Stranger Things 4 Director Shawn Levy Reveals Why Now Is the Right Time for Answers

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Stranger Things 4, now streaming on Netflix. “You start to believe all those things they say: that this town is cursed. That the devil lives here in Hawkins.” So says a resident of Hawkins, Indiana, the town tormented by Demogorgons, The Mind Flayer, and newest villain Vecna. Stranger Things 4: Volume 1 reveals Vecna to be Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower), a.k.a. “One,” the first of Dr. Brenner’s (Matthew Modine) test subjects at Hawkins Lab where Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) first opened a gate to the Upside Down. As explained in “Vecna’s Curse” by Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), “There’s another world. A world hidden beneath Hawkins.” 

That world below has remained mostly a mystery, but answers have come in Volume 1 of Stranger Things Season 4, the penultimate season of the Netflix series. 

A flashback to 1979 reveals Hawkins Lab orderly One (a.k.a. 001) used his powers of telekinesis to massacre “Papa” Brenner’s super-powered test subjects, leaving only Eleven alive. “We could reshape the world, remake it however we see fit,” One told the eight-year-old Eleven. But she resisted and rejected One’s offer, banishing him into the Upside Down to become Vecna — the evil haunting Hawkins’ traumatized teens in Season 4. 

“We make stuff for audiences. We are not out here telling stories just for ourselves. We’re telling them for broad populist appeal,” series director and executive producer Shawn Levy told The Hollywood Reporter of the revelatory Volume 1 finale, “Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab.” “In a world where so many shows end unsatisfyingly, I love that [series creators] 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.’”

More about the origins of Henry/One/Vecna — and thus the Upside Down — will be revealed in Stranger Things 4: Volume 2, consisting of two feature-length episodes arriving on Netflix July 1. Until then, the Volume 1 finale offered answers dating back to the show’s first season in 2016. 

“So, I for one, just love that we have been able to give our audience so much narrative satisfaction with those explanations,” Levy said. “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 2 and season five, but it certainly also serves as a springboard for what’s next.”

Stranger Things 4 stars Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven/Jane), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Brett Gelman (Murray), Matthew Modine (Dr. Brenner), Robert Englund (Victor Creel), and Jamie Campbell Bower (Vecna). 

Stranger Things 4: Volume 1 is now streaming on Netflix. Stranger Things 4: Volume 2 premieres July 1.