Will Vecna get a redemption arc in the final season of Stranger Things?
During a recent interview with TV Guide, Noah Schnapp and Millie Bobby Brown were asked about which villains from their hit Netflix series they consider “misunderstood,” and Schnapp might have inadvertently dropped a major clue about the upcoming final season with his somewhat mysterious — albeit cut-short — answer.
“Low-key Vecna, because like…” Schnapp, who plays Will Byers on the show, begins.
Brown suddenly interrupts Schnapp’s answer before he can put his foot further in his mouth. “Really? No, shut up. That’s it, now be quiet,” the actress who plays Eleven on the series says, laughing.
When pressed by the interviewer if Vecna could be considered “misunderstood” based on his gruesome actions in Season 4, Brown effortlessly steers the conversation away with her media training.
“Let’s just not even [go there], because today has been a day and we want to do so much for you, but we’re not smart enough to dance around these questions,” she says playfully.
Fans online are already buzzing about the implications of Schnapp’s answer. Could this mean that Vecna will somehow be redeemed? Does Vecna, AKA Henry Creel, AKA One, have some ultra-tragic backstory we’ll discover as Season 5 rolls out over the next few weeks? (To be fair, the Broadway stage show Stranger Things: The First Shadow does go into Henry’s upbringing and includes a lot of pretty important exposition, but I won’t spoil all that here.)
Still, while it seems unlikely that Vecna of all people — or, erm, interdimensional beings — could see some character redemption after mangling, sucking the eyeballs out of and seemingly trapping the souls of innocent teenagers in his nightmare realm last season, stranger things have happened. (Sorry.)
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Fans have long theorized that Vecna will use Will, who was connected to the Mind Flayer in Season 2, against Eleven in the upcoming fifth and final season. Now, it seems that will indeed be the case following the official Season 5 trailer, which revealed Will will be used as Vena’s pawn and under his control, in some capacity.
Meanwhile, a recent clip of the forthcoming season’s opening scene reveals what really happened to Will when he first went missing in the Upside Down all those years ago, including his first horrifying meeting with Vecna.
Season 5 takes place in the fall of 1987. Netflix’s official synopsis for the season reads:
Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding. As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they’ve faced before. To end this nightmare, they’ll need everyone — the full party — standing together, one last time.
Stranger Things Season 5 will be released in three parts: The first four episodes will hit Netflix on November 26, the next three episodes will begin streaming on Christmas (December 25), and the series finale will air on New Year’s Eve (December 31).
Episodes will be available to stream beginning at 5PM PT/8PM ET on their respective dates.
Stranger Things Cast: Then and Now
Stranger Things premiered nearly a decade ago in 2016, and the original main cast of the hit Netflix series is now all grown up. Here’s what the cast looks like now and what everybody’s up to these days.
Gallery Credit: Erica Russell
