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givehimthemedicine · 1 year

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Big Analysis Part 2

Powers and Blood

[ Part 1 ]

I have a theory to tell you about Henry that's going to make a LOT of other things click. this post is less neatly segmented by topic and more of a swift erratic drop into insanity so buckle up. Long asf but I promise at least the first/main part is worth it.

warning: very high chance this post contains actual spoilers for major reveals in Stranger Things 5. I'll be tagging subsequent discussion of my main theory here with #st spoilers just in case.

after I establish that, I'll speculate about a variety of subtopics including:

Max waking up

[redacted] has powers

Why Henry wanted El to join him

How Will did the lights

What Will's spidey sense is

Henry's original interest in Will

What I think happened that night in 1959

Let's start with this 4x8 Brenner line: "when One kills, he doesn't simply kill. He consumes. He takes everything from his victims. Everything they are and everything they ever will be. Their memories, their abilities."

Brenner literally just saw crime scene photos of Henry's victims like the rest of us. where is he getting that intel? why would he know that?

"are you forgetting that Brenner saw surveillance of Henry killing all the kids so he knows how his killings worked?"

well sure, Brenner had plenty of footage of it, but what visible indication is there about Henry's murder method that he's "taking abilities" from anyone, unless maybe you could see somehow on the tapes that each murder got easier? his nose didn't even appear to bleed a little bit until the very end.

at the time of the massacre, Henry's only two victims that Brenner would already have the full explanation about were Virginia and Alice, because Brenner spent a while with Henry in the lab and probably forced him to tell all about it. So, taking their memories, alright sure, but what do you mean ABILITIES? did Henry suddenly like, get really good at knitting the moment he killed his mom?

Virginia definitely had powers.

the only way Brenner could be so sure Henry gained all the dead numbers' powers was if he already knew that Henry gained powers from Virginia and Alice in the first place.

Virginia having powers is how she "somehow knew" it was Henry giving them visions. she's where Henry inherited his abilities from in the first place.

just like El got hers from her mom. the powers really are maternally inherited.

MKUltra didn't give Terry Ives powers, it just activated the potential she already had. you can have latent powers and not even know.

anyway, Victor Creel must not have known about his wife's powers any more than he knew about Henry's, which is why he stayed blaming demons.

so Henry kills Virginia, and as he wipes his nose, his narration literally says that he grew more powerful. Henry killed Virginia not only to evade her plans to institutionalize him, but he absorbed her powers.

then Alice. little Alice is too young to have many atrocities under her belt - her only crime is being Virginia Creel's child. I don't know if Henry has much personal resentment toward her, but either way, she inherited those powers just the same as him, and he killed her for them.

It's why he "grows stronger and more powerful" with each kill - it's not just that the mere act of killing any old victim makes his powers stronger - it's that his whole thing is absorbing people. when he kills people who have powers, he adds their powers to his.

eventually Henry does the lab massacre, killing all the guards and orderlies and kids. his backstory would so strongly seem to lead him to be sympathetic to the lab kids, to kill their captors and free them - but to Henry they were just sixteen little power vessels.

moving right along: remember how we all went "oHH" when we found out baby El learned how to do the neck-snap and throwing-guards-into-walls moves from Henry? yeah, that certainly was how he killed those guys!

hey, wouldn't it be fun if we think about how exactly he killed everybody we've seen him kill?

Henry's Murder List

if we try on this idea about Virginia and Alice... would you say it helps a little bit of a pattern emerge?

everyone Henry kills Like That has powers.

everyone.

All of the cursed four have powers. Max has powers.

It's what he means when he calls Max weak in the same breath as calling her brave. he's talking about her powers.

and apparently Billy had powers as well. not through Susan but his own mother, coincidentally. "all the rest of them" we assumed meant Chrissy Fred and Patrick but actually means ALL the rest. all the kids, Virginia, Alice.

oh, is old givehimthemedicine just a reaching delusional Max fan who wants her to have powers? he's just talking about emotional weakness? because she's depressed and Henry "feeds on the weak"?

look in what context the words weakness and strength keep getting used in the lab. it's not emotional or physical. it's about powers.

hmm ok so you're able to write off the lights going blinky because that's a common occurrence for you? at the place where you and your mother live?

I know another kid who used to have electrical problems at his house. it'd be funny if you and he had any other paralle-

MAX MAYFIELD I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE :) :) :)

I don't think we know anything about Patrick or Fred's mothers, but here's a hint about the Cunningham family. Chrissy's mom also feels Henry but attributes it to a demon, like Victor Creel.

gates do indeed open by Henry making a "powerful psychic connection" but Dustin doesn't realize how accurate his wording is - the victims have powers too. Chrissy's major visions both feature her mother screaming at her to "open the door."

doors are what Henry calls gates. he's connecting his powers with Chrissy's to open a gate.

all this time I took this line to mean that El has the specific skill of opening gates, like how Kali has her own unique skill. actually it probably just means Henry wanted El's strength. like, her amount of power.

which brings me to El.

why Henry's favoritism towards Eleven when she was the weakest kid at the lab? was it just because she was the most empathetic of the kids, and he knew she'd offer to help remove the soteria if he was nice to her?

Henry wanted El at full strength because he had plans for her powers. and if any of those other lab kids were weak he would've coached them too, fattening them up for the kill (Hopper/demogorgon/last supper parallel).

so if Henry went to the trouble of coaching El to bring out her strength instead of just killing her when she was weak, that establishes that he gains more strength from killing actively, strongly powered people, and probably only very little from killing latent or weak people like Alice, Chrissy, etc. maybe barely even enough to be worth the hassle of killing them.

right?

no, see. that's why he Vecnas them.

VECNA-ING ISN'T JUST KILLING, IT'S ACTIVATING THEIR POWERS AND THEN MAKING THEM USE THEM REALLY REALLY REALLY HARD. SO HARD THEY DIE. SO HE CAN TAKE THEM.

he's giving the '86 victims traumatic visions and nightmares about the things that he knows causes them the most pain - to make them experience extreme negative emotion, to activate their powers. just like he did by coaching Eleven to harness sad/angry memories. they get nosebleeds, the classic power-use symptom, because of their powers being stirred.

and when he kills them, he's literally power-surging them. think of the way El bleeds worse and feels more drained the harder she uses her powers - except he doesn't stop when they pass out. he forces all the power he can possibly get out of them, past their breaking point, until their bodies literally shatter. this creates a gate, and he also absorbs their maximum powers when they die. maybe like all the powers they would ever have been able to generate, total ("everything they are and everything they ever will be"), all at once.

THAT'S WHAT THE GLOWING LIGHT BULBS THING IS, BOTH SYMBOLICALLY AND LITERALLY. A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF ENERGY BEING CREATED.

that's why the flashlight-shattering surge when Henry kills Patrick. Henry isn't just "making a powerful psychic connection" with random teens - so what? what would that do? - he's making a connection and forcing them to generate extreme levels of power.

that's what causes the huge electricity surge when El closes the gate - she's using her rage montage to generate huge amounts of power, the most we've ever seen her do - AND USING HER POWERS REALLY REALLY HARD MADE HER NOT JUST BLEED WORSE THAN USUAL BUT LEVITATE.

what if Henry didn't levitate Max Chrissy Fred or Patrick. what if their own powers did that?

so Henry probably got even more power out of each '86 victim than El demonstrated when closing the mothergate (because El didn't die).

now realize: Max got power-surged... but Henry got interrupted before he could complete the ritual. she died, yeah, but of a heart attack from the trauma, not as part of the ritual itself.

I don't think Henry had actually taken Max's powers yet.

which means....

I SEE A PATH CLEAR TO MAX HAVING ACTIVE POWERS IN SEASON 5.

and if Max wakes up with amnesia and her powers lost, which is entirely likely given the pattern - don't worry about it. Max has her own NINA: all those letters she wrote. if needbe, El now knows exactly how to train Max back into power, except this time by harnessing love instead of darkness.

now, back to the light bulb thing - when else do we see it?

in the shed when Will gets taken.

Will has powers too. but you knew that :)

Will's made the light bulb in the shed glow with intense emotion too - fear. the bulb didn't burst because he didn't die.

and if the powers are maternally inherited, Joyce has them too. and Jonathan.

this could be Joyce lightbulbing, but I don't think she's experiencing a psychic connection with Henry at this moment, so it might actually be Will again, afraid for Joyce.

while we're on the subject:

Who led Holly and Joyce to Will's room with the lights?

in both the Joyce and Holly scenes, the lights blink their way calmly down the hallway. the way they behave just feels like a gentle, friendly presence - just like they do as a result of Hopper and Joyce walking down the hallway in the UD. it feels human.

but I'm not so sure it's Will. even if we say he was just walking to his room the first time and accidentally led Joyce to danger, he probably would be careful not to do exactly the same thing to Holly.

maybe the calm-blinking is not a result of a friendly or human entity, but of a human with powers.

maybe that was Henry walking down the hallway. Henry blinking the lights, Henry playing the stereo.

Joyce goes back into the house after running away, because that song is a personal thing for Will. but that kind of stereo is battery operated and can't play unless the play button is pressed, which requires the presser to either have telekinesis or physically step in for a sec through a portal. if Will could come through a portal the show would be over, and I don't think his powers are strong enough to push a button telekinetically yet even if he wanted to. but most importantly, he wouldn't want to. the demogorgon was definitely right there, and I refuse to believe Will would lure Joyce back into the same dangerous situation she had just fled. being that Henry can read memories, he would be perfectly aware of the personal significance of Should I Stay Or Should I Go and wouldn't hesitate to use it to deceive Joyce. so why didn't she get got when she went back in there? idk, maybe Will created a diversion or something.

I'm also sure it was Henry mesmerizing Holly with that circle of lights, extremely similar to the light-circle game at the Lab he probably got really good at before Brenner put in the soteria. Will can't do this:

regardless, Holly was lured in there specifically, and the demogorgon almost yoinked her.

so Joyce and Holly were both targeted in season 1, and both when they were alone.

Will was alone, Barb was alone, there were apparently no witnesses to the other four yoinkings, so they were alone. the demogorgon doesn't usually like to appear in front of anybody except those it intends to take.

and can I remind you that every time the demogorgon came into the house to attack Jonathan, it didn't injure him at all. it just knocked him down and drooled on him a bit. it wasn't trying to kill. and can I remind you that Nancy was also there.

the Byers and Wheeler families both have powers.

dream or telepathy...

cruel coincidence or ESP....

if both Byers and Wheelers have powers, why wouldn't the demogorgon burst in while the casserole is cooking and yoink Joyce, Karen, and Holly all together? because then the show leaves us the deniability of "oh well it was after Joyce; Karen and Holly just happened to be there". same as "oh well it was after Jonathan, Nancy just happened to be there". showing us an isolated attempt on Holly makes it clear that Wheeler blood is a target.

Henry keeps targeting entire families except for the fathers.

because he's killing everyone with powers, and he knows the powers are maternally inherited.

Virginia and Alice but not Victor.

all the numbers and not Papa (he's not their father literally but he doesn't have powers and it works as a parallel).

Will, Joyce and Jonathan but not Lonnie. that's why Lonnie coming back was even a plot point - to show him being available for a demogorgon attack yet being the only Byers never to have an encounter with it, and not even believe in it.

Nancy's vision of something terrible happening to Karen, Holly, and Mike, but no mention of Ted.

How did Will do the lights?

Will didn't glow the shed bulb or his bedroom bulb on purpose.

his first intentional show of powers (that we saw):

the imagery of Will's flicker is exactly the same of baby El using her weak powers to flicker a single bulb in the light circle:

"but wait, why are you calling the lightbulb flicker evidence of Will having powers? we see non-powered people affecting light bulbs by touching them in the Upside Down, like the chandelier scene in 4x7."

correct, but. look at the Nancy Steve Robin Eddie contacting the kids through the chandelier lights scene. it glows in the RU when they all touch it, right? so they ALL have powers too? no.

any lights glow when any regular people touch them in the UD. touch them.

but only people with powers can make lights glow without actually touching them. Will can't be touching that light bulb in his bedroom for Joyce because it isn't even there in the UD. he can only be touching the empty glowy space where it is, like Nancy touching the lite brite.

btw notice how all four teens touch that chandelier but NOBODY EXCEPT NANCY ever touches the unplugged lite brite? sus. assuming the other three don't have powers, I suspect it might not have worked for them.

Hopper and Joyce walking down the hall - they didn't touch those Christmas lights. those weren't even there yet in the UD. that's not just human proximity turning them on - that's Joyce specifically.

Will could only have done most of the lights stuff by having powers. some of those Christmas lights blinked too quickly for him to have touched each bulb physically, besides the fact that he was a little guy, not tall enough to reach them. he didn't have to actually touch them, and again he couldn't have anyway because they weren't there yet on Nov 6. he's not strong, but he's activated enough to use his powers consciously now that he's been lightbulb-glowingly scared at least a couple times.

but that's only half the Will-lights question. that still doesn't tell us how he knew they were there in the first place.

Will in the UD has to be seeing glowy areas where the lights are, like how the teens saw the lights when they aimed flashlights at them.

failing Will having a flashlight with him the whole time (boring! spin again), I have three ideas:

theory one: Will's "true sight" enables him to see glimpses of the RU from the UD as well as vice versa and he did in fact see the alphabet without the aid of a light source.

theory two: Joyce has candles lit in the first blinky Christmas lights scene, and again near the alphabet. I wonder if firelight could somehow transcend dimensions.

theory three, which I like best: is it possible that the lights thing works both ways - that Joyce's presence in the RU made the Christmas light spots glow enough in the UD that Will noticed them?

the lite brite scene, as I understand it, doesn't conflict with this idea. it didn't glow in the UD because Dustin, Lucas and Erica were on the other end of it, and I have no specific suspicions that any of them have powers. if any one of them had powers, the lite brite might have glowed in the UD even without the flashlight beam. and then only Nancy touched it in the UD and made it glow in the RU. if I'm right about who has powers and who doesn't, that checks out.

what about the 1x8 scene where Joyce and Jonathan sense each other in the house? if this theory is correct, Jonathan (if not also Nancy) should be causing glowy spots along the ceiling in the UD. but the UD shots are all framed low, maybe intentionally avoiding giving us a good look toward the ceiling, and we would need a good look because these glowy spots would probably be quite subtle. so while this scene does nothing to confirm, I don't think it denies either.

Will would not have seen the alphabet painted on the wall, but if he noticed 26 glowing spots while hearing his mom say things like "talk to me!" he could maybe figure out what was going on, and maybe filled in his own alphabet.

the only hiccup is these two light bulbs I circled. because these would put 28 glowing spots on the wall and how would Will know that Joyce started with "I" on the next line instead of the top right bulb, and then the rest of the alphabet would be thrown off, doubly so at "Q". although if Will is able to make individual bulbs glow selectively just by his intent, maybe Joyce is too, and only the alphabet ones are glowing in the UD.

not perfect, but that's my best try for now, because it would also explain the bedroom light bulb.

What about the rest of the yoinked and flayed?

In season 1, a total of six people got yoinked to the UD by the demogorgon. Will, Barb, and four other randos. did they all have powers too?

well, Barb's nose was bleeding:

(Mrs. Holland I'm onto you too)

and if 2/6 had powers then there's certainly a case for the rest, but that's not a hill I care to die on. like, the elevator guy could've been a convenience yoink, just because he was right there where the demogorgon entered the lab. we know even less about the other victims. I could go either way about it.

as for the flayed, the only family relationship we know about is the Holloways, and since the dad was flayed too that doesn't perfectly follow the not-the-dad pattern (although flayings =/= Vecna'ings and I guess there's no rule preventing Tom Holloway from having his own powers from his own mother).

I'm definitely thinking Billy had powers based on that one Henry line to Max, but I don't think I have an objection to the idea of most of the flayed just being meat. although the flaying process (the tentacle in the mouth) could definitely be a means of both uploading possession and downloading powers. if that's the case, like 1/3 of Hawkins has powers I guess.

so was Nancy's theory about blood attracting the demogorgon right?

Nancy and Jonathan attracted the demogorgon by cutting their hands. Barb bled in the pool. Will wasn't bleeding, but he didn't need to be because I think Henry already knew about him some other way.

that deer was bleeding, Nancy said it had been hit by a car. was that to throw us off, to make us think the demogorgon is just attracted to blood in general? although who's to say it isn't. but it was eating the deer. it didn't yoink Will or Barb (who I think both had powers) to eat.

maybe the demogorgon could smell blood like other predators, but it could also tell regular blood from powers blood, and Henry didn't allow it to eat anyone with powers because he had more important uses for them.

so then if it's literally sniffing out who has powers as it goes along, how did it know about the Wheelers? it tries to yoink Holly episodes before Nancy cuts her hand. I would love to offer you a different explanation than that Karen was there too, and... I can think of a reason an adult woman could be bleeding. do I like it, no, is it possible, I guess.

so what is Henry's original interest in Will?

what if I'm not totally off base about rainbowshipgate? what if the lab, as of 1979, is already watching Will. as a member of staff, Henry could have access to their intel on potential new kids. that way at the time El banishes him to the UD, he already knows about Will. so when he finally gets back into the RU, he makes a beeline for Will.

is it possible that, when he first goes after Will, all Henry wants with Will is his powers like all the rest?

if so, why doesn't he just Vecna him? there has to be a reason he didn't want him dead quite yet. maybe these days Henry is working in partnership with the hive, and while Henry's goal was to harvest Will's powers, the hive also had the goal of spawning some new demogorgons, which requires live host bodies. the yoinked were all handled in ways that served both of those goals.

was Will even meant to survive?

This is gross but, let's talk about that vine in Will's mouth

I FINALLY just got the purpose of this weird ass shot of the alive/dead raccoon in the tunnels. I have never understood what this was supposed to be. It must be dead - it's partly skeletonized - and yet it looks like it's breathing. I never even saw this until I brightened it and slowed it down just now, but: when Hopper nudges it with his foot, vines burst out of the carcass, and the breathing stops.

I'm frankly still not even sure wtf I'm seeing here but it made me realize that the vine in Will's mouth is not just to deposit the slug, but to give him oxygen.

everyone else probably got this years ago but for the benefit of anyone else as slow as me, Hopper's Sara flashback is not merely a visual association, but a very literal one. although the slugging is ultimately a fatal process, Will is intubated and the vine is keeping him alive for the duration.

this is why the language around Will's slug is always "coughing up" and not vomiting. the vine and slug were never in his digestive tract, they were down his trachea. the vine has to be both an ovipositor and a breathing tube. I hate this subject. it seals off the airway, preventing the host from inhaling the UD's toxic spores, because if the host dies too soon it won't be any good for incubating the slug.

when the slug is ready, the vine must retract (so the slug can get out) and without supplemental oxygen, the host (if not already dead like the raccoon) immediately finishes dying of exposure. this must be what happened to Barb and the others. then the slug grows up and in a few days starts eating the host's body, which is why that other dead guy near Barb is a skeleton already.

I've been going crazy trying to figure out why, if Henry has some grand plans for Will right from the beginning, he would use him as a common demogorgon incubator, with no provision appearing to be made for his survival. (I guess Henry could've restarted his heart like El did Max afterwards, but eh). I haven't thought of an answer yet besides: maybe, at this point in time, he didn't?

maybe his original intent was to activate Will, take his powers, repurpose him for incubation, and leave him to die? and then after Will surprises him by making it back to the RU with semi-awakened abilities, Henry realizes he's become a unique asset? (this is a whole other avenue of thought I need to work out more)

so anyway, how could Henry have harvested Will's powers without killing him yet?

there's only one, one-off way we've ever seen Henry steal someone else's powers nonfatally, without Vecna'ing them, and that's El.

when the meat flayer bites El, a chunk of it burrows into her leg and absorbs a little of her blood. if the powers are genetic, they're in the blood, literally. El uses her powers for the last time to tear it out of her leg, and later, when the whole meat flayer arrives at the mall, it stops and bends down to that little chunk and absorbs it. in doing so, it absorbed her powers.

Henry getting her powers, sure fine, but where I'm still unclear is why this is a zero-sum thing and El lost her powers, because it's not like she lost all of her blood. (also does this mean that in the ST universe if you get a blood transfusion you might end up with superpowers?) there's something I'm still missing here, especially with that shot of the blood puddle sizzling on the floor of the grocery store.

anyway, we know Will used his powers in the UD in order to do the lights. and what happens when you use your powers? your nose bleeds. this is one way Henry could get a little of Will's blood without leaving a mark on him so the audience won't guess.

Will must also get amnesia from "dying", thus losing his active powers like baby El. or else it'd be hilarious if he's had powers and known all the answers all this time and hasn't mentioned it.

What is Will's spidey sense?

if Henry doesn't count on Will surviving his slugging, I don't see any motive for him putting soteria or equivalent into his neck before leaving him in the library.

as much as I like the soteria idea, I'm honestly not sure the simplest explanation doesn't cover it - that Will's spidey sense is just fear.

when Will's neck tingled when he was possessed, it was because the Mind Flayer (Henry) was afraid. they told us that very plainly with Mr. Clarke's dialogue.

when normal Will's neck tingles, it's because Will is triggered and rightfully terrified some UD shit is happening again. he describes it to others as feeling frozen with fear, cold, like dropping on a roller coaster. he also mentions feeling like he "can't breathe or talk or do anything" - sounds rather like symptoms of having a vine down your trachea, even if you don't know that's why.

but how does he know to be afraid?

I'm thinking that once Henry makes a connection with you, there's always a scar of that connection there, like how gates leave scars - the connection is basically opening a gate between minds. (remember Henry got Max and El from Max's mind into his by literally hurling/carrying them through that stained glass doorway. Victor breaks down that same door and stumbles into the war vision. doors being gates.)

provided there's a UD/RU gate open, Will can sense when Henry is near as a result of that residual connection, but intense fear may be enough to explain the actual reaction on his neck imo. he may not remember exactly what happened to him in the UD but frankly it'd be super weird if he didn't have colossal anxiety at the slightest hint it could be happening again.

Max is the only other person who's had Henry make a connection with her and lived, so if I'm on the right track, she should also wake up with a spidey sense.

Why Henry originally wanted El to join him

maybe opening gates is a 2 player game no matter how strong you are. if Henry killed every other powers person in the world, he wouldn't be able to open gates because he'd have no one to connect with. he had just coached El into becoming the most powerful kid in the lab, and that combined with their "alliance" put her in an ideal position to be his partner in crime.

maybe the thing about her being "superior" and shaping the world with him was just a lie to gain her cooperation? maybe, but the fact that he brought it up again in 4x9, years later and with nothing to gain, makes me feel like he kinda meant it.

this does very little to reassure me that Henry won't turn out to be El's biological father. he would've been 23-24 at the time Terry was involved with MKUltra, and having both parents involved with lab experimentation would align flawlessly with El's very Firestarter-esque origin story. if Brenner didn't actually orchestrate it, I certainly can't see him frowning on it either if he knew, as I'm sure he would be thrilled at the chance to study a double-powered kid (assuming he didn't already know it was only a maternal thing back then). although I suppose Henry and Terry could also have had a thing without Brenner knowing. I will be thrilled to be proven wrong about this entire paragraph.

Henry's "join me" to Fred and Max was more figurative I guess, in the sense that they'd be joining him in his mind once he absorbed them. I was gonna say maybe he figures one of these depressed bastards hates the world enough to be his player 2, but he didn't really give them a sales pitch or opportunity to agree/disagree before killing them. I do find it interesting he never said "join me" to Chrissy, and we don't know if he said anything to Patrick.

What happened that night in 1959.

the night Henry kills Virginia, the radio turns on to Dream A Little Dream Of Me, which is like Victor's Running Up That Hill, and serves to free him from his vision.

my question is: if Henry wanted to torment Victor, why would he turn on a song that would help him?

he didn't.

Virginia turned on the radio.

oh yeah, forgot to mention! Virginia's powers were active. not all of the weird stuff going on in the Creel House is Henry. in fact it's probably not Henry who started it. the lights flickering while Henry draws with crayons - pretty sure that's Virginia pulling a stunt somewhere in the house.

here are both POVs of the murder for you to refer to.

the radio turns on directly onto DALDOM (hm I don't love that acronym).

Virginia and Victor look at each other in a way that's easy to interpret as two people weirded out about the radio turning on by itself. but Virginia has a weird, almost pleading look. I believe she's just acting confused when she's really the one doing this.

Victor has no idea she has powers. he figures this is demon hijinks and that his wife is just as baffled about it as he is, and she's letting him think so.

just before Victor touches the radio, it starts tuning through different channels. and then the lights go crazy.

the knob starting to channel surf - I think that's Henry changing the channel away from DALDOM. how does Henry know about the RUTH effect? maybe Virginia knows - either from her own experience or Brenner told her - and Henry read her mind. anyway, Henry doesn't want that song playing.

but with the radio trick, Virginia tips her hand. if Henry wasn't already sure she had powers, he is now. (Henry's reaction to the radio is a major difference between the POVs - look at his for this part) he looks at the radio. he looks to his mother. and that is the moment he says that Virginia "left him no choice but to act."

what about this moment during a calm family dinner would necessitate Henry immediately killing his mother?

why would Virginia turn on the radio in front of Henry, knowingly blowing her secret?

it makes me feel like, within a few more seconds, it wouldn't matter to Virginia what Henry knew. it makes me think of the story Henry feeds baby El about how she needs to escape today because they're going to kill her. ingredients of that lie come from his own past.

what if Virginia planned to "kill him" that night - that is, fake his death so she could hand him over to Brenner in exchange for compensation (like she definitely killed that great uncle for his money I'm telling you). all she would have to do is incapacitate Henry and then call in Dr. Brenner under the guise of helping him, and Brenner takes care of the rest. He'd put on his usual fake death routine, perhaps even providing a fake body, same as with Will. (and ultimately this IS what happened because Henry pushed too hard - Victor is satisfied that Henry died)

all Virginia has to do is act scared, and blame for Henry's bizarre "death" would fall in easily with the claims of demonic activity that Victor has already so well established around town (the demon actually being Virginia, who's been doing spooky shit in front of Victor to make him think the house is haunted, establishing the cover well in advance of Henry's planned "death").

but Virginia doesn't know the extent of Henry's abilities. she knows he's been messing with their heads, but maybe she doesn't know about the telekinesis and electricity stuff - which is why she looks genuinely confused when the lights go blinky, because she knows she's not doing that. and then she turns back around with a brief look of oh shit before she zooms up to the ceiling.

congratulations Virginia, you played yourself.

but again, why did she turn on DALDOM? if the plan was for Virginia to do something to Henry, what did Victor need protection for? or was that her special song, too? Their Song <3?

Virginia probably figured that the second Henry realized something was going on, he would put everybody in a trance to stop them. maybe she figured if the protective song was already playing, whatever Henry tried wouldn't work. but she didn't know Henry could change the channel. whoops!

Dream A Little Dream Of Me

here's the part I've been over and over and can't figure out a good explanation for. Henry changes the channel on the radio to stop DALDOM. so then how does hearing that song playing save Victor from his war vision a minute later?

after Henry changes the channel, even while the dial is still moving around, the song persists quietly in the background throughout Virginia's death and Victor's attempts to break down the door. it stops when he enters his war vision, but a minute into that, he takes notice of it again, which is what pulls him back. yet as soon as he comes out of his vision, back into reality where the song SHOULD still be audible if it was really playing, the house is silent.

there is definitely some kind of third party bullshit going on here but I'm stumped.

I don't think I can blame Alice. her powers weren't active - she had to be given nightmares to stir them, same as the cursed four, and I don't even think a little kid is probably in on a family murder plot to begin with. and like, I kinda doubt she Vecna'd herself.

is Virginia not really dead? she looked pretty dead, unless that whole evening was one huge trance Virginia gave the entire family. but Henry's narration so clearly says he intended to kill Virginia and Alice and frame his father, and that he gained powers from killing his mother specifically, so I really kinda don't think it's that. even if Virginia could give him a vision of himself killing her and Alice, I don't think she has the power to also make him believe he planned all that and was pleased with the results. otherwise his recounting should have been more like "I don't know what came over me, but I killed my family and when I realized what I had done I passed out from shock!"

assuming there isn't an extra player lurking around the scene who we don't know about, I'm going to take one stab at it that's absolutely loony.

Victor has to be hearing that song from somewhere other than the radio. and we're hearing it all dreamy and quiet, not like it sounded when it was really on the radio. what if this is perception or time travel shenanigans? what if, somehow, our gang is on the scene - in Victor's mind, or in the Upside Down or some such unseen way - and THEY are playing DALDOM for him, to make sure the timeline unfolds right. because I'm pretty sure I do not hear DALDOM in Henry's version of the scene any time after he changes the channel. that's only something that's going on in Victor's perception.

idk. that's pretty wack and I hope we aren't going full time travel, but I got nothin else right now.

I am suspicious of that scene of Henry turning back the clock though, because we really never saw what results that yielded, if it was supposed to be anything but symbolic. but again Henry has no reason to want to play DALDOM via some time alteration shenanigans when he's the one who didn't want it playing in the first place. maybe if El/Max/Will/Mike/Nancy messes with that particular clock it could affect the timeline..?? I have no idea.

Why aren't all the victims' jaws broken?

@bugsbenefit here comes the part for you

I've seen a couple people question why Alice Creel is the only victim whose jaw isn't broken. she isn't, not when you consider the full list of victims. the majority of the dead lab kids are positioned in such a way that we don't see their faces, but the few whose faces we do see, their mouths are closed like Alice.

jaw breaking is pretty rare: only Virginia, Chrissy, Patrick and Fred.

Virginia is obviously an adult. Chrissy, Patrick and Fred could be 18. Two was the only lab kid who was likely 18 (if he was lab-born immediately after the program started in 1959, he could be up to 19) but the shot of his death is blocked so that his head falls out of view. (if you go frame by frame you can see that his jaw isn't broken, although the shot in question is of a stunt double, so I don't think we're supposed to take real notice).

Max is only 15 and her jaw is spared. it's an age thing.

but this may be less "Henry has a rule about not breaking kids' jaws" and more "the network has a rule about how gruesome you can get with minor actors" although I mean, is the jaw thing really worse than the eyeball thing, idk.

Tristan Spohn (Two), Grace Van Dien (Chrissy) and Logan Riley Bruner (Fred) were 18+ during filming. Myles Truitt (Patrick) is only a couple months older than Sadie Sink and it's possible that he was just barely 18 while filming his scenes while Sadie was still 17 during hers. I think that's probably the more likely explanation tbh.

if anyone can think of an in-universe reason for this, please jump in!

Some misc final thoughts

now it makes sense why Henry makes killing El's friends a distinct step from killing everyone. he means her friends who have powers. he wants to harvest their powers, but El is too strong a protection over them, and he can't get at them until she's out of the way.

still totally possible it's just artistic license, but every instance I can think of of lights selectively working in the Upside Down could be explained by the proximity of one of the people I think has powers. then again, the range really seems to vary, and I can't think of any UD scenes we've ever seen where nobody with powers was present.

there's sooo much imagery of power-people and opening doors (gates). this isn't even all of them, I just got tired of screenshotting.

could Steve have powers too?

he gets an "open the door" of his very own, and the demogorgon appearing in front of him says maybe so. I could go either way on the Russian elevator scene in which they're all talking about opening the elevator door, and both Steve and Dustin press the DOOR OPEN button and nothing happens. I'm not sure about Steve but I am squinting at him suspiciously.

jancy, byler, and elmax nations, congrats on shipping literal power couples. technically milkvans too but 🦴

I am curious why Mike has never really been singled out for monster attack like his sisters have.

Mike-gets-Vecna'd truthers... if the gang can break his trance at the right moment, that would be a very efficient way to activate not just Mike himself, but Will too, because he already has a residual psychic connection open and the sight of Mike getting Vecna'd would surely trigger such strong terror in him.

me @ mike: honey you got a big storm comin.

this concludes part 2 and now I'm off to let my mind reel with the everybody-has-powers fic possibilities

#givehimthemedicine analysis #henry creel #virginia creel #will byers #max mayfield #st theory #mine #givehimthemedicine big analysis #st5 spoilers #how the upside down works #st spoilers #analysis

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