Stranger Things season four explained – and what happens next

Who is Vecna? Will Hopper escape Soviet Russia? Are all Gen Zers now massive Kate Bush fans? Your spoiler-filled season four guide is here

Your starter for Eleven. Can Stranger Things tie up the many loose ends it has left twisting in the phantasmagorical breeze after dropping seven new blockbuster-length episodes last week?

Netflix has pided its retro hit into two tranches for its penultimate season. The first has just arrived, while the final two helpings – which will together clock in at almost four hours – debut on July 1. And it’s probably just as well the show is taking a pause because, goodness, we could all do with catching our breath. It’s been action-packed and then some.

The kids in Hawkins, Indiana have faced obstacles on every front. For starters, many of them aren’t even in Hawkins any more. There is also the challenge posed by Vecna, an evil, murderous wizard in the Upside Down. And as if that isn’t enough, government agents are hot on the trail of Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven and the pals with whom she has tried to begin a new life with in California. Back in the USSR, meanwhile, Sheriff Hopper (David Harbour) lives – for now.

What’s going to happen in season four’s epic final two episodes? Warning: season four spoilers below.

He's the One: Jamie Campbell Bower as Peter Ballard in Stranger ThingsCredit: Netflix

1: Who is Vecna?

As extra-planar baddies go Vecna – aka Peter Ballard, aka Number One, aka Henry Creel (aka the English actor Jamie Campbell Bower) – is right up there and in episode seven we finally got his origin story – and it was complicated. Demonic Vecna began life as little Henry Creel (son of the incarcerated “killer”, Victor Kreel), a disturbed little boy with psychokinetic powers, which he ultimately used to slaughter his family in the 1950s. That landed him a spell in the shadowy Hawkins Lab, where he became test subject Number One, but he soon turned rogue there too, causing Dr Brenner (Matthew Modine) to implant a chip in his neck to curb his powers, whereupon he became the seemingly mild-mannered lab orderly Peter Ballard.

However – keeping up? – Eleven finally remembers that it was she who removed Henry/One/Peter’s implant, freeing him to rampage through the lab, killing most of the other super-children. Eleven then also remembered it was she who, in an epic showdown, banished the little creep to the Upside Down, where he became the malevolent Vecna. So: Vecna is Peter Ballard is Number One is Henry Creel. Easy-peasy.

Vecna: not a nice manCredit: Netflix

2: What is Vecna’s ultimate goal?

We know that Creel started as a disturbed child with serial killer tendencies – and was then contacted by a mysterious force which, taking the form of black widow spiders, gave him supernatural powers (the Mind Flayer?). Since returning for a new murderous spree in Hawkins his standard method has been to devour the souls of people who have survived terrible trauma. So he targets Max (Sadie Sink), for instance, as she grieves for her brother Billy.

And episode seven concludes with Vecna trapping Nancy (Natalia Dyer), who has a lingering guilt over the season one death of Barb (snatched by the Demogorgon while Nancy was upstairs canoodling with Steve). This is all terribly gripping – but what are his plans for the souls he has dragged to the Upside Down? Is he merely the Mind Flayer’s “five-star general” or does he have his own agenda?

3: How did Dr Brenner neutralise Creel’s powers?

As the original test subject at Hawkins National Laboratory, Creel has breathtaking abilities. But apparently Brenner could neutralise them with a simple implant. What sort of technology was he able to access? And might this come into play in the final two instalments? The mysterious implant could also, feasibly, be the answer to all of Eleven’s troubles, allowing her to live the life of a normal teenager and no longer be “a monster”.

Show and tell: Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in Stranger ThingsCredit: Netflix

4: Did Eleven open the original portal to the Upside Down?

In one of the most disturbing scenes of the season, we flash-backed to Eleven’s battle with Peter/Henry after he had persuaded her to remove the implant and thus restore to him his powers. Having killed the other subjects at the lab, he fought Eleven in a climactic face-off. But she seems to have been his match – and was able to banish him by ripping a hole through space and time (careless). Was this the original entrance to the Upside Down? And if Eleven was the one who opened the door to the Upside Down, surely she is the one who, ultimately, must close it.

5: What pappened to Number Eight?

In the pisive season two episode The Lost Sister, we met Kali Prasad, another test subject experimented upon extensively at Hawkins National Laboratory before pulling an Eleven and escaping. But Kali, who could project illusions into people’s minds, is nowhere to be seen when we flash back to Brenner’s experiments at the lab this year. There was a strong fan backlash against her episode (which jarred with the Spielberg tone of Stranger Things and seemed to belong to a different show). Has Netflix written her out of history to appease the moaners on social media? Perhaps not: Henry/Peter fleetingly mentions her name in a conversation with Eleven, while Kali is the only one who shares Vecna’s hallucinatory ability.

It's life, Jim, but not as we know itCredit: Netflix

6: How Will Joyce and Hopper reunite with the Kids?

Stranger Things is an ensemble show. But this year the characters have been flung to the four winds – with several storylines not even intersecting. There is nothing, for instance, to connect Joyce (Winona Ryder), Hopper and Murray (Brett Gelman), as they try to escape the Soviet Union, with the Hawkins kids and their tussle with Vecna. Or is there…? Hopper mentions that he still may be able to “help” Eleven and surely that Kamchatka prison, complete with its own Demogorgon, harbours all sorts of interesting secrets that could help the gang in their battle with Vecna and the Mind Flayer.

7: Will there be a Kate Bush revival among Gen Zers?

Running Up That Hill serves as a major plot point after we learn music can neutralise Vecna’s powers and break people free from his spell. For Max the song that saves her turns out to be the hit single from Kate Bush’s 1985 masterpiece Hounds of Love. Bush has hardly been languishing in obscurity but, given how Stranger Things made Dungeons & Dragons cool in 2016, might it work similar magic for Bush? Quite simply, yes: it is already No 1 on the iTunes charts and has spread like wildfire on social media platform TikTok. Bush is back! The big question: will the kids get into Bush’s experimental 2005 double album Aerial? (Answer: no.)

Who's she gonna call? Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers in Stranger ThingsCredit: Netflix

8: Why has season four been split into two chunks?

For the first time in more than a decade, Netflix has been shedding subscribers. Conveniently, the final two episodes of Stranger Things will arrive in a new quarter of the financial year. Did the service deliberately space out the season in order to ensure punters stick around for as long as possible? Is Stranger Things 4 an attempt by Netflix to turn those haemorrhaging audience figures upside down? Possibly. The production was slowed down considerably by the pandemic, with creators the Duffer Brothers stating that they wanted to get some episodes out as soon as they could, while giving them time to finish the final two. Getting the first seven episodes out in May and the final two out in July means that the season will also span the 2022 and 2023 Emmy Award eligibility windows. They’re not stupid.

Episodes eight and nine of season four of Stranger Things will arrive on Netflix on July 1