Stranger Things 4 Producer Speaks Out on Those Massive Vecna Reveals

The fourth season of Stranger Things is breaking records for Netflix, as fans around the world are tuning in to see the penultimate chapter of the story. While there are still two additional episodes on the way in July, as well as a fifth season in the future, the mysterious sci-fi series is finally making moves to pull back the curtain on the secrets of Eleven and the Upside-Down. It seemed for a while like Stranger Things 4 was just creating more questions, but a couple of big twists at the end of the seventh episode tied a lot of storylines together. WARNING: This article contains major spoilers for Stranger Things 4!

At the end of Stranger Things 4 Part I, viewers learn that Vecna is actually the original test subject from Hawkins Lab, 001. Not only that, but he’s also the son of Victor Creel, and is the one responsible for the death of the rest of the Creel family, and he was trying to get Eleven to kill her fellow test subjects through a series of terrifying lies. 

So much of what we know about the evil coming from the Upside-Down is now tied back to Vecna and Eleven. Following the debut of the new season, Stranger Things producer and director Shawn Levy spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the timing of those big reveals.

“I need to say, first and foremost, one thing I love about the Duffers, who have very different personalities than me, they’re a different generation than me, but where we’ve always understood each other is: We make stuff for audiences,” Levy said. “We are not out here telling stories just for ourselves. We’re telling them for broad populist appeal. In a world where so many shows end unsatisfyingly, I love that the Duffers got to episode seven of our penultimate season and said, ‘You know what? Answers feel good. And now it’s time. It’s time to explain so much of what’s been going on.’ So, I for one, just love that we have been able to give our audience so much narrative satisfaction with those explanations. It does reframe everything we know about the evil of Hawkins and the supernatural villains that we face, and I don’t want to give too much away regarding volume two and season five, but it certainly also serves as a springboard for what’s next.”

There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered before Stranger Things wraps up in Season 5, but the Vecna story is clearly the start of those answers finally being revealed.

What did you think of Stranger Things 4? Let us know in the comments!