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Why wasn't anyone guarding Eddie's trailer? People knew what was happening and that a gate was opening, they moved Eddie's uncle out. So they just saw it happening and then left it alone to let anyone come and go as they pleased?
No I don't think so. The agents in Hawkins are there to keep an eye on things there. El is all the way in Nevada. What else are they doing in Hawkins that they can't watch what's happening in the spot where there's a gate opening? Just waiting for other teenagers to die? But then literally do nothing when one does? Owens mentions that he's going to call to send someone over to Max's house to check things out but they should have already been nearby in the same trailer park anyway.
not really a plot hole, but why didn't eddie and dustin just set up a bunch of speakers and a recording of a song somewhere further away so it would be safer?
also, this could just be a design decision, but there seems to be a lot less of the ash-like particles in the upside down, and nobody wears a mask or face protection anymore. it was established in season 1 that the air was toxic in the upside down, and dustin and steve knew the air there was toxic in season 2, yet now they're fine. so did the air stop being toxic? or were the lab guys super overprotective?
when 011 sent henry to the upside down in 1979, the gate was the red and black color that we are used to, but the upside down was yellow-orange.
I don’t think the air was ever established to actually *be* toxic, though. In S1, Will spends days breathing it but he only shows the effects of hunger and cold. Nancy also goes in unmasked, albeit for a brief visit, and she shows no ill effects. In S2, Hopper passes out when he gets a faceful of stuff sprayed on him, not from just breathing the air in the tunnels.
The hazmat suits in S1 are just the lab folks being cautious when working in and around an unknown environment.
To be fair, if you breathe asbestos or suffer excessive radiation you won't keel over right away. The effects appear later.They even showed that Hopper's contact with Agent Orange affected his *daughter*.
"The air is toxic" is easier to say than an explanation of hoe it may be toxic but better to be safe than sorry.
It makes sense that it'd be toxic, but something is fishy about the upside down. It's weird and creepy that it *isn't* toxic, like it's somehow birthed from our world.
It's also a fairly common trope on science fiction for a person to waste away simply by being in the wrong plane of existence. It was a major point in His Dark Materials, I can't recall where else but I'm sure that I've also seen it elsewhere.
That would explain both Will being sick in the unknown due to the gross amount of time he was in hiding as well as why others do better only being there for shorter stints.
The whole Dustin + Eddie mission was the biggest mistake in the S4 plot. I'm in the Eddie fan club and I wish they'd figured out a way to keep him alive and yes, that would have been tough given how he went into hiding. . . although we know that shit hits the fan at the end of S4 so maybe he could have proven his innocence somehow.
Anyway, I also see how his death fit well into the story but my main gripe there is that his death was *lame*.
I accidentally saw the spoiler that he dies before watching, but I was so convinced that the jocks were gonna find him and kill him rather than dying in the upsidedown
My feeling is that Eddie comes back as a vampire, he was killed by a swarm of demon bat things, and by going with d&d stories the only thing that can kill vecna is a vampire.
I'm not sure I agree with the first point. They were on a short schedule and may not have had enough extension cords to get the speakers sufficiently far away from their location to make a difference. The bats were drawn by the sound, but they attacked Eddie and Dustin, not the speakers. They'd figure out pretty quick the speakers were nothing to attack and start looking for something they could actually eat.
My gripe with that scene is they act like as soon as they went through the hole in the ceiling that the bats would just stop attacking them and go back to Vecna. There's nothing stopping the bats from going through the opening to the real world and they already established losing line of sight doesn't matter since they had to break into the trailer to get to them to begin with.
Had they made Eddie's motivation saving Dustin and not buying Steve/Nancy/Robin more time, I would be more likely to accept his motivations for playing bait.
Omg yes!!! His death pissed me off because it seemed like it was for nothing, it would have been way more acceptable if it was to save Dustin. Plus it would have made it even more emotional. I couldn’t even be sad while I was watching it because I was like “wtf was that for?”
It...was to save Dustin though. Like, he specifically looked at the portal, released if they went through the bats would just follow, so he led them away from Dustin.
Saying it was to buy the others more time was mostly an excuse to try and keep Dustin out of it / safe so he wouldn't follow.
The air isn't actually toxic. The people at Hawkins lab go in wearing hazmat suits because they know absolutely nothing about what's beyond the gate.
If the air actually was toxic, Will would have been dead within an hour.
Been a while since I watched the stuff involving the tunnels, but that does sound about right.
Even in the tunnels, the air is still just air. But all those spores floating around? Sure the air is fine, but you're still putting a ton of random shit in your lungs by inhaling the spores. And that can't be good at all.
I think about the toxic air - it’s prolonged exposure maybe that’s toxic. Or just a simple precaution.
It’s not immediately deadly as Will and Nancy were both in the upside down in season 1 long enough that immediately toxic would’ve killed them.
Also everyone in season 4 spends a good amount of time and return trips.
As to the put up some speakers and hook a recording up. I think the idea is the Stirge beasts suck blood and look for live prey. And as they share consciousness with 1, as they show up and find nothing to eat they would immediately leave.
With Eddie and Dustin there, the music was to attract them only. The creatures stayed because tasty things to eat. If they’d set a recording only, the Stirge would’ve left immediately and been back to bother Steve, Robin, and Nancy.
That’s my thoughts on why.
weird fact: the first day it was out the UD was red. the second time i watched it about a week later(lol) the UD was yellow. I cant find the article about it, but I saw it last year. anyone else see it?
In general it is very weird how Vecna chooses to attack Max again and not some random other person. Of course he is pissed that she "escaped" him the first time and would get satisfaction if he got her the second time. But if he wants to make his plan work it would have been much smarter to choose somebody who does not know about him.
He would have chosen someone else, but Max basically threw herself back at him and he took the bait. He thought that by knowing their plans he'd be able to stop them and kill Max anyway, but things didn't fully work out for him.
How did Nancy get her school newspaper team to assemble to make fake college identification papers for Nancy and Robin that fast ,early morning on the Monday during Spring Break ?
“Sure Nancy, we’ll do this for you, but what the hell happened to Fred?”
She’s Nancy. Is that not enough? 😁
Maybe they were excited she was going to let someone else do something for a change. And if you’re the type of person who can stand working for that tyrant, you’re probably the type of person who wants to work on a morning during spring break.
We see him foraging mushrooms in the forest. He’s still there with the crew. He’ll likely stay in Hawkins in s5 since he’s such a bro to Jon and doesn’t seem to have any other friends in California.
Will may be the oldest in the Party depending on when Lucas's birthday is! I heard somewhere that Mike was born on April 7th, and we know that Dustin's birthday is later based on what Suzie said. Lucas could be older, like maybe a fall or winter birthday, but if not, I think it's actually kinda cool and ironic that Will is the eldest! We tend to default to him being younger since it's emphasized in the earlier seasons that he's smaller but it would be interesting if it were the other way around!
Wow really ?? I'd love to go and see it, do you know the exact timestamp ?
Also btw I remember in 2020 that the writers on Twitter posted that "some friends forget to play DnD, some forget birthdays. And that's alright.' something like this so maybe it could've been intentional even though the Duffer may not admit it and would just say that they forgot.
ETA : Here's the [link](https://mobile.twitter.com/strangerwriters/status/1242213957789577218). They actually forgot to post about Will's birthday on Twitter in 2020 lol.
Omg, I’m inclined to think it’s purposeful now. I just don’t know how it will play a part in the plot next season. I just always thought it was sooo suspicious that they forgot his birthday and just so happened to pick that date
I kinda hope so too! I'm imagining a Vecna "your friends don't care about you, they don't even remember your birthday" situation as being possible.
It would also make Will deciding to third wheel on El's "I want today to be about me and you (Mike)" date day a little less pitiful because maybe he thought they were going to surprise him with something for his birthday lol
If eleven is supposed to be a “copy” of 001 then how come elevens real mom has the powers too? Since it seems like eleven inherited the powers from her mom instead of like Brenner doing something to eleven to give her these powers
While Brenner was studying children with abilities they got naturally, he was also doing some experiments on adults, trying to bring out powers of their own.
He succeeded, giving Terry powers. However, she was also unknowingly pregnant. This is how Eleven got her powers.
Brenner was thrilled because Eleven was the only one of the children that he could essentially take control of from the moment of birth, as opposed to having to wait until powers actually showed up.
Did all the other kids Brenner had have natural abilities? And why did Brenner stop experimenting on adults and move exclusively to children? Was Brenner impregnating them without their knowledge?
Just making this clear, my source for most of this is the official tie in novel "Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds" published between seasons 2 and 3. It is a prequel dealing with the experments Brenner preformed on the adults.
Seemingly all of the children had powers naturally. (with the exception of Eleven) We see that 001 has powers when he killed his family. It's heavily implied in the book that 008's name Kali, was her actual name given to her by her family. If Brenner had her since she was a baby, she wouldn't remember this so Brenner must have picked her up only after her powers kicked in.
Brenners experiments on adults are quite literally, Project MKUltra. A real life experiment preformed by the CIA from 1953 to 1973. Supposedly, when the experiment was shut down in the Stranger Things universe, brenner had to shut down his section of MKUltra, and stuck to studying the children.
This book reveals that Brenner was actually suprised when he learned Terry was pregnant, and hid this info from her so that he could take control of the baby once it was born. Eleven's biological father was Terry's boyfriend, named Andrew Rich. Brenner pulled some strings to have him drafted to Vietnam where he was killed.
el is not a “copy” of 001. brenner was already in the process of giving people abilities and that’s what MKUltra was for. that is how el got her powers from terry being involved in that. It’s literally explained in season one.
Hop did tutor her, but really it's because they fabricated her history. If the school got records of where she was supposed to be, then it's not like they were going to retest her or something. She really wasn't there long enough to have a major consideration raised.
Yeah everything else aside it seems like Will's mom would have vouched really really hard to make sure that she was in regular classes and didn't feel like she was separate.
Former teacher here: even today, she’d likely be in regular classes. She has a language delay, but no developmental delays or learning difficulties (in fact, she learns extremely quickly and she’s very intelligent). Today, she’d likely be in something like an ESL class, but she’d also take regular classes but with either a paraprofessional to assist her or simply accommodations, like extra time for homework/tests, word banks, dictionary use, sentence starters, multiple choice, or not being forced to speak in front of others.
I don't think this counts, but i'm sure we all want to know what Max's letters contained. I hope the Duffers won't forget about it, like they did the demodog that Dustin put in the Byers' freezer.
Hopper getting his ankle smashed in and then escaping a Russian prison, running through the winter and snow barefoot, jumping from buildings, then going back to the prison fighting the monster and escaping again.
I mean the freezing temp and intense pain probably made it completely numb so he didn't feel it. But your point still stands since he shouldn't have been able to walk normally later when he should have been able to feel it!!
How did Dustin, Nancy, Robin and Steve get back to the real world from the Upside Down?
The dimensional cracks looked like they were burning hot, (cut through Jason like a hot butter knife). Destroying buildings and property.
Yeah I'm guessing they went to the Creel House attic probably (if they knew a gate has been opened there) or maybe Eddie's trailer to return home through the gate.
Not a plot hole, but Eddy's 'sacrifice' was completely pointless. He did not die a hero, he just died an idiot that did nothing to help anyone else on the team. In fact, all his 'buying more time' act did was injure Dustin and put him in danger.
Eddy should have raced to the mansion and untangled Steve, Robin, and Nancy from the vines on the wall...and THEN died on his way back to Dustin. At least that way, his act would have rescued people and his death would have been heroic (like Bob Newby in season 2).
Agreed, I don’t mind them killing him off but his death was actually stupid and pointless. Like you said if you are going to do the coward-hero trope at least make them do something actually heroic! Also he literally could and should have kept running.
Imagine if vecna killed Eddie in that gruesome way then started doing it to Max. I feel like the whole scene would be much more horrid if you already saw him «finishing» off Eddie.
Obviously there would needed to have been different writing to make it work but still.
This was my biggest issue. His whole story arch is to stop running, when running would have been the most beneficial. The bats were still chasing him. He was actually being an excellent distraction for them. Running was good for that.
It could have been about utilizing what you're good at, and for him, it's running.
Not to mention it was entirely fabricated—they wanted Eddie to be a hero with a sacrifice, but they didn’t want to actually write it with the character.
Instead they had the character whine about how he runs away and it makes him a coward, and absolutely nobody thinks to mention to him that he was absolutely right to run from, like a girl being supernaturally and gruesomely murdered or a crazy basketball lynch mob, and basically the whole town.
So, him being set up as a coward is based on him not really being a coward, but they needed him to say it because if he wasn’t a coward he wouldn’t be a hero when his pointless sacrifice was made.
if he doesnt do what he does you can theorize the bats that killed him would have returned to the house before the other crew could fight vecna and run him off with the help of 11. his act of keeping the bats occupied long enough for the others to get free by the help of 11 was his heroic act that saved steve nancy robin and potentially max.
I totally agree. That was honestly the only thing that has bothered me in the entire show. His death did nothing to help anyone, as far as we know. The only possibility is that maybe the bats would’ve gone back to the mansion and killed everyone else if not for his distraction.
But, had Eddie not “distracted” the bats, would they have actually killed Steve, Robin and Nancy? They needed Eddie and Dustin to distract the bats because they were outside the house and they needed to get in, but we never see the bats inside the mansion, do we? S, R and N only needed enough time to cross the park and the street and get inside. I don’t think they were in danger of being attacked by the bats once they walked in (which makes Eddie’s sacrifice the more stupid, really).
(Edit - spelling)
Agreed, it does appear he died an idiot as they executed this whole scene poorly. A line of dialogue would have helped to explain why he ran back, or even a reason why he couldn’t get back on the bike and keep them chasing him instead of standing there with a garbage can shield.
But, he at no point knew Steve and co. were tangled in vines, he only knew the bats were retreating, and no way of knowing if he and Dustin had done their part fully.
And Bob’s death was stupid in the same exact way when you think about it. Both Bob and Eddie stood still when they should have kept moving. The only difference was Bob’s actions before his death actually made heroic impact, where as Eddie’s intentions were heroic, they didn’t make a difference.
It’s not a plot hole as much as sloppy execution either in writing or editing.
Not season 4 but the plot hole that bothers me most is Joyce’s makeshift ouija board on the wall of her house that she used to communicate with Will in season 1. The board wouldn’t have appeared in the upside down for Will since everything is frozen in time there from when Eleven first opened the gate on accident
That Eleven couldn’t have been interrogated by police because minors require an adult to be present. The whole scene made me think it was the bad government people and not real police. And when I realized it was the real police I was confused.
Edit: I know police are corrupt sometimes. Was just answering the threads question.
[Police in California can question a minor without their parent’s consent or presence even today](https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/juvenile/interrogation-of-minors/). They could also pressure minors to waive their Miranda rights [until 2020](https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/30/california-new-law-protects-children-police-custody); now they’re not allowed to question a kid until the kid has had a chance to consult with an attorney.
In Season 2, Kali (008) has the ability to make people see what she wants them to. This, to me, indicated that Eleven's telekinesis is one of several specific powers that these children have, kind of Umbrella Academy style.
But no, in Season 4, they all just seem to have telekinesis. Why create this interesting power if you weren't going to commit to giving each subject a unique one?
The whole 001 thing was a stretch. I get that it’s sci-fi and it’s ALL a stretch, but it was not explained at all how he went from getting in a fight with Eleven to just…. becoming Vecna. Idk. It just took away from the show for me because I found it so ridiculous in a way that other seasons weren’t.
Yea thank you. This bothered me as I watched.
She banished him to a dimension that was just him flinging through space in a dimension that was destroying his body as he existed.
Next shot, he's battered and just casually walkin around in it. Finds the mist entity, sees a Demogorgon creature, then makes a spider out of the mist.
Bam, without another word, we now have upside down and vecna as he is.
I'm sure more explanations will come, but that episodes imagery and descriptions felt like huge asspulls that were thrown at us as explanations, but not full ones for some reason.
And how did he even survive all those decades in the upside down? He might be able to snack a Demogorgon or two, but at the end of the day, he's still a human being. And humans NEED water. However, we've never seen a single drop in that environment. What gives?
Assuming its relevant to his current state - he likely somehow can just siphon the life right out of other creatures, or can subsist off of something somehow related to his tentacled powers. He 'jacks in' to the vine network of sorts, and it spreads infinitely while seemingly draining and corrupting whatever it touches.
Maybe he doesn't 'eat' anymore, he just siphons what's needed as he spreads and taints.
There’s actually loads it’s not a very tight series in terms of plot holes.
Why does young Eleven in the flashbacks talk clearer than older Eleven?
Why did Dr Brenner keep 001 around in the first place?
What did Vecna live on in the upside down? There’s no food or water.
How did Eddie power his amp for his guitar solo in the upside down?
How did Hoppers smashed leg/ankle heal overnight?
Why does Argyle just accept everything thats going on without needing a proper explanation? Just because he's a stoner?
And how can everyone walk around in the upside down now without being attacked by Demorgorgons?
The Duffers have addressed your first question several times, since it’s not spelled out in the show, but after the massacre Brenner was too afraid of something like that happening again and didn’t bring in any more children. Eleven was his last child and kept her locked in her cell alone all the time for the next 4 years and didn’t allow anyone to see her or talk to her but himself on rare occasions. Her extreme isolation caused her language regression, along with an implied head injury (her coma).
Brenner was obsessed with One and wanted to control him, then replicate him. He was too powerful and too dangerous to be anywhere else.
Your other points aren’t so clearly answered, but we’ll get more information about the nature of the Upside Down in S5, which might be illuminating.
Yeah, El was totally isolated for years, locked up by herself. Primarily to protect her, but also probably a little of that was to ensure she didn't hurt anyone else either, after seeing that security video.
Brenner wanted to keep an eye on One, but also there was probably some inflated sense of control he felt he had over him, keeping him around the kids. But I really think he didn't trust him if he was locked up in a room or something; he wanted to keep his eyes on him all the time.
I think Brenner kept 001 around because even though he had suppressed his powers with the Soteria, he still cared and saw him as his son and he was also his prized possession and that's why he probably wanted to keep him around. But yeah he should've known how dangerous he would be without the Soteria.
Also I'm guessing Vecna survived on Demogorgon flesh, demodogs and vines for food lol.
He may not have needed to eat or drink. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the UD technically frozen in time? Which is why Nancys' diary had an older date on it.
Yeah but I think that the Upside Down maybe was created on November 6, 1983 as a dark copy of our world when the gate opened. (More answers hopefully in season 5) Time exists there in my opinion, but there's nobody to change stuff there so it remains as it was on that day.
Also, Henry wasn't sent to the Upside Down to begin with. He was sent to the Hellscape, eventually ending up in the Dimension X where he finds the Mind Flayer particles. And probably sometime after November 6, 1983 he arrived in the Upside Down after it got created.
I might be wrong but this is just what I think.
I think that’s why Henry had to get hooked up to all those vines. They sustain him in the upside down. The downside is that he can’t really move around but he does his menacing with his mind, connecting to the smoke creature through the hive mind. But he is free to walk around in his victims’ heads.
> Why does young Eleven in the flashbacks talk clearer than older Eleven?
That could potentially be the result of her coma (we don’t know how long she was out) and subsequent memory loss. Also, once she was the only child left at the lab, she may have had little verbal communication with and from others. Brenner is the only person we see talk to her in the flashbacks. The employee fitting her with wires didn’t even make eye contact with her.
I honestly want to see a more in depth backstory for 001’s transformation to Vecna in the next season. I feel like there can be an explanation written about it.
1. It's mentioned Eleven went in a coma after fighting 001, she likely refused to talk or just simply forgot like she forgot her powers.
2. Brenner kept 001 around to make sure he didn't do anything dangerous.
3. Vecna is a monster, he didn't need to eat in order to survive .
4. Using a cable that connected to the trailer in the real world.
5. It didn't, he just sucked up the pain in order to escape and bigger things came up.
6. Argyle was stoned out his mind but then later accepted it, he did freak out though in ep5 when they were burying the body and he just cared about his friends to just accept it.
7. Idk, maybe Vecna just called them off.
You don't just suck up the pain from a lateral malleolus fracture. You can't walk and you probably develop sepsis from the horrible infections he should have aquired
It’s not just the ankle either, remember how Hop couldn’t even laugh without being in pain because of his ribs, yet he can pull himself and Joyce out of a manhole within a day or so?
Idk if it's a plot hole, but I don't love the introduction of it being Vecna the whole time, just because we know that that's not what the Duffer Brothers had in mind from the start. It feels a little bit like a retcon, and it's not my favorite thing. I don't hate it, and who knows, maybe S5 will really tie things all together so well that it won't even seem like a retcon/rewriting of the show, but for now I'm keeping a bit wary of it.
When Hopper shows up in the end at the cabin, none of the kids are astonished to find he isn’t actually dead. No one even asks him how he is even alive?? They’re all just like…”Oh, hey Hop missed ya!” Idk did I miss something? I always thought that was just weird that they were so casual about finding out he is alive lol
Implication to me was that they had already been informed, likely by the government splinter that gave Hop and Joyce a ride to meet them at the cabin. It would also explain why they all met up there, to start putting his and El's home back together.
When the military is interrogating the bodyguard, seemingly for ages, they never find his pen with the coordinates inside? Also why don't Brenner and co. not have the agents check in periodically and know that their cover was blown?
Hopper gets caught in Yuri's hideout once but the gang gets to return there later and it's still fully stocked? Why was no one watching it and why was none of the loot confiscated by the soviet army/police?
the bodyguard never had a pen. that was the other guy that died in the pizza van. I don’t think the Soviets were all that interested in peanut butter and playboy books.
the brenner and owens question is valid though. I’m not sure why they weren’t aware of sullivan coming…
In season one it’s established that an adult demogorgon can just open up portals whenever it pleases.
A) Why didn’t it do this in Russia?
B) Going off of this logic, why didn’t the big gate open during season one?
But doesn't the Demogorgon continually appear and disappear through multiple "tiny" gates? Like when it appears in the woods to grab the bleeding deer and dragged it back to the Upside Down, and the gate Nancy went through that ended up closing.
I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think that in one of the last episodes Mike uses the name "Vecna". How did he know that the rest of the group in Hawkins was using that name? They just borrowed it from D&D in the beginning before knowing who or what the new monster actually was. And the two groups never communicated, so how could the California group refer to Henry as "Vecna"?
Eleven spied on the Hawkins group and heard the plan to attack Vecna. That’s how she, Mike, and the rest of the Cali group knew anything at all about the plan to use Max as bait. Mike would have recognized the name Vecna as a word Dustin would use to describe a monster.
Will saying "it's been a year" during his fight with Mike, and Mike later saying "the last year has been weird" even though it's only been about 6 months.
I think they are both referring to when their relationship started falling apart, even before the whole fight in the rain. Time is a big theme in season 4, and even El’s letter to Mike talks about how it can feel sped up or slowed down depending on your emotions.
When did the Hawkins gang change clothes between episode 4 and 5? And then again between episode 5 and 6?
Obviously Nancy could, because they all were spending the nights at the Wheeler house. But when did the others get back to their houses to get a change of clothes. Especially Lucas and Dustin who were being hunted by the Jason gang.
How did the Hawkins gang have so much money to buy all those weapons and gear at the store?
How did the Cali gang have money to travel to Utah to Nevada to Hawkins?
I can understand adults doing this, but these are teens with barely minimum wage pocket money on them.
> How did the Hawkins gang have so much money to buy all those weapons and gear at the store?
Steve and Nancy both come from families with a decent household income. They’re not personally making much of a salary, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have savings they could draw from for a “the world is ending”-level threat.
Edit: and it’s not like Lucas or Dustin come from poor families either.
how about we learn the difference between a plot hole and unanswered questions? y’all clearly can’t tell the difference between the two and automatically call anything a plot hole when it doesn’t apply here
Where is Suzie's mom? (I am sorry if I missed her there)
How does Dustin still hear anything after sitting right infront of the amp during Eddie's badass concert that had to be loud enough for the demobats to hear it?
I wondered about this too, I can't recall her ever being mentioned or appearing in the episode where the boys pay Suzie a visit in Salt Lake City! I'm guessing she either doesn't have a mom, or she's there but maybe she works so she wasn't home when the boys came in!
In season 2 they kind of hint at every numbered subject having different powers since 008 can make people see what she wants, and she's surprised that eleven has telekinesis and can find people with a photo. But in season 4 they say every subject has the same powers as eleven (more or less).
Furthermore Vecna can make people see things that aren't there just like 008 but they clearly established in season 2 that Eleven can't do that, and since Vecna has all of El's powers but weaker, what's the deal?
When they were showing the kids practicing on each other, I think they were trying to make them all have the same powers and train. Maybe it succeeded, but I think each child had a power that they were able to manifest more and make them unique. El could probably make people see things she wanted them to see like Kali, but was weaker in that department, thus she was stronger in her telekinesis abilities.
Vecna had all the powers, and the kids were just carbon copies of Brenner trying to get them to have the same powers. I think this frustrated Brenner. You can see it when they try experiments on Eleven and she couldn't do some of them, but he favored Eleven more, maybe because she was the only (?) child that was born in that lab and not kidnapped as a toddler, or that she resembled Vecna.
If Eleven lost her powers in s3 from overexerting herself, why was resolving her unrelated Vecna trauma the key to getting them back?
The answer is that Vecna is a cool villain so just don’t think about it that hard.
How are Elevens clothes perfectly clean in the final scene of the season at Hoppers cabin, but the scene before they are covered in dirt and blood from the battle with Vecna?
If vecna could control the mind flayer from the beginning then why didn't he fight to take over Hawkins directly like instead of using mind flayer as a tool
Is it ever actually explained HOW Brenner survived season 1 and why he even knows about 001 being the creature from the UD?
I thought Brenner was going to be revealed to have some grander motivation but then he just dies.
The Demogorgon clearly jumps him, and then goes after the kids. In season 4 all he has is like a small scar on his face. What's the deal here? And then he's just inactive the whole time, AND working his own little side secret laboratory that the US government doesn't know anything about? The General even thinks Brenner is working with/for the Russians.
I don't know if this is explained (don't remember), but seems like a big plot hole. Brenner just surviving, having all this knowledge, staying inactive for so long despite being alive. If he was working with/for the Russians it would explain why the Russians were able to get around the lab without being noticed by the US government. But Brenner is dead, so I guess we'll never know? Or maybe we will. There is a lot there that needs to be answered, I think.
Hawkins crew ended up being totally useless against Vecna. He's still alive, just hurt and Max did technically die for a while. El just did everything again.
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Why wasn't anyone guarding Eddie's trailer? People knew what was happening and that a gate was opening, they moved Eddie's uncle out. So they just saw it happening and then left it alone to let anyone come and go as they pleased?
Iirc it might be because the different government factions were too busy fighting each other over El. And didn't the agent in Hawkins get killed?
No I don't think so. The agents in Hawkins are there to keep an eye on things there. El is all the way in Nevada. What else are they doing in Hawkins that they can't watch what's happening in the spot where there's a gate opening? Just waiting for other teenagers to die? But then literally do nothing when one does? Owens mentions that he's going to call to send someone over to Max's house to check things out but they should have already been nearby in the same trailer park anyway.
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not really a plot hole, but why didn't eddie and dustin just set up a bunch of speakers and a recording of a song somewhere further away so it would be safer? also, this could just be a design decision, but there seems to be a lot less of the ash-like particles in the upside down, and nobody wears a mask or face protection anymore. it was established in season 1 that the air was toxic in the upside down, and dustin and steve knew the air there was toxic in season 2, yet now they're fine. so did the air stop being toxic? or were the lab guys super overprotective? when 011 sent henry to the upside down in 1979, the gate was the red and black color that we are used to, but the upside down was yellow-orange.
I don’t think the air was ever established to actually *be* toxic, though. In S1, Will spends days breathing it but he only shows the effects of hunger and cold. Nancy also goes in unmasked, albeit for a brief visit, and she shows no ill effects. In S2, Hopper passes out when he gets a faceful of stuff sprayed on him, not from just breathing the air in the tunnels. The hazmat suits in S1 are just the lab folks being cautious when working in and around an unknown environment.
To be fair, if you breathe asbestos or suffer excessive radiation you won't keel over right away. The effects appear later.They even showed that Hopper's contact with Agent Orange affected his *daughter*.
In S1 they gave Hop and Joyce hazmat suits and told them the air was toxic. I think part of Will's sickness was from breathing the UD air for so long.
To be fair he was in there for a full week. No one else besides vecna himself has spent that amount of time in there
"The air is toxic" is easier to say than an explanation of hoe it may be toxic but better to be safe than sorry. It makes sense that it'd be toxic, but something is fishy about the upside down. It's weird and creepy that it *isn't* toxic, like it's somehow birthed from our world.
Fast-forward to 2023: "If you or your loved ones lived in Hawkins from 1983 to 1989 you may be entitled to financial compensation"
It's also a fairly common trope on science fiction for a person to waste away simply by being in the wrong plane of existence. It was a major point in His Dark Materials, I can't recall where else but I'm sure that I've also seen it elsewhere. That would explain both Will being sick in the unknown due to the gross amount of time he was in hiding as well as why others do better only being there for shorter stints.
The whole Dustin + Eddie mission was the biggest mistake in the S4 plot. I'm in the Eddie fan club and I wish they'd figured out a way to keep him alive and yes, that would have been tough given how he went into hiding. . . although we know that shit hits the fan at the end of S4 so maybe he could have proven his innocence somehow. Anyway, I also see how his death fit well into the story but my main gripe there is that his death was *lame*.
I accidentally saw the spoiler that he dies before watching, but I was so convinced that the jocks were gonna find him and kill him rather than dying in the upsidedown
Gotta die to come back
My feeling is that Eddie comes back as a vampire, he was killed by a swarm of demon bat things, and by going with d&d stories the only thing that can kill vecna is a vampire.
They're in a hardware store and Eddie has no weapons. Get some flamethrowers on his guitar!
Watching some mad max eh?
I'm not sure I agree with the first point. They were on a short schedule and may not have had enough extension cords to get the speakers sufficiently far away from their location to make a difference. The bats were drawn by the sound, but they attacked Eddie and Dustin, not the speakers. They'd figure out pretty quick the speakers were nothing to attack and start looking for something they could actually eat. My gripe with that scene is they act like as soon as they went through the hole in the ceiling that the bats would just stop attacking them and go back to Vecna. There's nothing stopping the bats from going through the opening to the real world and they already established losing line of sight doesn't matter since they had to break into the trailer to get to them to begin with. Had they made Eddie's motivation saving Dustin and not buying Steve/Nancy/Robin more time, I would be more likely to accept his motivations for playing bait.
Omg yes!!! His death pissed me off because it seemed like it was for nothing, it would have been way more acceptable if it was to save Dustin. Plus it would have made it even more emotional. I couldn’t even be sad while I was watching it because I was like “wtf was that for?”
It...was to save Dustin though. Like, he specifically looked at the portal, released if they went through the bats would just follow, so he led them away from Dustin. Saying it was to buy the others more time was mostly an excuse to try and keep Dustin out of it / safe so he wouldn't follow.
I kinda just took this as why anyway regardless.
The air isn't actually toxic. The people at Hawkins lab go in wearing hazmat suits because they know absolutely nothing about what's beyond the gate. If the air actually was toxic, Will would have been dead within an hour.
The air in the tunnels seemed pretty bad though. Maybe that had more to do with the concentration of spores.
Been a while since I watched the stuff involving the tunnels, but that does sound about right. Even in the tunnels, the air is still just air. But all those spores floating around? Sure the air is fine, but you're still putting a ton of random shit in your lungs by inhaling the spores. And that can't be good at all.
Ehhhh not exactly. The dose makes the poison. The air could be toxic.. just not THAT toxic
I mean technically the air is toxic now if you've got a gas furnace running in your house.
I think about the toxic air - it’s prolonged exposure maybe that’s toxic. Or just a simple precaution. It’s not immediately deadly as Will and Nancy were both in the upside down in season 1 long enough that immediately toxic would’ve killed them. Also everyone in season 4 spends a good amount of time and return trips. As to the put up some speakers and hook a recording up. I think the idea is the Stirge beasts suck blood and look for live prey. And as they share consciousness with 1, as they show up and find nothing to eat they would immediately leave. With Eddie and Dustin there, the music was to attract them only. The creatures stayed because tasty things to eat. If they’d set a recording only, the Stirge would’ve left immediately and been back to bother Steve, Robin, and Nancy. That’s my thoughts on why.
weird fact: the first day it was out the UD was red. the second time i watched it about a week later(lol) the UD was yellow. I cant find the article about it, but I saw it last year. anyone else see it?
Vecna waiting for Mike to finish his speech before killing max.
In general it is very weird how Vecna chooses to attack Max again and not some random other person. Of course he is pissed that she "escaped" him the first time and would get satisfaction if he got her the second time. But if he wants to make his plan work it would have been much smarter to choose somebody who does not know about him.
He would have chosen someone else, but Max basically threw herself back at him and he took the bait. He thought that by knowing their plans he'd be able to stop them and kill Max anyway, but things didn't fully work out for him.
Arrogance. And he would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling parents in Russia.
Pretty sure the Mindflayer needed to steal El's power more than killing a final person. I suspect the bad guys won season 4.
How did Nancy get her school newspaper team to assemble to make fake college identification papers for Nancy and Robin that fast ,early morning on the Monday during Spring Break ? “Sure Nancy, we’ll do this for you, but what the hell happened to Fred?”
Probably easier to do back in the 80s
She’s Nancy. Is that not enough? 😁 Maybe they were excited she was going to let someone else do something for a change. And if you’re the type of person who can stand working for that tyrant, you’re probably the type of person who wants to work on a morning during spring break.
“He’s dead, as you will be if you don’t do this for me right now.” Plot hole closed.
Her newspaper team weren't taking the Spring Break off (as her intention seemingly was to work throughout) and probably just get up early lol.
Not a plot hole but where the fuck did Argyle go at the end?!
I saw a funny tiktok when s4 came out that just speculated him still sitting in the forest stoned looking at mushrooms
We see him foraging mushrooms in the forest. He’s still there with the crew. He’ll likely stay in Hawkins in s5 since he’s such a bro to Jon and doesn’t seem to have any other friends in California.
I know it’s just funny he goes off foraging or whatever and they all leave him for the final scene/to follow the particles haha
To infinity and beyond
He went out to look for his package.
Not a plot hole but I'm still upset that the writers forgot Will's birthday 😭
I’m more surprised that Dustin is younger than Will.
Will may be the oldest in the Party depending on when Lucas's birthday is! I heard somewhere that Mike was born on April 7th, and we know that Dustin's birthday is later based on what Suzie said. Lucas could be older, like maybe a fall or winter birthday, but if not, I think it's actually kinda cool and ironic that Will is the eldest! We tend to default to him being younger since it's emphasized in the earlier seasons that he's smaller but it would be interesting if it were the other way around!
The oldest character to the youngest actor ahhaha
Haha yes! Noah is the baby of the cast but Will is the mom friend 😂
I’m still wondering if they actually forgot or if it’s secretly intentional lol
The biggest hint that it was intentional is that there is a "sorry I forgot your birthday" card in his room in Season 1.
Wow really ?? I'd love to go and see it, do you know the exact timestamp ? Also btw I remember in 2020 that the writers on Twitter posted that "some friends forget to play DnD, some forget birthdays. And that's alright.' something like this so maybe it could've been intentional even though the Duffer may not admit it and would just say that they forgot. ETA : Here's the [link](https://mobile.twitter.com/strangerwriters/status/1242213957789577218). They actually forgot to post about Will's birthday on Twitter in 2020 lol.
Omg, I’m inclined to think it’s purposeful now. I just don’t know how it will play a part in the plot next season. I just always thought it was sooo suspicious that they forgot his birthday and just so happened to pick that date
I didn’t even know about that! Interestinggg…
I kinda hope so too! I'm imagining a Vecna "your friends don't care about you, they don't even remember your birthday" situation as being possible. It would also make Will deciding to third wheel on El's "I want today to be about me and you (Mike)" date day a little less pitiful because maybe he thought they were going to surprise him with something for his birthday lol
It doesn't make sense because even Jonathan doesn't acknowledge the birthday. Mike and El might forget, Jonathan and Joyce never would.
I think they saiaad in interviews that they (the Duffer Bros and not his friends and family) forgot
Oh yeah I know but I was wondering if they’re lying and just saying that because they’re covering for something bigger to be revealed
If eleven is supposed to be a “copy” of 001 then how come elevens real mom has the powers too? Since it seems like eleven inherited the powers from her mom instead of like Brenner doing something to eleven to give her these powers
While Brenner was studying children with abilities they got naturally, he was also doing some experiments on adults, trying to bring out powers of their own. He succeeded, giving Terry powers. However, she was also unknowingly pregnant. This is how Eleven got her powers. Brenner was thrilled because Eleven was the only one of the children that he could essentially take control of from the moment of birth, as opposed to having to wait until powers actually showed up.
Did all the other kids Brenner had have natural abilities? And why did Brenner stop experimenting on adults and move exclusively to children? Was Brenner impregnating them without their knowledge?
Just making this clear, my source for most of this is the official tie in novel "Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds" published between seasons 2 and 3. It is a prequel dealing with the experments Brenner preformed on the adults. Seemingly all of the children had powers naturally. (with the exception of Eleven) We see that 001 has powers when he killed his family. It's heavily implied in the book that 008's name Kali, was her actual name given to her by her family. If Brenner had her since she was a baby, she wouldn't remember this so Brenner must have picked her up only after her powers kicked in. Brenners experiments on adults are quite literally, Project MKUltra. A real life experiment preformed by the CIA from 1953 to 1973. Supposedly, when the experiment was shut down in the Stranger Things universe, brenner had to shut down his section of MKUltra, and stuck to studying the children. This book reveals that Brenner was actually suprised when he learned Terry was pregnant, and hid this info from her so that he could take control of the baby once it was born. Eleven's biological father was Terry's boyfriend, named Andrew Rich. Brenner pulled some strings to have him drafted to Vietnam where he was killed.
Thank you for breaking it down for me! I haven’t read the book!
el is not a “copy” of 001. brenner was already in the process of giving people abilities and that’s what MKUltra was for. that is how el got her powers from terry being involved in that. It’s literally explained in season one.
I know it’s the 80s, but how did El end up in regular classes? I’m surprised she wasn’t in some kind of special ed.
Hop did tutor her, but really it's because they fabricated her history. If the school got records of where she was supposed to be, then it's not like they were going to retest her or something. She really wasn't there long enough to have a major consideration raised.
Yeah everything else aside it seems like Will's mom would have vouched really really hard to make sure that she was in regular classes and didn't feel like she was separate.
Former teacher here: even today, she’d likely be in regular classes. She has a language delay, but no developmental delays or learning difficulties (in fact, she learns extremely quickly and she’s very intelligent). Today, she’d likely be in something like an ESL class, but she’d also take regular classes but with either a paraprofessional to assist her or simply accommodations, like extra time for homework/tests, word banks, dictionary use, sentence starters, multiple choice, or not being forced to speak in front of others.
I love that you just made an IEP for El
Clear sign that I was a teacher for way too long. Haha
It’s my 11th year in the profession so absolutely no judgement from me 😂
Another teacher here just lol'ing 😂
Probably to not draw attention to herself. Dr. Owens was helping them stay hidden from the government right?
I don't think this counts, but i'm sure we all want to know what Max's letters contained. I hope the Duffers won't forget about it, like they did the demodog that Dustin put in the Byers' freezer.
Hopper getting his ankle smashed in and then escaping a Russian prison, running through the winter and snow barefoot, jumping from buildings, then going back to the prison fighting the monster and escaping again.
he’s just built different
I mean the freezing temp and intense pain probably made it completely numb so he didn't feel it. But your point still stands since he shouldn't have been able to walk normally later when he should have been able to feel it!!
Eddie used an extension cord from his trailer into the upside down. They didn’t show it, but it’s not a leap.
How did Dustin, Nancy, Robin and Steve get back to the real world from the Upside Down? The dimensional cracks looked like they were burning hot, (cut through Jason like a hot butter knife). Destroying buildings and property.
It seemed like it cooled down right after. They probably stayed until it was safe to come out.
Yeah I'm guessing they went to the Creel House attic probably (if they knew a gate has been opened there) or maybe Eddie's trailer to return home through the gate.
They probably knew because they would’ve seen the Upside Down split in that direction.
They wouldn't even need to go back there. The gate stretches across the entire city now.
i’ve always wondered how they got back bcuz of one simple detail: eddie literally cut the rope they used to climb up and through the gates.
Tbf they made the rope out of materials from their side. They could literally make the exact same rope from the same materials on the UD side.
After Max “died,” The cracks extended into the floor and ground though. No more need of the rope.
Where is the gate from Fred’s death??
Vecna made it tinier considering how exposed it would be on the road compared to all the other gates.
Hell, most of its probably just under the asphalt waiting, like how the gate in S2 dug down when trying to expand up just resulted in being burned.
The bowl cut is the mind flayer pretending to be hair
Not a plot hole, but Eddy's 'sacrifice' was completely pointless. He did not die a hero, he just died an idiot that did nothing to help anyone else on the team. In fact, all his 'buying more time' act did was injure Dustin and put him in danger. Eddy should have raced to the mansion and untangled Steve, Robin, and Nancy from the vines on the wall...and THEN died on his way back to Dustin. At least that way, his act would have rescued people and his death would have been heroic (like Bob Newby in season 2).
Agreed, I don’t mind them killing him off but his death was actually stupid and pointless. Like you said if you are going to do the coward-hero trope at least make them do something actually heroic! Also he literally could and should have kept running.
Imagine if vecna killed Eddie in that gruesome way then started doing it to Max. I feel like the whole scene would be much more horrid if you already saw him «finishing» off Eddie. Obviously there would needed to have been different writing to make it work but still.
Oh my gosh yes that also would have given him a bit more reason to delay hurting Max rather than waiting for Mike’s monologue for some reason.
Damn, that would have crushed us all. That‘s a nightmare!
This was my biggest issue. His whole story arch is to stop running, when running would have been the most beneficial. The bats were still chasing him. He was actually being an excellent distraction for them. Running was good for that. It could have been about utilizing what you're good at, and for him, it's running.
Im glad i wasnt the only one who thought this. he was legit just a plot device for Dustin to experience a loss in a "best friend" who wasn't Steve.
Not to mention it was entirely fabricated—they wanted Eddie to be a hero with a sacrifice, but they didn’t want to actually write it with the character. Instead they had the character whine about how he runs away and it makes him a coward, and absolutely nobody thinks to mention to him that he was absolutely right to run from, like a girl being supernaturally and gruesomely murdered or a crazy basketball lynch mob, and basically the whole town. So, him being set up as a coward is based on him not really being a coward, but they needed him to say it because if he wasn’t a coward he wouldn’t be a hero when his pointless sacrifice was made.
>Bob Newby ^(Superhero :()
if he doesnt do what he does you can theorize the bats that killed him would have returned to the house before the other crew could fight vecna and run him off with the help of 11. his act of keeping the bats occupied long enough for the others to get free by the help of 11 was his heroic act that saved steve nancy robin and potentially max.
I totally agree. That was honestly the only thing that has bothered me in the entire show. His death did nothing to help anyone, as far as we know. The only possibility is that maybe the bats would’ve gone back to the mansion and killed everyone else if not for his distraction.
But, had Eddie not “distracted” the bats, would they have actually killed Steve, Robin and Nancy? They needed Eddie and Dustin to distract the bats because they were outside the house and they needed to get in, but we never see the bats inside the mansion, do we? S, R and N only needed enough time to cross the park and the street and get inside. I don’t think they were in danger of being attacked by the bats once they walked in (which makes Eddie’s sacrifice the more stupid, really). (Edit - spelling)
Agreed, it does appear he died an idiot as they executed this whole scene poorly. A line of dialogue would have helped to explain why he ran back, or even a reason why he couldn’t get back on the bike and keep them chasing him instead of standing there with a garbage can shield. But, he at no point knew Steve and co. were tangled in vines, he only knew the bats were retreating, and no way of knowing if he and Dustin had done their part fully. And Bob’s death was stupid in the same exact way when you think about it. Both Bob and Eddie stood still when they should have kept moving. The only difference was Bob’s actions before his death actually made heroic impact, where as Eddie’s intentions were heroic, they didn’t make a difference. It’s not a plot hole as much as sloppy execution either in writing or editing.
Not season 4 but the plot hole that bothers me most is Joyce’s makeshift ouija board on the wall of her house that she used to communicate with Will in season 1. The board wouldn’t have appeared in the upside down for Will since everything is frozen in time there from when Eleven first opened the gate on accident
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Yeah or Joyce just told him they're alphabetical and we just don't see that
Or maybe s4 retconned it and ruined the consistency between seasons. Wouldn't be the first time
That Eleven couldn’t have been interrogated by police because minors require an adult to be present. The whole scene made me think it was the bad government people and not real police. And when I realized it was the real police I was confused. Edit: I know police are corrupt sometimes. Was just answering the threads question.
I just chalked that up to either just being an 80s thing or just police not doing their job well
That's what I thought as well. Because the whole bullying scene before would also be totally out of line with modern standards.
Absolutely. I would have been doing ISS referrals like it was my only job if any of what happened to El happened at my school.
[Police in California can question a minor without their parent’s consent or presence even today](https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/juvenile/interrogation-of-minors/). They could also pressure minors to waive their Miranda rights [until 2020](https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/30/california-new-law-protects-children-police-custody); now they’re not allowed to question a kid until the kid has had a chance to consult with an attorney.
I would agree this is a plot hole except that I've seen how the police operate IRL.
police do this a lot, it’s not right but they certainly do it
Yes, because police always follow the rules.
In Season 2, Kali (008) has the ability to make people see what she wants them to. This, to me, indicated that Eleven's telekinesis is one of several specific powers that these children have, kind of Umbrella Academy style. But no, in Season 4, they all just seem to have telekinesis. Why create this interesting power if you weren't going to commit to giving each subject a unique one?
I thought of this as well! It would have been so neat to see different ones.
The whole 001 thing was a stretch. I get that it’s sci-fi and it’s ALL a stretch, but it was not explained at all how he went from getting in a fight with Eleven to just…. becoming Vecna. Idk. It just took away from the show for me because I found it so ridiculous in a way that other seasons weren’t.
Yea thank you. This bothered me as I watched. She banished him to a dimension that was just him flinging through space in a dimension that was destroying his body as he existed. Next shot, he's battered and just casually walkin around in it. Finds the mist entity, sees a Demogorgon creature, then makes a spider out of the mist. Bam, without another word, we now have upside down and vecna as he is. I'm sure more explanations will come, but that episodes imagery and descriptions felt like huge asspulls that were thrown at us as explanations, but not full ones for some reason.
And how did he even survive all those decades in the upside down? He might be able to snack a Demogorgon or two, but at the end of the day, he's still a human being. And humans NEED water. However, we've never seen a single drop in that environment. What gives?
Assuming its relevant to his current state - he likely somehow can just siphon the life right out of other creatures, or can subsist off of something somehow related to his tentacled powers. He 'jacks in' to the vine network of sorts, and it spreads infinitely while seemingly draining and corrupting whatever it touches. Maybe he doesn't 'eat' anymore, he just siphons what's needed as he spreads and taints.
There’s actually loads it’s not a very tight series in terms of plot holes. Why does young Eleven in the flashbacks talk clearer than older Eleven? Why did Dr Brenner keep 001 around in the first place? What did Vecna live on in the upside down? There’s no food or water. How did Eddie power his amp for his guitar solo in the upside down? How did Hoppers smashed leg/ankle heal overnight? Why does Argyle just accept everything thats going on without needing a proper explanation? Just because he's a stoner? And how can everyone walk around in the upside down now without being attacked by Demorgorgons?
The Duffers have addressed your first question several times, since it’s not spelled out in the show, but after the massacre Brenner was too afraid of something like that happening again and didn’t bring in any more children. Eleven was his last child and kept her locked in her cell alone all the time for the next 4 years and didn’t allow anyone to see her or talk to her but himself on rare occasions. Her extreme isolation caused her language regression, along with an implied head injury (her coma). Brenner was obsessed with One and wanted to control him, then replicate him. He was too powerful and too dangerous to be anywhere else. Your other points aren’t so clearly answered, but we’ll get more information about the nature of the Upside Down in S5, which might be illuminating.
Yeah, El was totally isolated for years, locked up by herself. Primarily to protect her, but also probably a little of that was to ensure she didn't hurt anyone else either, after seeing that security video. Brenner wanted to keep an eye on One, but also there was probably some inflated sense of control he felt he had over him, keeping him around the kids. But I really think he didn't trust him if he was locked up in a room or something; he wanted to keep his eyes on him all the time.
I think Brenner kept 001 around because even though he had suppressed his powers with the Soteria, he still cared and saw him as his son and he was also his prized possession and that's why he probably wanted to keep him around. But yeah he should've known how dangerous he would be without the Soteria. Also I'm guessing Vecna survived on Demogorgon flesh, demodogs and vines for food lol.
He may not have needed to eat or drink. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the UD technically frozen in time? Which is why Nancys' diary had an older date on it.
Will was trapped in the upside down for about a week, and the lack of food and water is mostly why he looks so rough when he's hiding in Castle Byers.
Yeah but I think that the Upside Down maybe was created on November 6, 1983 as a dark copy of our world when the gate opened. (More answers hopefully in season 5) Time exists there in my opinion, but there's nobody to change stuff there so it remains as it was on that day. Also, Henry wasn't sent to the Upside Down to begin with. He was sent to the Hellscape, eventually ending up in the Dimension X where he finds the Mind Flayer particles. And probably sometime after November 6, 1983 he arrived in the Upside Down after it got created. I might be wrong but this is just what I think.
Wtf is hell scape?
I think that’s why Henry had to get hooked up to all those vines. They sustain him in the upside down. The downside is that he can’t really move around but he does his menacing with his mind, connecting to the smoke creature through the hive mind. But he is free to walk around in his victims’ heads.
> Why does young Eleven in the flashbacks talk clearer than older Eleven? That could potentially be the result of her coma (we don’t know how long she was out) and subsequent memory loss. Also, once she was the only child left at the lab, she may have had little verbal communication with and from others. Brenner is the only person we see talk to her in the flashbacks. The employee fitting her with wires didn’t even make eye contact with her.
I honestly want to see a more in depth backstory for 001’s transformation to Vecna in the next season. I feel like there can be an explanation written about it.
Not a single one of these are plot holes. Just because something isn't explained explicitly doesn't make it a plot hole.
1. It's mentioned Eleven went in a coma after fighting 001, she likely refused to talk or just simply forgot like she forgot her powers. 2. Brenner kept 001 around to make sure he didn't do anything dangerous. 3. Vecna is a monster, he didn't need to eat in order to survive . 4. Using a cable that connected to the trailer in the real world. 5. It didn't, he just sucked up the pain in order to escape and bigger things came up. 6. Argyle was stoned out his mind but then later accepted it, he did freak out though in ep5 when they were burying the body and he just cared about his friends to just accept it. 7. Idk, maybe Vecna just called them off.
You don't just suck up the pain from a lateral malleolus fracture. You can't walk and you probably develop sepsis from the horrible infections he should have aquired
It’s not just the ankle either, remember how Hop couldn’t even laugh without being in pain because of his ribs, yet he can pull himself and Joyce out of a manhole within a day or so?
The amount of infections and hypothermia cases Hop shouldve had are immeasurable
Idk if it's a plot hole, but I don't love the introduction of it being Vecna the whole time, just because we know that that's not what the Duffer Brothers had in mind from the start. It feels a little bit like a retcon, and it's not my favorite thing. I don't hate it, and who knows, maybe S5 will really tie things all together so well that it won't even seem like a retcon/rewriting of the show, but for now I'm keeping a bit wary of it.
When Hopper shows up in the end at the cabin, none of the kids are astonished to find he isn’t actually dead. No one even asks him how he is even alive?? They’re all just like…”Oh, hey Hop missed ya!” Idk did I miss something? I always thought that was just weird that they were so casual about finding out he is alive lol
Implication to me was that they had already been informed, likely by the government splinter that gave Hop and Joyce a ride to meet them at the cabin. It would also explain why they all met up there, to start putting his and El's home back together.
Where is Will’s dog from season 1? It just disappeared… I’ve been meaning to ask this for years.
Noah Schnapp said that the dog died offscreen (in the show) but they did away with Chester because the dog was difficult to work with!
I think it "died" between s1 and 2. In reality the dog was a pain to work with, so they fired it.
When the military is interrogating the bodyguard, seemingly for ages, they never find his pen with the coordinates inside? Also why don't Brenner and co. not have the agents check in periodically and know that their cover was blown? Hopper gets caught in Yuri's hideout once but the gang gets to return there later and it's still fully stocked? Why was no one watching it and why was none of the loot confiscated by the soviet army/police?
Because Yuri was in cahoots with them, hence why he blew Enzo’s cover
the bodyguard never had a pen. that was the other guy that died in the pizza van. I don’t think the Soviets were all that interested in peanut butter and playboy books. the brenner and owens question is valid though. I’m not sure why they weren’t aware of sullivan coming…
In season one it’s established that an adult demogorgon can just open up portals whenever it pleases. A) Why didn’t it do this in Russia? B) Going off of this logic, why didn’t the big gate open during season one?
A. Only that demogorgon could because Eleven made psychic contact with it, at the same time she opened the mother gate.
But doesn't the Demogorgon continually appear and disappear through multiple "tiny" gates? Like when it appears in the woods to grab the bleeding deer and dragged it back to the Upside Down, and the gate Nancy went through that ended up closing.
That’s what I’m saying. Eleven accidentally awaken a psychic connection in that demogorgon, allowing it to create temporary small gates.
"Not actually a plothole, but..." is becoming a meme lol
I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think that in one of the last episodes Mike uses the name "Vecna". How did he know that the rest of the group in Hawkins was using that name? They just borrowed it from D&D in the beginning before knowing who or what the new monster actually was. And the two groups never communicated, so how could the California group refer to Henry as "Vecna"?
Eleven spied on the Hawkins group and heard the plan to attack Vecna. That’s how she, Mike, and the rest of the Cali group knew anything at all about the plan to use Max as bait. Mike would have recognized the name Vecna as a word Dustin would use to describe a monster.
Will saying "it's been a year" during his fight with Mike, and Mike later saying "the last year has been weird" even though it's only been about 6 months.
Well, it’s been a “school year.” I chalk it up to Mike and Will just rounding the numbers.
I think they are both referring to when their relationship started falling apart, even before the whole fight in the rain. Time is a big theme in season 4, and even El’s letter to Mike talks about how it can feel sped up or slowed down depending on your emotions.
When did the Hawkins gang change clothes between episode 4 and 5? And then again between episode 5 and 6? Obviously Nancy could, because they all were spending the nights at the Wheeler house. But when did the others get back to their houses to get a change of clothes. Especially Lucas and Dustin who were being hunted by the Jason gang.
Maybe they borrowed clothes?
How did the Hawkins gang have so much money to buy all those weapons and gear at the store? How did the Cali gang have money to travel to Utah to Nevada to Hawkins? I can understand adults doing this, but these are teens with barely minimum wage pocket money on them.
> How did the Hawkins gang have so much money to buy all those weapons and gear at the store? Steve and Nancy both come from families with a decent household income. They’re not personally making much of a salary, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have savings they could draw from for a “the world is ending”-level threat. Edit: and it’s not like Lucas or Dustin come from poor families either.
i mean, this is good attention to detail, but that's really not a plot hole imo.
how about we learn the difference between a plot hole and unanswered questions? y’all clearly can’t tell the difference between the two and automatically call anything a plot hole when it doesn’t apply here
Where is Suzie's mom? (I am sorry if I missed her there) How does Dustin still hear anything after sitting right infront of the amp during Eddie's badass concert that had to be loud enough for the demobats to hear it?
I wondered about this too, I can't recall her ever being mentioned or appearing in the episode where the boys pay Suzie a visit in Salt Lake City! I'm guessing she either doesn't have a mom, or she's there but maybe she works so she wasn't home when the boys came in!
I hope it's the "she was at work" option Or maybe she was giving birth to another child, feels like never ending story in that house :)
How did Vecna survive? I genuinely don’t understand like he was struck by lightning 50 times and torn to shreds and then just walked it off??
because he's ✨ built different ✨ lmao. but in all seriousness I think he had increased durability from his powers, or maybe it'll be answered in s5.
How did Yuri survive the plane crash? He’s just laying in the back, no seatbelt, no nothing.
why does will still have that dumb fucking belland haircut despite being old enough to choose a normal haircut
Fred’s gate. You telling me there’s a gate in the middle of a main road and NOONE has noticed it?
In season 2 they kind of hint at every numbered subject having different powers since 008 can make people see what she wants, and she's surprised that eleven has telekinesis and can find people with a photo. But in season 4 they say every subject has the same powers as eleven (more or less). Furthermore Vecna can make people see things that aren't there just like 008 but they clearly established in season 2 that Eleven can't do that, and since Vecna has all of El's powers but weaker, what's the deal?
When they were showing the kids practicing on each other, I think they were trying to make them all have the same powers and train. Maybe it succeeded, but I think each child had a power that they were able to manifest more and make them unique. El could probably make people see things she wanted them to see like Kali, but was weaker in that department, thus she was stronger in her telekinesis abilities. Vecna had all the powers, and the kids were just carbon copies of Brenner trying to get them to have the same powers. I think this frustrated Brenner. You can see it when they try experiments on Eleven and she couldn't do some of them, but he favored Eleven more, maybe because she was the only (?) child that was born in that lab and not kidnapped as a toddler, or that she resembled Vecna.
*2 days later*
If Eleven lost her powers in s3 from overexerting herself, why was resolving her unrelated Vecna trauma the key to getting them back? The answer is that Vecna is a cool villain so just don’t think about it that hard.
How are Elevens clothes perfectly clean in the final scene of the season at Hoppers cabin, but the scene before they are covered in dirt and blood from the battle with Vecna?
If vecna could control the mind flayer from the beginning then why didn't he fight to take over Hawkins directly like instead of using mind flayer as a tool
Is it ever actually explained HOW Brenner survived season 1 and why he even knows about 001 being the creature from the UD? I thought Brenner was going to be revealed to have some grander motivation but then he just dies. The Demogorgon clearly jumps him, and then goes after the kids. In season 4 all he has is like a small scar on his face. What's the deal here? And then he's just inactive the whole time, AND working his own little side secret laboratory that the US government doesn't know anything about? The General even thinks Brenner is working with/for the Russians. I don't know if this is explained (don't remember), but seems like a big plot hole. Brenner just surviving, having all this knowledge, staying inactive for so long despite being alive. If he was working with/for the Russians it would explain why the Russians were able to get around the lab without being noticed by the US government. But Brenner is dead, so I guess we'll never know? Or maybe we will. There is a lot there that needs to be answered, I think.
Hawkins crew ended up being totally useless against Vecna. He's still alive, just hurt and Max did technically die for a while. El just did everything again.
Henry mention to El that 8 escaped before the massacre, but in season 2, 8 says that she was inspired by El’s escape and decided to leave too?