warnings packed into Volume 1, we’re all left asking the big questions: Who’s doomed to go six feet under by the series finale? What twists are we still not seeing? Which theory is going to blindside us all when it turns out to be right? And more importantly…somebody better tell me how Barb fits into all of this.
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