It’s the question everyone’s been waiting for: do any of the major characters die in the Stranger Things Season 5 finale? The last ever episode has landed on Netflix, and the answer may surprise you.
Up until now, the Hawkins gang have been preparing for an all-out battle against Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) after Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) and her classmates became his new target.
As explained by Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), the Upside Down is actually an interdimensional bridge held together by exotic matter. It connects Hawkins to what he calls the Abyss, the true origin of demogorgons and the Mind Flayer, and the place El (Millie Bobby Brown) banished Vecna years prior.
Holly is one of 12 children Vecna needs to merge the Abyss with the real world, and the gang are going to need everyone on board if they’re going to stop him. But do any major characters meet their death in the process? Warning: spoilers ahead!
Who dies in the Stranger Things Season 5 Episode 8?
In the Stranger Things Season 5 finale, ‘The Rightside Up’, Eleven sacrifices herself in order to break the cycle of the government’s program of using blood to create children with powers. But, we don’t see El’s death on screen, and as Mike later explains to the crew, it was all an illusion.
This is, however, the last time the Hawkins gang ever see her and she’s not reunited with them in the final scene. As for confirmed deaths in the Season 5 finale, El’s sister Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) gets shot dead by one of Dr. Kay’s men.
A less surprising character who’s killed is Vecna. While the Hawkins crew defeat the Mind Flayer, El and Will (Noah Schnapp) band together to use their powers to pierce Vecna through a rock. But it’s Joyce (Winona Ryder) who finishes him off, cutting his head off with an axe.
Following this, the gang make it back into the real world, but Dr. Kay (Linda Hamilton) and her crew are there waiting. Thankfully, their bomb detonates the gateway to the Abyss, but El decides to stand in the gateway and put an end to the chaos for good.
This was based on what Kali told her in Season 5 Volume 2: her blood was being used by the government to experiment on pregnant women and try to create more super-powered babies, in the same way they were created with Henry Creel’s blood.
Essentially, Dr. Kay is continuing Dr. Brenner’s evil plans, and Kali says the only way to stop it is if she and El die. El doesn’t leave without saying goodbye to Mike (Finn Wolfhard), and it’s a tearful farewell.
But Kali has a change of heart in her final moments – she decides there is a way for El to keep living. Before passing away, she uses her powers of illusion to make it appear as if El is stood in the doorway to the portal.
In reality, El makes an escape, but in order for her to be truly safe, she must never show her face again. In the final scene, Mike explains this to Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Max (Sadie Sink), Will, and Dustin as they play a game of Dungeons & Dragons.
Mike says that he likes to think El’s somewhere far away where no one can hurt her again, and we see her walking through a beautiful landscape.
Anno nuovo