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interviews/promo

millie said in an interview that the finale would be meta, like a play within a play; we haven’t seen that yet 

st twitter posted “vecna WILL pay” after the finale was released. someone asked why they used future tense and they replied “🫢”

wsqk posted that volume 3 is lost

crossword was posted with the words waterfall, goodbye, dragons, believe, and dungeons, all around “graduation”. last letters spell out “lenses,” see below about the graduates in sunglasses 

countless cast and crew members said the painting would be addressed and it wasn’t 

the duffers were advertising this huge plot twist in the finale and there wasn’t one 

wsqk hinted at sm scenes that didn’t happen 

the duffers said we would find out how the bolt on the byers door unlocked in s1 but we never did 

on twitter, netflix posted like the title screen for every episode and then made a blank post after ep8

lines/quotes

“your memory of what happened might be foggy, confused”

“no wonder everyone was so clueless, it’s a trance”

“i don’t believe in coincidences. not anymore”

“it’s like there’s a missing of the puzzle. a big piece.” “yeah well the pieces are in vecna’s mind!” (mike sees an incomplete rainbow puzzle in the hospital, he needs to find this piece of himself)

“is this real? is vecna messing with us again?”

“this makes no goddamn sense!”

“i got so turned around i actually ended up right back at the beginning” (max in vecna’s memories) the epilogue is the same scene as the beginning of the show 

“everything you see, none of it is real!”

“that’s it? comfort and happiness? could you be more trite?” this is how the duffers ended their show. they’re calling their own ending trite. it’s not the real ending 

“this isn’t like one of your campaigns, you don’t get to write the ending” then the epilogue is mike doing literally that 

scene details

small details change; max told holly this is a sign they’re in henry’s mind

door handle in the basement is on the other side in the epilogue than it was in the first episode 

guy filming graduation is in a shirt that says duffers, the duffers are filming us

in the credits, “JK95” is written. just kidding, episode 9 season 5

steve calls derek “thomas” in the epilogue baseball game. he should know derek’s name. this is a false memory 

vecna took 12 kids and exactly 12 graduating students are wearing sunglasses; this may be covering their eyes in a trance or showing that they can’t actually see what’s going on 

on her journey, el is in a blue jacket with a yellow backpack facing a rainbow 

the electricity dial changed from gray to red, like how the carousel on the playground changed from yellow to gray, it’s a sign of being in vecna’s memories 

at graduation, everyone’s hands are positioned like vecna’s, and how billy’s were positioned when he was possessed 

in his graduation speech, dustin yells about screwing conformity but the show ends with literally everyone conforming. nancy looks like her mom, mike looks like his dad, max gets angry in dnd and breaks things like billy would, will is in a leather jacket like lonnie and smoking like joyce, etc. they all look like their parents that vecna went to school with. he had clearer images of their parents than them so that’s how they all look in the epilogue 

a board game called whatzit is seen in the wheelers’ basement AND hop’s cabin. vecna is still there  

heroes has played twice before in the show; when they found wills body and thought he was dead and when they thought hopper was dead. heroes plays again in the credits. it always plays at a fakeout death. vecna didn’t really die 

someone is holding up a blank poster at graduation 

background characters at enzo’s are watching us, the audience 

in their campaign with eddie, they thought they’d killed vecna but they really hadn’t 

orange is the schools color when henry went there, but it no longer is. however everyone’s graduation robes are orange. in nancy’s spinoff book it explicitly talks about her graduating in green robes, but vecna would only remember it as orange 

in the epilogue, the shot outside the wheelers house of the sprinkler is the exact same as in s1. scenes are being reused, vecna’s making up memories from what he has 

in the wsqk, the floor looks just like the chess board that el and henry played on. henry is playing them all like chess pieces

robin describes hawkins we being different than she remembers in the epilogue 

robins style completely changes in the epilogue. she doesn’t even look like herself

nancy drops out of emerson, her lifelong dream? 

henry breaking the fourth wall at the dining table like we’re the children in his mind 

never revealed the significance of november 6

in the epilogue gay bar, lights are flickering behind will. 

why do jonathan nancy robin and steve have their whole epilogue scene? that was never really a friend group. but vecna might assume it was because they were all the same year 

there is a tick of vecna’s clock then a heartbeat sound before mike hallucinates being in el’s mind 

max literally could not have graduated with them

in his coming out scene, will says he likes milkshakes at melvalds but they only had those in vecna’s time. and will says he likes getting lost in the woods. no?? that’s his trauma???

bts not matching up with actual s5, meaning there’s more scenes we haven’t scene 

in a bts shot of joyce at enzo’s she’s wearing a completely different outfit than she is in the finale that we see. this outfit is joyce’s 80s style so it likely wasn’t just winona out of costume 

on instagram, noah posted a photo of the dnd binders lined up in a different order than they were in the epilogue. in this order, the letters line up to spell “x a lie,” dimension x is a lie

bts shot of mike giving will the “for will” mixtape that there was sm merch for but it was never in the show, as well as the letter that ends in “love mike” 

in a bts shot of will in the gay bar, he has a completely different hairstyle and he has an earring 

they announced a soundtrack that included many songs that were never played, like “just like heaven” and “bicycle race”

dnd lore

in the credits, will is listed as an illusionist, not a sorcerer. the wearer of the eye of vecna can see through illusions. will is possessed and vecna is casting illusions through him. 

this makes will the eye of vecna. mikes hand is twitching in many shots which could make him the hand of vecna. the holders of the eye and hand are deeply connected, like mike and will 

henry is missing an eye when he first arrived in dimension x and he is shot in the hand as a child. the eye and hand of vecna are both significant in dnd, so clearly this was intentional but is never addressed  

a false hydra is a monster in dnd that convinces its victims of false memories, and that things that never happened actually did. if mike is its victim, this could explain everything off in the finale and his misguided theory about el’s survival. we need another ep to address this 

when you cut off a false hydra’s head, two grow back, and this hurts the dungeon master (mike) the most. joyce cut off vecnas head and mike suffered the most in the epilogue

“if someone known to the target is killed by the false hydra, the target may believe that their deceased acquaintance had merely gone on a journey somewhere far away” this is exactly what mike imagines for el, making him the target 

the false hydra was the monster in wills painting 

mikes campaign theory

season 5 mirrors mike’s DND campaign from season 1, which dustin explicitly called full of plot holes and with a confusing ending. the duffers are acknowledging that s5 is full of plot holes and had a confusing ending 

in s1, mike tells karen they’d been playing for 10 hours then asks for 20 more minutes. season 5 was 10 hours and 20 minutes. this cannot be a coincidence because on 1/1/26, netflix extended runtimes of all vol1 episodes by 3 minutes SO THAT the season would be exactly 10hr20m  

the audience is mike who is vecna’d

mike is the only one looking at us in promo posters

stranger things insta story said “to our fans, you’re the heart” 

lucas says to mike “is this real? is vecna messing with us again? this makes no sense”

robin, lucas, and mike are talking about how vecna’s victims are all in a trance 

lucas is fans who figured out the twist, mike is us, robin is the duffers explaining everything in this scene 

when will is unconscious on the couch and joyce is with him, we get a shot of lucas behind them and another shot of mike behind them. lucas and mike are standing in the same spot in their respective shots but the background is completely different 

robin used the “i think we’re alone now” record to represent holly, which is the same song vecna gave her and knew she loved. how would robin know this? she doesn’t; this is a vecna trance which is how we have this detail

wills song is “should i stay or should i go” by the clash from the combat rock album. robin pulls out london calling by the clash, which is the wrong record for will. mikes memories are getting mixed up 

vickie is not in the epilogue and her and robin don’t have their enzo’s date, although joyce and hopper do. the end of rovickie’s relationship is very ambiguous. however if this is all in mikes mind, mike doesn’t know rovickie is dating which is why this wouldn’t be included. and vecna doesn’t know vickie 

we all know the mindflayer “likes it cold,” but it’s from dimension x, a desert planet. you would think dimension x would be cold then. it’s not because it’s made up in mikes mind and he didn’t think of that detail in his subconscious 

all of netflix’s january 1 releases hint at mike being vecna’d: they are mike epps: delusional, the big fake, the brave, etc

when they came out of the ud and were met with military, a soldier knew mikes name. how is that possible?  

there’s so many reasons mike’s perception of el’s death dont make sense. how could she have brought him into her mind when the kryptonite was stifling her powers? how could kali have made an illusion of her when she died from a bullet wound a while before? and even if she hasn’t died from that, the explosion in the upside down started in the lab where kali was so that would’ve killed her too. she would’ve been dead when we’re supposed to believe she was casting an illusion of el. 

real finale will be 1/7

netflix posted on vol2 release day saying “your future is on its way. #WhatNext January 7, 2026”

joyce was proven to be right about will not being dead 7 days after he disappeared (1/7 is 7 days after the finale)

in the credits, a dice rolled on a 7

the very first 1on1 mike and will scene is “the roll. it was a 7”

and there’s also just so many more plot holes and things that weren’t addressed that need more screen time to resolve