Stranger Things: Upside Down Wormhole Explained: Will It Be Destroyed In The Season 5 Finale?

Everything viewers supposedly knew and speculated so far about the otherworldly space/the darker, alternate version of Hawkins, known as the Upside Down, just went through a major overhaul thanks to the recently released second part of the final season of “Stranger Things.” While trying to find a way to eliminate Vecna, Dustin had theorized that destroying the field generator above Hawkins Lab might affect the hive mind, which Vecna uses to channel his psychokinetic powers. However, following a fight with Steve, Dustin ends up in a secret room inside the lab, where he comes across Brenner’s research, which changes his previous assumptions. The energy source, believed by Dustin to be a field generator, is part of exotic energy, which holds together the sprawling wall that has emerged outside Hawkins, and the Upside Down is basically a wormhole that is acting like a bridge between the real world and another dimension.

Spoilers Ahead

For so long, Dustin surmised that the Upside Down existed as a parallel dark realm of unknown origin, which affected earth with its corruptive influence through the years. It was believed that the plane was home to nightmarish monstrosities like Demogorgon and Mind Flayer, was almost like a living entity, and could even exact a psychical hold over those with vulnerable minds. At some point, Vecna’s origin as a cosmic monstrosity was also tied with the Upside Down, and throughout the last four seasons, the United States government/Russians have tried to weaponize the realm in different ways. It was planned that in order to kill Vecna, his corporeal form in the Upside Down needs to be found and destroyed, or at least the hive mind/energy source needs to be located to weaken the monster. Even though the teenagers remained unaware as to what Vecna plans to do with the twelve abducted kids, it was assumed that he had taken them to his domain in the Upside Down. Understandably, the surprising revelation that the Upside Down is in fact a wormhole, which connects the real world with Abyss/Dimension X, completely alters our understanding of the crisis at hand. Even though its origin has not been clearly defined yet, Upside Down was probably created back in 1983 when El accidentally built a psychic connection to Dimension X while obliterating a Demogorgon, one of the residents of the hellscape dimension. The gateway also acted as a safe refuge for Vecna when he nearly got taken down in the last season. Upside Down remains stable due to the presence of the Exotic Matter, and it’s sheer luck that the entire town of Hawkins didn’t get pulled inside the wormhole when Nancy took a shot at the energy source.

Vecna’s plan is to amplify his psychokinetic powers by drawing upon the mental strength of the abducted children and merge Abyss and Earth by eroding the gap created by the Upside Down. For Marvel fans the merger of worlds will seem familiar, Jonathan Hickman’s iconic “Avengers” run, where the Incursion event brought Earth-616 and Earth-1610 on a collision course. Similarly, DC fans will find the integration of two worlds to be similar to the catastrophic world merging by Ally Allston in the second season of “Superman and Lois.”

Given how many times the fifth season has referenced time travel, I think it is no coincidence that the concept of wormhole is suddenly introduced in the final leg of the series, and that too when Vecna has chosen 6th November as the day to merge realities, the same day Will was taken to the Upside Down four years ago. As a wormhole acts as a bridge to connect different points across the space-time continuum, it will not be too far-fetched to consider that Vecna is trying to breathe life into his corrupted version of earth by not only taking over the present but also by changing certain key events from the past. Perhaps by erasing whatever remnants of humanity are left in Henry Creel by going to the past, Vecna wants to reshape reality to his liking. Henry’s obsession with time is hinted at with the imagery of clocks throughout last season, which makes the possibility of temporal shenanigans in the final part of the series even stronger.

Dustin and Steve have come up with quite a risky, time-sensitive plan to stop Vecna, which involves initially letting the monster merge the worlds as per his desire. Vecna is holding the kids captive in Dimension X, aka Abyss, which is why the teenagers plan to let him bring the world close enough for them to enter the other dimension and attack Vecna’s mind with El’s powers, with Max providing guidance inside his mindscape using her experience. After rescuing the kids, the team is going to destroy the Upside Down by detonating a bomb on the Exotic Matter energy source, which will end up imploding the wormhole, taking down Dimension X, and all its denizens in the process. At the same time, there is a risk that Hawkins is going to be taken inside the implosion, and it will be interesting to see how the heroes are going to ensure the explosion is contained. Additionally, Kali plans to remain in the Upside Down, taking El with her as the wormhole destroys, in order to put an end to the cycle of exploitation orchestrated by power-hungry scum like Brenner and Kay. The fate of the world remains entangled with the future of the Upside Down, and the finale  of the series has a lot to answer for within a brief span of time.