STRANGER THINGS Mid-Season Finale Ending Explained: All Questions Answered!

Welcome back to New Rockstars. I'm Eric Boss and we need to break down the mid-season finale of Stranger Things season 5. Spoiler warning for the first four episodes of the season. In this video, I'm going to break down everything that happens and why the way episode 4 Sorcerer ends is so

mind-blowing in case you couldn't figure that out for yourself. But really,

what's going on with all the big reveals on this show and what to expect from the final batch of episodes in December? We have so many great holiday gift options like our exclusive Vecna Puff cereal design available exclusively on our merch store nerd riot.shop which is having a huge holiday sale all month

long. Also Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. It's a tiered sale. All orders

long. Also Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. It's a tiered sale. All orders

get at least 20% off. Orders over $50 get 25% off. And orders over $100 get 30% off. Grabbing a holiday gift from Nerd Riot is the best way to support us.

30% off. Grabbing a holiday gift from Nerd Riot is the best way to support us.

Thank you so much. Sorry if my voice is a little froggy. I was up late watching all these episodes and trying to figure out what was going on. Okay, with one final spoiler warning, let's recap the first half of the season. Season 5,

episode 1, The Crawl, shows that while Will Buyers was in the upside down in 1983, he evaded a demogorgan but was caught and brought to Vecna and implanted with some kind of seed from the upside down. Now, in November 1987,

Hawkins is under military quarantine after the end of season 4. The buyers

are bunking with the Wheelers. Robin and Steve run the Squawk radio show. Dustin

gets beat up for defending Eddie's reputation. Eleven trains with her powers. Linda Hamilton joins the cast as Major General Dr. K, who's in a military

powers. Linda Hamilton joins the cast as Major General Dr. K, who's in a military lab in the upside down in a race to find Eleven as she's experimenting with some of the creatures. Here, Mike and NY's little sister, Holly Wheeler, keeps seeing an imaginary friend that she names Mr. What's It, a reference to Mrs.

What's It from her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time. The kids and adults have been looking for Vecna with operations called crawls where Hopper hides in a military truck that's sent through the gate to the upside down while the rest track his telemetry signal from above with a mobile antenna

as they're all searching sectors of the upside down where Vecna might be hiding.

But with the increased proximity to the hive mind through the gate, Will is experiencing visions first through the eyes of who Vecna is targeting next and then also flashing into VCNA's mind, but also in the point of view of the demogorgans, one of whom is now targeting Holly Wheeler. Bringing us to

chapter two, the vanishing of Holly Wheeler. After a very brave and kind of drunk Karen Wheeler puts up a hell of a fight, as does Ted Wheeler, the demogorgan gravely injures both and takes Holly. Eleven goes after them into the upside down, where she runs into Hopper. They find a massive fleshy wall

that Dustin will later discover surrounds the upside down in a perfect circle, and the demogorgan seems to have taken Holly through that wall, but none of them can penetrate it. Mike and Nancy learn from their recovering mom that Holly's imaginary friend's first name was Henry. Meanwhile, Robin has been

helping Will decode his visions. And they all put it together that Mr. What's It is Henry Creel, aka Vecna, and he's targeting various other kids besides Holly. And the episode ends with a spectacled Henry bringing Holly to a

Holly. And the episode ends with a spectacled Henry bringing Holly to a memory version of the Creel house. Chapter 3, The Turnbo Trap. Eleven and

Hopper kill a bunch of soldiers and interrogate one of them to learn of some kind of anti-1ven kryptonite that Dr. K is keeping in the upside down lab. Henry

leaves Holly alone and tells her to stay out of the woods, keeping her happy with her favorite foods and her Tiffany cassette. She's living her best life here, but she follows a letter in the mailbox into the woods to some rocks

where, surprise, Max is alive, at least within this prison mindscape. The group

uses Vecna's next target, a bully named Derek Turnbo, as bait in an elaborate trap in the Turbo house in the hopes of sticking a demogorgan with a tracker to follow it to Vecna. But it goes ary when Dererick wakes up and the demogorgan redirects to the barn where they're keeping him. Chapter 4, Sorcerer. The

demogorgan attacks, but Joyce is able to fight it off just long enough. And it

seems Will now has some control over it and experiences the most pervasive vision he's had yet. Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, and Dustin take the car through the gate open by the demogorgan, drive into the upside down, and get the car stuck in that wall. Dr. K orders all the kids in Hawkins, ages 9 to 10, to be

taken to a holding area as bait. Thinking 11 is the one targeting the kids. The group plots to free the eight kids among this group that Beckna is

kids. The group plots to free the eight kids among this group that Beckna is actually targeting by sending in Derek as their inside man as they would burrow up through the tunnels beneath. Will's visions though have shown him Beckna's central hive with these fleshy spires where Holly and three others are

currently attached. Eleven and Hopper break into the upside down lab,

currently attached. Eleven and Hopper break into the upside down lab, overpower Dr. K and Acres and access the central vault where the secret weapon is Kie 8, the other runaway test subject whom 11 met in Chicago in the forgotten

season 2 episode. Holly learns from Max after she briefly died and was put in a coma just found herself within Henry Creel's memories. From the rainbow room with all the dead kids and lab workers to Henry's high school days in 1959, a part of the backstory with teenage Henry Creel and teenage drama club geek Joyce

that's explored in the play Stranger Things: The First Shadow. And then after hearing Kate Bush's running up the hill was able to break free of that memory loop and found herself in this wooded canyon area. That's another Henry memory. And something happened in these caves that makes Henry terrified to go

memory. And something happened in these caves that makes Henry terrified to go into them. And that's where Max lives now. During the kid rescue, Robin and

into them. And that's where Max lives now. During the kid rescue, Robin and Will bond over Robin's new girlfriend and how Robin knew she liked her back in an era when gay people couldn't really freely talk about their feelings. And

Robin senses Will testing the waters with Mike, getting nothing back. So

Robin reassures Will that once she realized that she had all of her own answers and didn't need them from other people that empowered her so that she felt like she could fly. So when the rescue mission goes arai and demogorgans's attack, the group all gets split up. There's a massive massacre of

soldiers and an incredible wer at one point, but one demogorgan is burned and Will convulses in pain connecting with that hive mind. So, the hive mind is all briefly paralyzed. But here's where Vecna arrives and our man is armored up.

briefly paralyzed. But here's where Vecna arrives and our man is armored up.

The deer said that the armor is based on an appearance of Hellrazer at one point, but Vecna brutally kills the rest of the soldiers, reawakens Will, and floats Will over to him, talking to him like Voldemort talking to Harry Potter. And

he says that the reason he initially targeted Will and all the other kids he targets is because they're weak of body and weak of mind and easily broken and easily reshaped. And in this moment of defeat, the eight kids they were trying

easily reshaped. And in this moment of defeat, the eight kids they were trying to protect get taken into the upside down. Vecna leaves and then the devilorganss come back to kill all of them, but Will activates. He recalls

when he and Mike first became friends. The memories of creating castle buyers with his brother when he first discovered Dungeons and Dragons with Mike and took on the role of the sorcerer Will the Wise. Boom. He conjures some extreme psychoinetic powers. He stops and he snaps the limbs and necks of all the demogorgans. The

powers. He stops and he snaps the limbs and necks of all the demogorgans. The

way Beckna would crush his telepathically linked victims. Will wipes away a nosebleleed. He is the sorcerer. So, I'm going to be doing a fuller proper breakdown of these four

sorcerer. So, I'm going to be doing a fuller proper breakdown of these four episodes for all the Easter eggs and callbacks and details that you missed.

But in this video, let's explain what this ending means and trying to answer some questions that we're left with looking ahead to the next batch of episodes coming on Christmas. I'm going to take this question by question. One,

how does Will have powers now? Well, the season prologue scene suggests that Beckna totally implanted something in Will that linked Will to the mind flare hive mind. We've known Will had that telepathic link since season 2. But

hive mind. We've known Will had that telepathic link since season 2. But

also, the play Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which got referenced a surprising number of times in these episodes does establish the detail that Henry Creel's time in Dimension X did send him back with a new blood type. So,

that his blood was then used in the Hawkins lab test subjects in the Rainbow Room to boost their powers. That includes Jane aka Eleven whose mother did undergo MK Ultra experiments, but it really was Henry Creel blood that gave

Eleven and even Kie the powers that they have. So when Will got implanted, you could say that's really some Beckna DNA in there, too. And maybe even every time Eleven and Will wipe away a nose bleed, that's some Beckna blood oozing out. In

an interview with Variety, the Duffers said that unlike Eleven, Will gets these powers by tapping into the hive mind. Like they said that he cannot open a door because a door is not part of the hive mind. The fact that they said that in the interview is an important clue because the Duffers also answered some

fan questions before the start of season 5, clarifying that it was not Vecna whom Will nearly ran into in the very first episode. And it was not Vecna who got him in the shed. That was a demogorgan. But there was someone who telepathically opened the door latch and we are going to find out who in this final season.

But either way, they did make it clear that Will's tapping into the hive mind is proximity based. He doesn't have the same type of powers 11 has. But Will has had the potential for these powers since season 1. But in addition to the increased proximity, he's also just had the psychological block that he's had to

break through with regards to his sexual orientation and his passivity. And with

Robin's help now, he finally has broken through. Hell, even that dopey cut has gotten broken out of as his hair has taken a more badass tussle. Our man is basically Harry Potter in the later movies. But we have to recognize that these kind of powers are not good. They come from Beckna and Dimension X and

maybe even the mind flare still. and it sets up Will to potentially get too addicted to these powers in the next three episodes. Vecna's plan is to reshape the world and populate it with youths who would be seen as weak or broken misfits and then reprogram them to make them his vessels. In episode 4,

Will, Robin, and Joyce do the math that Beckna took Holly the first night, three more kids the second night, and now he's targeting eight more kids, bringing the total to 12. On the anniversary of Will Buyers's vanishing in 1983, why 12?

Well, maybe VCNA sees himself as a Christ figure and wants his 12 apostles to like evangelize and remake the world according to his orthodoxy. Vcna tells

Will, "Some minds," it turns out, simply do not belong in this world.

They belong in mine. Maybe Vecna chose Will because this buyer's kid reminded him the most of himself back when he was a kid in Hawkins in 1959. Now, you'll

notice Vea does not kill Will or even take him back with him. And the duffer said it's because he underestimates Will and thinks that seed that he planted in Will is enough for him to walk away. If you've ever watched a movie set in autumn, you've probably seen a shot of a gust of wind blowing a couple orangey

yellowy leaves down the street. That's kind of what happens whenever you visit a website. You drop a couple leaves worth of data and then the algorithmic

a website. You drop a couple leaves worth of data and then the algorithmic breezes blow them around until a data broker ra them up into a big pile to sell to the highest bidder. Delete Me can rake up your data for you, though,

so you don't have to worry about a data broker scrunching around in your proverbial leaf pile. Delete Me is a hands-free subscription service that helps you reduce the risks of identity theft and scams by removing your data from hundreds of data broker sites. It's super easy to use. You take 5 minutes to

submit your info to Delete Me. Their experts comb through the internet looking for places your data shouldn't be, and then they remove it and send you a report on what they've done. Delete Me has been the leading expert in personally identifiable information, PII, removal, for over 15 years. Delete

Me continuously removes your data using their own tech and doesn't outsource to third parties, so your data stays safe. If you ever need help or have a custom request, you can contact Delete Me Privacy Advisors, real humans, not bots,

for help when you need it. Get 20% off DeleteMe consumer plans when you go to joindeleteme.com/rostars and use promo code rockstars at checkout

joindeleteme.com/rostars and use promo code rockstars at checkout or scan the QR code on screen. That's joined me.com/rostars and use code rockstars. Thank you Delete Me for sponsoring this video. Question two, where are Holly and Max? Max

described the setting as both a memory, specifically a memory contained within a thousand other memories and a prison. I think the idea is the bodies the victims Vecna has glued to one of his flesh spires with the tendril shoved in their mouths. That's where their corporeal bodies are. And while that's happening,

mouths. That's where their corporeal bodies are. And while that's happening, their minds are located somewhere else in this mindscape. These memories are definitely physically linked. The rainbow room breaks open to the Hawkins High School in 1959. The Creole House borders this wooded area that of course

borders this canyon with its rocky caves. Somewhere connected to these is the bloody flesh architecture that we've been accustomed to seeing VCNA in season 4. And somewhere in that is the central hive with the 12 spires that Will saw

4. And somewhere in that is the central hive with the 12 spires that Will saw flashes of envisions where it looks like some big teeth are poking out of the flesh. We haven't seen this location in any of the trailers and I think it's

flesh. We haven't seen this location in any of the trailers and I think it's going to look gnarly when we see it. Now, when talking with Variety, the Duffers compared Henry's mindscape to the JLo movie, The Cell, and how in that movie they enter the mind of a serial killer. Now, to be clear, Vecna does not

possess Max's body. Remember, Max was part of the earlier phase of Beckna's plan to kill four people in 1986 to open a series of gates, and Max's death was the fourth and final gate that opened the rift that intersected at the Hawkins

Library. But Eleven was able to restore Max's body enough so that she would now

Library. But Eleven was able to restore Max's body enough so that she would now be in a coma. But I suppose because she's in a coma, her mind was just kind of left as a drifting consciousness within Beckna's psyche, which could make her mind kind of a bacteria or a virus within his mind that he cannot really

control. So, if you think about it that way, Max could be the ultimate key to

control. So, if you think about it that way, Max could be the ultimate key to defeating Beckmann, at least from the inside. Holly compared this setting to Camazot, which is a dark planet from Malina Lingles: A Wrinkle in Time, the place where Meg's father was taken, the planet controlled by it, the gigantic

brain-shaped being. A theory that I have is that maybe part of VCNA's MMO is to

brain-shaped being. A theory that I have is that maybe part of VCNA's MMO is to target kids who escape into fictional elseorlds. We had D and D and now we even have A Wrinkle in Time. And even Derek seems to be part of that because despite his limited vocabulary and [ __ ] behavior, he did have quite a

few games in his bedroom and was pretty religiously playing Ghosts and Goblins on Nintendo and was very intently staring at a figurine representing a tesseract aka a hyper cube which is a hypothetical fourthdimensional cube that the human mind cannot comprehend. And also a tesseract is the means through

which characters in A Wrinkle in Time travel using a wrinkle to fold space. I

mean, it hasn't really come up yet, but isn't it possible that out of 73 kids in Hawkins in 1987, 12 of them are big fans of A Wrinkle in Time. And maybe even Dererick is as well if he's looking at the tesseract and also had the name Mr. What's It for Henry Creel. So, I just don't think it's a coincidence that

Henry Creel's forms reflect these creatures and settings and characters from the lore these kids consume. Like, he literally says he learned from Will.

Anyway, episode 6 of the season will be called Escape from Chemotss. And that's

the episode directed by Shawn Levy. So Holly and Max are probably going to get out. Question three, what happened to Henry in the Cave? This is a detail

out. Question three, what happened to Henry in the Cave? This is a detail directly from the play Stranger Things: The First Shadow. And part of me thinks Netflix might have even structured the season this way so that these details would come out on Thanksgiving and now people visiting New York and London during the holidays will feel like they have to see the play. Hey, if you can

see the play, if you can afford it, go for it. It's a pretty cool production.

But I feel like New Rockstars now has to do a full breakdown of that play in a separate video. Keep an eye out for that. I did summarize the play in our

separate video. Keep an eye out for that. I did summarize the play in our recap video. You can watch that for now. But to spoil part of it here, in act two

recap video. You can watch that for now. But to spoil part of it here, in act two of the play, you learn how Dr. Briner established the Nevada experiment to figure out what happened to his father on the USS Eldridge. Yeah, the USS Eldrich is subject to the real world Philadelphia experiment conspiracy

theory from 1943. We learn in this continuity that the Eldridge was actually transported to dimension X where its captain, Briner's father, was the only survivor. So when Dr. Briner set up the Nevada experiment, one of his scientists defected and stole some key technology and hid it inside of a Nevada

cave. At this time, the Creel family was living nearby in Rachel, Nevada. And

cave. At this time, the Creel family was living nearby in Rachel, Nevada. And

while exploring these Neadan caves with this spy glass, young Henry stumbled upon this technology. It activated and it transported him and the scientist to Dimension X, where Henry was for 12 hours and was first exposed to the shadowy entity. That traumatic experience led to Henry coming out of

shadowy entity. That traumatic experience led to Henry coming out of those caves just a wholly changed person with different blood and new abilities.

So, that's what the spy glass that Holly finds among Henry's boy scout gear in episode 3 is all about. in the Creole family photo that seems like a family visit to that rocky area. These are the caves that Max now lives in and the caves that Henry is terrified to go into because it was where he lost his

innocence. It was his first traumatic experience that led him down the dark

innocence. It was his first traumatic experience that led him down the dark path he's now on. To Variety, the Duffer said that the final episode will have even more overlap with the play and the assumption that the play leaves us with that the mind flareer is ultimately the big bad shadowy entity that seduces

Henry and transforms him into Vecna. The Duffers has said that the final episode will give some more definitive answers on that hierarchy. Question four, what is Dr. K using Kie for? Hopper and Eleven's assumption was that this vault contained some kryptonite that Dr. K's forces plan to use against Eleven. But I

think that was just their assumption. The government must have found Kie in Chicago sometime after the events of the season 2 episode, The Lost Daughter, which isn't surprising considering how loud and terroristic those runaways were being. If you recall, Kie's powers all have to do with perception, a psychic

being. If you recall, Kie's powers all have to do with perception, a psychic ability to cause people to mentally hallucinate experiences that are not actually present. Maybe Dr. K sees Kie as a psychic antidote to Eleven, someone

actually present. Maybe Dr. K sees Kie as a psychic antidote to Eleven, someone who can paralyze Eleven into thinking her loved ones are getting hurt. Or

since Dr. K is often poking and proddding on the fleshy, bloody flora of the upside down, maybe she's trying to see what's quirky about all of these test subjects blood and how it connects back to Henry Creel. But ultimately, I think Holly's ability to cast hallucinations is going to be another

way they fight Vegna. like she could get in his head and make him hallucinate things that trigger him like conjuring the vision of Patty Newbie, his youth love interest from the play. Don't worry, I'm going to get into all the play stuff in my play breakdown. But perhaps related to that question five,

what is the wall that surrounds the upside down? This question is basically an extension of what is the upside down this season's going to answer the question. We know the upside down is a relatively recent buffer dimension that

question. We know the upside down is a relatively recent buffer dimension that was created as kind of a snapshot of the night of November 6th, 1983. Created by

11 with Dr. Briner in the lab that night. Whatever the wall is, it must be an extension of that logic. The deuffers told Variety that this season will answer what created the wall. Now, Dustin was able to do some quick trigonometry to determine that the wall is an exact circle around the upside

down and that its midpoint is the upside down version of the Hawkins lab where this all began. Hopper tried stabbing the wall. Eleven tried psychoinetically splitting it. Steve rammed his car into it. This wall is made out of some thick,

splitting it. Steve rammed his car into it. This wall is made out of some thick, resilient, fleshy material that immediately heals whenever it's damaged.

11 also noted how acres peed on the wall and that urine seemed to have some kind of reaction on the material. I do recall a trailer shot that showed an energy blast exploding from the top of the upside down version of the lab and spreading like a wave across the upside down before it hits the wall. Holly's

boot was left at the base of it. So presumably the demogorgan dragging her took her through that wall to the Henry Creel mindscape setting that Holly and Max are in now. But it also seems like Beckan just has full access to the upside down and whatever is beyond it. I don't know. Maybe the upside down is

kind of like a cancerous tumor within Henry Creel's brain. And when Eleven created it that night, she basically gave Vecna a death sentence so that he would need to find these vessels to carry out his legacy. In final question, how will this end? Based on the clues dropped in these four episodes, I think

we just got to ask the question, are they going to do some time travel? I

mean, we had the middle school science teacher, Mr. Clark back this season lecturing Erica's class about Einstein rose and bridges aka wormholes. And he

even postulated in that sneaky off camerara line could theoretically allow for time travel.

>> Just think of all the places mankind could go. Another galaxy, another time even. And there's of course the major source material of A wrinkle in time and

even. And there's of course the major source material of A wrinkle in time and how time dilation is a big part of that story and how Holly her mind primed by that just jumped to the conclusion that Max timeraveled when Max said that she

was in the 1959 memory. The way Max could walk through that memory you could argue is a form of memory time travel. Like if you can get Kie to walk through those memories, who knows what she could trick Henry Creel into thinking was part of his backstory. There's Robin tricking Joyce into thinking they were fixing

something called a flux capacitor. >> Great Scott. How long has that light been red? Oh,

>> I don't know. [ __ ] [ __ ] Shh. The flux capacitor is down again. Of

>> course, the tech from Back to the Future that makes time travel possible. The flux capacitor.

>> And it recalls the hilarious logical unpacking of the Back to the Future movie that Robin and Steve did in season 3. >> I'm pretty sure that mom was trying to bang her son.

>> Wait, wait. The hot chick was Alex Kaden's mom. >> Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

>> But they're the same age. >> No, but he went back in time. Then why is it called Back to the Future? >> Look, I'm nervous about time travel. I think a lot of you are because these

Future? >> Look, I'm nervous about time travel. I think a lot of you are because these years and these events have all been so meaningful to us that I don't think any of us want to retcon or negate anything that happened. But when it comes to predicting the ending of Stranger Things, the Duffers have made it clear

that it's not all going to be retconed as some kind of story or a D&D campaign that was just visualized on film. I think they're going to make it clear that what happened happened. But maybe the end game is to have Eleven or some other characters travel back in time to that night and change fate so that

Eleven would never open the gate. And then maybe Will Buyers never vanishes and the kids could just continue to play their D and D campaign. But everything

that did happen just happen in another timeline. And those Stranger Things memories from Hypothetical Future still exist as echoes within their imagination that inspire the quests and battles in their future campaigns. I mean, hey, if they could DH Noah Schnap for the opening scene, I feel like they have

enough reference material from that opening D and D game to deage all four.

Again, I'm not saying I want that. I'm just trying to think where they're going here. And really, I think the only way I'd be okay with any of this is if

here. And really, I think the only way I'd be okay with any of this is if Hopper's daughter Sarah is alive in this timeline. So, again, our episode byep episode Easter egg breakdown will be coming to the channel early next week.

Thanks for your patience. Netflix dropped all these on a holiday and even make this video in addition to destroying my vocal cords is also delaying my turkey cooking time. I also just want to rewatch all these episodes to find all the details. Anyway, so comment down below with your thoughts and a special thanks to one of our YouTube members, Marica Miranda for

supporting us at the executive producer level. Big thanks to Studio Tech Brian Kim, New Rockstars editors Joshua Steven Herd and Abby Fel, and supporting editors Britney Joiner and Song Kit Peria for all their work on this video.

Follow me at EA Voss, and subscribe to all the channels in the New Rockstars network for breakdowns, and news coverage of everything you love. Thanks

for watching, and I'll see you next time. Bye.