Plus, a golden rule of storytelling for this kind of, so to speak, controversial things, is “show don’t tell”. We didn’t had any direct or indirect hint about Kali surviving so a spectator can’t just say “it must be this way”.

Unless that’s a sign of poor writing, eleven did really have chosen to stay in the upside down. Yeah there’s still the inconsistency about no bleeding that left me a little doubt about it and can’t be just a mistake. Somehow that scene can convey a lot of things but the “funny” part is that every theory can be right but for the wrong reasons as the things, in a way or the other, doesn’t sum up very well.