With Christmas Day’s arrival comes the latest batch of Stranger Things season 5 episodes, and the latest episodes of the season are definitely a rollercoaster ride for all the Jancy fans out there!
The first four episodes of the final season saw the Steve and Jonathan’s competition ramping back up randomly, as we also learned that Jonathan had obtained an engagement ring from Murray with the intention of proposing to Nancy. We headed into part 2, hoping the couple might get a moment of happiness among the chaos with the proposal. Instead, part 2 puts the pair in a dire situation that ends with a shocking and heartbreaking moment for the longstanding couple.
Warning: Spoilers ahead from Stranger Things season 5 part 2!
Nancy and Jonathan have a near-death experience in Stranger Things season 5 part 2
When we last saw Steve, Dustin, Nancy, and Jonathan in part 1, the pair left to investigate Hawkins Lab after Dustin realized that the lab was at the center of the wall surrounding the Upside Down. As Stranger Things season 5 resumes in episode 5, the group arrives at Hawkins Lab and Dustin speculates that wall is a kind of protective shield created by Vecna using dark magic. If he’s correct, all they need to do is find the shield generator and destroy it to bring the wall down.
The group splits up to cover more ground in their search, and you can tell things are tense between Nancy and Jonathan. As they search, Jonathan asks if he’s done something to piss Nancy off. She asks him what he means and he claims she’s taken a tone with him, to which she replies that she’s only taken a tone because he’s being ridiculous. Nancy confronts him about wanting to solve their relationship issues in the Upside Down as Jonathan points out that he wants her to just be honest with her. She questions whether he’s been honest with her, and he hesitates. She storms off as they continue their search, leaving Jonathan as he pulls out the cassette tape containing the engagement ring.
The pair eventually make their way to the roof of the lab where Nancy notices how her light seems to be casting some sort of light-like reflection in the sky above, hinting something is there. Jonathan “breaks off a piece of pipe from one of the walls and throws it into the air above them and we then see a sphere of energy above them.
Jonathan radios the group to let them know they’ve found the shield, as Dustin yells for them not to do anything and not to touch it. The connection isn’t good though, so Dustin’s message does not go through. Nancy takes her shotgun out and prepares to take aim as we see Dustin trying to reach them. Dustin warns he was wrong, it’s not a generator, it’s something else. If they destroy it, they’ll die and everyone will die. Nancy cocks her gun and fires as the episode ends.
In episode 6, Nancy and Jonathan watch as nothing happens. Then the orb of energy reacts and sends a ripple of energy through the Upside Down that travels across the world out to the wall. When we cut back to the roof, the force of the explosion has knocked Jonathan and Nancy to the ground, leaving them unconscious. Things go from bad to worse as the walls around the pair begin to melt, with the pair sinking through the roof, with things not looking good for the pair.
Eventually, Jonathan comes to and awakens Nancy. Both are alive, but they’re now trapped in a room which is quickly filling up from the melted walls around them.
Yes, Jonathan and Nancy break up in Stranger Things season 5
Nancy and Jonathan are in need of help and the room is filling quickly. As they sit together on top of a table in the room, watching the liquid rise higher and higher, they finally begin talking through their feelings leading to their most honest conversation in some time.
It all begins when Nancy confesses that she hates The Clash, noting how every time Jonathan puts them on she tries to disassociate from reality. He says he hates reading her articles as she doesn’t want his thoughts just for him to tell her they’re great. They keep admitting things they’ve been hiding.
Jonathan finally tells her he never applied to Emerson, and she admits to knowing. He asks why she never said anything and she asks why he didn’t. He says it felt like he was doing something wrong, like he was going against the natural order of things. With all they’ve been through, their shared trauma, how could anyone else possibly understand. It’s like this thing that ties them together forever. It made him feel safe. She says it can be suffocating as she admits that she didn’t have to stay behind to work during spring break and could have had Fred cover for her, but she stayed in Hawkins as she needed space.
He questions whether she needed space to be with someone else, but Nancy quickly makes it clear that while Steve’s a good guy, they want different things and their relationship was never like that. Her point is Steve knows what he wants, but she doesn’t. She was hoping to have time to figure that out but then the world split in four.
Jonathan says he has one last confession as he pulls out the cassette. He tells her he figured he screwed up enough, it would be nice to get something right in the end as he hands her the tape with the ring. Rather than asking her to marry him though, he instead asks “Nancy Wheeler, will you not marry me?” He says he tried to convince himself that this would somehow fix everything, but it was just going to make things worse, which is why the ring has been sitting like a cannonball in his pocket the last few days. He asks if she accepts his un-proposal. He says he loved her, he loves her. She says, I love you back. He tosses the ring to the side, and it bounces instead of sinking into the melted goo. They realize the melting walls have stopped and hardened. They embrace as we pan to the ring on the floor.
The group is later rescued by Steve and Dustin, and make it out of the Upside Down alive; however, their relationship is not as lucky. We really thought Jancy would be endgame, but that sadly is not the case. And given Nancy’s comments, this isn’t a moment Stancy fans will be celebrating as that ship seems to have sailed as well.