The Stranger Things 4 ending explained

Stranger Things 4 has reached its epic conclusion, and nothing will be the same.

The clock has tolled four times over Hawkins, Indiana in the Stranger Things season 4 finale. At two-and-a-half hours, “The Piggyback” was essentially a full-length Stranger Things movie, a grand leap forward for its storytelling and production values. This season was nothing if not ambitious, and the final episode of Volume II was the most ambitious of them all. It is a historic moment for this phenomenon of a series.

Beyond the general grandeur of the thing, the Stranger Things 4 finale also marked an enormous moment in the overarching narrative of the story. Its seismic events represent a point of no return for Hawkins, the world, and every single character in the show. It also included perhaps the largest info drops for the mythology of the Upside Down yet. Let’s discuss everything we learned.

Beyond this point, there will be FULL SPOILERS for the season 4 finale of Stranger Things.

Vecna, the Mind Flayer, and the gates

If we’re going to talk about the ending to Stranger Things 4, we have to start with Vecna’s overall plans, which we discovered a lot more about in Volume 2. After being banished to the Upside Down by Eleven, Henry Creel wandered until he discovered a dark, looming cloud. Using his psychic powers, he molded this cloud into a shape inspired by his childhood love of black widow spiders. It became the Mind Flayer, a living extension of Henry’s will that seemingly tied him to the hive mind of the Upside Down.

Henry wanted a way to bring this newfound power into our world so he could remake it according to his own desires. His motives colored every season of Stranger Things; it was he who possessed Will in season 2, and who controlled the actual flesh Mind Flayer that came through the Starcourt gate. At first he tried to use the gate Eleven had created, then to steal her power outright. Despite his best efforts, the ability to open his own gates eluded him.

Many details about how Eleven opens gates to the Upside Down have yet to be explored, but we can draw some conclusions. We know that the season 1 gate formed when El contacted a Demogorgon with her mind, creating a link between worlds. A connection is necessary.

In season 4, Vecna discovered his own way to establish a gate between worlds: by contacting, and in his case murdering, people in the other world in a specific way which causes a gate to open. Eleven never had to kill anything to make the link in season 1, but it is worth noting that she did seemingly kill One when she created that much smaller gate in the season 4 flashback. Combined with Vecna’s method, this does seem to imply there’s some link between death and the ability to open a gate, though it isn’t the only way.

Stranger Things 4 Volume 2 ending explained

When Vecna consumes four victims with his ritual and opens four gates, it creates enough instability to break the wall between worlds, merging them together. The finale revolves around his pursuit of the final victim, Max. Despite the best efforts of Eleven and Lucas, Vecna succeeds in wounding Max badly enough with the ritual that she dies. Eleven manages to revive her, but the minute that Max spent dead was enough to trigger Vecna’s spell and open the gate. The resulting disaster cleaves the ground of Hawkins apart, rupturing the inter-dimensional wall and causing the Upside Down to spill into the real world.

The season’s final scene, with Upside Down particles snowing over Hawkins and plants succumbing to otherworldly rot, suggest that the two worlds will continue to merge as time passes. The Duffer Brothers have said that there will be a time jump for season 5, so we can only imagine how that might butterfly outward.

The Upside Down

Many other mysteries still remain surrounding the Upside Down. In season 4 we discovered that it was frozen in time on the day that Eleven first opened the gate during season 1. However, the world that Henry Creel originally explored existed before that point, and doesn’t resemble Hawkins at all. The link between that blasted plane and the Upside Down is another big question.

Stranger Things season 4 gave us more on the mythology of the Upside Down than any prior season. With the fifth and final season set to hit the ground running after the world-changing events of “The Piggyback,” there can be no doubt that we’ll learn more about the workings of these paranormal dimensions.

The fate of the Hawkins crew

Of course, no discussion of the Stranger Things 4 ending is complete without rounding up the fates of all our favorite characters. This season featured a larger cast than ever before, and most all of them left off in vastly different places than they started.

After being killed by Vecna and revived by Eleven, Max is left in a coma, with her arms and legs in casts and the doctors unsure if she’ll ever wake. Eleven tries to contact her psychically in some of the season’s final moments, but gets no answer from Max’s mind. We’d bet she’ll be getting back to action one way or another in season 5 (because otherwise, why not actually kill her off?), but for now Max is in a precarious place.

Just about all of our other main characters reunited back in Hawkins during the finale. Joyce, Hopper, Will, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Erica, Jonathan, Steve, Nancy, and Robin are all there, and will no doubt be instrumental in the fight against Vecna and the Upside Down that’s coming in season 5. Eleven now has her powers back, and Joyce and Hopper are last seen standing together as the adult couple that will be leading the fight. Vecna may have gathered his strength throughout season 4, but so did our heroes.

Speaking of Vecna, he survived his fateful showdown with Nancy, Steve, and Robin in the Upside Down. When Nancy rushes outside after blasting Vecna out of the Creel attic with a shotgun, she finds that his body is missing. Will then confirms that Vecna survived in the finale’s final moments, when he says he can still feel the villain out there, hurting but still alive.

As for our other characters, we never see Murray, Dmitri, or Yuri again after the fight with the Demogorgons in Kamchatka prison. Presumably, they go back to their respective homes, but there’s little doubt they’ll turn up again in some form or another in season 5. Then there’s Argyle. Will he move to Hawkins? It’s hard to imagine why he would, but Argyle’s a pretty eccentric dude. Who can predict what he’ll do next?

Doctor Owens and Lt. Colonel Sullivan didn’t appear at all in the season finale, but when we last saw them Owens was still alive and in military custody. We do see a couple of uniformed people aiding with the relief efforts in Hawkins, so it appears that the military has arrived to help out after the “earthquake.” Whether Sullivan is among them or not, you can bet he’s trying to figure out how to react to what happened in Hawkins.

Then there’s Eddie, the fan-favorite metalhead of season 4. He was killed by Demobats after heroically fighting them off to buy more time for Nancy, Steve, and Robin to attack Vecna in the Creel House attic. Though Eddie is presumed dead by the public and still smeared by the news, Dustin tells his uncle enough to give him closure that Eddie died as a hero and was never responsible for any of the horrible things that happened in Hawkins. The psychotic basketball jock Jason also met his end in the season finale, when the gate opened in the Creel House attic and expanded straight through him, cutting him in half and disintegrating most of his body.

Season 4 saw our characters spread across the map, but the world-shattering events of “The Piggyback” brought them all back together by the end. It’s left ambiguous whether the Byers will be moving back to Hawkins, but it seems likely given the immense threat posed by Vecna and the Upside Down. There’s no way that Will, Jonathan, and Joyce are not going to want to stand by their loved ones in the dark days ahead.

Stranger Things 4 is streaming in its entirety on Netflix.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels