From huge reveals about Vecna and The Mind Flayer to a bombshell ending for Eleven and
the gang, the final volume of Stranger Things Season 4 has finally arrived!
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, I'm Jan and in this video I'm explaining the big season finale,
revealing some hidden secrets you might have missed, and what to expect in Season 5.
Spoilers ahead, of course, so take care.
At the end of Season 4, during his villain's monologue, Vecna reveals he's been the evil
mastermind behind everything all along.
After Eleven sent One into the Upside Down, he explored the new world and eventually came
across a mass of unformed particles.
Using his powers, he shaped these into a giant spider form, The Mind Flayer, basing the monster's
look on the Black Widow spiders he so admired as a child.
I saw a means to realize my potential.
To transcend my human form.
In fact, the young Henry Creel already had a vision for the monster he would go on to
create many years later, and his drawing is uncannily similar to the one that Will made
in Season 2.
This makes sense because we know now that the Mind Flayer was invented by One, and he
was therefore controlling Will at that moment.
Back in the Upside Down, Vecna then had to wait for Eleven to eventually open up a gate
again to the real world, which she did accidentally when she first made contact with a Demogorgon
in Season 1.
But because El fought back each time and closed Vecna's access to the world in the first two
seasons, he decided on a plan to take Eleven's portal-opening powers for himself in Season
3.
I sought a means to open my own doors.
I sought your power.
He achieved this through the Spider Monster, which attacked Eleven and took her powers,
which were in turn transferred to Vecna who used them to begin opening gates between the
Upside Down and Hawkins in Season 4 whenever he made a kill.
Vecna's plan was to open four gates by killing four teens, something hinted at through his
clock which always chimed four times whenever it appeared to one of his intended victims.
The significance of the number four might also be a reference to the Four Horsemen of
the Apocalypse, which certainly seems appropriate given the way the final season ends after
the four gates have been opened.
And notice how in Volume 1, the clocks at both Hawkins Lab and the Creel House were
at 3 o'clock at critical moments, a clue to the three victims that Vecna had claimed by
the end of the first part of the season.
The Hawkins crew themselves come up with a four-phase plan they hope will defeat Vecna,
the problem being that as good as it might have been, he already knew what they had planned.
By appearing to Max as a vision of an angry Lucas, Vecna traps her in a twisted version
of what should be a happy memory for her of the Snow Ball dance at the end of Season 2.
There was some ominous foreshadowing of this moment in the way Season 2 ended with the
camera flipping over to a shot of the Shadow Monster watching over the Ball in the Upside
Down.
Vecna then throws Max across the room and pins her against a wall, just like Eleven
did to him in the Hawkins Lab and to the Demogorgon in the school.
However, when Eleven manages break into Max's nightmare, she propels Vecna into the air,
twisting him around, and curling her fingers and wrist, similar to what he did to her years
earlier in Hawkins Lab.
Vecna quickly recovers from this and overpowers Eleven, sending her into his mindscape, and
trapping her with his vines.
This is exactly what Brenner warned Eleven about when he said she wasn't strong enough
to confront Vecna so quickly after regaining her powers and that she needed to learn more.
If you want to stop One.
You will need to do more than run.
You will need to fly.
At that moment, Eleven wanted to leave immediately to help her friends who she knew were in danger
in Hawkins, something very reminiscent of how Luke Skywalker wanted to leave his training
with Yoda early to go and help Leia and Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back.
And there's also shades of Palpatine in Vecna when he tells Eleven he wants her to watch
him execute his evil plan, similar to how the Emperor tells Luke to watch while he destroys
the Rebellion.
I want you to watch.
You will witness the end of your insignificant rebellion.
At this point, Vecna has broken Eleven's will, and it's not until Mike tells her how much
he loves her, that Vecna's vines shrink away and she frees herself.
Similar to how Max needed happy memories to escape Vecna's grip previously, Mike's heartfelt
words are what El needs to break free.
The moment calls back to Will's painting where he explained to Mike that because he's the
one who leads the group, he has a coat of arms with a heart on it, as he's the one who
holds everyone together.
Without heart, we'd all fall apart.
Even El.
By the way, in Season 1 after Will went missing, Mike was browsing some similar paintings by
Will of the D&D crew going up against a dragon.
Another interesting detail about Will's painting is that when he shows it to Mike he claims
that Eleven asked him to draw it.
Did you paint this?
El l asked me to.
She commissioned it, basically.
I mean, she told me what to draw.
But this doesn't match El's voiceover in the first episode:
Will is painting a lot, but he won't show me what he's working on.
It's possible Will is embarrassed to tell Mike why he really drew the painting, so he's
pretending El asked him to do it instead.
The combined might of Eleven pinning Vecna in his mindscape, Murray flaming the demogorgons
in Russia, and Steve and Robin's use of Molotov cocktails, weakens the villain to the point
that Nancy can finish him off with some close-range gun shots.
This sends him flying through the Creel House attic window to the ground below where he
appears to be defeated.
However, when they go downstairs, his body has disappeared.
The moment is a homage to Michael Myers and the first Halloween movie where after being
shot and falling off a balcony, he appeared to be dead on the ground below.
However, moments later his body disappeared, proving the villain was still alive.
There were also a few other Halloween references in Volume 2, such as the way Vecna moves his
head just before his confrontation with Eleven, in a nod to Michael Myer's iconic head tilt.
And Eddie, of course, donned a Michael Myers mask briefly as well.
When El finally gets back to Hawkins, she goes to visit Max who's now in a coma.
The book Lucas reads to Max from is "The Talisman" by Stephen King and Peter Straub, a story
in which the protagonist whose mother is dying travels into a parallel universe where Twinners
or doppelgangers of an individual also exist.
Interestingly, The Talisman is also the Duffer Brothers' and Steven Spielberg's next project
with Netflix.
Although El tries to go into the Void to connect with Max, she gets no response, and I think
Max's recovery could be contingent on Eleven's eventual victory over Vecna in Season 5.
Notice how Max tells Lucas she can't see or feel anything after Vecna's attack.
When One kills, he consumes.
He takes everything from his victims.
Their memories, their abilities.
So, it may be that his defeat will somehow release Max's consciousness back to her as
there have been numerous allusions and references to how Vecna absorbs his victims.
With each life I took, I grew stronger.
They were becoming a part of me.
And the Coke bottle Eleven finds under her bed at Hopper's old cabin is a call-back to
the time she spun the bottle with Max in Season 3 and used her abilities to remotely spy on
what Mike and the other boys were doing and saying.
The memory is especially sad for El because she knows that right now she can't reach Max
even with her powers.
Of course, we have to talk about Eddie who made the ultimate sacrifice in Season 4.
There were various clues earlier on to his fate, such as him talking in the first episode
about how he'd finally graduate and hand over the reins of The Hellfire Club…
This year is my year.
You boys are the future of Hellfire. …and how he kept pointing out he wasn't
a hero: I see danger and I just turn heel and run.
There is no shame in running, don't try to be heroes.
The even sadder thing is that Eddie is still being demonised and blamed for several murders
in Hawkins by the media and the community.
Fortunately, Dustin, who knows the truth, was at least was able to tell Eddie's uncle
that he died a hero saving the town.
As for Eleven, she got an emotional reunion with her Dad in his cabin, and notice how
she was still keeping her door open a few inches, just like she did in the opening episode
of Season 4.
I kept the door open three inches.
And in the very final scene, Will reveals he knows Vecna is still alive through the
connection he still has with the Mind Flayer.
I can still remember what he thinks, and how he thinks.
And he's not going to stop.
Not until he's taken everything.
And everyone.
And the hairs on his neck stand up just before that final shot, revealing that the Upside
Down has truly broken through to the real world.
The flowers in this field are rotting away, similar to how a pumpkin field began to decay
after the Upside Down's tunnels reached them in Season 2.
You can also see the Upside Down's characteristic red lightning flashing over here, where the
main breach appears to have occurred.
This basically confirms the vision Vecna gave to Nancy about what was to come:
Downtown on fire.
Dead soldiers.
This giant creature with a gaping mouth.
There were so many monsters.
An army.
It sounds like in Season 5, we could get a huge new monster and a slew of other Upside
Down creatures.
Nancy's comments about her family, including Mike, also sound very ominous.
He showed me my mom.
Holly.
Mike.
They were all…
And as powerful as Eleven is, I don't think she can take on a whole army from the Upside
Down, which means I think she'll need to do something on a different level to defeat Vecna.
One possible hint is this curious moment where Nancy points out Argyle picking some mushrooms
in the woods just outside the cabin.
Some mushroom varieties can have hallucinogenic effects and there could be a possible connection
here to lucid dreaming, potentially a different way for Eleven to battle with Vecna on a psychic
level.
Another possibility, given all of the Back To The Future references in the series, is
that Eleven will perform some kind of time travel, perhaps to stop Henry turning into
a villain in the first place.
And there's a big clue to why I think that's happening in Season 5 in Nancy's vision that
Vecna gave her of the future.
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Now, if you watch extra slowly the vision Vecna gives to Nancy while she's in his grip,
there are not only shots of the gates opening and ripping through Hawkins, but there's also
a shot of the grandfather clock from the Creel house, winding backwards, similar to what
we saw during the reveal about young Henry Creel in the seventh episode.
I think the way the hands move in reverse in both of these scenes together with numerous
other time-related easter eggs are a big clue to time travel being part of Season 5, something
I discuss in a lot more detail in my Time Travel theory video.
You can tap here to watch that or follow the link in the video description.
So, Movie Lovers, what do you think about the ending of Season 4?
And do you have any theories or predictions for Season 5?
Comment with your thoughts below.
And if you enjoyed this video, do hit that like button, I really appreciate it.
You can also tap left to discover more easter eggs and little details you might have missed
in Season 4.
Thanks for enjoying Stranger Things with me and hope you have a marvellous movie-loving
week!
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!