Name: Stranger Things Season 5 Ending Explained
Uploaded: 2026-01-06T17:07:31.000Z
Duration: 11 min 7 s
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Welcome to watchmojo, and today we're explaining the series finale of Stranger things.

Adverbs of degree

After nearly 10 years, 5 seasons, and 42 episodes, Stranger Things has come to an end.

We're just here to explain what exactly went down and hopefully fill in some gaps that the finale left open.

The episode wastes absolutely no time throwing us into the deep end, picking up immediately from the breathless cliffhanger of the penultimate chapter.

With a runtime that rivals major blockbusters, the strategy to defeat Vecna relies on a classic divide and conquer trope, once again splitting our sprawling cast into two distinct combat units.

We'll call them Team Abyss and Team Mind Abyss, led by babysitter supreme Steve Harrington and journalist turned Rambo Nancy Wheeler, is tasked with the very physical and very dangerous mission of traveling through the rift into the Abyss.

This isn't the Upside down we've grown accustomed to.

It's a darker dimension where Vecna is physically incubating his final form and holding his captives, including young Holly.

Does this officially make us space travelers?

Meanwhile, Team Mind breaches Hawkins Lab in the Upside down so that 11 can enter its deprivation chamber and access Vecna's mindscape.

While inside, they find Henry and the captive children, who are all collectively harvesting their psychic powers to bring the Abyss into the real world.

11 attacks Henry and breaks his psychic connection, stopping the invasion and allowing Team Abyss to breach the rift from the radio tower.

But Vecna soon tricks Hopper into thinking that he shot 11.

So he pulls her from the chamber and ultimately from Henry's mind.

Speaking of Henry's mind, we come to one major aspect that needs some serious explaining.

While in his memory, Henry sees a vision of his younger self encountering a panicked man.

This little subplot is grossly under explained in the show, and

to understand it, we have to analyze the prequel play the First Shadow.

The US military was conducting experiments, and these experiments involved Brenner's father.

He was the captain of the USS Eldridge, a naval ship that was sent to the Abyss.

As a result of these experiments, most of the crew was killed or fused to the ship, but

it eventually reappeared in our world, with Brenner's dad being one of the few survivors the ship brought back Samples of the atmosphere and particles from that dimension.

And one of these samples was put into a briefcase.

Enter this mystery man, who is actually a Soviet spy conducting Cold War espionage.

He broke into the base and stole the briefcase, believing it to hold a biological weapon or power source, before fleeing into the desert.

Young Henry, who was then a boy scout, found this man in the cave system.

The spy believed that he was sent by the military and panics, shooting Henry in the hand.

Henry then murders him in a fit of rage and takes the object from the briefcase, allowing particles of the Mind Flayer to enter his body through the bullet hole.

Brenner then became obsessed with this story, owing to the involvement of his father, eventually moving to Hawkins specifically.

Specifically because he was tracking Henry Creel, knowing the boy had been exposed to the substance his father discovered.

The truth is, he did not just want to study me.

The newly freed 11 jumps a bunch of rocks to enter the abyss, where the situation has descended into some Lovecraftian nightmare fuel.

We finally receive visual confirmation of the Upside Down's hierarchy in a reveal that has been years in the making.

Vecna hasn't just been controlling the Mind Flayer.

I could have resisted it, but I chose to join it.

This Mind Flayer Vecna thing comes alive and attacks Team Abyss, Displaying some of the finest visual effects work in the show's history.

Team Abyss kills the monster, while the newly arrived 11 enters to kill Vecna.

With a bit of help from Will, she impales Vecna on some pointy bone thing, effectively ending the battle while he's technically still alive.

Joyce soon enters and takes his head off with a few gnarly swings of an axe.

Meanwhile, the kids are freed from their containment units, and everyone makes it back to the Upside Down.

We're back in the Upside down, and we have the kids.

When eleven made contact with the Demogorgon back in season one, she inadvertently created a wormhole linking the Abyss to the real world.

it was being held together by a massive ball of exotic matter directly above the Hawkins lab.

To ensure that the Abyss was permanently untethered from the real world, our heroes destroy this ball of exotic matter and by extension, the ability Upside down wormhole.

The narrative then daringly skips the immediate aftermath.

Jumping forward 18 months to the graduating class of 1989, here we get an extended Lord of the Rings epilogue where everyone just sort of goes their own way.

Let's run through it quickly before getting to the juicy stuff.

Pretty much everyone moves away to attend school, including Jonathan, Robin, Dustin, and Will.

Mike becomes a writer, inspired by his wild adventures as a kid and his natural talents as a storyteller.

The storyteller keeps telling stories, stories inspired by his friends.

One day, he hopes their tales of Grant's adventure will spread far and wide across the land, so all can know of their great bravery.

Nancy also went to school, but dropped out to become a journalist.

Lucas and Max start a quiet but happy life together.

it's implied that they will also leave to start a new life in Montauk.

The only one who stays in Hawkins is Steve, who becomes a sex ed teacher and baseball coach.

I couldn't come back here if you paid me a million bucks.

You need a lot less than a million, I'll tell you that.

There's actually this rad place over in Forest Hills.

I can't quite afford it yet, but I'm close.

Rewinding back to the destruction of the Upside down, eleven decides to stay behind.

Inspired by Kali, she decides to sacrifice herself.

The reasons being One, she knows that the military will constantly pursue her, and

she hopes to prevent the endless chase and the pestering of her friends and family.

Two, she has been infused with Henry's magical blood, the result of Brenner's experiments on her mother.

It was not drugs that gave us our powers chained.

So by eliminating herself from the equation, she ensures that this magical and destructive bloodline dies with her anyway.

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Stranger Things Season 5 Ending Explained

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