Episode 9

We start up right where we left off: in the Creel house, with El rocked by the revelation that Henry is her biological father.

And with the battle in the Upside Down seemingly lost.

Henry insists that El was born as the first of a new species, that she is the second generation of what were once humans but are now part of the hive mind. They are, Henry says, the next step in evolution—greater than the demos, since they maintain their own agency, and also greater than humans. As such, they will be spared once the Mind Flayer reaches Earth and lays its eggs. Once its species floods across the Earth, Henry and El will rule it like gods. This is what Henry always wanted for her, and it’s what he says she will do.

He pauses once again, sensing yet another development. Smiling, he tells El that someone else is coming here… They’re about to have a family reunion.

Back in the Upside Down, the helicopter carrying the rescue unit is just barely able to shake the demodragons and fly through the gate, into the Abyss. They find a barren wasteland, inhabited by hundreds of thousands of demos—an army, astronomically larger than anything they previously thought. (Hey, canon, what if there were actually monsters the Abyss?) Much of this army is being levitated into the sky, pushed through the wormhole. In the center of it all its the Mind Flayer flesh-tree thing:

The pilot doesn’t know where to land. Will tells him to try the Mind Flayer, because what else is there? Lt. Miller agrees. Kali then grabs Will by the arm and tells him that it knows they’re here.

Back in our world, the party members who stayed behind—Joyce, Jonathan, Robin, Vickie, Erica, Argyle and Karen—watch as Kay races through the gate, running and shouting orders to her men. They can hear the sounds of battle, can see some of it through the widening gate. A demodragon starts tearing through, snapping at the soldiers, who open fire on it.

Unseen by everyone except the party, Kay gathers some of her soldiers around her and charges to where the gate-closing machine is, quickly killing Carr’s guards and ordering her men to move the machine into place. The party hears her, on her own radio, ordering Akers to launch the warheads as soon as possible—to not wait for the rescue unit to return. The party realizes that Kay is going to close this gate early, trapping everyone on the other side when the Abyss explodes and the wormhole collapses.

Robin grabs a radio and tries to hail someone on the other side of the gate. Dustin answers, but he and the others are trapped in the middle of the attack on the forward base. Robin tells him, Nancy, Steve, Lucas, Max and an (injured, but still alive) Owens what Kay is planning to do. They quickly decide that Nancy and Steve are going to rush to the launch site to stop Akers, but they need someone else to stop Kay on the Hawkins side.

Owens grabs another radio and is able to hail one of his officers in Hawkins, ordering him and his men to stop Kay’s faction. The officer is unsure, because he doesn’t want to contradict Carr’s orders.

Nancy grabs Dustin’s radio and tells Robin to do something, but Robin says that these are soldiers, there’s no way they can stop these guys. Nancy yells at her that it’s not about stopping them, it’s about slowing them down. Robin insists, however—right as Karen Walk ’Em Down Wheeler limps by with a belt of grenades in one hand and an assault rifle taken off a dead soldier in the other. She pulls the pin on one of the grenades and flings it at Kay’s group. The explosion doesn’t damage the machine, but it does slow their progress—even as the party ducks behind cover as Kay’s soldiers open fire on them.

Meanwhile, demogorgons and demodogs being pouring through the gate, attacking everyone in sight. The gate is nearly wide enough for the first demodragon, which is shoving its ways through, tearing the area around it apart.

At the forward base, Nancy and Steve hop into an armored vehicle, joking about trying to drive something like this. They speed off into the Upside Down, demobats on their ass, navigating the chaos as they race to the launch site.

By this point, the soldiers have reached that site. Akers asks if they’re done setting up the impromptu launchpad, and the officer in charge—from Carr’s faction—gives the affirmative. Akers then nods to his men and shoots that officer, while his men kill the rest of Carr’s. Akers then prepares to launch the warheads, programming into the command console a countdown that’s just long enough for him and his men to make it back to Hawkins, but too short for the rescue unit to make it back through.

In the Abyss, the helicopter slows down, hovering over the Mind Flayer. The team, led by Miller, rappels down, helping Will and Kali to do so as well. Once they’re on the Mind Flayer, the helicopter takes off, engaging in invasive maneuvers away from a swarm of demobats while waiting for the rescue team to return. The team crawls down into the Mind Flayer. Will and Kali grow increasingly apprehensive, sensing that it not only knows they’re here—but that it’s welcoming them in.

Back in Henry’s mind, he tells El that he doesn’t care one way or the other about Kali—although she’s his daughter, too (and El’s half-sister) he finds her a disappointment, just like all his other children… all except for El. Will, though, Henry loathes. Not only has Will defied him for years, but it turns out that he’s like Henry—a one-in-a-million person who has the genetic mutation that allows him to access the Mind Flayer’s psychic abilities without inheriting it from a parent. This, Henry explains, was why he and the Mind Flayer sought Will out in the first place (back in season 1) and tried to use him again (in season 2) before finally growing disgusted with him and trying different methods… possessing Bill and using the monster made from body composites in season 3, and then Vecna himself opening the gate in season 4.

In short, Will isn’t piggybacking through Vecna’s mind in order to access his powers—he’s using the Mind Flayer’s powers directly, himself.

By this point, El understands that Vecna’s failures had made him worried, which is why he’s taken a far more active and direct role, starting in season 4. El senses the tension between him and the Mind Flayer, how the latter has become increasingly disappointed in the former, and has been considering replacing him for a long time… with her.

She realizes that she knows this because the Mind Flayer is speaking to her directly, in her mind, telling her that it wants her as its new vessel.

Henry, sharing El’s mind, senses this. He goes into a panic, pleading with the Mind Flayer. The Creel house begins to shake and crumble, as Henry promises he can prove himself, that they’ve almost achieved their goal, everything that they want is right here, and he, Henry, has made it happen. He’s still worthy. El sees her opening and takes it: she attacks Henry, beginning a psychic fight between them that Will, Kali and Miller’s squad feel within the body of the trembling Mind Flayer.

Startled by the unexpected intensity of El and Vecna’s fight happening within it, the Mind Flayer unfurls, just like in the canon, becoming mobile. But it’s far larger than in the canon, a titanic monstrosity the size of a city, a walking, spidery mountain… with millions of glowing yellow eggs hanging from its underside.

Will and Kali realize that it’s becoming desperate, now that El is fighting back. It rises up to its full, gargantuan height. Demobats and demodragons swirl around it, and demogorgons and demodogs crawl up its sides, the entire army of monsters using it as a ladder to access the gate in the sky as the Mind Flayer grabs onto it… because it’s nearly large enough to climb through.

Back in the Upside Down, everyone looks up to the sky to see the horrific, cosmic monstrosity of the Mind Flayer leering down onto them… and dropping an endless horde of demos, a hellish rain of monsters.

Back in Hawkins, Kay activates the machine. It’s pointing at the gate, and it’s close enough, so that the gate slowly, slowly begins to shrink. Seeing this, the party comes up with a quick, improvised plan. Jonathan tells Argyle to get in the way, to make a distraction. Argyle, freaking out but still stepping up when they need him, hops onto a AV turret and, in a repeat of when he freaked out firing a gun earlier (back at Hawkins Lab), begins shooting it all over the place, shouting in panic as he hits demos and cars and buildings. As Kay’s group takes cover, the machine is left temporarily open. While Joyce and Karen provide cover fire, Jonathan, Robin and Erica sneak to the machine and get to work sabotaging it as best they can.

Nancy and Steve make it to the launch site, right as it’s attacked by demos. Soldiers are massacred, while Nancy and Steve fight through the chaos to get to the control panel (which Owens had already told them about), but get separated. Steve reaches the panel at the same time as an injured Akers—who points his gun at Steve. We hear a gunshot and for a moment think Steve was hit—but it turns out that it was Nancy, shooting Akers dead.

She and Steve then take cover here at the control panel and get back onto the radio, telling those at the forward base that they have the launch site secure… kinda. Mostly secure. Secure enough, at least. But they can’t figure out how to get the countdown to stop. By now, Owens has lost so much blood that he’s pale and unresponsive, so Dustin tries to figure out how to work the panel via radio conversation with Steve and Nancy. His first set of instructions actually shortens the countdown… until he realizes his mistake and provides them with the correct steps.

The timer stops, and the three of them then work very carefully to reset the timer.

Back in Hawkins, Kay sees the saboteurs rig the machine to blow and shoots at them as they run off, hitting Robin. Jonathan and Erica drag her back behind cover, but it’s bad. Volunteer-nurse Vickie goes to work, desperately trying to keep Robin from bleeding out. Only a few moments later, the sabotaged machine blows up—stopping Kay from closing the gate prematurely. The party congratulates itself, but Kay yells across the way at them that the only other way to close it—the psychics—are on the other side of the universe, and they’re already dead. All of them are dead. But Joyce responds, quietly to the party, that no—they’re going to make it. Will is going to make it.

In the Abyss, the rescue unit reaches the chamber inside of the Mind Flayer where Vecna is set up, with El, Holly, Derek and the other children in the trance-states, just like how it looked in the canon.

photo inside the Mind Flayer

But as the unit approaches… Vecna wakes up. He drops to the floor, and uses his powers to slaughter Miller and his team—carving through the toughest black ops soldiers on the planet like nothing. Will and Kali use their powers to fight back, but even without the help of the Mind Flayer (which is occupied with trying to get through the gate), Vecna gains the upper hand, and is about to kill them both—

Until El attacks, having pulled herself out of the trance. Vecna holds against her for a moment, but begins falling back… because she has help: the children. They’re still in a trance state, but now they’re inside El’s mind, sitting together with her on the floor of Hopper’s cabin (which, in El’s mind, she visualized as a safe place, the safest place), holding hands and joining their psyches against Vecna—creating a hive mind.

In the Mind Flayer, Will and Kali grab El’s hands and link themselves to her hive mind, gathering everything they have together and pushing it against Vecna. He holds out only briefly before collapsing, broken and defeated. In the psychic space of his mind, he begs for the Mind Flayer to help him… but it watches on, disappointed, as El stands over him, hand extended. She tells Vecna that she isn’t his. She had a father, and Vecna killed him. She remembers Mike, dying in her arms, and her rage increases, and she uses her powers to hurt Vecna, drawing it out…

But then she remembers what Hopper told her, and she thinks about Mike again—not dying in her arms, but (in a montage of flashbacks that cover the entire series) Mike finding her in the woods so long ago, and laughing with her, playing D&D with her, dancing with her, kissing her. In more flashbacks, she remembers her still-living friends, all of the people she loves—

—so that when she uses her powers to rip Vecna’s head off, she does it not to avenge the dead, but to save the living.

Vecna falls to the floor headless, dead, finally defeated.

With him gone and the children free, the gate connecting the Abyss to the Upside Down stops growing—but that doesn’t matter, because the Mind Flayer now has enough space to crawl through. Kali gets a radio from Miller’s body and uses it to tell the pilot to fly back through the gate and meet them on the other side. Then El, Will, Kali, Holly, Derek and the children rush back through the Mind Flayer, getting up to the surface / its skin. Keep in mind, this version of the monster is so titanic that it’s like they’re climbing a living mountain… one that they can use to get back through, into the Upside Down.

The helicopter gets close enough for them all to load up, and then flies away. Will begins using his powers to close the Abyss gate, while Kali on the radio tells Nancy that Vecna’s dead and they’ve got the kids, so they need to launch the warheads, now. Nancy enters the command into the console, reinitiating the countdown sequence, then she and Steve hop back into the armored vehicle and speed off, heading back to the forward base.

The Mind Flayer, however, isn’t done with them.

It attacks El’s mind, still trying to corrupt her, to convince her to take Vecna’s place—it promises to spare her and her friends, to allow them to live safely on its new Earth. But El knows it’s lying, so she resists, fighting back with the help of the children—of her own hive mind.

Nancy and Steve make it back to the forward base and, with the survivors—Dustin, Lucas, Max, Owens, Carr and a few remaining soldiers—retreat through the Hawkins gate. The rescue team’s helicopter barrels through last, soaring out over downtown Hawkins.

As the Abyss gate grows too small for the Mind Flayer to move through, it redoubles its efforts against El. She fights back with everything she has, at the end of her strength as the missiles climb up into the sky… through the gate…

… and hit the Mind Flayer.

Cataclysmic nuclear explosions tear through the Abyss, ripping the surface of the planet apart. The blast rushes through the wormhole, destroying the demos and collapsing the Upside Down. But with the Mind Flayer already dead from the nuclear explosions, El and the new hive mind can push everything they have at the Hawkins gate, closing it just before the blast reaches it—saving Hawkins, and ending this nightmare forever.

Quiet descends across town, as the monsters on this side collapse, dead without the Mind Flayer to guide them.

Everyone begins cheering—the party, the soldiers, even Carr cracks a smile. Robin and Owens are stabilized by the medics. The bodies of the demos in Hawkins dissolve away into nothing. The party reunites, recounting everything that’s happened, overjoyed to find El back with them—and finally giving El and Max their reunion, as well.

Derek and the other children are reunited with their families, but Karen and Nancy can’t find Holly. Neither can the others, until they hear her scream. Kay stands holding her at gunpoint, demanding a transport for herself and her remaining men (who have been arrested by Carr’s soldiers). El tries to use her powers to kill Kay, but they don’t work—neither do Will’s. Kay gloats, telling them that without the Mind Flayer to provide them, they don’t have powers, anymore. She cocks her gun and puts it to Holly’s head, telling them that if they don’t let her leave, then she’ll kill the girl. Kay has, obviously, lost her grip on reality, and will very much do it.

Until a gunshot goes off and Kay stiffens, eyes wide… then falls over. We then see Kali, also stripped of her powers, holding a smoking gun. As Holly runs to Nancy and Karen, Kali walks over to Kay and stands over her, telling her that their reckoning is done. She then watches with satisfaction as Kay bleeds out and dies.

Clean up begins in full, now that it’s all over. The people of Hawkins return, and the party is reunited. Not all of them are here—but they still did it. They saved the world.

Epilogue

We see Hawkins a few weeks later, rebuilding from the “earthquakes” that took the lives of so many people. Unlike the canon, there won’t be a graduation scene—most of the characters are still in school, and while this means we don’t get the “Hellfire lives” scene, it’s not much of a loss. While fun, it wasn’t built up enough to feel earned in the first place. (There’s a different graduation scene, however, a little later on.) So instead we see the characters joined at a memorial service that the town has put together for the survivors, including Mike. Although Hopper can’t be included, because he officially died a few years ago, his name is said aloud by those who know.

After the memorial service, Kali says goodbye to El, telling her that without her powers she actually feels… free. She’s going back to Chicago, this time to get a job instead of robbing people, but that she hopes El, her sister, comes to visit. El promises to, and watches as Kali gets on a bus heading out of town.

We learn that Carr’s faction has worked to cover up what happened in Hawkins, which involved clearing the party of any charges… just so long as they don’t get into any more trouble. This is told to them on Carr’s behalf by Owens, who is still very much alive. When someone asks Owens what he’s off to do next, he says that he’s retiring—to a nice community on Long Island, a nowhere-place called Montauk (wink-wink).

There’s a graduation ceremony for the class that includes Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, Robin and Vickie. This leads to a scene similar to the canon (on the radio station rooftop), in which they all discuss the different colleges they’re going to, or in Steve’s case staying around Hawkins. Robin and Vickie will be moving to Chicago, so that they can be themselves—and Robin’s already told Will that he can come stay with her when he’s old enough. This group agrees, like in the canon, to find a way to hang out every few months.

We also get to see Lucas and Max being all adorable together, and Erica with her and Lucas’ parents. After being dropped off back home by Steve, Dustin goes to his room and uses a smaller, portable version of his Cerebro machine (from season 3) to call Suzie.

They catch up, and Suzie mentions that he’s here again. Cut to a familiar pizza delivery van parked outside of her family’s house: Argyle, hotboxing with Eden—

The pothead lovers, reunited.

Will, back at school, meets another boy his age—one who shares a meaningful look with him, and smiles at him. Will smiles back.

Joyce sits at Enzo’s, alone at a table for two. She raises her glass of wine to the empty seat.

Coming home, she finds El in her room (she’s living with the Byers again, like when they were in California). El is holding a photo of her and Hopper, silently crying. Joyce comforts her, telling her that Hopper loved her and assuring El that his death isn’t her fault. He’d been in so much pain for so long, he’d wanted to die… until El came into his life. He died, yes, but he did it in the only way he’d ever want to: saving his daughter. And, Joyce says, if he could see that it helped El come back from the dark, then he’d be happy.

Once El collects herself, Joyce reminds her that she got something to go do tonight, right? It’s at that moment Will sticks his head into her room, telling her that they have to go—they’re already late. El and Will hop into Will’s car (he has his license now) and drive off. Joyce leans in the doorway, watching them go, smiling.

The final scene would be very similar to the canon one: friends playing D&D in the Wheeler basement. Only this time it’s Dustin, Lucas, Max and El, with Will as DM. Just like with the canon ending, this gives a full-circle closure, and instead of Mike narrating their respective fates, it would be Will, and it could be used to frame the epilogue scenes above. And just like with the canon ending, once the session is over and the tears have been cried, everyone puts their player binders up on the shelf—Dustin first, and we hear him when he gets upstairs, thanking Karen for letting them finish their campaign here, and Karen replying that they’re always welcome. Max and Lucas are next, holding hands as they climb up the stairs. El and Will leave last, watching as Holly, Derek and their friends rush down to play their session next. And El and Will leave them to it.

Conclusion

So, like I mentioned at the start of all this, my Less-Shitty Version is wish-fulfillment. It’s rough, a glorified outline. Not every character and scene is filled in like it would be by the time filming would have started (or by the time the teleplays would’ve been done). I didn’t focus too much on character development, mostly because I think the characters had already reached satisfactory points in their arcs by the end of season 4—thus, season 5 should’ve been more action-oriented. The pieces were all in place on the board, and it was time to move them. Which was my intent, here.

Still, there are holes in many of the arcs. My LSV doesn’t do enough with Max and Lucas (as a couple and as individuals). Plus, secondary characters like Chief Powell and Mr. Clarke fall off toward the middle, but I imagine they’d at least show up for a moment in the epilogue.

And I tried to keep my LSV bound to the same restraints that writing, filming and producing an actual TV show has to deal with—but since Stranger Things had a massive budget, a lot of the CGI required throughout this version (especially for the ending) would’ve been feasible.

I’m not saying it’s great, but it’s better than whatever it was that the Duffer Brothers half-assed. At the very least, this was fun to write. And you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed reading it, too.

Photo credits:

• Poster: mikeshouts.com
• Mind Flayer – amcplus.com
• Suzie – amazon.com
• Eden – amazon.com