Stranger Things Season 5: Volume 2 & Finale Summary

A Strange Christmas//Sitting in the audience of the Marquis theatre, sophomore Natalia Arieli excitedly waits for the Stranger Things: The First Shadow play to start on December 26th. Volume 2 of Stranger Things had just been released, and, after staying up all night to watch it, Arieli went to see the Stranger Things play the following day. (Photo by Natalia Arieli)

*Warning: This article will be a complete summary of Volume 2, including the finale, so make sure you watch it first before committing to reading this.

After ten long years of falling in love with characters, waiting for new seasons to come out, and delving into complex storylines, Stranger Things has finally come to an end. The second volume of Season 5, consisting of three episodes, released on December 25th, and the finale was released on December 31st. The incredible TV show series’ finale was quite a shock to people, and generated a substantial amount of tears, an incredible amount of nostalgia, and a variety of mixed feelings among Stranger Things fans. So, what happened in Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 2?

Episode 5: Shock Jock

The episode begins with a flashback of the realization of Will’s powers in episode 4, and how they ultimately lost to Vecna, as he now had all the kids in his grasp. Then, we see all of the kids, including Derek waking up in Vecna’s memories, where he tells them an evil darkness is coming, and their job is to bring the world to light again. In reality, Vecna is using the kids to bring darkness to the world, but the kids don’t know that, except for Holly and Derek. Holly meets up with Max to try to devise a plan to escape, while Derek overhears and joins the mission to help the kids escape Vecna’s mind. Back in Hawkins, Joyce, Will, Lucas, Robin, Mike, Erica, and Murray try to devise a plan to defeat Vecna and save the kids. They create a plan that allows Will to jack into Vecna’s mind and try to defeat him with his powers. The group collects a dead demogorgon from when Will killed it with his powers earlier, and uses electricity from the Squawk’s tower in order to revive it for a little while so that Will can enter Vecna’s mind. 

Meanwhile, Hopper and El rescue Kali from the military and escape, and Kali tells them of what she saw them doing. She tells El about how the military will keep on making more people with supernatural powers like Vecna unless they both die and there isn’t anyone they can take blood from. El is reluctant but starts to believe Kali, while Hopper is very suspicious of Kali getting bad ideas in El’s head. Max and Holly escape from the kids while Derek distracts them and Vecna, and they go through a series of memories to try to find a way out. Eventually, they do, but an irritated Vecna finds them and tries to kill Max and take back Holly. However, Will is able to get into the hive mind and break Vecna’s leg, which he then controls for a little while in order for Max and Holly to run away safely. 

Back in the Upside Down, Jonathan, Nancy, Steve and Dustin look around the Hawkins lab in order to find a power generator or something to bring the big wall down. However, Jonathan and Nancy stumble upon a huge ball of dark magic, questioning what it could be. Dustin finds a notebook written by Dr. Brenner, which reveals the truth about the Upside Down. He frantically hurries to try to tell Jonathan and Nancy not to touch the Dark Matter, and the episode ends with Nancy shooting at it.

Episode 6: Escape from Camazotz

The episode starts with the dark ball of matter exploding, creating a surge of energy that hits the wall. Suddenly, a huge hole in the wall appears and starts quickly sucking things out of the wall. El, Hopper, and Kali, right next to the wall, run to a gate and escape before they can get sucked in too. Then, Dustin reveals that the Upside Down wasn’t a different world, but a wormhole connecting Earth to a different dimension. 

Back in Vecna’s mind, Max and Holly escape to the cave just in the nick of time to devise another escape plan. They find a clue in Vecna’s memory that they use to try to break free from his mind. Will is still stuck in Vecna’s mind as well, trapped in his own memory of him as a kid in the Upside Down, the first time that Vecna saw him in the library. Vecna, angry at Will and at Max for escaping, invades Will’s mind and finds where Max’s real body is in Hawkins.

In the Upside Down, Nancy and Jonathan, unconscious from the huge explosion, become trapped in a room where the building is melting all around them. Waking up, they try to call for help, but no one can hear them, and they see that they may not have much time left. They have a heart-to-heart, resolving their differences and arguments, and, when it seems that the cement has almost gotten to them, it seems to freeze, and Steve and Dustin find and save them. In Hawkins, El finds and rescues Will from Vecna’s mind, where they tell the group that he’s sending Demodogs after Max to kill her. They hurry to the hospital, and Lucas desperately carries Max and runs with Vickie and Robin to get her to safety. They rush to the laundry room, where they hide. As soon as it seems like the demodogs may have found them, Mrs. Wheeler sets off an explosion from a laundry machine and saves them. At the end of the episode, Max and Holly find their exit and Max talks to Holly, saying how she’s brave and that she needs to find her own exit. The episode ends with them running their separate ways, back to their real bodies.

Episode 7: The Bridge

Max wakes up, and the group meets up again and celebrates getting Max back. However, Holly wakes up, not in Hawkins, but in Dimension X. She tries to escape, even finding a gate, but Vecna sees and pulls her back into his mind. Vecna, as Mr. Whatsit, tells the kids how Holly is distraught, and convinces them that he is good and that Holly is under the influence of Max, who is a monster. Back in Hawkins, the military tries to find El and the others frantically. The whole group goes back to the Squawk, where Dustin explains how the Upside Down is a wormhole, and the whole group argues and talks over each other, trying to find a way to stop Vecna from making the two worlds come together. Steve creates a good plan and explains to the group how they should let Vecna pull the two worlds together until they’re close enough that El can stop him and they can go into Dimension X to stop him altogether.

Holly wakes up, back in the mind of Vecna, and tries to tell the kids that he’s evil but they won’t listen to her. She tries to escape from them but they attack her, forcing her to surrender. In Hawkins, Will finally gets the courage to talk about his feelings and how he’s gay, and the group listens and they end with a group hug, securing their friendship before the final battle. The plan is then set into action. The group fights the military and rides into the MacZ and into the Upside Down to start their fight against Vecna. El is convinced that she needs to die in order for any of this not to happen again, due to Kali, and they plan to stay in the Upside Down when the wormhole is destroyed for good. The episode ends with all the kids sitting at a dining table in the Memory Creel house. Vecna closes his eyes, and his plan begins.

Episode 8 (the Finale): The Rightside Up

The group is now in the Upside Down, and El, Hopper, and Kali go to start their part of the plan. They arrive at the Hawkins Lab and El gets into the tank in order to get into Vecna’s mind, and Kali joins from afar. Max, in Hawkins, is also picked up by El into her mind to help her navigate his mind. They go through a series of memories, searching for the Creel House so that El can find and stop Vecna from moving the two worlds. Meanwhile, the other group positions in the Squawk tower, ready for the radio tower to hit a gate in order for them to get into Dimension X. However, the tower’s pole does not align correctly with a gate, instead touching the rough floor and rocking the tower back and forth. Steve suddenly slips and falls. He grasps onto the tower but his hand slips. However, Jonathan catches him and pulls him back up.

In Dimension X, the group takes their first look at their surroundings, and they find something that looks like a tree, but is dead and huge. They suspect that’s where the real body of Vecna is hiding. Back at Hawkins Lab, Hopper, protecting the girls, is tricked by Vecna, who shows that El is about to leave herself in the Upside Down as it closes, sacrificing herself, and, as he tries to shoot Vecna, Vecna shows him that, instead, he had shot El. Hopper, frantic, breaks the tank to get to El. However, he realizes that Vecna had actually tricked him, and it was an illusion, so he hadn’t shot her. In reality, he had actually made El, Kali, and Max disappear from Vecna’s mind, leaving the kids alone.

As Vecna tries to grab Holly when they’re running into the cave, Derek pulls her to safety just in time. Vecna, angry, decides to finally face his fear and go into his darkest memory yet. This memory shows how Henry was taken over by the Mindflayer when he was a little kid, accidentally stumbling upon a briefcase in the caves where the Mindflayer was. 

In Hawkins Lab, the military finally arrives, and the kryptonite goes off. Hopper tries to rescue El and then Kali, who are in pain, but the military finds him and Kali, threatening to kill Kali if he doesn’t say where El is. However, just as the soldier was about to shoot her, Murray sends off a bomb at the kryptonite, destroying it, and giving El her powers back. She angrily kills all the soldiers. Unfortunately, Kali was shot, and El tries to talk to Kali, but it’s too late. Back in Dimension X, Will jacks into the hive mind, seeing how Vecna was actually innocent at first, convincing him to try to become good again, but Vecna tells him he chose this and that he’s not going back. Suddenly, the tree starts to take a huge form and go after the group: The Mindflayer. Just as they were about to get cornered, El throws a huge chunk of rock at the Mindflayer, forcing them to look in that direction. She runs and flies into the mindflayer/tree, finding Vecna and the kids there, to face off against Vecna one last time.

The group splits up, trying to defeat the Mindflayer as well. As the Mindflayer moves, Vecna loses balance, and El gets a hold of him. With the help of Will controlling Vecna, El impales him into a sharp rock. The Mindflayer crumples up and dies as its host also dies. As Vecna holds onto the last strands of life, Joyce chops off his head, ending Vecna once and for all. The group celebrates their victory and sets the bomb that’ll destroy the Upside Down. However, as they head back through the gate, the military is waiting for them. However, El was nowhere to be found. As the group finally thinks she escaped and is safe, they glance over to see her standing in the Upside Down, right behind the gate. The group cries and screams for her to come back, but El stays there. She pulls a distraught Mike into the void, and they have their last heartfelt conversation. As El pushes him back, she closes her eyes to accept her fate, and the bomb goes off, destroying the Upside Down and her along with it.

18 months later, the group is getting ready for graduation. Lucas and Max are together, Will is ready to graduate, and Hopper finally proposes to Joyce. Dustin, becoming valedictorian, makes an incredible speech as they throw their caps in the air and graduate. As the group remembers their childhood, they decide to play one last game of D&D. At the end, Mike tells them his theory that El is alive. He tells them that she couldn’t have used her powers because of her kryptonite, meaning she could be alive somewhere. The theory gives them all hope for the survival of their friend. The series ends with each person putting their D&D books onto the shelf, leaving behind their childhood, and Mike looks back one more time, then closes the basement door.

As many of the fans speak from experience, there was a lot of crying in this episode from the audience. Although one of the greatest TV shows of all time has ended, we must be able to move on and accept the ending of it. We’ve grown up watching the cast grow up with us, fanbasing over Steve Harrington, and cosplaying as Eleven and it’s hard to believe that it really is all over. However, this isn’t the end for the Stranger Things world, as there are various spinoffs being created and coming soon, as well as the Stranger Things: The First Shadow play on Broadway. Even though this is the end of Hawkins, Indiana, the amazing characters, and the Upside Down, our childhood and memories from the show won’t be forgotten. As the finale of Stranger Things brought anxiety, happiness, and tears, the series has come to a beautiful end.