If you too, as Lucas told Nancy and Mike, don’t believe in coincidences, there is a detail that everyone missed in the fourth episode of Stranger Things 5 that cannot, just cannot, be a coincidence. A detail that refers to something that even fewer people have seen and bounces back to explain something that perhaps could help decipher the series finale. A theory in which, however, let’s say it straight away, the numbers still don’t add up.
All this dark preamble also serves to give the opportunity to those who have not yet seen the finale of Volume 1 of the fifth season of Stranger Things to stop reading here, because, obviously, all the relevant spoilers follow.
The detail that went unnoticed in Stranger Things 5×04 (Max has something to do with it) – SPOILERS!
At the beginning of the fourth episode entitled The Sorcerer, Max explains to Holly how that place where they find themselves is practically the memory of Henry/One/Vecna/Cosè, and how she, trapped there since she was killed and then resurrected by 11 but ended up in a coma unattainable even for her powerful friend, began to explore the memories of her tormentor.
The potentially important detail is briefly shown when Max ends up in the past, precisely in 1959, and comes across the young Joyce promoting the theater show she directed and starred in the corridors of Hawkins High School. Steve Harrington’s father takes a flyer, crumples it and throws it in the bin but, not having the basketball skills that his son will have, he misses the mark.
Max approaches and, despite being an observer, is able to interact in some way with the environment, she picks up the paper and spreads it before her eyes… And it is here that you can observe something important only if you stop the video at the right moment.
On the sheet we read that the show in question is Oklahoma!, a 1931 musical. Among the names of the cast we note those of Karen Childress and Ted Wheeler, the future parents of Mike, Nancy and Holly; that of “James” Hopper; that of Alan Munson, Eddie’s father, may he rest in peace; and at the bottom, also highlighted by the subtitles, we read “introducing Henry Creel”. But this is certainly not the potentially important detail. That is noticeable for a fraction of a second in the upper right part of the sheet, where the date of the show is shown: November 6, 1959.
Yes, Joyce’s high school show was set for November 6, exactly 24 years to the day Will is kidnapped.
If you are avid fans of the series and while waiting for the release you have seen hundreds of videos with fan theories and explanations, as we have done, then you will have already understood that this scene clearly refers to The First Shadow, the prequel theater show to Stranger Things staged in London and New York and considered canon.
Whether you have heard of it or not, we will save you the trouble of looking for summaries of the work to understand this reference in the series, summarizing what is necessary.
The First Shadow has the young Henry Creel as its protagonist, but it starts even earlier, at the time of the Second World War: Doctor Brenner’s father is a Navy captain, an experiment to make ships invisible ends up him and his fellow soldiers in Dimension The son thus decides to study that phenomenon.
In 1959 the Creels moved to Hawkins from Nevada after Henry had trouble at school; here he meets Joyce, Hopper, Lonnie Byers, Dustin’s not very nice fugitive future father, Walter Henderson, and above all Patty Newby, adoptive sister of Bob, Joyce’s boyfriend who died in season 2.
Between rehearsals for the show and intimate encounters, a feeling arises between Patty and Henry, who then ends up killing her family and we know the rest (and we don’t want to reveal the entire plot of the show), but it is still singular that in the theater show The First Shadow the young Joyce at a certain point changes her mind and instead of the musical Oklahoma! decides to secretly make Dark of the Moon.
Now, we want to think that it’s a coincidence that that show, Oklahoma! or Dark of the Moon, was it scheduled to premiere on the same day Will is kidnapped? Highly unlikely.
Because Max is safe from Henry/Vecna in that kind of canyon – SPOILERS!
It is therefore very difficult for that reference on the 1959 sheet to be coincidental. Not only because, as noted by many, in The First Shadow Henry tells Joyce to pay attention to her loved ones in the future, and when she replies that she doesn’t understand, he only says “you will”, which in English is “you will”, almost an omen with the name of his kidnapped son.
But above all because the play clearly serves to explain another passage that is currently mysterious. Or rather, a secret passage, the one that leads to Max’s refuge in Henry’s mind, where Holly Wheeler also welcomes.
At the end of his story, Max talks about when he found a way back to reality, again thanks to the Kate Bush song played by Lucas in the hospital room.
When Running Up That Hill ends, however, the gap closes, and Henry appears behind Max, who chases her relentlessly until, in fact, she finds refuge in those caves and he gets stuck. “Were you afraid?” Holly asks. “More than fear, he was terrified,” Max replies, explaining that he will never go in there.
And why? The answer comes again from the theater show. Precisely from the part where Henry’s first contact with the other dimension is revealed, long before he sent him there after the massacre at the laboratory.
In fact, it turns out that Henry, during a solitary tour among the caves of Nevada, had come across a container of Mind Flayer particles extracted from Brenner senior, stolen by a Soviet spy (and this explains all the Soviets’ knowledge) who was acting as an infiltrator in the laboratory.
Contact with this container transports young Henry to the so-called Dimension X, where he will be trapped for twelve hours. He will emerge distraught and with a different blood, like Brenner senior. And so begins his ordeal that will take him to Hawkins.
Even in this case we do not believe in coincidences. And indeed we are sure that this aspect will be an important key in the conclusion of the final battle between the forces of Good and Evil.
Good vs Evil, the (dice) math doesn’t add up – SPOILERS!
After understanding Henry’s weak point discovered by Max, we were reminded of a fan theory that was very popular in recent days: that of the final result of the battle between good guys and bad guys anticipated by the DnD match of the fourth season.
While poor Lucas made the decisive basket without even a friend watching, the others and his sister Erica were busy with the Hellfire Club playing Dungeons and Dragons, with Eddie as the master.
In this campaign, the supreme monster was precisely this character named Vecna who seemed dead and instead was bruised but alive, with a power of 15 that could only be beaten by a higher dice roll (we apologize to the players for the inaccuracies).
The final two players were Dustin and Erica. The first rolled the dice but failed, instead Erica rolled a 20 which beat Vecna’s 15 and eliminated him forever.
On this 20 to 15, fans have indulged themselves with multiple theories, which see Erica or others as the savior of the country. But after the fourth episode we have only one certainty: 11 + 8 is 19. After the discovery and rescue of Kali, in fact, it is certain that the “sister” will join the final battle, adding her powers to those of 11.
But the 1 left to reach 20? Before the final reveal we thought Max might put it there, but how can you ignore Will?
Of course, we don’t understand why The Sorcerer (who, as explained by Mike to his friend, derives his power from something innate, not from books like wizards) should be worth one, and we still cannot exclude the hypotheses of those who maintain that One, Henry himself, goes to the good side for the perfect arithmetic sum. In any case, the meaning of the 15 to beat would remain to be understood.
If desired, there is One, who with the twelve children kidnapped before Will unleashed his powers makes thirteen. And the two missing? Is the Mind Flayer worth double? Will Barb’s long-awaited return see her as a standard-bearer for the evil? Will there be room for Billy? Does Max also count?
In short, if defining how to calculate 20 is already difficult, the numbers just don’t add up on the magic number of bad guys and it is better to wait until the end to understand the solution. In which, most likely, that double reference to Henry’s past, from the Nevada caves to Joyce’s show, will also find an explanation.
