“Stranger Things” season 4 ended in a massive cliffhanger but let’s talk about that ending and explain everything that unfolded before the show returns in July…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The long wait for “Stranger Things” season 4 to arrive finally came to an end this past Friday after the series returned with seven episodes, which is technically just the first half.
The second half — two episodes at nearly four and a half hours in length — arrives on July 1 but there’s a lot to unpack before the show returns in just over a month.
The season once again split the majority of the cast into a whole bunch of different storylines with some characters not even appearing in the mid-season finale. That said, there were some huge moments that unfolded in the last episode including the revelation about the big bad that haunted Hawkins, Indiana all season long.
So before the second half of “Stranger Things” season 4 arrives, let’s dig through everything that happened in the mid-season finale:
Lost in Time
While the Upside Down has been a major part of “Stranger Things” since the very beginning, the alternate universe that mirrors our own didn’t really appear at all in season 3. That changed dramatically in season 4 after Steve Herrington discovered a gate to the Upside Down at the bottom of Lover’s Lake before ultimately being pulled through the other dimension.
Just when it looked like Steve was about to become demobat bait, his friends joined him with Nancy, Robin and Eddie going through the same “watergate” to crossover to the Upside Down. The group then decides the best course of action is to track down Vecna — the nightmare inducing, bone-snapping villain that served as the big bad throughout the season — and kill him by more human means.
Because the Upside Down is a mirror copy, Nancy decides to go to her house and pick up a pair of guns she has stored in the closet, which they will then use to shoot and kill Vecna.
Unfortunately after arriving at the alternate universe Wheeler house, Nancy doesn’t find her guns but rather a pair of shoes that she got rid of years ago. A look around the room soon reveals that Nancy’s room is from the time when she was a sophomore in high school — three years prior to the current timeline.
Nancy finds her journal to reveal the last entry was November 6, 1983 — the same night that Will Byers first went missing and her friend Barb disappeared, which was when Eleven opened the gate between the two worlds.
It turns out that’s the second time that Eleven opened a gate between our world and the Upside Down but more on that later. It doesn’t explain why time just stopped in the Upside Down, although it speaks to Eleven’s immense abilities.
Hopper Lives!
Following a season long journey to attempt to escape Russian captivity, Jim Hopper finally finds himself alongside his fellow prisoners as they’re served up as bait to a Demogorgon.
It seems when the Russians were able to crossover to the Upside Down, they managed to capture a Demogorgon and they’ve been training it ever since to serve as a weapon of war. To feed the beast, the Russians can’t simply give it food but rather the Demogorgon wants to hunt and kill its prey.
So prisoners who have misbehaved end up as Demogorgon dinner.
That’s where Hopper and his new pal Enzo are gearing up for battle, which will almost certainly end with both of them dead. The only hope they have is Hopper remembering that the last Demogorgon he battled was afraid of fire so he constructs a flaming spear to use against the monster.
Hopper and Enzo manage to survive the onslaught, although the rest of the prisoners aren’t nearly as lucky.
After finally escaping the fighting pit, Hopper walks through another door and that’s where he’s finally reunited with Joyce, who came to Russia to rescue him. Joyce and Murray managed to take out the Russian guards to open up the doors to help Hopper and Yuri survive.
The scene ends with Joyce embracing Hopper and Hopper finally cracking a smile after living through months of hell in the Russian prison. Now the reunion between Hopper and Eleven should really be something special.
Vecna’s Origin Revealed
After losing her powers back in the season 3 finale, Eleven has struggled to figure out why her abilities disappeared much less finding a way to get them back.
That all changes after she’s recruited by Dr. Sam Owens, who tells Eleven that a new battle is brewing in Hawkins and she may be the only hope her friends have to survive. He offers her a chance to reignite her powers and takes Eleven to a secret underground compound in the middle of nowhere in Nevada.
It’s there Eleven is reunited with Dr. Martin Brenner, who is still very much alive after appearing to meet his demise back on season 1 when he tangled with a Demogorgon.
While she’s hesitant to believe anything the demented doctors tells her, Eleven finally relents and agrees to undergo the program he’s set up that will hopefully restore her powers.
Eleven then spends the majority of the season going through a series of flashbacks to her time growing up in the Hawkins Lab where she was learning alongside other special children with abilities. Eleven was struggling to keep up but thankfully she met a kind orderly named Peter, who helped her navigate the scary world where she was essentially a lab rat living under Dr. Brenner’s rule.
Peter finally decides to help Eleven escape but he asks for her help in return after revealing that he had abilities much like hers but Dr. Brenner put some sort of restrictive device inside his body that prevents him from actually using his powers. Eleven manages to yank out the device, which restores Peter to his full capabilities.
He then proceeds to slaughter all of the guards and the other children being housed at the Hawkins Lab, which was the opening scene set in 1979 when season 4 actually began. While it looked like Eleven had just gone on a kill crazy rampage, it was actually the mysterious Peter who slaughtered all of the other special children at Hawkins Lab.
That’s when the other big reveal happens.
The now homicidal orderly begins telling Eleven about his own origins growing up in Hawkins after his family moved there in 1959. It turns out Peter is actually Henry Creel — the son of convicted murderer Victor Creel, who was put in prison after allegedly killing his entire family.
All season long, Nancy, Robin and the others were convinced that Vecna was actually responsible for killing Victor’s family but they couldn’t figure out why the creature would kill in 1959 but the fall dormant for several decades after it.
Well it turns out Henry Creel began despising not only his family but all of humanity — and his thirst to stamp out the entire race came along with growing powers that started to evolve over time. Henry had the power of telekinesis and he started to harness that ability to torturing and killing small animals around the Creel household.
Henry also started to realize that he could see inside people’s heads, which allowed him to see their darkest memories and the sins they committed. He witnessed atrocities his father carried out in the war and Henry began torturing Victor with those memories.
It all convinced Victor that his family was being tormented by a demon while his wife always believed that something was just not right with their son. After learning that his mother wanted to send him away to a doctor for treatment, Henry decided to take matters into his own hands.
He snapped his mother’s bones and twisted her body until she died. Henry did the same thing to his sister but he was still so young that exerting his powers to that extend left him vulnerable.
Henry ended up going into a coma while his father Victor was arrested for the murder of his family.
The doctor his mother called arrived to retrieve Henry, who was comatose but still very much alive. That doctor was none other than Martin Brenner.
Dr. Brenner took Henry and began studying him while Victor was convicted for the murder of his family, which he was told included his son. Brenner trained Henry but soon realized that the power living inside this boy was more than he could possibly imagine.
Rather than risk Henry turning on him, Brenner developed a chip that would dampen his powers and he turned the boy into an orderly who would work at the lab while he studied more special children. Henry was also tattooed with 001 on his wrist, which denotes that he was One — the first child with abilities before Brenner eventually started to collect even more kids who could do the same thing.
Now it’s unclear if Brenner somehow took Henry’s DNA and he created these children or if they just started to appear more regularly — although a more nefarious explanation always seems to make sense.
Finally free of Brenner’s control, Henry decided to destroy everything that the evil doctor built and now he wants to carry out his original plan to stamp out humanity. He wants Eleven to join him on this conquest because in her he sees somebody with powers comparable to his own but she’s not interesting in killing anybody much less the entire human race.
Eleven turns on Henry but he appears to be far too powerful as he fights back by lifting the little girl into the air as he begins snapping her bones just like he did to his family years earlier. The only problem is Eleven is far more powerful than Henry could imagine and through memories including one where she hears her mother say “I love you,” she’s finally able to fight back.
Eleven overpowers Henry and sends him flying against a wall before using the maximum force of all her abilities to essentially disintegrate him. Henry’s body gets torn apart while a tear is made in the universe, which opens a door to the Upside Down and sends him hurtling through the portal.
After he’s pulled into the alternate universe, Henry continues being bombarded with lightning bolts from the other side and once his skin finally turns to ash, he is transformed into Vecna.
Yes, Henry Creel is Vecna.
Because he was so incredibly powerful, Henry as Vecna has continued to explore ways to crossover between the two worlds while using the same abilities he once employed to torture his family except now he’s doing it on a much larger scale. Vecna invades the minds of his victims to prey on their guilt before ultimately breaking them both physically and mentally.
Almost like he’s Freddy Kreuger — and there was plenty of comparisons between the season 4 big bad and the villain from the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series — Vecna uses a person’s inner most turmoil to torture them before eventually snatching their soul to further add to his power.
Now we know Vecna’s true origins and why his powers are so extreme but how this relates back to the Mindflayer and the end game for the Upside Down remains a mystery. Is it all about stamping out humanity as a whole? That sure seems like the plan!
Trapped in the Upside Down
With Steve, Nancy, Robin and Eddie trapped in the Upside Down, they are able to communicate with Dustin, Lucas and Max through lights much the same way Will was able to talk to his mother back in season 1. After realizing that each time Vecna killed a person in Hawkins, it required him to open a portal between worlds, Dustin helps Nancy and the others navigate their way back to Eddie’s trailer where an opening should exist that will allow them to cross back over again.
The plan works great with both Eddie and Robin falling through the parallel universe and arriving back in our world but Nancy’s journey doesn’t go as planned.
Instead of falling back into our world, Nancy is transported back to the swimming pool where her friend Barb was killed in season 1. Nancy has been living with that guilt ever since she ditched Barb to go hook up with Steve, which is exactly the doorway that Vecna needed to get inside her head.
Vecna pulled Nancy back into the Upside Down while revealing that he was the one responsible for killing Barb but he knows she still feels immense guilt for leaving her friend to die. Now Nancy is the latest victim of Vecna’s powers but what does he have planned for her and how exactly does she plan to get home again?
That’s a question that will have to be answered in the second half of “Stranger Things” season 4, although Steven never crossed over again so it’s entirely possible he’s the one to go after her. Either way, Vecna has a new hostage as his battle to snuff out humanity continues.
“Stranger Things” season 4 will continue on July 1.
