Stranger Things season 5 volume 2 ending explained: who dies, what is the Upside Down, and how does it set up the final episode

Stranger Things season 5 volume 2 has arrived on Netflix, moving us one step closer to the very end of the streaming juggernaut’s beloved saga. In fact, there’s now only one episode of the entire series still unreleased, meaning we don’t have long to find out whether Eleven can finally vanquish Vecna for good.

Before then, however, we have the Stranger Things season 5 volume 2 ending to contend with – and while the latest batch of episodes does not feature any major revelations on par with Will having powers or Kali being alive, there’s still a lot to digest. So, if you’re feeling turned Upside Down, look no further, as we delve deep into what went down in the build-up to the finale.

With that in mind, here’s your spoiler warning: the following contains a full recap of the Stranger Things season 5 volume 2 ending – so if you haven’t watched the new episodes on Netflix, click off this page and return once you have seen all three! We also get into the Stranger Things play – so avoid reading on if you intend to go and see The First Shadow on Broadway anytime soon. For everyone else, let’s get you Rightside Up.

Stranger Things season 5 volume 2 ending recap

The second volume of Stranger Things 5 does a good job putting all the pieces in place for the upcoming finale. First and foremost, Max is awake – for real this time. After spending two years travelling around Vecna/One/Henry/Whatsit’s mind, Max hatches an escape plan with Holly, the pair rushing through Holly and Vecna’s memories until they witness an eight-year-old Henry murder a mysterious scientist in a Nevada cave. Before they can ask too many questions, the pair clamber out of the cave and onto a desolate plain where Max gives Holly a stirring pep-talk as the strings of Kate Bush’s "Running Up That Hill” play. The two of them jump through separate portals, syncing their bodies and minds once more.

Max finds herself waking up in Hawkins hospital, where Lucas, Mike, Robin, and Vickie have just been running from Demo-dogs – defeated in explosive action by Karen Wheeler. Holly, meanwhile, has a more gruesome fate: she wakes up in Vecna’s terrifying lair and has to remove a disgusting, life-sucking vine from her mouth. She runs outside to find herself not in the Upside Down, but another dimension, one we previously saw in season four. This is The Abyss.

While Max and Holly were escaping Vecna’s mind, Dustin, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan were exploring the Upside Down version of Hawkins’ lab. It’s an emotional journey as Steven and Dustin fall out, then make up, and Nancy and Jonathan come close to death, admitting their complicated and messy feelings for each other. The real discovery, though, is Papa/Dr. Brenner’s diary, which reveals the true nature of the Upside Down: that it’s actually a wormhole, acting as a bridge between The Abyss and our world.

Oh, and the gang discover a crazy, weird orb of “exotic matter” floating above the lab that’s holding the wall of the Upside Down together. Nancy shoots the matter, sending out a shock wave that breaks the wall. Luckily, Hopper, Eleven, and Kali are nearby, and the wall break creates a small gate between them and the real world, allowing them to get home. They then team up with everyone – including science teacher Scott Clarke – back at the radio shack, and then, in turn, help Nancy’s crew return to our world. At last, the whole gang is back together.

Back to Holly for a second: she almost escapes The Abyss, falling through a crack that leads her to the Upside Down, but she ends up being captured by Vecna. However, her near escape is not entirely in vain. As she falls into the Upside Down, she screams for help – a scream Nancy heard.

Back in the real world, Nancy tells the gang about Holly falling from the sky, and Dustin realises The Abyss is literally above the Upside Down. The gang hatch a plan to get there, save Holly, and stop Vecna. The basic premise is simple: get back into the Upside Down, climb the radio tower, and jump through to The Abyss, which will be literally crashing downwards towards our world thanks to Vecna, who wants to merge The Abyss and the real world.

With the gang in full swing, preparing themselves for battle against Vecna, there’s time for one last confession from Will. He gathers everyone together to reveal that he’s different: he likes boys. An emotional group hug ensues. With Will’s secret out in the open, the gang are ready to crash the military compound – Nancy and Hopper killing a lot of military dudes – and break back into the Upside Down, where they drive off into the spore-infected distance for the finale.

But before things cut to black, we’re once again in Vecna’s mind, where Mr. Whatsit is leading a very creepy ceremony with his captured children. They all hold hands. Then their necks crane backwards quickly, their eyes turning white, and his plan for world domination begins.

What is the Upside Down? And is it a wormhole?

First things first: to understand Vecna’s plan, we have to understand the nature of the Upside Down. As hinted at earlier this season – when Scott Clarke was seen teaching a lesson about wormholes – the Upside Down is indeed a wormhole between dimensions, as revealed by Dr. Brenner’s diary. The Upside Down acts as a bridge between The Abyss and the real world, and was created the night Eleven was forced by Dr. Brenner to use her powers to search for the Demogorgons – that night being November 6, 1983, the day she escaped Hawkins’ lab, and the day before Will Byers went missing.

As we learn this season, Dr. Brenner was not merely using Eleven to find Demogorgons, but to locate Henry, who Eleven had previously banished to The Abyss after he massacred the patients of Hawkins’ lab, seen in flashbacks last season. Eleven’s search created the bridge between the two worlds, allowing Vecna to travel back and forth when needed. The Abyss is where he’s been hiding this season, and where the captured children are being kept in his tree-like lair.

What is The Abyss?

There’s a lot we don’t know about The Abyss. It’s an alternate, chaotic dimension where the Demogorgons and The Mind Flayer originate. We previously saw The Abyss at the end of the fourth season, as it’s where Eleven accidentally sent Henry after the Hawkins’ lab massacre. In the script for that scene, The Abyss was called Dimension X. It would go on to make a central appearance in Stranger Things: The First Shadow, the play which is currently playing on Broadway and originated on London’s West End.

How does Stranger Things season 5 volume 2 link to the play, Stranger Things: The First Shadow?

The Stranger Things play goes a long way to explaining Henry’s link to Dimension X. In short, the Creel family used to live in Nevada. One day, while exploring the nearby caves with his spyglass, an eight-year-old Henry came across a wounded scientist. In the play, we don’t learn what happened in those caves, but in Volume 2, we finally see what happened: the young Henry is shot by the scientist, then Henry proceeds to kill him with a stone.

The series doesn’t show what happens next, yet in the play, we learn Henry is transported to Dimension X/The Abyss for roughly 12 hours, and he’s exposed to the shadowy entity we know as The Mind Flayer. Upon Henry’s return, his personality has changed (partly thanks to him, you know, now being a killer) and his blood type is completely different. He’s eventually brought to Hawkins’ lab for experimentation by Dr. Brenner – and, as we learn this season, his blood is transfused to unborn babies, including Eleven, giving them powers.

Who dies in Stranger Things season 5 volume 2? And who was the scientist Henry killed?

The scientist Henry killed was, The First Shadow tells us, actually a Soviet spy who had infiltrated a Nevada research group. That group included Dr. Brenner, who was actually researching his own father, Captain Brenner.

In the opening scene of The First Shadow, set in 1943, Captain Brenner and his crew are aboard the USS Eldridge with a special device designed to turn the ship invisible. However, the device instead transports the ship to Dimension X/The Abyss, where everyone apart from Captain Brenner is killed by Demogorgons.

Brenner makes it back to our world, though he’s now in a vegetative state. His son, Dr. Brenner, begins experimenting, discovering that his father has a radically altered blood type. The Soviets want this information, and the spy scientist attempts to steal it for his country. Henry kills him, then is accidentally sent to Dimension X and returns with the same, strange blood type as Captain Brenner. The young Dr. Brenner begins his research once more…

Why does Dr. Kay want Eleven’s blood?

The Abyss changed Captain Brenner and Henry’s blood types, which then gave Henry psychogenic powers – and unsurprisingly, the military wants to find a way to utilise these abilities and copy them to other humans. Under Dr. Brenner’s guidance, Henry’s blood was transfused to multiple unborn babies, leading to a litter of super-powered children, including Eleven, the child of Terry Ives, an MKUltra test subject – MKUltra being an operation meant to help people develop mind-control techniques that could help fight the Soviets.

Following Dr. Brenner’s death, Dr. Kay wants to carry on his research. However, rather than using Henry’s blood, she intends to use Eleven’s blood. Dr. Kay has already tried with Kali, AKA Eight, but the blood transfusions did not work, leading to multiple mothers dying. Dr. Kay is therefore obsessed with capturing Eleven and using her blood to create new super-powered soldiers who could potentially control the Demogorgons and use them against the Soviets.

Why does Kali want Eleven to stay in The Abyss?

Knowing that Eleven’s blood could one day be used to hurt others, Kali attempts to convince Eleven that they need to get to The Abyss and stay there, therefore removing any chance of their other-dimensional blood ever being used by Dr. Kay – or anyone who ever takes over the Brenner project – again. Eleven would, unsurprisingly, rather stay in our world with Mike and have a nice life, but, as the last episode of Volume 2 shows, she seems to be somewhat persuaded by Kali. We’ll have to wait and see whether she stays in The Abyss.

How do Will's powers actually work?

Kali does not seem bothered by Will showing signs of having powers, and that he may one day be experimented on by the military. However, she may have a good reason for this. Will’s powers are not the same as Eight or Eleven’s – they do not come from Henry’s blood, but from direct exposure to The Mind Flayer and Vecna.

Instead, Will can only access his powers by jacking into the Hive Mind, which only happens when he’s in the close vicinity of creatures from The Abyss, hence why he must use the Frankensteined Demogorgon to use his powers against Vecna in the fifth episode. In other words, when the Upside Down – the bridge between The Abyss – is destroyed, Will most likely won’t have powers anymore.

What is Vecna's plan?

Vecna has captured the twelve Hawkins children in order to take over their minds and use them to amplify his own powers. He previously did this with Will, having taken over his mind in the real world, using him from afar to build tunnels under Hawkins and paving the way for the gates between Hawkins and the Upside Down to open. Vecna’s goal is to use his amplified powers to bring The Abyss crashing down through the Upside Down, merging The Abyss with our world.

But why is Vecna doing any of this?

That’s the real question. Vecna had the capacity for evil before visiting The Abyss, having killed a Soviet scientist before being in contact with the other dimension. However, that was only after being shot himself, so it could be argued to have been in self-defence. Either way, it would have been a traumatising event on its own, and that’s without a trip to The Abyss straight after.

In The Abyss, we know the eight-year-old Henry made contact with The Mind Flayer. The fourth season of Stranger Things made it look like the older Henry – after being sent to The Abyss by Eleven after the massacre – formed The Mind Flayer in The Abyss. The First Shadow implies that Henry helped The Mind Flayer take shape, but the beast already existed in The Abyss. It would not be a stretch to conclude The Mind Flayer was responsible for infecting Henry’s mind and turning him to the dark side.

It’s also worth paying attention to how Mr. Whatsit describes Max’s influence on Holly when trying to convince the children that Max is actually a monster in disguise. “This monster [Max] is incredibly powerful and she works for the Black Thing,” he says. “She has corrupted Holly’s mind and taken her from the light and into the dark… Perhaps I have failed and the Black Thing has won.” Could he be talking about himself being corrupted by Black Thing/Mind Flayer? Dustin once theorised that Vecna is merely a lieutenant for The Mind Flayer – and he might just be right.

What is the plan to stop Vecna?

Volume 2 ends with the gang breaking into the military compound, shooting some nameless goons, and heading back into the Upside Down. The idea is to climb up the radio tower and jump into The Abyss while it’s crashing through the Upside Down. In The Abyss, they will use Eleven, Kali, and Will’s powers to bring down Vecna, while the rest of the group grab the captured children and bring them back to the Upside Down. Everyone will travel through the Upside Down back to our world, and on the way, they will drop a bomb next to the exotic matter. This will destroy the Upside Down, breaking the connection to The Abyss, and hopefully destroying this other dimension and all the evil that awaits there. The bomb, engineered by Mike, will only detonate when a record stops playing – though which record has been chosen remains a mystery. We’ll have to wait for the finale to find out which track they go out to.

When is the final episode of Stranger Things season 5 on Netflix?

The Stranger Things 5 finale will stream on Netflix on December 31, AKA New Year’s Eve, at 5:00 PM Pacific/8:00 PM Eastern in the United States. That’s 1:00AM on January 1 in the UK. The finale will also be screened in 500 select theaters in the US and Canada, should you want to say a communal goodbye to Hawkins. You can find your nearest theater here.

Stranger Things season 5 volume 2 is streaming now. For more, check out our Stranger Things season 5 volume 2 review, and while you're waiting for the final episode, check out our list of the 25 best shows on Netflix right now.