Stranger Things season 5, episode 5 opens with Will in the immediate aftermath of the part 1 finale. We watch the kids getting dragged away and the Demos attacking as Vecna’s speech from the episode plays over the scenes. Joyce races to Will, and Mike runs up, hugging him and calling him a real-life honest-to-god sorcerer.
Rather than celebrating, Will notes that Vecna has got the kids, all of them. He reveals to Joyce and Mike that the others didn’t make it out of Hawkins. He feels he could have helped them if he acted sooner, but now Vecna has all 12 kids. As Will says he failed, we see helicopters coming to the base and the group flees.
Mike, Joyce and Will find Lucas injured in the tunnels having been attacked by the Demo. They get Lucas patched up and bring him up to speed on things. Upon learning about Will’s powers, Lucas immediately calls him Will the Wise and comments on how this changes the game as they have a second El. Will explains that he doesn’t have powers, but rather he’s stealing them from Vecna. He’d have to be close to the hive mind to tap in. He explains Vecna has his vessels for reshaping the world.
Once out of the tunnels, Joyce asks if there is perhaps a way to jack back into the hive to access Vecna’s powers. She suggests that instead of using the powers against Vecna’s army, they use them against Vecna. Joyce notes that Vecna will likely underestimate Will again and when he does, that’ll be the last mistake the son of a bitch makes. Joyce suggests they try to find a new tracker to locate the group trapped in the Upside Down, and Lucas and Erica come up with two unique ideas.
Erica suggests they turn to Mr. Clarke for help in making a new tracking device, while Lucas suggests they use electricity from the radio tower to try to bring one of the dead Demos back to live so Will can try to use them to jack back into the hive mind. Joyce suggests they try both, throw two darts and pray for a bullseye.
Robin and Will are preparing the antenna and she thanks him for saving her life. He says he should be thanking her for talking to him about her life. As they talk, Robin reveals that after the Tammy situation, she eventually told someone else: Steve. Will asks about her decision to tell Steve, and she says to be fair they had been injected by truth serum, but drugs or not just saying it out loud and him being cool with it was game changing. If she hadn’t told Steve, she wouldn’t have opened up to Vickie or had the conversation with him. Will asks her jokingly if she has any of the truth serum as the pumpkin they were lighting up catches fire hinting the plan is coming together nicely.
What does Henry want with Holly and the kids?
After the battle we see the kids, including Derek, placed into the wall from Will’s vision. Derek then comes to in a field with the rest of the kids. Mr. Whatsit greets them all and tells them their memories might be confused as the monsters tried to take them, but he saved them in time. He takes them to Creel House and calls it their home and tells them not to venture out into the woods. Max is watching and we see that Holly returned in time.
Mr. Whatsit tells the kids that there is more at stake than their loved ones. An evil darkness is spreading across Hawkins and the world. He tells them he’s traveled far and long and in his travels he discovered another world, far from Earth, much like their world, only good: free of monsters and darkness. It is the light. He says the true reason they have been chosen is that they’re not like other children; they’re special and have dormant powers. If they work together, they can channel the energy and as the light reaches the darkness and the light will expel the darkness. They will then be heroes.
Holly raises her hand to ask if Mr. Whatsit is going to leave again to bring more special kids to join them, to which he replies that he won’t be leaving them ever again. He tells them to eat, play, and rest because tomorrow it begins. The kids clap as we cut to Holly with an anxious look on her face.
Later as the kids enjoy running around and playing at Creel House, Holly manages to sneak out to meet with Max. Once together, Holly explains that Henry plans on drawing another world to save Earth and that they need to get out of Camazotz as soon as possible. They hear a branch snap and find Derek hiding.
Derek mentions knowing Vecna and then tells them about working with Mike, Will and the gang back in Hawkins. They devise a plan, one that will require Derek’s help. Cut to Derek walking past some of the kids into the woods, drawing attention as the kids run off to tell Mr. Whatsit. Max and Holly are using him as bait as they search to find the exit. Max says once they find the first memory of Holly meeting Mr. Whatsit, they can follow the trail to the real world and escape Camazotz.
Max and Holly begin searching through Holly’s memories to follow a path they hope will lead them out of Henry’s world. They eventually make their way through the memories, up to the night Holly was taken from her home by the Demo. Just as they prepare to enter the door to the red realm where Max previously saw the portal out of the dream world, Henry arrives after learning of their plan from Derek – who Henry threatened in the woods earlier.
We watch as Henry enters the room transitioning from Mr. Whatsit into Henry and finally into Vecna. Vecna grabs Max by the neck and begins strangling her. Holly yells for him to stop as we see Max’s heart flatlining in the real world. But then her heartbeat surges.
It turns out the plan back in Hawkins worked, and bringing the Demo back allowed Will to connect to the hive mind and enter Vecna’s mind. Will breaks Vecna’s leg, causing him to drop Max to the ground. Will then speaks through Vecna and tells Max to run.
The distraction allows Holly and Max enough time to flee, before turning his attention to Will and kicking him out of his head as Will lets out a scream in the real world before collapsing to the ground.
Elsewhere in the episode…
Why did Dr. Kay take Kali?
After breaking Kali out of Dr. Kay’s lab, Hopper, El and Kali get to the meetup spot only to find that Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Dustin are gone. As Hopper tries to reach them, El apologizes for not finding Kali sooner. Eleven notes that once they find Henry, they can finally live their lives but Kali calls it a dream.
We see that the military found Kali and killed her friends before taking her. We watch them save her head and put her in the lab where she was eventually found by Hopper and Eleven. Kali explains that this wasn’t about revenge, Dr. Kay needed her blood and the need was endless. Dr. Kay kept taking blood, and she began to think of her as a kind of Vampire.
Kali recalls almost making it out of the lab once, and during her escape she found the answer to why she was taken. We see a pregnant woman on the table being infusing with Kali’s blood. The woman comes to and asks eight for help, as Kali wanders into one room after another finding more pregnant women benign given her blood. Eventually, she as attacked by the guards and taken back.
Kali mentions how the pregnant women and secret government program should remind Eleven of something, to which El says “Mama” we then cut to her mom. We learn it was not drugs that gave them their powers, it was Henry. Dr. Kay is trying to recreate what Brenner did. Dr. Kay is trying to find Eleven so they can create more kids like Henry. Kali says there are no happy endings for them as she shows her a vision of El in the straps and labs just as Hopper enters the room.
Dustin’s theory about the wall in the Upside Down proves incorrect
Elsewhere in the episode, we finally catch up with Dustin, Steve, Jonathan, and Nancy as they make it to Hawkins Lab. The group goes inside to explore as Dustin fills the group in on his theory that the wall is a shield created by Vecna using dark magic to prevent them from reaching Holly and the kids. His theory is that if they find the generator powering the shield, they can bring down the wall and save Holly.
Steve and Dustin walk through the lab and end up in the Rainbow Room, where tensions rise as the pair get into it and go their separate ways. Things are just as tense between Jonathan and Nancy. Jonathan eventually questions whether he’s done something to anger her, and she brushes him off. Annoyed, Nancy storms off as Jonathan pulls out the cassette tape pondering before noticing a door with a melted handle. He tries to open the door, but the handle breaks off, so he tries throwing his weight at the door. Nancy rejoins him just as he gets the door open, revealing a staircase leading up with a melted path.
Dustin returns and Steve pushes his buttons about him being wrong. Dustin says he’s gloating and Steve is being selfish. Steve says selfish is them ditching Hopper and El. Dustin and Steve fight about Eddie, and Steve makes a comment about being the one still standing there. He points out how he told them not to be heroes, Eddie made a dumb call and got himself killed. Dustin runs at Steve and begins hitting at him. Dustin punches him in the face and Steve walks off saying he’s done and leaves Dustin crying on the floor. As Dustin pushes back, he notices the door opens behind him and he goes inside to explore. Inside the room we see a bulletin board and Dustin notices that the map on the board matches the one he drew.
Cut to Nancy and Jonathan exploring. The pair question whether there was a nuclear explosion that caused the building to melt, and they notice the air is clean with no spores, whatever happened here is dark magic. They then see soldiers trapped in the floor and walls, their rotting corpses melted into the walls, as they see a door with roof access.
Jonathan and Nancy make it to the roof of the lab and Nancy notices how her flashlight seems to be casting some sort of light-like reflection hinting something is there. Jonathan breaks off a pipe and throws it into the air, we see a sphere with electricity. Jonathan believes they’ve found the shield as Dustin yells for them not to do anything and not to touch it. Dustin runs off in a panic as Nancy takes her shotgun out and takes aim. Dustin warns them he was wrong, it’s not a generator, it’s something else. If they destroy it, they’ll die; everyone will die. Nancy cocks her gun and fires as the episode ends.
Episode grade: B-
After the epic end of episode 4, episode 5 felt like a bit of a step back and wasn’t quite as epic as the previous episode. Still, it was an amazing episode that perfectly balanced the fallout of episode 4 while pushing the narrative ahead in exciting new ways.