12 questions Stranger Things season 5 needs to answer

3. How will Vecna remake the world?

Throughout Stranger Things 4, our heroes are terrorized by a monstrous villain named Vecna, who we eventually discover is actually the first psychic child experimented on in the Hawkins Lab. Also known as Henry Creel or One, Vecna is easily the most nefarious villain we’ve seen yet in Stranger Things. In fact, we discover he’s actually the main villain of Stranger Things; the Mind Flayer is an extension of Henry’s will, meaning he was behind the threats in previous seasons as well.

For most of season 4 Vecna’s motives are hidden, but near the end we finally find out what he wants. Vecna is a sociopath who was banished to another world by Eleven…and he wants back onto Earth so that he can destroy it and remake it in his image. And given how messed up Henry’s mind is, we can imagine that’ll be pretty bad.

But what exactly will his conquest look like? Henry tells Eleven he wants to make something “beautiful,” but I think we can all agree that this guy’s idea of beauty is probably pretty skewed.

With Vecna succeeding in breaking the barrier between the Upside Down and Hawkins, that means he and his army are spilling into the real world. We saw the beginnings of how the world might change during the final scene of season 4, when Upside Down particles snowed down over Hawkins and ominous red clouds loomed over the town.

How far will this dark influence spread? What will the world look like when the dust settles on the series?

4. How will the Russians fit into the big picture?

The Russians are trying to figure out the Upside Down. This thread started in season 3, when they built a machine beneath the Starcourt Mall that opened a gate. At that time, the Russians needed to do this project in Hawkins because the fabric between realities was weaker there, owing to the fact that Eleven had already opened a gate there once before. Attempts to open a gate in Russia itself all failed.

But in season 4, we saw that they have a lab filled with Demogorgons, Demodogs, and even particles of the Mind Flayer. Everything gets loose by the season finale, which leads to Murray Bauman torching all the monsters to help the gang back in Hawkins by harming the Upside Down’s hivemind.

For all that we’ve seen of the experiments at Kamchatka prison, we still have way more questions than answers about the Russians’ involvement in this story. Where did they get all those demo creatures? What are they trying to do with them? And now that the Upside Down is bleeding into the real world, how will they factor into the fight against Vecna?

We’re moving into the show’s final season, so if those kinds of questions are ever going to be answered, the time is now.