This post contains major spoilers for Stranger Things 5, Volume 1 and Max’s fate in it. If you don’t want to see them before you running up that hill, go watch and then come back down. (Instead, you can read our spoiler-free review of Stranger Things 5 right now.)
Max Mayfield died in Stranger Things 4‘s finale, but Eleven brought her back. Or at least she brought her body back to life. The season ended with Max in a coma. Now, thanks to Stranger Things 5, Volume 1, we know why Max has been unable to wake up—she’s trapped, outside of time, inside Vecna’s memory prison. And although her one attempt to escape didn’t work, Max does have a plan to get both her and Holly Wheeler out Vecna’s mind in Stranger Things 5.
Where Is Max During Stranger Things 5, Volume 1?
Max’s physical body is in the real world in a coma. Meanwhile, her mind is in Matrix-like dimension created by Vecna. It consists of his past memories. This is also where Vecna, as Mr. Whatsit, brought Holly Wheeler. Like Max, her physical body is elsewhere. In Stranger Things 5, Volume 1, Holly is physically attached, via a vine, to the inside of the Upside Down’s flesh wall while her mind is inside Henry’s memories.
Max tricked Holly into going into the very woods Holly promised Henry she would avoid. There, Max convinced Holly to trust her and explained what is going on.
What Happened to Max After She Died in Stranger Things 4‘s Finale?
Vecna killed Max in Stranger Things 4‘s last episode. Her death was the fourth murder (killing humans gives him power) he needed to commit to open the massive rift that appeared between the Upside Down and Hawkins. In Stranger Things 5, Volume 1, Max explained everything that happened after she died.
Max said Vecna’s curse “never goes away” and “never leaves you.” Once Vecna cursed her, Max was bound to him and his realm. Since her death, her mind has remained inside what she calls “Henry’s prison.” It’s a place made up of his memories. Max said the cave she’s been hiding in is a “memory” that exists“ inside a world of a thousand memories.”
She didn’t start off in that cave, though, and Stranger Things 5 reveals to us, through a series of flashbacks, how Max ended up there and why it’s safe from Vecna.
What Has Max Been Doing in Stranger Things 5 Since Her Stranger Things 4 Death?
The time between Max’s death and resurrection is nebulous in Stranger Things 5, Volume 1, almost as if time itself doesn’t quite exist in the Upside Down. She doesn’t even know Eleven used her powers to bring her back to life. All she knows is something called her back. When she woke up, she was in the Rainbow Room at Brenner’s lab, the night Vecna/Henry/One killed all the children.
From there, Max walked down a hallway and entered a different one of Vecna’s memory. She found herself as an observer at high school in 1959. There she saw teenage Joyce Byers handing out flyers for the school’s production of Oklahoma. It was going to take place on November 6. That’s the same day Vecna took Will decades later. That anniversary is just days away during Stranger Things 5.
The play was also set to star people—either directly or via their kids—who have been major players in Hawkins’ war with the Upside Down. It was going to feature James Hopper Jr, Karen Childress (the Wheeler mom), Patty Newby (Bob Newby’s sister), Alan Munson (Eddie’s father), and Ted Wheeler. It was also going to introduce Henry Creel.
From that moment, Max tried to escape by moving from memory to memory. She eventually got lost and and ended up right back at the beginning, back in the Rainbow Room. That’s when she heard Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill.” It was Max’s way out, a scene we actually saw earlier from a different perspective on Stranger Things 5.
Why Couldn’t Max Escape the Upside Down and Wake From Her Coma in Stranger Things 5?
Max followed the music, like before the song offered a way out of the darkness. She broke through the Rainbow Room and saw herself. It was Vecna’s first memory of her, when he cursed her while she sat in class. She then continued towards the music as it led her through other terrible memories of the horrible things Vecna did to her in Stranger Things 5. She said it felt like those memories would never end, but she eventually climbed back to Vecna’s lair in the Upside Down, the place she initially used to escape from the Upside Down in season four.
There she could hear Kate Bush’s song, and as she followed the sound, she saw a portal to the real world. It showed her inside a hospital room where Lucas was holding her hand. She could feel his touch. We had seen this scene of Max and Lucas earlier in Stranger Things 5, Volume One. It ended with Max’s heart monitor spiking. That happened because on the other side, she had started to run to the portal. Then the tape ran out. When the song ended, the portal closed, denying her the first chance she’d had to escape the memory prison.
That’s when Henry/Vecna/One, in his white laboratory clothes, arrived. Max ran back into the memory prison as Vecna chased her. She eventually ran through the woods (the same woods Henry had made Holly promise she would never enter). When Max came to a rock wall, she ran inside, but Henry wouldn’t enter.
In Stranger Things 5, Volume 1, Max found the one memory that scares Vecna and thus the only place she is safe from him.
Why Won’t Vecna Enter the Cave From His Own Memory?
Henry froze at the cave entrance. “He was scared,” Max said. “More than scared, he was terrified. There’s something about this cave. This memory. He won’t come in. In here, I’m safe.” Since that day, she has remained hidden inside the cave and that’s where she been during Stranger Things 5, Volume 1.
We think we know exactly why Henry won’t go in based on the Stranger Things stage play The First Shadow. (You can read all about here in our breakdown of what happened to a young Henry Creel in a Nevada cave and how that was where his dark journey began.) But Max doesn’t want to hide in Stranger Things 5, Volume 1, she wants to go home. And she has a plan to do exactly that.
Max didn’t share specifics. We just know it will rely on Holly returning to the Creel house and pretending she never left, let alone met Max. Holly, and her newfound bravery instilled in her by her loving brother, is ready and willing to do whatever it takes.
Vecna doesn’t know what happens inside his memory prison when he’s not there. He needs to be inside that realm himself to see and witness what Max or Holly are doing. Once he leaves this Matrix-like world of his own creation, he’s ignorant of what occurs there. That gives Max and Holly a chance in Stranger Things 5. Vecna is vulnerable to schemes planned and executed from his memory prison while he’s back in the Upside Down or Hawkins.
The girls’ friends and family need them to be successful. Vecna has big plans for Holly and the other 11 kids he took. Getting even just Holly out of there could stop him. Plus, as Lucas told a comatose Max, they will need their entire group if they have any hope of defeating Vecna. Until she wakes up and reconnects her mind and her body, they won’t be whole. But there’s reason to feel optimistic about Max’s plan working in Stranger Things 5. Holly made a hopeful comparison between this memory realm and her favorite book.
Why Does Holly Compare the Memory Prison and Henry to A Wrinkle In Time? What Does it Mean for Max and Holly?
Henry took his name Mr. Whatsit from Holly’s favorite book as a way to hide his true intentions. Mrs. Whatsit is a supernatural being of good who fights for the light.
Now that she knows the truth, though, Holly thinks of Henry as a different character from the story. She compared the Stranger Things 5 memory prison where she and Max are trapped to the soulless, sinister planet Camazotz from A Winkle in Time. She also said Max is like the missing Dad in the book and Henry is the evil IT.
IT is a floating brain with incredible telekinetic powers that rules over Camazotz. IT is also under the influence of the dark entity that threatens light in the universe, the evil Black Thing.
In the end, Meg saves her dad, her friend, her brother, and herself. Hopefully, Holly and Max can help do the same on Stranger Things 5.
Stranger Things 5, Volume 1 is now streaming on Netflix.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He’d escape the Upside Down if he heard Weezer’s “In the Garage Playing.” You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post What Happens to Max in STRANGER THINGS 5, VOLUME 1? appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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