Stranger Things Season 5: Every Mystery & Unanswered Question That Needs To Be Revealed

With the fifth and final season of Stranger Things about to premiere, fans prepare to return to Hawkins one last time. Over four sprawling seasons, the Duffer Brothers have crafted a dense and intricate mythology, blending 1980s nostalgia with Lovecraftian horror and heartfelt character drama. Meanwhile, the series has evolved from a story about a missing boy into an epic saga spanning multiple dimensions, secret government conspiracies, and a war for the fate of humanity. With each new installment, the world has grown larger and the stakes have climbed higher, leaving behind a trail of tantalizing clues and shocking revelations.

Season 4 of Stranger Things dramatically raised the stakes by introducing Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), the architect of the entire series’ conflict. This revelation reframed everything the audience thought they knew, connecting the Mind Flayer, the Demogorgons, and the disappearance of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) back to a single source. The season ended on the most dramatic cliffhanger yet, with the Upside Down actively invading Hawkins, transforming the town into a supernatural disaster zone. As the final chapter approaches, several key mysteries and long-running plot threads remain unresolved, and the final season has the monumental task of providing satisfying answers to the questions that have haunted viewers for years.

1) What Happened to Max?

The fate of Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) is arguably the most immediate question hanging over the final season. In the finale of Season 4, Max bravely offered herself as bait for Vecna, a plan that went horribly wrong. Vecna brutally attacked her, breaking her limbs and blinding her before her heart stopped for over a minute. While Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) was able to use her powers to restart Max’s heart and save her from permanent death, the victory was anything but clean.

Two days later, Max is in a coma, her body shattered. The most terrifying part, however, is that when Eleven entered the Void to find her, she discovered only an empty expanse. This raises the horrifying possibility that while Max’s body is technically alive, her consciousness, her very self, is gone, potentially trapped within Vecna. Season 5 must reveal where Max truly is and if there is any hope of bringing her back from the brink.

2) Why Did Vecna Kidnap Will in the First Place?

For years, the inciting incident of the entire series, the disappearance of Will Byers, was believed to be a random attack by a feral Demogorgon. However, the revelation that Vecna is the master of the Upside Down has completely changed that understanding. The Duffer Brothers have confirmed that Will was specifically chosen and that this choice will be a central focus of the final season. 

After his return from the Upside Down, Will has maintained a psychic connection to the dimension and its ruler, a link that has caused him immense suffering. In the final moments of Season 4, he once again feels the familiar chilling presence, confirming that his connection to Vecna is still active. The biggest mystery is why him? Did Vecna sense a latent psychic potential in Will that made him a suitable target or perhaps a vessel? Answering this question is fundamental to the show’s entire mythology.

3) What Exactly Is the Upside Down?

The true nature of the Upside Down remains the show’s biggest enigma. Initially referred to by the kids as the “Vale of Shadows” from their Dungeons & Dragons game, the Upside Down is a dark parallel dimension. The air is filled with toxic spores, and the entire landscape is covered in sentient vines that are all part of a hive mind controlled by Vecna. Season 4 provided crucial context, revealing that the dimension Eleven banished Henry Creel to was not the Hawkins copy, but an untamed realm filled with strange creatures and red lightning storms. It was in this “Dimension X” that Vecna discovered a mass of living particles and used his powers to shape them into the spider-like entity known as the Mind Flayer, establishing it as his second-in-command. 

The final piece of the puzzle is how this primordial world was reshaped. The Upside Down, as we know it, is famously frozen in time on November 6, 1983, the exact date Will vanished and Eleven opened the first major gate. The final season must provide a definitive explanation for how and why this dimension transformed into a dark reflection of Hawkins on that specific day.

4) What’s the Connection Between Clocks and the Upside Down?

One of the most memorable motifs of Season 4 of Stranger Things was the recurring image of a grandfather clock, specifically the one from the Creel family home. The clock served as Vecna’s calling card, appearing in haunting visions to his victims just before he would strike, counting down the final hours of their lives. 

On one level, this symbolism is tied to Henry Creel’s (Jamie Campbell Bower) personal nihilistic philosophy and his hatred for the rigid, “made-up rules” of time that govern human life. However, given that the Upside Down itself is a world frozen at a specific moment, the connection may be more than just symbolic. Understanding the full significance of this temporal imagery could be a key to unraveling Vecna’s ultimate plan.

5) What Happened to Kali, aka 008?

In the highly debated Season 2 episode “The Lost Sister,” Eleven tracked down another survivor of the Hawkins Lab experiments, Kali Prasad (Linnea Berthelsen), also known as 008. Possessing the power to create incredibly realistic illusions, Kali was leading a gang of outcasts on a mission of revenge against the people who wronged them at the lab. After a brief but intense time together, Eleven chose to return to her friends, and Kali has not been seen or mentioned since. 

Kali’s complete absence has left a significant Stranger Things storyline unresolved. With the world on the line in the final battle against Vecna, the return of another powered individual would be a massive asset. Her unique abilities could provide a crucial advantage in a fight against a villain who preys on the mind.

6) Who Is Eleven’s Biological Father?

While Eleven’s journey has been defined by her search for family, the identity of her biological father has remained a lingering question. We know that her mother is Terry Ives (Aimee Mullins), a participant in the MKUltra experiments, and that Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) abducted Eleven at birth, raising her as “Papa.” An official prequel novel, Suspicious Minds, identified her father as Andrew Rich, a young man who was drafted into the Vietnam War and killed before Eleven was born, a tragic fate orchestrated by Dr. Brenner. 

However, the canonicity of the Stranger Things novels to the show has always been ambiguous, and this information has never been confirmed on screen. With the series finale needing to provide closure for its main character, a definitive on-screen answer about Andrew Rich, or a different shocking reveal, seems necessary to complete the full picture of Eleven’s origins.

The first volume of Stranger Things 5 is set to arrive on November 26, followed by the second on Christmas Day, and the series finale will premiere on New Year’s Eve.

Which Stranger Things mystery are you most desperate to see solved in the final season? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

7 TV Show Twists That Everyone Saw Coming