12 questions Stranger Things season 5 needs to answer

Stranger Things season 4 has come and gone, and nothing will ever be the same. After a climactic battle against Vecna, our heroes are licking their wounds and the people of Hawkins are adjusting to the new threat of the Upside Down spilling over into the world. Stranger Things 4 was a point of no return for the series, which is fitting since the show will be finishing its run with its fifth season. We’re in endgame territory!

Given that Stranger Things 5 will be the end of the road for Eleven and the rest of the Hawkins gang, there are some pretty big questions we need answered before the credits roll one last time. Let’s discuss 12 mysteries we want to see solved in the fifth and final season of Stranger Things.

1. What are the origins of the Upside Down?

One of the longest standing mysteries on Stranger Things is how exactly the Upside Down came to exist. Season 4 gave us more hints about this than ever before, but there are still a lot of questions. The world where Henry Creel found the Mind Flayer particles and Demogorgons was notably not a mirror image of Hawkins. This means that at some point, either that world changed to look like Hawkins, or Henry brought his army of Demogorgons to another world, the Upside Down.

There was a time when the show could have shrugged the Upside Down off as a place that has always existed, as Dustin speculated, “since the time of the dinosaurs.” But the hints we saw in season 4 make it clear that this isn’t the case.

So how did the Upside Down come to be? Was this dark dimension created by Henry using the Mind Flayer’s hivemind? Or did it come into existence when Eleven contacted the Demogorgon? Why does it look like Hawkins?

Speaking of…

2. Why is the Upside Down frozen in time?

One of the most intriguing bits of Upside Down lore we got during season 4 came when Nancy led Robin, Steve, and Eddie to the Wheeler household in search of the guns she has hidden in her closet. To their surprise, the guns aren’t there, and the decorations of Nancy’s room are a bit…outdated. After some sleuthing, Nancy discovers that her journal entries mysteriously stop on November 6, 1983, the day Eleven accidentally opened a gate to the Upside Down and Will Byers was abducted by the Demogorgon.

This is a fascinating detail that has broad implications about the nature of the Upside Down. Did the Upside Down even exist before that moment? Or was Eleven contacting the Demogorgon the event that merged the blasted world Henry Creel explored with a mirror image of Hawkins?

We can speculate all day, but this is one question Stranger Things definitely needs to answer in season 5.