Why Stranger Things Brought Back That Divisive Character Explained by the Duffers

Stranger Things Season 5 is the last chance for the Duffer brothers to tie up all the series’ loose ends. There may be a Stranger Things spin-off animation in the works, but the main story is ending with Season 5, meaning everything needs to come together in a satisfying way. The first volume of Season 5 revealed there’ll be some unexpected twists along the way, with the surprising return of the “Lost Sister,” Kali, the illusion-caster last seen in Season 2’s most controversial episode.

Speaking to Variety, the Duffer brothers revealed why they chose to bring back Kali, played by Linnea Berthelsen. As Ross Duffer explained, this was partly because they did indeed want the story to feel complete in its own right. “We want when someone watches through the entire show, it doesn’t feel like we dropped a storyline or a thread,” he explained. “That it all connects. You see how everything fits together. And that was definitely a loose plot strand.” In addition, though, the Duffers also wanted to give Berthelsen her chance to shine. As he continued:

“But also, we really like Linnea and we felt that that episode [in Season 2] just didn’t give her a chance to do what we know she’s capable of doing. So part of it was to put her back in and give her a moment. But we didn’t want to just do it to do it. As we were breaking the season, we realized that bringing her back really helped us with the Eleven storyline and how we wanted to wrap her story up. So there was a real reason to do it beyond just to not leave this dangling plot thread.”

Matt Duffer added that the controversial Season 2 episode, “The Lost Sister,” had been written in something of a rush because the team was trying to meet the Halloween deadline. “The first script we wrote just flat out didn’t work, and then we had one week left to rewrite,” he noted. “I just don’t think we ever nailed it, obviously. I always felt bad that we didn’t figure that out for Linnea. But we felt we had something special with Linnea, so we wanted to bring her back. I think she’s awesome in the season, so I’m pretty excited about that.”

What Eleven’s “Sister” Adds to Stranger Things Season 5

Berthelsen’s Kali is certainly an unexpected addition to Stranger Things Season 5’s cast and characters. In Season 2, she was positioned as something of a dark mirror image of Eleven, right down to gathering her own group of friends around her – but with a much darker, more brutal purpose. It seems Kali’s quest to avenge herself on all those who wronged her at Hawkins lab ultimately meant she was captured by the military, with her abilities weaponized against Eleven in a remarkable way.

Kali is only one of an expanding cast of empowered characters finding their way to Hawkins, with the end of Stranger Things Season 5’s first volume revealing that Will Byers, too, now has abilities. Stranger Things is gradually assembling its own group of superhumans, who can help take the fight to Vecna as this final season continues. At the same time, though, Kali has never been the most trustworthy individual. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see her turn against Eleven and the Hawkins kids.

Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 1 is streaming now on Netflix.

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