‘Stranger Things’ Season 5, Episode 5 Recap – This Show Should Be About Derek

The first volume of Stranger Things Season 5 ended in such a big, satisfying, and social media-savvy way that it was basically impossible that Episode 5, the premiere of Volume 2, was going to live up to it. But that’s truer of “Shock Jock” than I expected, and much truer than I’d like it to be, since it feels almost like a complete reset. Despite the sudden manifestation of Will’s powers saving his friends, Vecna still got his Infinity War-style midpoint victory, as he has spirited all the kids away to his idyllic mind palace, and everyone else is stuck trying to brainstorm a way to track him down and potentially stop him.

Brainstorming isn’t a bad thing, in and of itself. In fact, Stranger Things has historically always thrived on its brainstorming, but one has to wonder how many unlikely improvised plans can be pulled off in the span of a few episodes. This is starting to feel more like MacGyver than anything else.

Ordinarily, I could tolerate this no problem. But some of the characterisation is beginning to fray at the edges as well. Will’s big moment of self-acceptance – putting aside its inherent cheesiness, since I’m writing this on Boxing Day and have already eaten my body weight in cheddar – is a sweet sentiment, but I’m glad he immediately started downplaying his own abilities. They’re not innate, like Eleven’s; instead, he’s able to siphon off Vecna’s powers, which means he can only do it if he’s connected to the same hivemind.

Luckily, after four full seasons and half of the fifth, Joyce has finally decided to realise that her son is now in his mid-30s and can probably be allowed to take a few risks for the greater good. Hence, she actively encourages him to find a way to reconnect to the hivemind and get a good look at things from Vecna’s perspective. In the best-case scenario, he can twist off his limbs like he did with the Demogorgons. In the worst case, he can at least find out where the kids are.

But this is easier said than done. There are two viable means of accomplishing this, one less risky but longer, and the other immediate but potentially calamitous. If they can bring Mr. Clarke into the group, they can use his A/V expertise to repair their radios so they can better liaise with the group still stuck in the Upside Down. But that problem is tabled in favour of the more urgent option, which is strapping a dead Demogorgon to the radio tower, frying it with electricity to shake up the Mindflayer particles – as with Billy and the sauna in Season 3 – and then letting Will hop into its reanimated mind. If things go wrong, which you won’t be surprised to hear they do, he can be disconnected by pumping the voltage all the way up.

The plan works, connecting Will directly to the mind of Derek, who is now with the other kids in Henry’s mind and has become my new favourite character. Seriously, this kid’s great. Initially, it isn’t entirely clear whether he has been mind-wiped by the kidnapping process, since everything’s deliberately framed to imply that Holly is the only one of the entire group who isn’t buying Henry’s vague master plan spiel, which is something to do with pulling another world very much like ours but free of bad things and darkness into close enough proximity that the two can be swapped or merged or something. It’s a little unclear. Holly isn’t having it and immediately legs it into the woods to tell Max, where it’s revealed that Derek still recalls everything that happened immediately prior to him being kidnapped and wants to help take Vecna out.

To this end, Max supplies Derek with a map to the cave that Vecna is so terrified of, and he happily plays bait to distract Henry for long enough that Max and Holly can search for an exit in the latter’s memories. Derek is so up for this, it’s hilarious. Even when Henry catches him and terrifyingly asks who gave him the map, he simply says, “Your mom.” Derek is the MVP of Stranger Things Season 5, Episode 5 by a country mile.

Anyway, the memory thing. This is a nice, pretty visually interesting sequence that sees Max and Holly exploring Holly’s various encounters with “Mr Whatsit”, tracing their way back to the moment that Holly was taken. This means revisiting the night her parents were slapped around by a Demogorgon, but it also means stumbling on the exit, a way to potentially free themselves from Henry’s consciousness. But they’re just a little too late. Henry heads them off, presents as Vecna for maximum fear effect, and then tries to strangle Max to death.

Sadie Sink in Stranger Things Season 5 | Image via Netflix

In a surprisingly effective redo of Will’s power awakening, Vecna’s leg suddenly twists off as it’s revealed that Will has found a way into his mind. But lest everything be too easy, Vecna is able to resist the control. It buys Holly and Max enough time to get out of there, but it leaves Will comatose, and even the contingency plan of cranking up the electricity to expel the Mindflayer particles doesn’t have the desired effect.

This is one example of things going wrong, but it’s far from the only one. In the Upside Down, things are going terribly for Steve, Dustin, Nancy, and Jonathan, both because their plan to discover the energy generator in Hawkins Lab might be misguided, and also because none of them are getting along. Nancy and Jonathan’s relationship is strained to breaking point, while Dustin still hasn’t processed Eddie’s death and is finding Steve a rather painful reminder of it. The former two communicate a little, but don’t make a great deal of headway since, as Nancy points out, now isn’t really the time. But the latter two end up physically coming to blows and exchanging a lot of very nasty words on the subject – Steve, in particular, hammers Dustin about Eddie getting himself killed by trying to play the hero. It’s one of the most painful arguments in the show’s history because both characters are fan-favourites and both technically have a point. A peaceful resolution is so close you could touch it, but both are just too young to quite get there.

Dustin does manage to find some documentation pertaining to the energy generator, though, which clues him in to the fact that he has got that all wrong. Unfortunately, he can’t quite get through to Nancy and Jonathan quickly enough to prevent Nancy from racking a shotgun and pumping a bullet into it, but that’s where “Shock Jock” ends, so we’ll have to wait a bit to discover the outcome.

One final thing before we dip out. In the Volume 1 finale, Hop and Eleven had rescued Kali from Dr. Kay’s clutches, and she spends a good chunk of Stranger Things Season 5, Episode 5 explaining what was going on with all that. It turns out she, Eleven, and all of the original Hawkins test subjects received their powers from direct transfusions of Henry’s blood when their mothers were pregnant. Dr. Kay was trying to replicate this process with Kali’s blood, pumping it into a bunch of heavily pregnant women, but the mothers and their children were ending up dead. The blood wasn’t viable. Dr. Kay’s theory is that only Eleven, who was the subject most closely inheriting Henry’s powers, can be used for this purpose, which explains why she’s so determined to capture her. This isn’t directly related to Vecna’s plan, of course, but it’s still something we should definitely be keeping an eye on.

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