Spoiler alert! The following contains details from"Stranger Things"Season 5, Episode 6, "Escape from Camazotz."
Have we heard Kate Bush's "Running Up that Hill" on"Stranger Things"for the last time?
It certainly seems like it, now that Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) has finally escaped Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) in the fifth and final season of"Stranger."By Episode 6 of the season, we have seen a lot of thumb-twiddling, with our characters running around in plot circles; maybe this episode's big ending is a sign that bigger things are coming?
There's only one episode left in the second part of the season, and we'll have to wait until New Year's Eve for the super-sized series finale episode (!) after that. But perhaps our friends from Hawkins are starting to make moves towards the final battle. One can hope.
A bridge to the other side
Turns out you probably shouldn't shoot random magic stuff even if you think you know what it is? After Nancy's (Natalia Dyer) fateful shotgun blast, the weird substancer over the Hawkins Lab roof starts swirling and looking like some kind of black hole, creating a huge blast that knocks her and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) into a sinking pit of mush and starts sucking the flesh wall and half of the Upside Down into some kind of void. El (Millie Bobby Brown), Hopper (David Harbour) and Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) are included in that. Uh oh.
Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) explains to Steve (Joe Keery) that he was wrong. Hawkins Lab didn't have a shield generator, but instead some kind of "exotic matter" that was holding the wall together. He knows this after finding good old Dr. Brenner's (Matthew Modine) journal. Vecna didn't make the wall, and Holly and the other kids aren't on the other side (how Dustin even knows that other kids are in danger ... shh, it doesn't matter). What is on the other side? Death. Cool. Great. Awesome.
"Stranger Things" is almost here! The fifth and final season of the Netflix horror series will return Nov. 26 (with subsequent installments on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve). Take a peek at images from the episodes, including Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
Nell Fisher as Holly Wheeler in "Stranger Things" Season 5. The third Wheeler sibling has been too young to be included in earlier seasons. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
"Terminator" star Linda Hamilton makes her debut as Dr. Kay in "Stranger Things" Season 5." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven and Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler in "Stranger Things" Season 5. Their teen romance will have to endure apocalyptic problems. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson and Joe Keery as Steve Harrington in "Stranger Things" Season 5. Everyone's favorite friends will have their own trials and tribulations. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair and Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield in "Stranger Things" Season 5. Max ended Season 4 of the series in a coma caused by villain Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower). " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
Priah Ferguson as Erica Sinclair in "Stranger Things" Season 5. Lucas' little sister is a fan favorite." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
Noah Schnapp as Will Byers and Jamie Campbell Bower as Vecna in "Stranger Things" Season 5. Will's kidnapping by Vecna into the Upside Down in Season 1 started the whole series of unfortunate events of the show. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
The gang's all here: Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers, Noah Schnapp as Will Byers, Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, and Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair in "Stranger Things" Season 5." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
An image from "Stranger Things" Season 5. Things are looking positively like the end of the world in Hawkins, Indiana. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> Sneak peek photos from 'Stranger Things' Season 5, including Max Mayfield's fate
"Stranger Things" is almost here! Thefifth and final season of the Netflix horror serieswill return Nov. 26 (with subsequent installments on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve). Take a peek at images from the episodes, including Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers.
Also revealed: the Upside Down isn't an alternate dimension, like the characters and the audience have thought all along. It's a wormhole, a bridge between worlds (remember that physics lesson from the first set of episodes talking all about wormholes?), and if it collapses, it will take everyone and everything with it.
Nancy and Jonathan somehow survived the big blast, but ended up stuck in a conference room that is slowly melting into goo. As is usual on this show, this turns into an excellent time for a deep heart-to-heart as they accept what they think is their inevitable demise. We found out both of them have been lying to each other and themselves about their relationship. They're not meant to be, and an engagement ring wasn't going to help anything. Jonathan "un-proposes" to Nancy just moments before the goop miraculously stops melting (deus ex engagement ring?).
Those two had their own heart-to-heart as Dustin gets some rapid grief therapy from Steve, explaining that all his self-destructive anger has been fear of losing anyone else like he lost Eddie (Joseph Quinn). They hug, and fans who were worried about this popular relationship can relax now.
Meanwhile, Eric (Priah Ferguson) and Murray (Brett Gelman), who one might call the C or even D team in this roll call of characters, wake up Mr. Clarke (Randy Havens) and demand a telemetry tracker to save Dustin. If only they knew how much danger Dustin was in.
A drug-induced hallucination
Back in Vecna's Fantasyland, Max and Holly (Nell Fisher) barely make it back to their safe cave before Vecna gets to them, all limping and creepy in his Mr. Whatsit form. He threatens that he will hurt Max if Holly doesn't come back with him to the other children, saying there are new ways to hurt Max.
Our friends in the real world are finally figuring out that Max has been trapped in Vecna's mind this whole time, and now Will (Noah Schnapp) and Holly are there too. Robin (Maya Hawke) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) decide to go to Max at the hospital, thinking she might be about to wake up. Will's mind, meanwhile, is stuck in the seriously gross part of Vecna's mind and Vecna basically just roasts the poor teen. Vecna also does some A+ villain monologuing, informing Will that he used Will's mind/essence/whatever to build all those handy tunnels around Hawkins, and that the vessels/kids will bring a new world.
In some good news, Hopper and El and Kali somehow made it out of the Upside Down amid that giant explosion, and made it back to the radio station where Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Joyce (Winona Ryder) are keeping vigil over Will. Eleven tries to find Mike via her fun meditation technique, to no success. It gives Kali and Hopper the opportunity to fight about what's best for El, naturally. Their argument reaches no satisfactory conclusion, but Hopper does come up with the idea of putting El in the sensory deprivation tank in order to help her reach Will.
But Vecna has used Will's own memories to figure out where Max's body is in the real world so he can send a couple of demodogs after her. This is pretty dubious as far as plot points go. Vecna wouldn't just assume she was in a hospital? He wouldn't check? It's not like anyone was hiding her body. But if you get too caught up in the details of the mechanics of this season, you'll never escape. Whatever.
Robin and Lucas get to the hospital, but Robin is immediately waylaid by Vickie (Amybeth McNulty), who's not mad about their date night — but about Robin's strange disappearances and the fact that the Military Police are pursuing Robin for stealing those drugs they used on the Turnbows a few episodes ago. (Seriously, where are the Turnbows, though?) Vickie, pretty righteously, demands an explanation, but doesn't believe anything Robin tells her. Instead Vickie thinks her poor girlfriend is an addict in the depths of hallucination and withdrawal. Robin can't convince her of the truth before the MPs find them.
Via the sensory deprivation tank, El hops in to try to find Will, just like she did in the school gym back in the very first season, nine years ago. She finds him in his moist prison and breaks him free, but not before they realize Will gave up Max's location to Vecna. Just as Robin is being taken away in handcuffs, a demodog stares her, the MPs and Vickie down in the hospital hallway.
The way out
Back in Fantasyland, Holly doesn't want to take their new plight sitting down, even though Max's plan is to simply wait to be rescued by El, because Max assumes that's who was talking to her through Vecna. But Holly is convinced that there might be an exit in the cave/desert. She discovers that the lens cap of the spyglass she took from Henry's bedroom matches the outline of Max's cave, which is a map to Henry's traumatic memory. She literally falls into it, some kind of mine shaft with an injured, creepy man at the bottom.
Then kid-Henry shows up, and the sweaty man pulls a gun and shoots the future psychopath in the hand. They scuffle, and Henry beats him to death with a rock (apparently his psychopathy wasn't that far in the future). Holly freaks out in response to witnessing yet more violence, naturally, but Max digs around for a way out, and hears her old pal Kate Bush singing the way out! Holly almost sees Henry open a mysterious metal briefcase that probably has all the answers to any questions we have left for the series, but Max grabs her before the audience, and maybe Holly, can see what's inside.
They start to break out just as all hell breaks loose at the hospital.
Escape from Hawkins Hospital
Robin gets on the hospital PA system to tell Lucas to grab Max and run, and who should hear that there are monsters on the way but Mrs. Karen Wheeler (Cara Buono), still recovering from her battle with a demo in the first part of the season.
The demos trap Lucas, Robin, Vickie and Max in the basement laundry room of the hospital, where they hide from the monsters, "Jurassic Park"-style, even while Lucas still keeps a boom box with "Running Up that Hill" playing for Max. Vickie apologizes for not believing Robin, and it looks like they're all going to die, especially if Lucas doesn't turn off the darn music.
They are saved in a glorious explosion by Karen Wheeler, who throws a tank of oxygen into a clothes dryer (how ingenious and domestic of her!). Max has to split up from poor Holly, who isn't heading to an adoring boyfriend but to some unknown horrible location where Vecna has taken her body. Max gives her a nice pep talk and tells her where to hide in the Upside Down, and they both take off towards their respective exits. Lucas/Max reunion, here we come.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:'Stranger Things' Season 5, Episode 6 recap, 'Escape from Camazotz'