After an epic season 4, Stranger Things will return for a fifth and final burst of episodes that promises an epic final battle. And a clue may well have teased the creature that Eleven and the gang will have to beat. Warning, spoilers.
Warning, spoilers. It is advisable to have seen season 4 of the Stranger Things series before continuing to read this article.
Season 4 of Stranger Things was rich in twists and revelations, both in the first volume and in the second, available since July 1 on Netflix. Composed of two long episodes – 1h30 for the first and 2h20 for the second – this second part has brought its share of answers but also clues about what the fifth and last season of the Duffer brothers’ series could contain.
According to some fan theories, Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 2 even teased the next monster that Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Will (Noah Schnapp), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and the others will have to fight. And to find out which creature it is, you have to look at one of the long-awaited revelations of this part 2: Will’s painting and what it contains.
A final epic fight in season 5?
This painting, teased in Volume 1, is a drawing of three knights and a magician – who represent Mike (the Paladin), Lucas (the knight), Dustin (the warrior and bard) and Will (the magician) – facing a three-headed red dragon. At first glance, this pictorial work allows Will to reveal the lack of his friends and their games of Dungeons & Dragons when they were younger but also to show his love for Mike, whom he sees as the heart of the group.
Screenshot / Netflix Will’s painting
Evidenced by his speech to Will then, passing off his feelings for those of Eleven, but also the tears he hides afterwards. But this painting would also be a kind of prediction of the events that will follow in the series. Remember that Will’s drawings are often revealing of the intrigues to come. In season 2, he had also drawn the Mind Flayer before he landed in Hawkins.
Because of his strong connection with Vecna and the Upside Down – which he feels right down to his neck – Will could therefore have predicted the events to come and an epic battle for season 5 of Stranger Things. With this painting, he emphasizes the importance of each member of the group of friends by their functions in Dungeons and Dragons which prove to be real in real life.
But the young boy, who has suffered a lot since the first season of the Netflix series and his captivity in the Upside Down, has also drawn a very special watch in front of his band of friends: a red dragon with three heads. And according to some fans, it could be the creature that the group will have to fight, probably in the hill near the forest where Eleven and the others witness the arrival of the Upside Down in the real world.
Screenshot / Netflix
Nancy (Natalia Dyer) has also warned that many monsters were going to land – even an army – in their reality, including “a giant creature with a gaping mouth”. Indeed, Vecna showed him what was to come, but the audience only saw bits and pieces of it. If Vecna exposed these monsters to him, it must have created them. Like the Mind Flayer with that dark cloud of the Upside Down, Vecna could shape the creature we’ll see in Season 5.
A fan on TikTok hypothesizes that it could be the Hydra, a multi-headed dragon that regenerates. Living in swamps, this critter attacks everything that roams its territory and becomes more and more powerful as it ages and develops additional heads.
Another user of TikTok thinks it could be Tiamat, an evil reptilian multi-headed deity and mother of all dragons. She likes to raze towns and villages (Hawkins bears the brunt of it!) as a diversion to hide her true purpose. Lurking in the shadows, this creature makes its presence felt but only presents itself to the chosen few.
Screenshot / Netflix
If one of these creatures appears, how could the gang fight it? Perhaps with a sword, as drawn on the painting. And why not the sword recovered by Hopper (David Harbour) in the Russian prison when he decapitated the Demogorgon. Especially since it is not just any sword: it is the Atlantean of Conan the Barbarian (Arnold Schwarzenegger).
Of course, these theories remain only hypotheses and it will be necessary to wait for the first images of the fifth and last season of Stranger Things to confirm these assumptions of monsters, directly taken from the Dungeons and Dragons game. It only remains for the Duffer brothers to start writing this final season next month.