Stranger Things (2016) Season 5, Part 1, debuted over Thanksgiving weekend on Netflix. While the division into three parts continues to make little sense, we get some solid material in the first act to keep us busy until Part 2. Namely, we not only have evidence of a time jump, but also a new mystery continues to touch on Vecna's plan while a fan favorite returns to give us some insight into the show's evil mastermind.
When we left everyone back in Hawkins at the end of Season 4, Joseph Quinn's Eddie Munson had heroically sacrificed himself in the Upside Down while Sadie Sink's Max had her biggest face-off with Vecna, landing her in a coma. Now, every character is not only dealing with the aftermath, but they also know the end is yet to come—there's still so much more to be done while their world continues to move forward as if everything's peachy, while the entire town of Hawkins is under military surveillance.
What Does Max Reveal About Vecna in 'Stranger Things' Season 5?
One of the biggest revelations of Stranger Things Season 5 is that Max is back. Well, sort of. Her body is still in a coma at the hospital in Hawkins, but she's also trapped inside of Camazotz, Vecna's mental prison. As she explains her almost escape to Vecna's newest victim, Holly Wheeler, she uses the words, "everything went wrong." But with a new set of memories, as Max ran from Henry and hid in a cave, that's where she discovered the one place she's free from Vecna/Henry.
The cave located inside Camazotz is the one place that Vecna and Henry are both scared of. Terrified, rather. And while Max tells us this, it's Jamie Campbell Bower's performance that shows it. There's always been something so magnetic about how Bower conveys emotions through his eyes, and in this very moment, nothing makes it more apparent that the cave is home to his worst memories.
It's the one place his powers are no match for, and the risk he cannot take, no matter how powerful he grows by luring children here while disguising himself as Mr. Whatsit. The evidence of his fears and the monsters he himself is running from live right inside the walls that Max has wisely made her hideout until she and the others can finally be free from him. And it's a solid revelation, that's for sure.
Why Is Vecna/Henry Scared of the Cave?
Stranger Things Season 5, Episode 4, "Chapter 4: Sorcerer," doesn't explain Henry's fear of the cave right away, but it can very much be tethered to the brief revelations we get in Stranger Things: The First Shadow—the Broadway play. There, theater goers learned that Eleven banishing Vecna into Dimension X in Season 4, Episode 7, "The Massacre of Hawkins Lab," wasn't his first visit. The first time occurred when Henry Creel was a young boy, and he encountered Dr. Brenner's father, along with the Nevada Experiments and the entities within.
Now, exactly what they did to Henry in that cave and the story he once told Eleven about his curiosity with spiders and the rage he felt toward his parents—his father, especially, are likely tied together. As 001, we know that he was the first to experience every terrible thing that was also conducted on Eleven, and we can likely predict that it's worse than what any of us imagine. In the words of Brooklyn Nine-Nine's (2013) Jake Peralta, "cool motive, still murder."
As we dive deeper into Henry/Vecna's lore during this season, there's a solid chance that whatever happened to him inside the cave was so horrifically traumatic that he didn't know any better as a kid. It's not going to excuse any of his actions in the present day, but it'll be the very detail to ensure that every plot twist feels earned.
Plus, this revelation is also what allows Henry/Vecna to be a fully fleshed-out villain and not a caricature of one. If he's also a victim of the evil he perpetuates, there can be a lot of meaty discussion in the coming weeks about nature vs. nurture and the choices human beings make by virtue of their upbringing and trauma. In fairness, he was always a compelling villain, but the understanding that he knows a fear this massive makes him far more interesting. It deepens everything.
In addition, the now richer and more nuanced material Bower gets to work with is about to show off his acting chops far more. What's so incredible is that Henry tricks and manipulates in a way that's so devious and calculated that this brief moment, where we catch the magnitude of his fear, is the one scene where he gets to be a boy. If you rewatch it, Bower makes Henry look so small, so fragile and fractured that it's a testament to his range and the knowledge of something we don't yet know—something bigger that's about to make the Stranger Things lore twice as gut-punching while he continues to layer the character and his motives.
