Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 1 is out now, and all attention is focused on the big scenes – meaning some pretty important details are inadvertently being missed. The end of Stranger Things Season 5’s first volume features the show’s biggest set-piece to date, as Vecna leads an army of Demogorgons against the US military – only for Will to eventually fulfill his potential, becoming the episode’s titular “Sorcerer.” It’s an idea the Duffer brothers have been building up to for years, and viewers are thrilled.
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It’s easy to see why moments like that are demanding so much attention. They’re epic in scale, continue long-standing character arcs, and totally rewrite Stranger Things lore. But some of Stranger Things‘ most important references are harder to spot, subtle details that feel like essential setup. One particularly important scene is currently being overlooked, because it just feels like a throwaway moment, when it’s actually really important.
Mr. Clarke is Back in Stranger Things Season 5
Stranger Things Season 5 is a last hurrah for the entire show, and it wouldn’t be complete without a brief scene with Hawkins’ best teacher. Played by Randy Havens, Scott Clarke was a good friend to the Hawkins kids (and he even got Hopper jealous in Season 3). He’s now Erica’s favorite teacher, and she’s none too happy when Lucas and Mike interrupt the lesson she loves to ask a favor in episode 3.
Mr. Clarke’s Season 5 debut feels like just a cool cameo, a reference to earlier seasons where he was more important. But the lesson he’s presenting is significant, because he’s teaching the kids about wormholes. As Erica notes, “wormholes are neat because they allow matter to travel galaxies or dimensions without crossing the space between.” But Mr. Clarke notes that wormholes are impossible in nature, because their enormous gravitational forces would rip them apart at the moment they formed.
Previous seasons of Stranger Things discussed the gates to the Upside Down as a form of wormhole. But it’s worth noting that the show itself has never used the kind of hourglass symbolism Mr. Clarke alludes to when it referred to gates. All that may be about to change, though, given the title of Stranger Things Season 5, episode 7; it’s called “The Bridge.” That context turns Mr. Clarke’s lesson into something much important, especially in light of another key scene that a handful of viewers have noticed.
We May Already Know What Vecna Wants the Children For
Later, Will senses that the Upside Down’s hive mind is trying to hide something from him – a mysterious, monstrous design that incorporates spires in which the 12 kidnapped children will be placed. He draws a sketch of this strange place, and it’s notable that it looks almost identical to the traditional hourglass shape commonly associated with wormholes. We already know that Vecna can use pain and suffering to tear holes in the fabric of reality; it’s how he created the gates between Hawkins and the Upside Down in the first place. Is he intending to use the children to create an actual wormhole?
Describing the incredible potential of a wormhole, Mr. Scott tells his class that it could – in theory – be used to travel in time. Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 is absolutely steeped in time travel references, including countless nods to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time and a delightful nod to “flux capacitors” from Back to the Future. Many are theorizing this is setting up a time travel plot by the end of the season, and Mr. Clarke’s lesson actually establishes the pseudo-science that would allow that to happen.
This, of course, is the very narrative purpose Stranger Things has used Mr. Clarke for all along. The Hawkins kids have come to him time and again for guidance, and his theoretical science has been a lot more useful than he’ll ever know (although, given everything Hawkins is now going through, he may well suspect the truth). It would be so very fitting for Season 5 to end by using Mr. Clarke to flesh out its pseudo-science one last time.
Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 1 is streaming now on Netflix.
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Image courtesy of Lucasfilm -
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