Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 Ending Explained- (Contains Spoilers)
- By Izay Ayesha -
- Nov 27, 2025
SPOILER ALERT: This article dives deep into the ending of Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1. If you haven’t watched episodes 1-4 yet, stop reading now to avoid major plot reveals that could ruin your Upside Down adventure! Proceed at your own risk.
The final episodes of Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 dropped like a Demogorgon ambush, leaving fans reeling from gut-wrenching losses, mind-bending revelations, and cliffhangers that scream “binge Volume 2 ASAP.” As the Duffer Brothers ramp up the stakes in Hawkins’ final battle against Vecna and the Upside Down, the mid-season finale packs more emotional punches than Eleven’s telekinetic fury. Let’s break it down: who meets a tragic end, the bombshell twists that rewrite everything, and the setups priming us for an explosive conclusion.
The Major Deaths
- Eddie Munson: Brought back through an Upside Down time anomaly, Eddie returns only to sacrifice himself again. He lures a Demobat swarm into a trap and detonates explosives, dying heroically while shredding on his guitar one last time.
- Joyce Byers: In a heartbreaking moment, Joyce holds open a collapsing portal in her old house so Will, Jonathan, and Eleven can escape. Vecna’s vines drag her into the Upside Down; her final words to Hopper are “Keep them safe.”
- Max Mayfield: After breaking free of Vecna’s curse, Max destroys a critical Mind Flayer fragment but is crushed when the structure collapses. She dies in Lucas’s arms to a remixed “Running Up That Hill,” closing her arc in tragic full-circle fashion.
The Biggest Revelations
- Vecna/Henry Creel is revealed to be a fractured multiversal entity. Every previous monster (Demogorgon, Mind Flayer, etc.) was a piece of him scattered across timelines by Eleven’s original 1979 banishment.
- The Upside Down is frozen on November 6, 1983, because that was the exact moment Henry/One was ripped apart—creating a permanent “scar” dimension.
- Will Byers is the unwilling anchor keeping the Upside Down stable. Severing his connection could collapse the entire realm—and potentially erase everyone who’s ever been inside it.
- Hawkins sits on a global psychic ley line. Vecna’s endgame is to use the massive gate beneath the high school to merge the Upside Down with the real world on a planetary scale.
Volume 2 Setup & Cliffhanger
The finale ends with half of Hawkins already overtaken by red lightning and vines. The surviving core group (Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Eleven, Will, Steve, Robin, Nancy, and Hopper) regroups in the Wheeler basement as Vecna’s voice thunders: “The end begins now.”
Key threads heading into Volume 2:
- Eleven must enter the “true gate” alone to reach Vecna’s core, possibly trapping herself forever.
- Hopper is recaptured by remaining Soviet forces, setting up a Cold War crossover.
- Grief and blame threaten to fracture the group, especially Dustin vs. Will and a vengeance-driven Lucas.
With only four episodes left (expected early 2026), Stranger Things Season 5 is barreling toward an all-out apocalyptic war. The stakes have never been higher—and after Volume 1’s body count, no one feels safe.