Eleven's secret connection to the monsters of the Upside Down is finally revealed in
Season 4, with a huge twist.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, I'm Jan and this is the ending of Stranger Things Season 4
Part 1 explained, plus predictions and theories for the second part and how to defeat Vecna.
Spoilers, of course, so take care.
The fourth season kicks off in horrific fashion revealing that in 1979, there was a brutal
massacre at the Hawkins Lab, with Eleven the only apparent survivor.
This sets up the idea that El was the one who carried out the attack.
As the season unfolds and we see her smash bully Angela in the face at the skating rink,
it's implied that Eleven was exacting revenge on Two and the other test subjects who bullied
her.
What if I am the monster?
Eleven's memories of that fateful day though are missing.
So, when she reunites with Papa and Dr Owens at the Nina Project, she's able to re-experience
her early days at the lab and remembers one of the orderlies who was friendly to her.
It turns out that he's actually Number One, and his special abilities were being suppressed
via an implant in his neck.
Unaware of this, Eleven pulls the implant out, and he then uses his powers to lethal
effect on a team of guards who've come to catch them.
One also snaps the final guard's neck, just like Eleven did in Season 1.
We're alike.
You and I. Eleven then discovers that it was One who
slaughtered everyone at Hawkins Lab that day, and the reveal is a double-twist because it
also turns out that he's Victor Creel's son, Henry.
And though we don't see him till later on in the season, early in the first episode,
Brenner mentions him by the name he goes by at the lab, Peter.
Peter, Alec, what's going on out there?
The Creels had moved to Hawkins in search of a fresh start for their troubled boy who
teachers and doctors had all described as "broken".
There he took an interest in a nest of Black Widow spiders in the house, and his admiration
for them as predators and "gods of our world" points to his megalomaniac desire to rule
over and change the world.
Humans are a unique type of pest, multiplying and poisoning our world.
I could not do that.
And I realized I could make my own rules.
I could restore balance to a broken world.
A predator... but for good.
What's especially interesting is that Henry already possessed powerful abilities before
he even ended up in Hawkins Lab, and they don't appear to be the result of any experiments.
As he developed his psychic powers, he found he could reach into people's memories and
discover some of the terrible things they'd done or experienced in their lives.
This is similar to Eleven's abilities to perform remote viewing on subjects across huge distances
such as the Russian spy in Season 1 or when she reached into the memories of Billy's abusive
childhood in Season 3.
Unlike Eleven though, the Creel boy decided to use his power to punish his family for
what he saw as their transgressions, killing his mother and sister, leaving the blame on
his father who ended up locked away for murder.
Henry was secretly sent to Hawkins Lab, where Papa decided to exploit him to recreate his
exceptional powers in others, branding him with a Number One tattoo.
Like many interesting villains, the show may be trying to elicit some sympathy for him
when we see how the lab appears to be abusing him with electro-shock torture.
However, given One's murder of his family and indiscriminate massacre at the lab, he's
clearly delusional in his thinking that he's doing good.
And when he asks El, Darth Vader-style, to join him to take down the evil Emperor Brenner...
You are better than they are.
That is why you frighten him.
We could reshape the world, remake it.
Join me.
No.
As they face off, El tries to summon the power to resist him, using the advice One gave her
to recall a memory of something that made her sad and angry, something similar to what
Kali recommended to Eleven in Season 2.
I want you to find something that angers you.
So, it seems that One may have manipulated Kali as well.
The advice though isn't enough for the young El to withstand One's incredibly strong powers
and, as he's about to kill her, Eleven has a memory of her own birth come flooding into
her brain.
Jane, I love you.
Instead of anger, it's this memory of love which gives Eleven the strength to reverse
One's imminent victory, and she smashes him through the glass into the wall behind, and
follows it with a nice little superhero landing.
By the way, Brenner had already advised not to give into anger a few days earlier.
If you allow anger or emotion to invade your thoughts, you will fail.
The young El then dusts him into the Upside Down, just like she did with the Demogorgon
in Season 1.
Both scenes are also an X-Men easter egg to Jean Grey, who defeated the villain Mastermind
in this way, and the comic book in which that happened was specifically referenced in the
opening scene of the pilot episode.
I'll take your X-Men 134!
It was also a cool detail how Eleven sent One crashing through the mirrored glass into
the room behind, foreshadowing how, moments later, she literally sends him through the
wall into another dimension.
And as he tumbles down, bursts of lightning strike his body, transforming him into Vecna.
This big reveal that One is Vecna more or less confirms a number of fan theories that
the original test subject at Hawkins Lab is connected to the Upside Down and its various
villains like the Mind Flayer or the Demogorgon.
And, similar to how the Mind Flayer monster in Season 3 was created by melting and joining
together the bodies of its victims, One mentions a couple of times how he seems to have absorbed
the people he's killed.
With each life I took, I grew stronger.
They were becoming a part of me.
They're not gone, Eleven.
They're still with me.
In here.
In fact, Vecna sometimes asks his targets or victims to join him as he tries to feed
off their misery or sorrow, which reminds me a little of how Pennywise feeds off people's
fear.
We can also see some of the bodies he's collected in the Upside Down version of the Creel House,
such as Nancy's reporter colleague Fred.
Vecna is also connected to the Upside Down's hive mind, giving him the ability to spy with
any of the monsters under his control.
This is similar to how the Mind Flayer used Will as a spy in Season 2 and Billy as a spy
and pawn in Season 3.
So when Steve, Nancy, Robin and Eddie cycle through the Upside Down on their way to find
the gate where Chrissy died, a Demobat spots them and screeches, and we see Vecna reacting
as he can now track what the group are up to.
This is why when Nancy tries to go through the gate to return to the real world, before
she can get across, Vecna is able to intercept her by entering her consciousness and putting
her under his curse.
When Nancy falls into Vecna's lair, we can see how the villain preys on his victims'
fear and guilt over the traumatic events in their lives.
So, for Nancy, she falls into the swimming pool at Steve's house where Barb was killed
by the Demogorgon in Season 1.
This plays on Nancy's feelings of guilt about how Barb died alone at the pool, while she
was hooking up with Steve inside.
Nancy is now mentally trapped by Vecna, akin to what happened to Max when she visited Billy's
grave.
In that case, when Dustin and co played Max's favourite song, it broke through to her, creating
an opening, an opportunity to escape.
Max combines that with recalling happy memories of her time in Hawkins which gives her the
strength to break free of Vecna's grip.
I expect Nancy may need some similar help, given that Vecna may also prey on her guilt
over her re-kindled feelings for Steve, perhaps accusing her of being unfaithful to Jonathan.
Ok, we have to talk about Hopper now that Joyce and Murray have broken him out of the
Russian prison, and there's a huge clue in Season 4 about how they'll return home now
that Yuri's plane has crashed.
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OK, back to Hop.
Although I'm sure we're all relieved he and Dmitri survived their encounter with the Demogorgon,
there's still the pesky problem of how on earth they're going to get back to the US.
Yuri's plane crash-landed so there's no easy way to get back to North America.
However, there's a big clue on one of the Season 4 posters which shows Hopper, Joyce
and Murray approaching a gate to the Upside Down inside the Russian prison.
We know from Season 3 that the Russians opened a gate themselves, and given Hop was transported
through the gate beneath the Starcourt Mall to Russia, it's not far-fetched to think he
can do it again in reverse to get back to Hawkins.
In the Season 4 sneak-peek, there's a shot of Hop going through a door with a flaming
weapon and I think this is him returning to the prison in search of the gate and armed
with fire in case they encounter the Demogorgon.
In fact, there's a special Volume 2 teaser on Netflix that plays right after the end
of the seventh episode credits which reveals even more Hopper details.
He enters a room with caged Demogorgons, though it's not clear whether they're alive or dead.
And then he and Murray stumble upon a glass box filled with black particulates which appear
to be like the black mist the Mind Flayer used to possess Will in the second season.
An interesting detail about Hopper's past came up this season when he revealed new details
about the tragic backstory of his daughter's death.
Hop explains to Dmitri that when he was in Vietnam, he was heavily exposed to Agent Orange,
a chemical used by the U.S. against the Viet Cong during the war.
And Hopper goes on to explain the horrors of what happened when veterans from the war
later had children.
Kids born stillborn.
Dead in the womb.
Crooked spines, eyes popped out.
That last point is especially chilling because it's the same way that One or Vecna murders
his victims, twisting their limbs and gouging their eyes out.
And, given the importance of the Rainbow Room in the Stranger Things mythology, it can't
be just a coincidence that the Duffer Brothers came up with this particular storyline as
Agent Orange is classified by the U.S. military as a Rainbow Herbicide,
in other words it was used in warfare, which reminds me of the times that Eleven, a product
of the Rainbow Room, has been referred to as a weapon over the seasons.
She's a weapon!
Her baby's a weapon, off fighting the commies.
In fact, the unethical use of chemicals for military and other purposes is a recurring
theme in the series.
The Hawkins Lab was part of Project MKUltra, a real-life CIA illegal operation that experimented
with various psychedelic drugs and other chemicals on subjects as part of biological warfare
research.
And in Season 3, both human and rat victims of the Mind Flayer consumed toxic amounts
of fertiliser and chemicals so that their bodies would be physically weakened, and they
would break down and melt easily before becoming part of the Spider Monster.
Hopper feels a huge sense of guilt about the fact he knew he'd been exposed to Agent Orange
and still decided to have a baby with his wife.
I knew the risks, but I hid them.
And he believes he sentenced Sara to death because of this
Everyone I love, I hurt.
I wasn't cursed.
I am the curse.
And Hop's words have clear parallels with how his adopted daughter El sees herself as
a monster at various points as well.
I am a monster.
Hopper's feelings of guilt are likely to come back to haunt him in the second part of this
season as Vecna could easily put him under a curse by reminding him of this.
I also think that Eddie could very well end up sacrificing himself for the group by the
end of Volume 2.
He specifically brought up the point that he's not normally very brave:
Outside of D&D, I am no hero.
I see danger and I just turn heel and run.
However, in the Season 4 trailer, there's footage of him playing his guitar on top of
a trailer in the Upside Down with a set of loudspeakers playing at maximum volume.
Sorry I'm late, sweetheart.
[strums notes] You're beautiful.
This may be to blast out music in an effort to break Nancy out of her trance, but it's
also very dangerous as it will inevitably attract attention from the Demobats and, in
turn, Vecna.
And in the Volume 2 teaser, there's footage that reveals Nancy seemingly free with Robin
and Steve wearing camouflage.
Some more shots in the trailer and volume 2 teaser we haven't yet seen are this one
of Erica in the Upside Down, and another of Dustin who's also in the alternate dimension.
There's this shot of Eleven standing in front of the Nina Project as it blows up, and Mrs
Wheeler and Holly terrified of something.
Comment below if you have any theories on what might be going on in these shots.
There's also the mystery of Will's painting.
Will is painting a lot, but he won't show me what he's working on.
Maybe it is for a girl.
I think there is someone he likes, because he has been acting weird.
Uh, what's that?
Um, it's nothing.
Just this painting I've been working on.
Will also grabs it in the fourth episode before they have to escape with Argyle, so it's clearly
important.
We know Will has been possessed by the Mind Flayer previously, and he drew a map of all
the vast tunnel network the monster had created beneath Hawkins.
So I strongly suspect this painting will hold a crucial clue to defeating Vecna.
Eleven regaining her powers is also surely crucial to defeating the villain, and now
that she's remembered what really happened at the Lab, perhaps she'll get some more answers
from Brenner.
She did briefly regain her powers at one point, but then they immediately disappeared.
You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?
I don't understand.
I do.
Papa.
Daughter.
The eighth and next episode is titled "Papa", so I expect we'll get some answers and progress
with Eleven there.
There's a stack of more details in Season 4 we need to discuss, which I'll do in my
next video, so make sure you subscribe and hit the bell to get notified as soon as that's
ready.
So, Movie Lovers, what do you think of Season 4 so far?
And what are your predictions for the final two episodes out on the 1st of July?
Tap left for my next Stranger Things theory and easter egg video.
And if you liked this video, do leave a thumbs-up, I really appreciate it.
Bitchin', right?
Yeah, yeah.
Bitchin'.
Thanks for enjoying Stranger Things with me and hope you have a marvellous movie-loving
week!
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!