'Stranger Things: Tales From 85' Ending Explained & Finale Recap: Is Hordak Dead Or Alive?

Stranger Things: Tales from ’85’s ending was all about Eleven and her friends defeating a creature called Hordak. How did this Hordak come to be? Daniel Fischer, a former employee of Hawkins Lab, was sad about the fact that years of his work had gone down the drain because of the events that had transpired over the course of the first two seasons of Stranger Things. The giant fissure between the town and the Upside Down had seemingly been closed by Eleven, the lab was sealed shut, and all the items were transported to a different location by the government. But Daniel stole one of those trucks and began experimenting on the plants extracted from the Upside Down in order to make some kind of scientific breakthrough and win accolades. When he kept hitting roadblock after roadblock, he stole Mrs. Anna Baxter’s (the botany teacher at Hawkins High School) experimental serum, which she was using to rejuvenate dead plants, and injected it into the roots of one of the plants from the Upside Down. That led to the creation of these creatures which were a cross between Demodogs and Demoplants. These beings were referred to as the Horde; the Horde’s leader was called Hordak, and allegedly, Hordak had a boss as well, who was labelled Horde Prime. The Horde and Hordak were kidnapping kids and also trying to get their hands on more of that chemical that had led to its creation. In addition to all that, of course, they were trying to reopen the rift between Hawkins and the Upside Down. Did Hordak succeed or fail? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

Initially, the kids assumed that Anna was Horde Prime. That was debunked when they found out that Daniel was the creator of those creatures, and they then assumed that he was Horde Prime. But eventually, it became apparent that the Mind Flayer was Horde Prime because, well, everything that’s connected to the Upside Down in one way or the other is under the Mind Flayer’s control. With all that out of the way, Daniel, Anna, Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Eleven, Max, Will, Nikki (Anna’s daughter), and Anna converged in the space underneath Daniel’s laboratory, because that’s where Hordak had created her nest. While Anna and the kids tried their best to keep Hordak and her Horde at bay, Daniel made a fatal mistake by exposing the bag in which he was keeping all the vials of the chemical that he had used to create them. During the tussle between the humans and the monsters, the vials broke, and the chemicals got smeared all over Daniel. So, Hordak consumed Daniel and the chemicals, which helped the creature attain its final form. I think that was quite the fitting end for Daniel, because he was the reason why Eleven’s sacrifices and efforts went down the drain. I mean, she had to use all her power to close that fissure between Hawkins and the Upside Down, and Daniel undid it all with his little experiments. The worst part was that Daniel didn’t have any regrets about making this mess. He was more focused on securing his chemicals (that weren’t even his) and probably continuing his experiments somewhere else. So, Daniel’s creation being the architect of his death was poetic. Unfortunately, since Daniel had those chemicals on him, even in death, he ended up empowering Hordak to such an extent that she could burrow her way to the Upside Down. How so? 

As per Anna, Hordak and the Horde believed that they had grown as much as they could in Hawkins, and they needed to return to their home realm to grow even more. While that was a matter of great concern, Eleven pointed out that if Hordak could open one gate, she could open multiple; and since the gates allow two-way travel, she was worried that the Mind Flayer would make a return. So, with the help of Nikki’s DIY weapons and Eleven’s superpowers, Anna and the kids took on Hordak and the Horde. The Horde was relatively easy to defeat, but Hordak was virtually unstoppable. Nikki managed to slow down Hordak’s ascent into the Upside Down by sawing off one of her limbs with her laser gun. Still, Hordak managed to penetrate the fissure she had opened and drag half of her body into her home realm. That’s when Eleven arrived and closed the fissure on Hordak’s abdomen, thereby sawing her in half and seemingly bringing her saga to a close. In the ending of Stranger Things: Tales from ’85, we saw Anna and Nikki moving into a new house, with its garage becoming a hub for Mike and the gang’s Dungeons and Dragons sessions. As they immersed themselves in the game, we got a glimpse of a blue flower growing out of the dead Hordak’s body in the Upside Down. Now, I suppose I should talk about 5 things. Firstly, why was the Horde kidnapping humans? Secondly, why wasn’t the Horde or Hordak mentioned in Stranger Things Season 3, 4, or 5? What happened to the Baxters, given how they were nowhere to be seen in the main plotline? Why didn’t all the people who were attacked by the Horde join the fight against, well, everything coming out of the Upside Down? And what’s up with the blue flower? 

If you have watched the documentary on the making of Season 5, you guys know that the Duffers (along with their team) were writing stuff on the fly. They were so careless about basic stuff like continuity, callbacks, and resolving plot threads from the main plotline that it’s no surprise they didn’t hint at any of the elements they were going to introduce in a spinoff show, Tales from ’85, which was probably being written while they were toying around with their “epic conclusion.” So, the simplest reason for why any of the things that we saw in this show were not addressed in the main show is that the writers didn’t care enough. With that out of the way, allow me to give my opinions on the questions that Tales from ’85 posed. For starters, the Horde were seemingly kidnapping humans if they had Daniel’s chemical on or in them, and they were also using these humans as a temporary energy source. We saw that the Horde didn’t have any internal organs. So, it’s possible that the creatures of the Horde were like parasites, and they needed a host to keep going for long hours. Coming to the question of the erasure of the havoc that was wreaked by the Horde and Hordak, maybe the kids were too traumatized to bring it up. They just wanted to bottle up their feelings about their altercation with these creatures and forget about it. I mean, the creatures did die by the end of the spin-off. Hence, they probably didn’t see any point in digging into it any further. If you are wondering about the spores that are floating around in Hawkins, please remember that there are plenty of elements from the Upside Down roaming around Hawkins, and they remained unaddressed even in Season 5 of Stranger Things. And when the Upside Down was destroyed, we had to accept that all those stray Mind Flayer particles, and now the Hordak spores, got erased from existence; that’s it. The same can’t be said about the Baxters though. 

The Baxters were an integral part of Mike’s friend group. Making Nikki and Anna so integral to the plot of Tales from ’85 when you know that they weren’t brought up in the main storyline is really odd. I mean, even if we get a second season of this spin-off show, and the Baxters die, have a bad falling out with Mike and the rest, or move out of Hawkins, there should be some trace of their existence in the main plotline, right? I don’t know. What’s even more confusing than the Baxters’ erasure from the main plotline is the lack of participation of all the people of Hawkins in the fight against the Upside Down, even though they were clearly affected by the Horde. It wasn’t an isolated incident. Several residents were harmed by Daniel’s creation. So, did they just forget about it? Or did they move out of Hawkins? I’d say it’s the latter, because it’s hard to forget an altercation with an interdimensional monster which sucked you into its belly and made you witness horrors beyond your comprehension. Which finally brings us to the blue flower. Daniel clearly said that that chemical had regenerative powers. So, it was obvious that killing Hordak didn’t make a lot of difference, because another plant began growing out of it, which’ll probably create another Hordak. Anna had hypothesized that the need to survive leads to evolution; which means that Hordak 2.0 will be meaner and fiercer than its predecessor, as indicated by the change in its hue (from purplish-green to neon blue). Who knows? Maybe it’ll be a hybrid of Hordak and an undead Daniel. Again, if you are wondering why Hordak (any of its versions) didn’t show up in the main plotline, it’s probably because the writers forgot about it or Eleven and her friends will purge its existence in the subsequent seasons (if that’s greenlit). Anyway, these are only my thoughts on Tales from ‘85. If you have any opinions that you want to share with us, the comments section is open for you.