Spoilers ahead for Stranger Things season 4, part 2.The ending of Stranger Things season 4 left Max Mayfield alive but in a state of limbo, a fate that will potentially make defeating Vecna even more difficult for her friends in season 5. Early in Stranger Things season 4, Max (Sadie Sink) is marked for death by Vecna/Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower) as the villain looks to open a vast gate between Hawkins and the Upside Down. He seems to be successful in this aim after Max suffers the same horrific fate as Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien), Fred Benson (Logan Riley Bruner), and Patrick McKinney (Myles Truitt).
Fortunately, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) intervenes and stops Max from being killed outright. However, when Eleven visits Max in the hospital she is unable to connect with her consciousness. This fits with what Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) tells Eleven about his former pupil, Henry Creel. While restoring Eleven’s powers in Stranger Things season 4, Brenner explains that Vecna/Henry does not just kill his victims, he absorbs them and takes on their characteristics. As a result, it appears that Max’s consciousness has been absorbed by and resides within Vecna.
The survival of Max’s body provides a place for her consciousness to return to, and so it stands to reason that she can still be saved in Stranger Things season 5. However, stopping Vecna from taking over the world and shaping it in his own image seems to hinge on killing him, and this is likely to kill Max at the same time if her consciousness resides within him. Consequently, the primary or initial action of Stranger Things season 5 may be defined by the need to first save Max rather than immediately trying to kill Vecna.
Can Vecna Be Killed Without Max Also Dying?
Throughout its four seasons, Stranger Things has shown that the Upside Down and Vecna operate as a hive mind, and this certainly suggests that killing Vecna with Max’s consciousness still inside him will also lead to Max’s death. Nevertheless, there may be ways to free her from his control before this happens. In this way, some sort of mind heist seems plausible for the plot of Stranger Things season 5, with the Hawkins gang’s recovery of Max’s consciousness being reminiscent of the rescue of Han Solo in Return of the Jedi.
The link to Return of the Jedi would make sense as the Duffer Brothers have repeatedly paid homage to Star Wars in Stranger Things, and they even describe season 4 as their “Empire Strikes Back season” (via YouTube), in the sense that the characters in both ultimately lose. This could mean that Max is Stranger Things season 5’s version of Han Solo, who is still frozen in carbonite at the start of Return of the Jedi. As such, the blindness inflicted upon Max by Vecna in season 4 may have some further significance given that the effects of carbon-freezing also leave Han Solo blind. However, while his blindness is temporary, if Max is returned to her body, her blindness will likely be more permanent.
Max’s fate in Stranger Things has long been in limbo given that the Duffer Brothers claimed her survival at the end of season 4 was far from guaranteed when they began writing. Killing off Max “was discussed as a possibility. For a while, that is what was going to happen. But … we wanted to end it with a little more of a question at the end of the season.” In this way, her survival to this point suggests that what happens to Max will be profoundly important in Stranger Things season 5 and is likely to create huge complications in the fight to defeat Vecna and save Hawkins from the Upside Down.
