ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Stranger Things 5 Vol 1 BREAKDOWN and Ending Explained - Easter Eggs You Missed!

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

ScreenCrush The Podcast tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals.

Stranger Things 5, Volume 1, has a huge ending that's actually been foreshadowed since the first episode of the show, and I cannot wait to break this baby down for you. Welcome back Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Ary, and this is all the Easter eggs references and little things you might have missed in Stranger Things, 1 through 4. So we're going to talk about all of those 80s pop culture references, the hidden meanings, and the hidden backstory in the Stranger Things Broadway play. We're also going to dive deep into the ending and what it means for the rest of the season. And of course, guys, we are going to be talking about episodes 1 through 4 of this season, so spoilers are ahead. Don't say we didn't wind you.

First off, sorry this video is so late. They dropped these episodes the night before Thanksgiving, and Doug and I were having our holiday party. Did I look ever so handsome in my birth house? Very handsome, buddy. Now, the first few seasons of Stranger Things were filled with 80s pop culture references. Now, the first season was basically a mashup of all your favorite 80s movies into one story. But this season is far more likely to reference the show itself.

Lots of events are coming full circle as the series draws to a close. For instance, we open with Noah Schnap, D-Age like Millie Bobby Brown was last season. He is in Fort Byer singing, And remember, we heard him singing this on the walkie-talkie in season one. Should I stay or should I go? But this opening sequence has a much higher budget than anything we saw in season one, as we finally see how Will went from the fort to being held captive by Vecna,

where Joyce and Hop found him in season one. Now the name of this episode is The Crawl. That's the team's excursion into the Upside Down that's named after a dungeon crawl. Now, the very first episode of the show began with the D&D game, where the boys lost Will's die, then had to look like. for it, just like they would spend the season looking for Will. And ever since then, D&D has been used to explain all of the weighty concept in the show and to name its villains, like the Demigorg and the Mindflayer, and of course, Vecna. Now, this season is bringing together lots of storylines from past

seasons. The heroes are using the tunnels from season two, Hop is headquartered in his cabin, which, by the way, must be very off the grid if the government hasn't found it by now. Now, Levin is training to leap the perimeter of the fence of the military base, and her training regimen is similar to Luke training with Yoda on Degobah, but she's also wearing a gray sweatshirt and pants like Rocky and Rocky One. In fact, the cutoff sweatshirt is even like the belly shirts that Rocky and Apollo wore when they trained in Rocky 3. Hopper mentions watching Miami Vice, and in season three, he tells Joyce that every Friday night he watches this show with 11. Uh, Elle likes to watch Miami Vice on Fridays. And Holly finally comes to prominence this season,

which is great, because I think this show needs kids, and the original cast are all old enough to buy beer at this point. Hell, Millie Bobby Brown, has a baby. Iris not ready to hear that sentence. I feel so old. So Holly is very much like her brother. She's super imaginative and into fantasy stories. I love the scene where he bestows her with the D&D character. I was going to wait a few more years, but she's a cleric. How long has he been carrying around her cleric figure waiting for a moment just like this? I've been waiting for this news for years. He also explains her powers. She can cast a dimension door, which can teleport you to anywhere you visualize. So this is foreshadowing that Holly will help Max

escaped Commazots, but it could also be a reference to the X-Men. So, season one made a direct reference to a particular issue of uncanny X-Men. And the finale actually recreated a panel from that issue. However, Holly is not like the Dark Phoenix. She's more like Magic. That's magic spelled with the K. Now, like Holly, magic is the younger brother of a hero, Colossus, and she has taken away to a demonic realm where she has given powers. And Vecna's eventual plot to kidnap 12 children to open up a gate is similar to the 1989 X-Men crossover Inferno, where demons try to open a gateway to hell by sacrificing 13 children. Now, magic was a huge part of that storyline

when the demons used her portal powers to invade New York. Holly is also reading A Rinkle in Time, which is about, It's the story of a young girl's struggle with the burden of leadership as she journeys through space. It's the story of a young girl's struggle with the burden of leadership she journeys through space. So, just like Mike uses D&D to explain the demigorgon, Holly uses a wrinkle in time to explain her own magical journey.

First, she calls Henry Mr. Watsits, and later she gives the Minescape its name. Like Kamazox. So the original kids are now all grown up, and their military discipline seems like a nod to the movie Red Dawn. In that film, high schoolers became guerrilla fighters after Russia invaded America, just like American soldiers have invaded Hawkins. Lucas says, Snipers chew gum. Which is a funny reference to the sniper in the helicopter last season who was chewing gum.

And during the crawl, we see that Mike's D&D terminology is even being used by the adults. Joyce's codename is Dungeon Master. A Dr. K is put. played by Linda Hamilton, which is a brilliant piece of classic 80s casting. Almost every season of this show has brought on some 80s idol. Matthew Modine, Sean Aston, Paul Reiser, Robert England, and of course, Hamilton played Sarah Connor and The Terminator, which is one of many references to time travel in volume one,

because after all, Max and Holly are stuck in a memory of the past. But there's also a few more references to time travel. The van sensor hits ADAB, a clear reference to Back to the Future, and Robin also references this film when she says, Great Scott, and talks about the flux capacitor. The flux capacitor is down again. Is that bad? Remember, way back in season three, she explained this movie to Steve when they were both injected with true serum. That mom was trying to bang her son.

Wait, the hard chick was out speaking his mom. So Will begins to see through Vecna's eyes, and some of you millennials will say that's like when Harry Potter saw through the eyes of Nagini, but this is likely an homage to an American werewolf in London, when events from the werewolf's point of view are shot just like this. Similarly, Will sees these visions when he's seen through the eyes of a monster, in this case Vecna. Now here we see a missing child poster for Jane Hopper, and by the way, this is a real phone number. If you call it, it explains that Hawkins is under lockdown because of a 7.4 earthquake and is being run by something called the Hawkins Emergency Task Force, and they are also asking for help locating Jane Hopper.

Dustin's having a hard time dealing with Eddie's death, and he tries to keep his memory alive by keeping the D&D group going. He's really angry this season and it's sad because he was always such a sweet character. So he scares the bullies with a snake named Jake, which is a reference to one of the all-time wrestling grades, This is your mom. I'm just kidding. It's Jake the Snake Roberts. So Murray is back this season as the world's most efficient smuggler, and he's working under the name Austin Milbarge,

which is the name of Dan Aykroyd's character from the 1985 spy comedy Spies Like Us. Now, Milbarge was created to be a decoy spy, just like Murray, who was mostly on the sidelines and supporting the team's missions. Now, when they're at the hospital, Will gets a Coke classic. Now, this was a temporary label they applied in the 1980s after trying out a formula called New Coke that everybody hated. And then he spots Robin with her girlfriend Vicky, who was her crush Vicky last season.

And actually, Vulture caught a cool Easter egg here. Vicki's look is modeled after Molly Ringwald, who starred in the movie Pretty and Pink, and Robin's playlist included the original version of the song Pretty and Pink by The Psychedelic Furs. And she says she's going to take her to Enzo's, which Joyce also mentioned to hopper as a dating spot back in season 3. I hear Enzo's is pretty good. And the episode ends with Holly in her room, and notice the poster here for an American tale. So this is the story of a mouse named Fivel who is separated from his family and has to go on a quest to be reunited with them, which is just like Holly's story this season.

And she also has a poster for the 80s cartoon Rainbow Bright, which is also appropriate. The story of Rainbow Bright actually has many parallels to what we see in the show. It's about a little girl named Wisp, who later becomes Rainbow Bright, who is sent to a wasteland with no color, and then she and her friends free the color kids and defeat the King of Shadows. This obviously parallels the storyline we're watching in season 5, but then the kids turn the colorless land into Rainbow Land.

So this could be foreshadowing the ending of the series. Maybe the upside down is transformed into a beautiful place, like the paradise that Mike described in episode one. A peaceful land, somewhere beautiful, with like three waterfalls or something, and they all start again. So the Demigorgon comes for her through a hole in the ceiling, a reference to both this scene and Nightmare on Elm Street, and also the original Poltergeist when Carol Ann is sucked into the portal. Now, both references are apt, Vecna Haunched Dreams, just like Freddie Kruger,

and the upside down is another dimension, just like the other realm and poltergeist. Now, before we move on to episode two, I want to show you guys these new Stranger Things parody merch that we designed for our merch store. In honor of the Stranger Things font, We have this nostalgic Choose Your Own Adventure book, Journey to the Upside Down. There's also a Peanuts special shirt, your next 11, with the Stranger Things Gang, drawn as the Peanuts Gang. And finally, we have the kids as Scooby-Doo and the gang running from a Demogorgon.

Shopping our merch store is the best way to support our channel. We love designing these shirts for you guys. And right now, we are having a massive Black Friday sale. Everything is discounted. It's running for the next week. So if you always wanted to buy a Screencrush shirt, this week is your chance. Links are below. Now, episode two is called The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler,

a call back to the pilot, the Vanishing of Will Byer. Karen Wheeler hides Holly in her bathtub, which is piping hot, and remember, Demogorgans don't like heat. No. He likes it cold. So this is a perfect hiding place. When they're in the hospital, Lucas goes to visit Max and continues to use the D&D terminology. She's going to need the party, the full party. If you're planning on resurrecting anytime soon, now is the time.

And notice that above her bed, we see the drawing she made of her and Lucas at the movies. And in the upside-down, Hopper and Eleven walk on railroad tracks, just like like the boys did in season one, which was a reference to Stand By Me. And Stand By Me, the boys were looking for the dead body of another kid, just like the party was searching for Will. Again, we're seeing a lot of references to past seasons of this show, which originally were referencing 80s movies. Then they run into a wall, which is the border of the Upside Down.

And it makes sense that the Upside Down has a border. After all, 11 created the upside down when she tore a hole in reality, but now we know she didn't copy the entire world, just the area around the Hawkins Lab. So the visual of the wall immediately recalls the wall from Game of Thrones. But the gooey vines and egg sacks, look like the xenomorph hive and aliens. Dustin finally rejoins the party as the resonant radio expert,

which makes sense because in season three, he returned from science camp with a deep knowledge of ham radio. And episode two ends with the reveal that Henry is Mr. Watsett, and we end on the Creel house looking pristine just like it did in the flashbacks last season. And I think this might be a good time to briefly run through the events of the Broadway show Stranger Things the First Shadow,

which is the origin story of Henry Creel, aka Vecna. So in that show, we learned that Dr. Brenner was obsessed with reaching another dimension, which he calls Dimension X, because his dad was sent there during the war as part of military experiments. So he conducts his own experiments in the Nevada desert where Henry Creel grew up. The Duffer brothers have confirmed that the cave that Max and Holly hide in is where Henry disappeared into Dimension X, and this is why he's afraid of the cave. The episode takes care to show us Henry's scouting equipment, making me think that he was on a scouting trip when he found a cave,

where he disappeared for 12 hours and was attacked by the Mindflayer when he was a kid. Now, the Mindflayer continued to give him powers and the real work, taking his body over and making him kill pets in order to gain more power. And when Dr. Brenner realizes that killing makes Henry Powers go stronger, he urges him to start killing people to increase his strengths. And this is setting up what we see in episode 4, where we learn that his plan is to kill 12 children to grow stronger and open up portals to the real world.

Now, Henry and his family moved to Hawkins, where he becomes best friends with Patty Newby, the adopted sister of Bob Newby from season 2. The play also reveals that Brenner used Henry's blood to give transfusions to pregnant women, which gave all of their kids' power, powers, including 11. So wait, is Henry still controlled by the mind flare?

No, when 11 forced Henry into Dimension X, he took control of the mind flare and shaped it into the spider creature that we see in the show. Or maybe he didn't. We actually have theories about that, we'll talk about later. So let's talk about episode 3. At the Creel House, the playground features a rocket ship, because in the 1950s, base was a huge craze for kids entertainment and toys. Holly gets to live her little girl dream bopping around to one of the greatest covers of all time, Tiffany's I think we're alone now. And I want to point out the parallels here to Alice in Wonderland. Both Holly and Alice, a mysterious character into another dimension, and both the White Rabbit and Vecna are seen using

clocks and pocket watches. And in the background here, this is a poster from Alice in Wonderland. Henry throws a tea party for Holly, just like the Mad Hatter's tea party, and she even tries on a dress that looks like Alice's from the Disney Classic. Now, when she leaves, she opts to wear a red hood, like little red riding hood. This is also appropriate because Henry is like the Big Bad Wolf, a monster who is using a disguise that she can trust. Meanwhile, Hopper and Eleven are pinned down behind a Turnbow Real Estate billboard. So the episode is called the Turnbow trap, named after the Home Alone style traps they rig up in Derek's house.

But Hopper and Eleven are caught in a different Turnbow trap behind this billboard. Now, their eventual capture of Captain Bullcutt reminds us of an important fact. Hop is a nom vet. I used to be a grunt. Now, this seems like a small detail, but this was actually a huge trope in the 1980s. Lots of TV action heroes were nomvets, like Magnum P.I., Gerald McRaney's character from Simon and Simon, and of course, the A team. Now, I got to apologize for something.

When the trailer for this season came out, I said it was hard for me to buy Nancy's dramatic transformation into a gun-toting badass. But this is actually the arc that she's had all through the show, and she's had more than enough time to get good with firearms since season four. I love badass Nancy. And you know I'm a good enough shot to hit any mark, no matter how small. Jesus. They recruit Erica from Mr. Clark's classroom, where he is explaining wormholes. If wormholes did exist, they would be extraordinarily unstable.

And remember, he also explained this to the boys back in season. It would disrupt gravity, the magnetic field, or environment. Heck, it might even swallow us up hole. Now, he mentions that wormholes are unstable and collapse on themselves, just like what we saw happen to the Russian portal in season three. So I wonder if this is also foreshadowing the end of the series when Vecna's many wormholes become unstable and collapse. Now, in the hallway, we see a read poster featuring David Bowie, and this is part of an actual campaign where celebrities encourage kids to read books. Now, when Murray drops off the latest stash, he name drops Virginia Slims. That's the thin cigarette for women that peaked in popularity.

in the 1980s, and he also drops off a box of peanut butter boppers for Steve. And this snack was also featured in the 1987 vampire flick, The Lost Boys. And while they're making plans, Robin begins her role as Will's gay mentor, calling him out for his bowl cut. And they says, Yeah, I mean, they're not that popular anymore. I got to think this is a reference to the many memes and jokes about Joyce just giving her kids bowl cuts because they were poor. We're also reminded of this when we see flashbacks to Will in past seasons and even further back in his childhood during the montage at the end of episode 4. The kid always had a bowl cut. Now, when Dustin modifies Stevens car, we hear, oh yeah, by Yellow. Now, this song, of course, is famous from being in

Ferris Bueller's Day Off when Ferris stills Cameron's dad's car, similar to how Dustin is abusing Steve's car in this scene, and both cars end up wrecked. And then we go to Derek's room, which is a treasure trobe of stuff for my childhood. He's a big fan of GI Joe's, fitting because of the military themes this season. And he also has a Masters of the Universe blanket, and that is a TV series where the heroes fight a skeletal-faced villain, just like the party is fighting against Bechna. There's also a poster for Peewee's big adventure, and in that movie, Peewee's archrival is a spoiled rich boy named Francis, who is very similar to Derek. We also see Garbage Pale Kids, which are kind of a twisted upside-down version of Cabbage Patch

Dolls. And of course, later, Derek's head is covered by a Transformers pillowcase. Oh, and also, he's playing the incredibly hard video game Ghosts and Goblins, where he's fighting monsters in the woods, which is intercut with Holly entering the woods. And I already mentioned that the traps they set for the Demigorgan are similar to home alone, but we also have to mention the original Nightmare on Elm Street, with the teen set traps for Freddy Krueger in the real world. Stranger Things already had an homage to this sequence with the Demagorgan Traps in Season 1, and also Nancy Willer is named after Nancy Thompson from the

Nightmare on Elm Street movies. And that finally takes us to the big one, episode four, the finale of Volume 1. We start off with Joyce defending the kids with an axe, a call back to her using the axe on her walls back in season one, which was of course a callback to Jack Nicholson using an axe in the Shining. The title of the chapter is The Sorcerer, which, as we'll talk about refers to Will. The first image in the episode is from the Disney classic The Sword and the Stone, which ends with the duel between Wizards, just like the encounter here between Will and Vecna. So Will's shared hive mind with Vecna gives him insight into his plants, which is similar to how Pippin was able to see Sauron's plants when he touched the Palantier in Return of the King.

He also sees visions of the kids attached to walls, just like he was in season one, and they have tubes in their mouths, similar to how facehuggers impregnate their prey in the alien franchise. In the first season, Will with this implant also paralleled Hopper's daughter Sarah and the feeding tube in her mouth when she was hospitalized. So Will is able to draw Vecna's structure, similar to how the hive mind showed him the tunnels under Hawkins back in season two. Now earlier, I talked about how this story is very much like Little Red Riding Hood. And Vecna trying to kidnap children is also a story straight out of like every fairy tale. Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, the Pied Piper of Hamlin. There are tons of timeless tales about children being kidnapped or killed by strangers. Or yeah, but that's just a

cautionary tale person. Very true. So Vecna needs 12 kids, which could represent the hands of a clock. And this would tie into his pocket watch we saw in episode three and the grandfather clock used in the creel house that counted down to him opening a portal into Hawkins. The 12 kids could also be a reference to the Stephen King Dart Tower series where it said that all of reality is being held together by 12 beams guarded by 12 different animal guardians. And get this, the teacher, Mrs. Harrier, is played by Hope Hines Love. She was the Duffer Brothers drama teacher in high school and she inspired them to go into the arts. When Robin outlines the plan, as inspired by the film The Great Escape, the theme from that movie actually plays.

in a barracks just like this one and they need to escape so they dig these tunnels. And if you're wondering why Robin knows this movie from the 1960s so well, remember, she worked in a video store last season. And Dustin makes his own pop culture reference when he says, Fascinating. This was one of Spock's catchphrases in the original Star Trek series. Fascinating. Meanwhile, in Kamazatz's, Max fills the scent on where she's been and her Henry Creel memory tour. Now she begins in the Rainbow Room Massacre from season four, appropriate since this is basically when Vecna was born. It's basically the final memory of the old Henry Creel. And then we go to Hawkins High in 1959, which is the setting for the play of the first shadow.

In the hallway, we see Steve Harrington's dad Danny, and Joyce is trying to get people to see her production of Oklahoma. Now, she's voiced by Winona Ryder, but she's played by British singer-songwriter, Bertie, who looks a hell of a lot like Winona Ryder. Now, there is a lot to explain about this flyer. In the Broadway show, Joyce claims they're putting on a one-night-only performance of Oklahoma, but it's actually a ruse. so they can put on a much darker play called Dark of the Moon. Joyce is hoping that this play's performance will help her get into college and out of Hawkins. The cast list includes Jim Hopper, who is drafted into Vietnam shortly after the events of this play, Karen Childers, who will one day marry her castmate Ted Wheeler.

We also see Alan Munson, who's maybe Eddie's father, and Patty Newby, the adopted sister of Bob, and finally Henry as Curley. And this is pretty on-the-nose casting as Curley is the villain, and he's the deranged outsider in the cast, just like Vecna. It's like poetry, sort of if they rhyme. But this play's performance is also crucial in this story. The teenagers want to get Henry to testify that his dad is murdering all these animals around town, so they lure him back from Hawkins Lab with this play performance.

The play centers around Patty and Henry's friendship, and she even tells him that, hey, after the performance, we will run away together. But instead, Brenner captures Henry permanently, so he never got to be in the play with his friends. So this day is crucial in Henry's life. This is the last day when he could have been an actual person and not just a lab experiment. Now the date for the play is November 6th, also the date that Vecna took Will, and that anniversary in the modern timeline is just three days away. So maybe Vecna's just trying to finally be in the play. Could be, buddy. Just like in season four, Max is pulled back to reality by Kate Bush's running up that hill and notice that when Henry chases her, his hand becomes a claw, just like Freddie Kruger's.

Again, the original Freddie, Robert England, played his dad in season four. Back at the Max, Derek brings his G.I. Joe lunchbox into lockdown, while Hopper in 11 infiltrate another government base in the upside down. By the way, this tower looks like a Star Destroyer shield generator in Star Wars. And similarly, Hopper and Eleven are breaking into a big military base in order to rescue a princess who in this case turns out to be Cali. Now, the party travels through tunnels, which are very much like the tunnels that the gang travels through in the movie The Goonies. They even cause plumbing problems above ground, which also happens in the Goonies. And this is where Robin gives Will crucial advice on how to be a gay teen in 1980s, Indiana. She talks about

her crush on Tammy Thompson, which she also revealed to Steve in season three when they were working it scoops a hoi. Tammy Thompson, I wanted her to look at me. And then she gives Will some key advice. I was looking for answers and somebody else, but I have all the answers. In the upside down, Hopper decides to go on a suicide mission to take out Vecna, just like he planned on sacrifice in his life at the end of season three, but instead he finds Callie. Right, who's Callie? Oh, you know that episode from season two that nobody likes except for me? Oh yeah, her. So the Duffer brothers told the Hollywood Reporter that they wanted to bring her back because otherwise that episode would just be received as a mistake. And again, this season is bringing back a lot of material and references

from past seasons of the show. And then all hell breaks loose in the real world. Riffs open all over the base and the demodogs pour out like gozers, hounds, and ghostbusters. During the battle, there is an epic one-minute, 24-second one-take shot as Mike is trying to lead the kids to safety, but it's all pointless when Vecna enters the fight. Cap, that's it. He raises the wound of Demogorgans, just like the Knight King raising the dead at Hard Home and Game of Thrones. And he tells Will, that he is feasted off of his pain. Will always felt like an outsider because he's gay, and they even cut to this shot from season four when he realizes that Mike will never feel the same

way about him. But Robin's advice then takes hold. He remembers the first time he met Mike. He sees himself through the lens of old home movies, you know, like when he and his brother built Fort Byers together, when he wore his wizard costume as his D&D character, Will the Wise. So then he raises up and breaks the demigorgans in the same way that Vecna broke people last season. And just like 11, he has a nosebleed. So what's this meant? Does she got Eleven's powers? Well, not exactly. So let's talk about the ending here. Henry did not get his powers naturally. When he entered Dimitian X, the mind flayer entered him, and then it stayed there and gave him abilities. In fact, it could even be that the mind flare is controlling Vecna and not the other way around. So when Brenner then used Henry's blood

to give pregnant women transfusions, it could have even passed some of the mindflayer onto them. But Will was like fully joined to the hive mind, which means that some of that mind flare dust is now in him. And if this dust can give Henry powers, why not Will? This could even mean that Max could have similar abilities after she has been trapped in Henry's mind. And maybe Will can even spread this mind flare dust to everyone in the party. So the big climax of the season could be that everyone, not just 11, uses their abilities to defeat the mindflayer. And here's a theory for you. When the mindflare is actually defeated, maybe that means it'll lose its hold on Henry and Vecna could end up being redeemed in the show. After all, in the play, we learned that he was friends with Joyce and Hopper in high school.

so maybe he'll save their lives and everything will come full circle. Now, they did reveal one pretty crucial weakness for Vecna, the cave. Like I said earlier, I think the Mindflayer got a hold of Henry in this cave, and that has been the source of everything we've seen happen in this show. Holly also finds the spyglass that young Henry carried into the cave, and the spyglass is how Brenner tracks him down in the Broadway show. This cave is going to turn out to be the center of everything. As Star Forge Voyager on Reddit points out,

the cave is also the same shape as the Mindflayer, Vecna's layer, and even the vision that Vecna uses to see to the eyes of the Demigorgon. This implies that the cave is the original source of all this pain and suffering. See, I think that Max is going to return to the real world with this hidden knowledge, that she knows that the cave scares Henry. And this is where the cave is where he met the Mindflayer, and they're going to be able to use that fear against him. Or maybe this is how they learn that Vecna isn't the real villain.

He's just a vessel for the Mindflayer, who's been the real big bad all along. But what did you guys think of the first four episodes this season? and what do you think Henry's flesh wall is all about? Do you think he's going to be redeemed by the end of the season? Or do you think they're leaning too much into the events of the Broadway play? Let me know your thoughts. Down in the comments below or at me on Twitter, Blue Sky Threads,

or are free to join Discord server. And if it's your first time here, welcome to the channel. Please subscribe, smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.