You might not expect this Stranger Things character to be taking center-stage in the upcoming fifth and final season of the Duffer brothers’ iconic Netflix series. Stranger Things is set to release its final chapter in three parts on November 26th, December 25th, and December 31st, concluding the revolutionary sci-fi series that has been nine years in the making. Stranger Things has been following small town residents in the 1980s who unravel a series of mysteries connected to a secretive lab, an alternate dimension, and otherworldly monsters and villains, and this will all come to a head in season 5.
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All of Stranger Things’ core cast will be returning in season 5, including Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Joe Keery, and more. Jamie Campbell Bower is also returning as the corrupted and deformed Vecna – who revealed himself to be the primary antagonist of the series in Stranger Things season 4 – but while he previously set his sights on the likes of Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) and Eleven (Brown), Vecna may have a new obsession in season 5. Vecna’s new target is a character nobody will be expecting.
Holly Wheeler May Be More Important in Stranger Things Season 5
As part of a recent cover story on Stranger Things’ ending for Time, Elina Dockterman spent some time on the set of the popular series’ final season. During the visit, she revealed that she witnessed “what appears to be a hallucination” starring Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher), the younger sister of Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard). “[Holly] wanders through a labyrinthine orange rock formation in a ’50s-era blue A-line dress, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, blood smeared across her forehead,” Dockterman revealed, suggesting that Holly Wheeler will have a larger part to play in Stranger Things season 5.
Dockterman went on to state that Hilary Leavitt, the president of the Duffer brothers’ Upside Down Pictures, revealed that this scene connects to the recent Stranger Things stage show, The First Shadow. The First Shadow serves as a prequel, exploring Vecna’s backstory as Henry Creel in more detail, and revealing that it was a blood transfusion from him that gifted Eleven and the other children at Hawkins Lab their powers. It seems Holly Wheeler’s appearance in Stranger Things season 5 will somehow connect to this prequel, while also relying heavily on themes in Alice in Wonderland, as explored by @officialhannahsarah.
“Holly’s vintage outfit is an important detail, and, later, when I visit an old-fashioned room, there’s an Alice in Wonderland picture hanging on the wall,” Dockterman states in her Time article. The room in question is the bedroom of Henry Creel’s sister, Alice, who may have some connection to Holly Wheeler. Alice wore a blue dress in flashbacks in Stranger Things season 4, similar to the one Holly will wear in her hallucination. Following speculation that season 5, episode 2 will be titled “The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler,” the youngest Wheeler sibling must be crucial to Stranger Things’ final adventure.
What Could Vecna Want With Holly Wheeler in Stranger Things Season 5?
We’re still not sure exactly what Vecna will want with Holly Wheeler in Stranger Things season 5, but it’s clear the Upside Down’s pseudo-king will certainly be after the young Wheeler sibling. After season 4, a huge theory emerged suggesting that Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono) could have actually been the grown-up version of Alice Creel, who would have been revealed to not have died in 1959. This would have made Holly Wheeler Vecna’s niece, but this thought-through theory has since been debunked by Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which confirmed Alice and Karen are two different characters.
Perhaps Holly Wheeler is connected to Alice Creel in some other way. Both have connections to characters associated with the Upside Down – originally known as Dimension X – so could be experiencing side effects of a proximity to the Upside Down without actually having been there. Given her background role throughout Stranger Things’ first four seasons, it will be great to see Holly Wheeler finally come into the spotlight in Stranger Things season 5, though it remains to be seen exactly how prominent she’ll be in the series’ final story.
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Image courtesy of Focus Features.
