Stranger Things
Created by: The Duffer Brothers
Stars: Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven / El), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Brett Gelman (Murray Bauman), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Jamie Campbell Bower (Vecna / Henry Creel / One), Cara Buono (Karen Wheeler), Amybeth McNulty (Vicky Dunne), Nell Fisher (Holly Wheeler), Jake Connelly (Derek Turnbow), Alex Breaux (Lt. Robert Akers), Linda Hamilton (Dr. Kay), Joe Chrest (Ted Wheeler), Sherman Augustus (Lt. Colonel Jack Sullivan), Clayton Royal Johnson (Andy), Hunter Romanillos (Chance)
Season 5 – Episode 7
Episode title: Chapter Seven: The Bridge
Director: The Duffer Brothers & Shawn Levy
Original release date: December 25, 2025
Episode plot: Max wakes safely in the real world while Holly awakens trapped in the Abyss. Dustin and Steve rescue Nancy and Jonathan and witness Holly falling through the Upside Down before Henry pulls her back with his powers. Erica, Murray, and Mr. Clarke reunite with Dustin’s group, and everyone returns as Dr. Kay orders Akers to hunt Eleven. Dustin explains the Abyss is a separate dimension, and Max reveals Henry’s plan to merge it with their world. Hopper and Steve propose a dangerous strategy to bring the dimensions closer so Eleven and Kali can reach the radio tower and kill Henry while the others destroy the Upside Down. Kali fears they may have to die to stop him, and Will comes out as gay. Murray drives the group back into the Upside Down. Meanwhile, Henry manipulates the other children against Max and Holly. When Holly awakens in the Creel House, she is beaten after failing to convince them of the truth, and Derek stays silent to protect his family. Henry then links with all twelve children, placing them into trances to carry out his plan.
* * *
Stranger Things – S05E07 – Chapter Seven: The Bridge | Transcript
[heart beating]
[“Running Up That Hill (Deal With God)” by Kate Bush playing]
[Lucas] Max.
[Max breathing uneasily]
[Lucas] Max. Max, can you hear me? Max. Come on. Open your eyes. Yes! Yes, Max! Can you hear me?
[dramatic music playing]
[Lucas] Max! Yes! Stay with me. Stay with me. All the way, Max.
[distorted voices]
[Lucas] Yes! That’s it! That’s it!
[Max] [softly] Hello, Lucas.
[Lucas] Yes. Max. Come on, Max. It’s me. I’m right here. I’m right here, Max.
[“When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die” by Moby playing]
[Lucas] Are you… Are you… Are you okay? Do you… Do you hurt anywhere?
[Max] I can’t feel… much.
[Lucas] Do you… Do you feel this? Do you feel my hand?
[Max] A little.
[Lucas] Can… Can you… Can you see?
[Max] The lights are really… are really bright.
[Vicki] Hey. You haven’t used your eyes, okay, or your muscles for a long time. Okay, your body’s just weak, but it just needs to readjust and learn again.
[Max crying]
[Vickie] You are going to be okay. You’re gonna be okay.
[Lucas] I knew you were there. I always knew you were still there.
[Max] I saw you. Waiting for me, playing my… my song.
[Lucas] You bored of it yet?
[Max] Are you? It turns out that the whole time, I didn’t even need it. I just needed you. Just you.
♪ I don’t wanna swim forever ♪
♪ When it’s cold I’d like to die ♪
♪ I don’t wanna… ♪
[Mike] Oh my God.
[Eleven] Max. You’re here. You’re really here.
[Max] I’m here.
[Hopper] Hey, welcome home, kid.
[Mike] Took your sweet time, didn’t you?
[Max] [chuckles softly] Screw you, Wheeler. Where am I?
[Robin] Oh. Yeah, that would be confusing. Um… You were being hunted by the Demodogs, and we were all seconds away from becoming lunch when Mrs. Wheeler came and… did the laundry.
[flesh sizzling]
[Mike] Holy shit! Mom!
[Max] Vecna. He’ll be angry. He’ll try and find me. He’ll know we escaped.
[Mike] Where’s Holly? Where is she?
[breathing softly]
[mysterious slithering]
[intense music playing]
[Holly groaning anxiously]
[straining]
[gasping]
[vine slithering]
[Holly panting]
[grunting in pain]
[panting]
[gagging]
[wailing]
[sinister music playing]
[loud pulsing]
[Holly whimpering]
[gasping]
[thunder rumbling]
[sinister music builds]
[loud cracking]
[Vecna growling]
[Jonathan grunting]
[Nancy] Jonathan. Jonathan. Jonathan. Jonathan, stop.
[Jonathan] [panting] What?
[Nancy] If we hurt ourselves, we’re really screwed.
[Jonathan] Yeah, I guess you’re right. Oh, God. Okay, so now what?
[Nancy] Anything else you wanna confess?
[loud pounding]
[Jonathan] Stay back.
[Steve] Sorry we’re late. You okay?
Yeah. Yeah, we’re okay.
[Jonathan] Thanks.
[Dustin] Was that weird? I’m sorry. That was weird. I didn’t… We just… We both thought…
[Nancy] We were goners. Yeah, we did too.
[Dustin] Yes.
[Jonathan] Turns out that shield generator of yours…
[Steve] Isn’t really a shield generator. Yeah, we know.
[Nancy] Well, you’d think that would have been good information to share.
[Steve] Well, we tried.
[Dustin] Antenna snapped.
[both] His fault.
[Nancy] Okay, so then what the hell did I shoot?
[Dustin] Exotic matter.
[Jonathan] And we’re supposed to know what that is?
[Dustin] It’s all in here. Look. Check this out. Dr. Brenner’s notebook from ’83. This thing is a gold mine. All his research into the gate, how he created it, what it really is. I’m still deciphering it, but…
[Steve] Yeah, this shit will fry your brain.
[Dustin] Cliff notes, Holly isn’t on the other side of the wall.
[Nancy] Then where is she?
[Dustin] I don’t know… exactly. But wherever she is, it’s not the Upside Down.
[thunder cracks]
[Holly panting]
[Max] When he took me, he opened the fourth, final gate, splitting Hawkins in two.
[Holly straining]
[moaning]
[Holly] You can do this.
[intense music playing]
[Holly screaming]
[Holly screaming in distance]
[Nancy] What was that?
[Steve] What was what?
[screaming continues]
[Nancy] Holly.
[rubber squeaking]
[walkie-talkie beeps]
[Mr. Clarke] Voyager Beta. Any signal yet?
[Erica] Negative, Voyager Alpha. Voyager Gamma?
[Murray] A big, fat zero over here. Your balloon experiment is a dud, Snookums. Let’s just put the antenna on the van and drive.
[Mr. Clarke] As I’ve said, Voyager Gamma, given the uneven terrain and forested nature of Hawkins, a vehicle is simply not the most expedient way to pinpoint a telemetry tag.
[Murray] “Expedient”? We’ve been building your goddamn balloon experiment for six hours!
[Mr. Clarke] Yes, but once we trilaterate the three signals, I’ll be able to pinpoint Dustin’s precise location.
[Murray] You can’t trilaterate shit if we can’t get a signal, so let’s just cut our losses now before your star student winds up dead in a ditch.
[Mr. Clarke] “Cut our losses…”
[playful music playing]
[Mr. Clarke] Fortune favors the bold.
[machine beeping]
[Mr. Clarke] I’ve secured a location on Dustin. Loose your balloons, Voyagers.
[Erica] Come again?
[Murray] Wait, hold on. What?
[Mr. Clarke] We need more height. Loose your balloons.
[Erica] Negative 80!
[Murray] Negative 44. I take it back, Snookums, you mad, mad genius!
[Mr. Clarke] Thank you, Voyager. Calculations incoming. Hold tight.
[Vecna] You are going to be my spy one last time.
[Will screaming]
[Joyce] Will. Hopper just radioed. Max is safe. She got out.
[Will relieved sigh]
[Joyce] Hey, this is good news. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you. Everything’s gonna be okay.
[Will] But for how long, Mom? If Lucas is right, today is the day, the day Vecna’s gonna act. I thought I had him. But the truth… The truth is I never stood a chance. And he knew it. He’s always known it. That’s why, out of everyone in Hawkins, he chose me. Because he knew I was weak, and he knew he could control me.
[Joyce] That is not true.
[Will] It is, Mom. It is. I was his vessel. A vessel to channel his powers, to spy, and… and to build.
[Joyce] “To… To build”?
[Will] The tunnels. They didn’t spread from the gate on their own. Every night, I jacked into the hive and took control of the vines, using them to tunnel, infecting our world with the Upside Down. So many died because of me. And if I could do all of that, what could he do with 12 more like me?
[Joyce] You listen to me. None of what happened is your fault. Do you hear me? And as for his big plan, he’s not gonna have 12 vessels, or whatever the hell he calls them, because he just lost Holly, and she’ll know where the others are. Sweetheart, this is not over, not by a long shot.
[Will] You’re wrong. You’re wrong, Mom. It’s my fault.
[Joyce] No. No, baby.
[tires screeching]
Go! Go!
[tense music playing]
[indistinct chatter on walkie-talkies]
[Max] I couldn’t see where Holly was gonna wake up. But I figured wherever Vecna was keeping her, it had to be in the Upside Down. So… I told her to just go home.
[Mike] Home? Home as in our home?
[Robin] Meaning we have to get back into the Upside Down. Where is the nearest rift to you?
[Mike] Off Cornwallis, I think. About a mile and a half, give or take.
[Erica] Lucas, do you copy?
[Lucas] Oh, Robin.
[Robin] Yeah.
[Erica] Lucas!
[Lucas] Erica, I really can’t talk right now.
[Mike] Okay, so Vecna took out those soldiers, so it should be a lot easier to get into the MAC.
[Hopper] No. They’re gonna have reinforcements by now.
[Eleven] I can break through a plate.
[Karen] Are you saying that Holly is trapped under a steel plate?
[Robin] Without context, that might sound troubling, but she’s not pancaked under a giant hunk of steel or anything. She’s… How do I talk about this?
[Mike] Well, there’s this world under ours…
[Robin] Under the plates.
[Eleven] The Upside Down.
[Robin] Yeah, and it’s just like Hawkins, only way suckier.
[Lucas] Guys, guys, guys. Okay, you really won’t believe this, but Erica and Mr. Clarke came through. They found Dustin and the others.
[Robin laughs happily]
[Hopper] All right. Well, they’re gonna be able to find Holly a lot easier than we are.
[Vicki] We better hurry. We got company.
[gasping]
[Mike] Hey, hey. Are you okay?
[Karen] I’m fine, Michael. I’m fine.
[Vicki] No, with all due respect, Mrs. Wheeler, you’re not. You could get an infection, hemorrhage, God forbid, stop breathing.
[Karen] If you think I’m gonna stay in bed when my daughter needs me, you’re out of your goddamn mind. Let’s go.
[Mike] Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom. She’s right. It’s okay. Keep going. Hey, you saved us. You saved us. And by some miracle, you’re still here, okay? But now, you need to trust me that we can handle this the rest of the way.
[Karen] There might be more of those things out there.
[Mike] They’re called Demogorgons. I know. There’s so much that I need to tell you about this Upside Down and El, but right now, all you need to know is that this group saved Will when no one else could. We did that. And we’re about to do the same thing with Holly. We’re gonna bring her back to you, Mom. I promise. Okay?
[Karen] Yeah?
[Mike] Mr. Clarke, thanks for the assist.
[Mr. Clarke] Don’t thank me yet. We successfully trilaterated Dustin’s position here, to precisely where I stand now.
[Erica] But by the time we arrived, he was MIA.
[Robin] Well, he wouldn’t be precisely here. He’d be under.
[Mr. Clarke] Sorry?
[Mike] You didn’t tell him?
[Erica] I…
[Mr. Clarke] Told me what?
[Erica] Holy shit.
[Max] Holy shit.
[Murray] Hey, over here! Over here! I got him! I got him! I got Dustin!
[static buzzing]
[Mike] I don’t hear anything.
[Murray] Patience.
[static continues]
[Dustin] Is anyone there? Repeat, this is Dustin.
[Mike] Dustin, it’s Mike. Holly’s escaped from Vecna, and she’s on her way to my house in the Upside Down. I need you to get there as fast as you can and rendezvous with Holly. Do you copy?
[Dustin] Holly’s not at the house. We found her. We found Holly. Repeat, we…
[Mike] Dustin, I’m losing you. Dustin?
[static buzzing]
[Robin] Am I going crazy, or did he just say that he found Holly?
[Hopper] All right, let’s hug this wall up here.
[Lucas] Why would she be at the lab?
[Mike] Wherever she escaped from, the lab must’ve been en route to my house.
[Lucas] She just happened to run into Dustin? What are the odds?
[Erica] Low as shit, but I say it’s about damn time we had some luck.
[Robin] Amen to that.
[Mr. Clarke] I’m sorry. I still don’t follow. Dustin is under those plates?
[Lucas and Mike] Yes.
[Robin] But not pancaked.
[Hopper] Hang on. Hang on. Yeah, we got cameras all over that rift.
[Mr. Clarke] I have an old spectrum analyzer back at the club. If I can just locate their RF signal, I should be able to jam the transmission.
[Hopper] That’s cool. I think you’re overthinking it.
You’re telling me Alford wouldn’t have doubled that score?
Four from six from the field.
Reggie’s gonna be something special, you mark my words.
Walsh can do no…
[Murray] You ain’t seen nothing yet.
[metallic groaning]
[Eleven grunts]
[ominous rumbling]
[Murray] You coming, Snookums?
[Mr. Clarke] We’re going in there? We’re going in there.
[thunder cracks]
[Hopper] Steve!
[Robin] Dustin!
[Hopper] Steve!
[Mike] Nancy! Holly!
[Hopper] Jonathan!
[vines slithering]
[Vicki] Is this shit safe to breathe?
[Robin] Unclear.
[Vicki] Okay.
[Lucas] Mike, any luck down there?
[Dustin] Mike? Mike!
[Mike] Found him.
[Mike] Jesus, it’s good to see you guys. Nancy? Where is she? Where’s Holly?
[Holly screaming]
[Nancy] What was that?
[Steve] What was what?
[screaming continues]
[Nancy] Holly.
[Holly] Nancy! Nancy!
[Nancy] Holly! Holly!
[Holly] Nancy, help me! Nancy, help me! Help me down, please!
[Nancy] Holly!
[Holly] Nancy! Nancy, please!
[Nancy] Holly!
[Holly] Nancy! [screams]
[Nancy] It was like something had a hold of her, but you couldn’t see anything. It was him. Vecna. It had to be.
[Lucas] Mike? Is Holly okay, Mike? Mike, do you copy? I repeat, is Holly okay?
[dark music playing]
[vines slithering]
[particles pumping]
[Vecna] Don’t worry, Holly. It will all be over soon. It will all be over. [groaning]
[Sullivan] It was some sort of demon, a demon from that other world. He can control monsters, move Humvees, stop fire. Bullets didn’t touch him. Hell, nothing could. It wasn’t a fight. It was a damn massacre.
[Akers] First we get mutant dogs at the hospital. Now a goddamn demon in the MAC? You wanna tell me what else is about to pop out of that hellhole, or should we leave it a surprise? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but suddenly we’re light on men.
[Dr. Kay] Reinforcements are on the way. Any additional requests, talk to your unit commander.
[Akers] How am I to know what to request when I don’t know what I’m fighting?
[Dr. Kay] You’re not fighting anything. This is not a war. It is a search. Something gets in your way, kill it. But otherwise, keep your focus on finding the girl.
[Akers] Yeah, find the girl. Christ, is that all you can say? I mean, you got a pull string under that jacket of yours or what?
[Dr. Kay] Everything that has happened here is because of that girl. And if you had just done your job and found her, then I wouldn’t have to repeat myself, and we’d have those monsters in Moscow where they’d be killing Soviets instead of Americans. The dead men, the children, their blood is on your hands, Lieutenant, not mine. And unless you want to join them, I would watch that goddamn tongue.
[man on walkietalkie] Lt. Akers, this is Bravo One. Do you copy?
[Akers] Yeah, what is it?
[man on walkietalkie] We’ve got a rift breach at the old lab.
[Akers] On my way.
[Lucas] You okay?
[Will] Max.
[Will groans excitedly]
[Max] So I leave you alone for a second, and you turn into a sorcerer?
[Will] It was a little more than a second, and I’m not really a sorcerer.
[Max] Mm, sure seemed like it to me.
[Lucas] Hey, you up for a tour?
[Lucas] Jimmy “Fast Hands” skipped town before quarantine, so we just sort of moved in here. The basement is hidden behind this bookshelf over there. Not quite the Batcave, but it’s pretty sweet. We kept the station going as cover. Robin’s our DJ.
[Robin] Rockin’ Robin.
[Lucas] Rockin’ Robin, my bad. And Steve’s her sound man. Check this out.
[loud belch]
[Max chuckles softly]
[Lucas] Hey… We’re gonna get Holly back.
[Max] She’s all alone in there, Lucas. Alone with that monster. And I was so sure that she could make it out. And I was so stupid.
[Lucas] You had to try.
[Max] I should have stayed there. And I should have kept her safe.
[Lucas] Then we’d all be screwed. You’ve been in Vecna’s mind. You can help us beat him.
[Max] No. I can’t. I don’t even know where Vecna’s keeping Holly.
[Dustin] Well, it’s a good thing I do. I know where she is, but the real challenge is getting there. I gotta show you guys something.
[Dustin] Okay. So, this is Hawkins, and this is the Upside Down. We’ve always assumed the Upside Down was another dimension opened by Brenner, but it turns out it’s actually a bridge. More specifically, an interdimensional bridge that rips through spacetime. It is wildly unstable, but held together by exotic matter, which we found dead center right above the lab. In theoretical physics, they call this type of bridge a…
[Erica and Mr. Clarke] Wormhole.
[Dustin] And this wormhole connects Hawkins to here, another world that I’ve coined the Abyss.
[Robin] Any particular reason?
[Mr. Clarke] A realm of pure chaos and evil.
[Robin] I’m sorry?
[all] D&D.
[Hopper] Jesus Christ.
[Murray] Wow.
[Dustin] I believe this Abyss is the true home of the Demogorgons, the vines, the Mind Flayer, all the nasty shit we found in the Upside Down. It’s where all those years ago you banished Henry. He was lost for years, and would’ve stayed lost if it wasn’t for Brenner.
[Eleven] He had me find Henry.
[Dustin] And when you made remote contact with the Abyss, the bridge formed. Ever since, Henry and his army of monsters have been using it to cross right back into Hawkins. We kicked Vecna’s ass last year, but he just fled across this bridge back to the Abyss to lick his wounds.
[Erica] What a pussy.
[Joyce] So all this time, Vecna’s been hiding in the sky?
[Nancy] Explains why every crawl led to a dead end.
[Eleven] And why I can’t find him in the bath.
[Jonathan] And why Holly fell from the sky.
[Hopper] Yeah, but why is he taking kids up there?
[Will] For the same reason he took me. The minds of children are weaker, right? More easily molded and controlled. So he channeled his thoughts and powers through me to amplify his abilities, and he’s gonna do the same with those kids.
[Hopper] Amplify his abilities? To do what?
[Max] Move worlds. Holly, she said Henry told the kids that they would help him draw the worlds together. I didn’t understand what that meant at the time, but…
[Mike] He wants to move the Abyss, crash it into Hawkins.
[Will] No, not crash. Merge. Henry wasn’t licking his wounds in the Abyss. He was making rifts, weakening the Abyss, just like he weakened Hawkins. So when the Abyss and Hawkins collide…
[Dustin] They become one.
[Eleven] He’s remaking the world.
[Steve] How long do we think this takes? To move worlds? Are we talking like… Or is this gonna take some time?
[Mike] We better hope we have some time. Because if this is all correct, we have to get 2,000 feet in the air, find our way into the Abyss, free Holly and the kids, and kill Vecna all before our worlds merge.
[Lucas] And if my theory’s right, he’s gonna move worlds tonight.
[Robin] Have I mentioned how much I hate your theory?
[Erica] Me too.
[Steve] Me three.
[Hopper] I hate all of this. But at least now we know what we’re up against and what we need to do. We just need a plan.
[knocking]
I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry. It’s just… everyone’s so worried. Is she gonna be okay?
But you’ve told her, right, that this Max was just a monster in disguise?
That it was tricking her, lying.
[Henry] Of course. I’ve tried everything, but she won’t listen. We need her tonight, or we will fail.
What did this Max tell her?
[Henry] Such awful, awful things. She told her I kidnapped you.
What?
You rescued us.
[Henry] I know. That’s not even the worst of it. She told her I don’t wanna save the world. I wanna end it.
How could she believe that?
‘Cause she’s stupid as shit, that’s how.
[Henry] No, she’s not stupid, Thomas. This monster is incredibly powerful, and she works for the Black Thing. She has corrupted Holly’s mind and dragged her out of the light and taken her into the dark.
[Derek] Maybe we should just give up and go home then.
Go home?
[Henry] To be with our parents.
We would all die.
What’s wrong with you?
Shut your trap, dipshit.
[Henry] Please let’s not turn on each other. I know we’re all upset. But perhaps Derek is right. Perhaps I have failed, and the Black Thing has won.
No, we can’t let it win. Okay? We won’t. You don’t know Holly like we do. I’ve been her best friend since kindergarten. Debbie’s her second-best friend. And she crushes hard on Josh.
No, she doesn’t.
She does.
Totally.
My point is, maybe if we all try and talk to her, we can fix her. We can bring her back to the light.
Mary’s right. We can do it.
Back to the light.
[chanting] Back to the light.
Back to the light. Back to the light.
Back to the light. Back to the light.
Back to the light. Back to the light.
Back to the light. Back to the light.
Back to the light.
Back to the light. Back to the light.
[soldier] As for the security cameras, trench plate…
[Akers] Not a bolt cutter.
[soldier] Yeah, you could safely say that, sir.
[Akers] She’s getting reckless. Sloppy.
[soldier] Could be one of those damn monsters.
[Akers] A monster who breaks padlocks and cameras? I don’t think so. It’s her. Rally the rest of the team. Tell them to lock and load. We’re going in.
[Hopper] At the base, in the Upside Down, there’s a chopper ready for the taking. We fly up to the Abyss, kill the freak, rescue the kids, fly back down.
[Dustin] Who do you expect to fly this thing?
[Hopper] It’s a helicopter. They’ve got pilots.
[Murray] Right.
[Hopper] We force one to fly.
[Robin] Another kidnapping plot. Love it!
[Mike] How is this pilot gonna fly a chopper into the rift?
[Hopper] What do you mean? We just fly through it.
[Mike] What?
[Murray] Idiot.
[Lucas] Just fly through it?
[Dustin] These rotors are like 40 feet wide. It’s too big. It’s not gonna fit.
[Robin] Steve hears that all the time and goes in anyway. Don’t you Steve?
[Steve] What the hell is wrong with you?
[Murray] It’s funny.
[Hopper] Everybody shut up. Look, if somebody else has some magic bean that I don’t know about, I’m all ears. If not, it’s a risk that we gotta take. We fly, or we die.
[Murray] Fly or die.
[Dustin] Well, then I guess we die.
[Hopper] We’re not gonna die if we commit to a plan.
[Dustin] Can we weigh out a few more options before…
[Hopper] Yes. We die, I guess. You said we have to get up 2,000 feet…
[Murray] Don’t take that shit, Jim.
[Robin] You’re not listening to each other.
[Mike] You guys!
[Hopper] How are you gonna do it?
[Steve] “Magic bean…”
[Mike] Can we get back on track?
[Hopper] Let’s not even try anything?
[all arguing]
[Steve] We don’t need a magic bean to climb.
[Hopper] …an airplane!
[Dustin] I’m not–
[Steve] We don’t need a magic bean! Sorry. Just… We don’t… We don’t need it. A magic bean. We got a beanstalk right here.
[Steve] Okay, this flashlight is the Squawk radio tower, and this Slinky… is the bridge. We’ll never reach the Abyss from the tower, right? But Max said Vecna is drawing our worlds together. So, we let him. And we wait and wait as he draws it closer and closer. When it’s close enough, and the tower is poking through one of the rifts, bam! El makes her move, she does her meditation thingy, enters Vecna’s sick mind and ambushes him. In your face, dickhead. And then, stopping the spell, halting the worlds from moving. Wham, voilà ! We’ve got a beanstalk. It’s perfect. All we gotta do is climb up it into the Abyss.
[Erica] I like it.
[Mike] It’s not totally insane.
[Steve] Thank you.
[Mike] But there’s a problem, a big one.
[Eleven] I can’t reach inside Vecna’s mind. He’s too far away.
[Steve] Can’t you just try? I don’t know, load up on some of your junk food or something?
[Nancy] Or better… We get you close. The Upside Down lab is under his lair, and it’s still frozen in time, which means everything should be there from Brenner’s experiments, including…
[Eleven] The bath.
[Max] If you do make it into his mind, I can walk you through it, guide you. I know his sick mind inside and out.
[Kali] I should be there too. This plan hinges on stopping Henry, and right now, Jane is fighting him alone. It doesn’t need to be that way. I can follow her into his mind. We can end our brother, together.
[Steve] Okay, yeah, I dig it. Sisters kill their brother. We rescue the kiddos, come home heroes. And if Lucas is right, we don’t have a lot of time, so we have to move fast.
[Dustin] One final thing. Cherry on top. On the way out, we drop a bomb near the exotic matter. Set a timer, escape the Upside Down. The bridge collapses, and with it, the Abyss, the Demos, the Mind Flayer, all of it, gone. Game. Set. Match.
[gasping]
Holly! Holly! Hey. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re safe now. You’re with us. Okay?
[creepy music playing]
Welcome back, Holly.
[all] Welcome.
[Holly] Where is he?
Mr. Whatsit? Downstairs.
He’s worried about you.
So worried.
[Holly] No, no, no, no, no. Mary, you need to listen. Mr. Whatsit, he’s not who he says he is. He didn’t really save us. He…
He’s kidnapped us? He’s trying to destroy the world? Holly, Mr. Whatsit has told us everything. Those are lies. Evil, nasty lies!
[Holly] No, they’re not! They’re not
That other girl you met, Max. She’s not a human. She’s a monster.
She twisted your mind.
[Holly] That’s not true. Max is a friend, and she’s… she’s helping us. She’s helping us get back home, back to our families. We’re all trapped. Trapped in Mr. Whatsit’s mind. Everything you see, none of it is real! Come on, you have to believe me. Please. [crying] You have to believe me. You have to believe me. You gotta believe me. Derek. Derek, tell them. Tell them. Tell them!
[Derek] They’re right, Holly. Max lied to us.
[Holly] I don’t… understand. Everything she showed me just… seemed so real. I knew not to go into the woods. But I… I went there anyway, and… And I just… I just feel so… so stupid.
You’re not stupid, Holly.
None of this is your fault.
Holly.
You know, the important thing is that you’re here. You’re here just in ti–
Holly, stop it!
[intense music playing]
Bitch! Get her!
Get her!
[Holly straining]
[Thomas grunting]
[choking]
[truck creaking]
[Murray] Well, I was hoping for a slightly more delicate landing, but… I suppose that’ll do.
[Eleven] You’re welcome.
[Hopper] Of all the people she had to go with, it had to be her.
[Joyce] [scoffs] El trusts her. Maybe we should too.
[Hopper] No, she’s up to something. I’m sure of it. I just… El’s not gonna listen to me.
[Joyce] What happened to the two of you down there?
[Hopper] She thinks I don’t believe in her.
[Joyce] Which isn’t true.
[Hopper] No, of course not.
[Joyce] Well, have you told her that?
[Hopper] She thinks she’s invincible, and that’s not the case.
[Joyce] Yeah, that’s not what I asked.
[Hopper] I can work on repairing things between us when I get on the other side of this, but right now, I need to make sure she gets out of this alive. That Kali makes one false move, I swear to God, I’m gonna kill her. I’m gonna kill her. I will not hesitate. Anything happens to El in that tank, I am pulling her out. I can’t lose her, Joyce.
[melancholy music playing]
[Hopper] I can’t.
[Joyce] One last crawl.
[Hopper] One last crawl.
[Max] It gives me a headache trying to understand all this. But I think I got a C-minus in physics, so I’ll trust the nerds.
[Vicki] Do you think it’ll work? The plan?
[Max] I mean, it has to, right? I just wish I wasn’t stuck here. I feel useless.
[Will] El and Kali are gonna need you in the mind. I’m the one who’s useless.
[Max] You can still go there, to the Abyss.
[Will] It’s too risky. I’d be at the heart of the hive mind, and I don’t know what would happen. Last time I got too close, he used me to spy, and it almost got you killed, Max.
[Max] You also saved my life, remember? Plus, I’ve been almost killed plenty of times at the hands of this asshole, so I’m kind of used to it at this point.
[Will] How did you survive in there, this whole time in Henry’s mind?
[Max] Honestly, luck. I found this cave. It was this old memory of his, and he was terrified of it. He wouldn’t go in. Scared the living shit out of him. Underneath all those scars, he’s still human. A psychopath with a serious god complex, but… human. I guess we’re all scared of something, right?
[“Human Cannonball” by the Butthole Surfers playing]
[Robin] Okay, Wheeler, how’s it going with your contraption?
[Mike] Okay, so just imagine that this bike bell is the bomb’s remote trigger, okay? So when this wire touches this warrior here, kaboom.
[Robin] Genius. One thing is, I don’t know if we can blow up the Upside Down to the dulcet tones of the Butthole Surfers.
[Mike] I built the bomb. I should be able to pick the record.
[Robin] You can pick the record. You just have to follow one simple rule, which is pick a good record.
[Mike] This is a great record!
[Robin] As far as save-the-world soundtracks goes, this one’s lacking.
[Mike] What would you pick?
[Robin] The Replacements. I can’t not think of better records.
[Mike] Okay, enough, Lester Bangs, okay?
[Nancy] Hey. Hey! Have you handled one of these before?
[Steve] Not exactly, but, you know, BB guns, air rifles… [clears throat] …Duck Hunt.
[Nancy] Duck Hunt.
[Dustin] He is remarkably good at it. … But I have a better idea. Come on. These babies are deadlier than they look.
[Steve] You sure?
[Dustin] Mm.
[Steve] Hey, Dustin?
[Dustin] Yeah?
[Steve] Hey, about, uh, some of the stuff that I said earlier. I just…
[Dustin] It’s fine. It’s okay.
[Steve] No, just… It’s not okay. Eddie… He saved your life.
[somber music playing]
[Steve] Our lives. And I know what he meant to you. I can’t even imagine how hard it’s been. But instead of… just being there for you, I just… Well, I got angry about it. I guess… I got angry because things were different. Because… I really missed you. I missed my best friend.
[Dustin] Yeah, I missed my best friend too. … For the record, a Rubik’s Cube isn’t even a good measure of intelligence.
[both laughing]
[Dustin] And your beanstalk plan, seriously, only a genius could’ve come up with that.
[Steve] Yeah, well… I learned from the best.
[Dustin] That’s true. Silver lining. If it fails, we both go down.
[Steve] You die, I die.
[Dustin] You die, I die.
[upbeat music playing]
[Erica] Gate opening in five, four, three, two…
[buzzer sounding]
[Erica] Open sesame.
[beeping]
[Mr. Clarke] Gotcha!
[Erica] We’ve secured the gate signal. Repeat. Gate signal is secure.
[Murray] Tell Snookums his timing is mwah! Because Santa’s sleigh…
[engine sputtering]
[Murray] …is almost ready. Piece of shit! Oh God! Oh God! Why?! Why?! Why do you gotta do this right now? What? You don’t like me? Huh? It’s not me! I’m not the one! I’m not the one who…
[Kali] Hi, sister.
[Eleven] Hi.
[Kali] Have you ever done this before? Shared your mind like this?
[Eleven] Have you?
[Kali] With my other psychic friends all the time. I’m glad I’m here.
[Eleven] Me too.
[Kali] Even after yesterday? Have you thought about it? What it all means?
[Eleven] I was thinking when we blow up the bridge, we’ll blow up Dr. Kay’s lab. We’ll end her experiment.
[Kali] Kay will simply make a new lab.
[Eleven] So we kill her.
[Kali] She replaced Papa. Another will replace her.
[Eleven] We can go away somewhere. We can hide from them.
[Kali] Oh, like somewhere with at least one waterfall? It’s a fantasy, Jane. If you flee with Mike, maybe you’re safe for a while. But when they find you, and they will, they will kill Mike, just as they killed my friends. Then they will take you, and with your blood, they will create more children, children who will suffer as we have. And with these children, they will open up more gates, more worlds. Don’t you see, Jane? It’s a cycle. A terrible, vicious cycle. But we can stop it. Tonight.
[Eleven] How?
[Kali] After we kill our brother, after the children are rescued, we don’t leave with the others. We stay on the bridge. When the Upside Down vanishes… so will we. It is the only way, Jane. The only way.
[horn honking]
[Murray] You ladies done meditating? ‘Cause Santa’s sleigh is ready to fly!
[Will] Mom? Um… Earlier today when you asked me what happened in Vecna’s mind, I didn’t tell you everything. When Vecna attacks, he weakens you by turning your own mind against you, by bringing out everything inside you that hurts. So I fought back by focusing on happy memories, memories from when I was a kid, and when I wasn’t scared, and when I felt most happy. That’s how I took control in the MACZ and how I killed those Demos. And I thought the same would work on Vecna too. But he found a way past. And he showed me things, Mom. He showed me the most awful things.
[Joyce] No, listen. Whatever he showed you, it’s not real. He plays tricks. He lies.
[Will] No, he doesn’t. What he showed me… it didn’t come from him. It came from me. He sees everything, Mom. He sees my thoughts. He sees my memories. And he sees my secrets. But Max, she told me he’s also afraid, which proves I can beat him. But for me to do that, you need to know… I think you need to know the truth.
[door opens]
[Mike] Oh. Uh… Sorry. We just heard from Hop. He’s 15 minutes out. So we should probably leave in five. Is everything okay?
[Joyce] Yeah, we’ll be out in a minute.
[Will] Wait. I think you need to hear this too. Everyone does.
[Will] I… I… I haven’t told any of you this because… Because I… I don’t… I don’t want you to see me differently. But the truth is… The… The truth is I am. I am different. I just… I just pretended like I wasn’t because… because I didn’t want to be. I wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to be like my friends and… And I am like you. I’m like you in… in almost every way. We… We like playing D&D late into the night. And we like that old-person smell in Mike’s basement. And we… we like biking to Melvald’s for malted milkshakes. And we like getting lost in the woods, and getting lost in Family Video and arguing about what to rent and settling on Holy Grail for the millionth time. And… And we like Milk Duds in our popcorn with extra butter. And we like drinking Coke with Pop Rocks. And we like bike races and trading comics and NASA and Steve Martin and Lucky Charms and… Literally all the same things. I just… I just… I… I just… I… I… I… I don’t like girls. [Will sighs] I mean… I mean I do. Just… Just not like you guys do. And I, uh, I had this… this crush on someone, even though I know… I know they’re not like me. But… But then I realized he’s just my Tammy. And by Tammy, I mean it was never about him. It was… It was about me. And I thought I was finally okay with myself, but… but then today… Today Vecna showed me what would happen if I did this, if I told you guys the truth. He showed me a future, and in this future, some of you are just… are just worried for me. Worried that things will be harder for me. And it just makes me feel like something’s wrong with me. So I… So I push you away. And for the rest of us, we just drift apart more and more and more and more and more until I’m alone. And I know none of that has happened, and Vecna can’t see into the future. But he can see into our minds, and he knows things. And it just felt so real. It felt so real.
[Joyce] Will. You gotta listen to me. That will never ever happen. You’ll never lose me. Ever.
[Will] Okay. Okay.
[Jonathan] And you’ll never lose me.
[uplifting music playing]
[Lucas] Or me.
[Dustin] Or me.
[Mike] Or me.
[Eleven] Or me.
[Robin] Or me.
[kissing on cheek]
[Robin] Guess you didn’t need truth serum, huh?
[Max] Sorry. This sucks, but you’re gonna have to hug me.
[Will] Oh, Max.
[Max] Just imagine I’m hugging you really tight, okay?
[Will] Okay. [sighs] El. I know you’re strong enough to defeat Vecna. But he can retreat to the physical world, and we need to be ready to fight him there too. We have bullets and fire, but none of that helped those soldiers. I need to be there. And I’m ready. I’m ready to show him I’m not afraid anymore.
[man 1 on radio] That’s a confirmation.
Anderson’s on that patrol.
[man 2] Solid copy, Bravo One.
Maintain overwatch. Over.
[vehicle approaching]
Hey, McConnell. We got a delivery tonight I don’t know about?
That’s a negative, private.
The hell are you doing, buddy?
[Murray] Showtime, Snookums!
[Mr. Clarke] Mellon.
[buzzer sounding]
Oh, shit!
[Murray] Pardon me!
[Erica] First gate cleared. Two hostiles, towers, ten and eleven o’clock.
[device beeping]
[Murray] Now comes the fun part.
[yelling]
[Jonathan] Come on! Come on!
[Steve] Come on! Come on!
[Jonathan] Go! Go! Drive!
[screaming]
[Murray] Whoohey! Yeah!
[Steve] Jesus Christ.
[Hopper] Everybody all right? Everybody okay?
[ll] Yeah.
[Hopper] You all right? Everybody all right?
[Hopper] Hey, nice shooting back there.
[Nancy] You too.
[Robin] I kind of thought that that was supposed to be the easy part.
[Mike] It was. You ready?
[Eleven] Ready.
[dramatic music builds]
[thunder rumbling]
[match striking]
[mysterious music playing]
[Henry] It’s time.
[dark music playing]
[clock ticking]
[unsettling music playing]
[music fades out]
