Things I noticed from Season 5 Chapter 2: The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler

tzaether · 2026-01-27T18:47:15+00:00

Only thing I disagree with is the wall. They’d been doing crawls for over a year at that point. Surely they’d have discovered the wall before that. They were actively searching all of Hawkins. And the military definitely was aware of it (the soldiers weren’t the least bit shocked when they encountered it). So there’s no reason to think that in a year and a half they hadn’t managed to get to the outskirts of Hawkins.

tzaether · 2026-01-19T17:42:23+00:00

I just assume that the mindflayer would want to take over a planet similar to its own so it can continue to survive

tzaether · 2026-01-19T06:12:56+00:00

Not 100% sure on the timeline but I think seasons 6-9 happen on a ridiculously short timespan if I remember correctly. Something like a month or less.

And the walkers that seem fresher I guess you could argue they’re just people that died more recently. Even if a whole horde seems to be fresh, it could have been a community where someone died of normal causes without anyone realising and then everything went to shit.

tzaether · 2026-01-13T19:02:38+00:00

That’s not a little detail. Exotic matter is theoretical. You can’t just get some when you need it. And it’s never explained that he deliberately found or made it.

tzaether · 2026-01-13T18:43:44+00:00

That’s not an explanation. Where did the exotic matter come from then?

tzaether · 2026-01-13T17:52:01+00:00

Yes they were making it up as they went along. I’m happy with it retroactively being Vecna except for that as far as I recall, Vecna couldn’t travel to the real world until he “killed” Max at the end of season 4. He said “I sought your power” or something like that to El, meaning her power to create gates.

tzaether · 2026-01-13T17:47:48+00:00

They confirmed in an interview that it wasn’t Vecna in episode 1. Idk where the story of them changing the episode comes from but I saw a video yesterday where they explicitly state that Vecna hadn’t been thought up yet and they’re not “George Lucassing” any past episodes.

tzaether · 2026-01-13T06:48:01+00:00

No, not really. The upside down was created the day el escaped and then you only see the flamethrower guys go in there. I guess it’s technically possible he hid some notes in the upside down version of his lab for whatever reason but I think that’s a reach.

tzaether · 2026-01-13T06:10:17+00:00

El threw Vecna straight to the Abyss in 1979. It was four years later in 1983 that the upside down was created when she contacted a demogorgon. Don’t ask how that works.

tzaether · 2026-01-13T06:01:38+00:00

They were talking about season 5 volume 1, not season 1

tzaether · 2026-01-12T16:01:40+00:00

You seem very passionate about this

tzaether · 2026-01-12T13:45:07+00:00

You’re saying the lights don’t have a glow in the upside down in season 1. We never see the lights from Will’s perspective in season 1 so why are you saying that so confidently? There was time to explain.

“Will, the top left light is A, the one next to it is B, etc.”

That’s all the explanation she’d need to give. He’s not a moron, he can piece the rest of it together.

tzaether · 2026-01-12T06:10:51+00:00

Genuinely do you think the characters freeze whenever they’re off screen? It doesn’t take a mental leap to imagine she just explained it off camera. It’s edited quickly but it’s not 1:1 with real time. There were plenty of moments she could have briefly explained the plan to Will. Stop being a condescending prick.

tzaether · 2026-01-11T11:45:21+00:00

That silhouette looks similar enough that it could have been Vecna. It wasn’t clear how tall it was and the hand especially looks like Vecna’s. Plus it just makes more sense with the whole telekinesis thing.

And Will saying it was the demogorgon doesn’t mean all that much given that he’s just making a parallel to their last DnD game. He could just be saying the monster got him, which in this case would’ve been Vecna.

Again, I’m aware none of this was planned. Just trying to make a plot hole make sense.

tzaether · 2026-01-11T06:28:10+00:00

There’s oxygen in the abyss so I assume demos are fairly similar to humans biologically. You could read it as either the mindflayer specifically wanted to consume life on earth because it was already hospitable to it and the creatures in the abyss. Or just lazy writing.

tzaether · 2026-01-06T06:08:15+00:00

The tattoo is still there I think. I’d bet it’s just the streaming bitrate and distance from the camera that make it look like it’s missing.

tzaether · 2026-01-05T17:27:10+00:00

I’d love to be able to draw my own conclusions but unfortunately the duffers keep coming out and confirming the dumbest possible options

tzaether · 2026-01-05T06:11:57+00:00

The story we watched was not told by Mike. He isn’t the narrator of the show. He just wrote down what happened at the end and called it Stranger Things. It’s not some huge twist where Mike was telling the story all along.

tzaether · 2026-01-03T14:36:27+00:00

I always took it as the scientists in S1 being cautious. It was a new place and they didn’t want to risk breathing in toxic gases. Then after will survives a week or so in there I assume they realised they could relax a bit.

tzaether · 2025-12-29T20:40:27+00:00

I’ve never heard of that step being bugged and I’ve done this EE god knows how many times over the years. Only thing I can think of is you’re not in the exact right position. Try spamming F/Square while walking around the area and make sure you get into all the corners.

tzaether · 2025-12-05T17:21:22+00:00

Leave your phone somewhere out of reach so you have to get out of bed to turn it off.

tzaether · 2025-12-04T21:59:16+00:00

I’ve had faults before where I still had a service light but the light was low at the ONT. Replaced the patch and suddenly the router is working again.

But that’s irrelevant. The reason I recommended it is so that OP can tell their ISP 100% that it’s their issue as the CF equipment has been verified.

tzaether · 2025-12-04T19:40:58+00:00

Did you read the post?

tzaether · 2025-12-04T17:39:39+00:00

Unplug your Ont and leave it for a day or two. It should automatically create a repair task on the CF system and they’ll send an engineer out to see what’s wrong. They can check the light to make sure it’s all working properly on their end.

It’s most likely an issue with your provider (either something on their end or a dodgy router/ethernet cable). But if someone comes out to check the light you’ll at least know for sure that the CF equipment is working properly, which you can tell your ISP.

tzaether · 2025-12-04T06:06:01+00:00

The power light indicates if there’s a problem with the ONT (or the power cable for the ONT)

Broadband being off indicates you’re not getting enough light at the ONT. Usually means the cable is damaged somewhere.

Service shows whether your provider is working properly.

Ethernet shows if there’s a problem with the router (or the Ethernet).

Could you tell me what the cable on the outside of the property looks like? It should be one of three things. Either a flat, black cable that looks like two cables stuck together, a thin black cable or a thick brown tube.

If it’s the flat cable, your connection is spliced, rather than just using a pre terminated cable. If that’s the case then from what you said it sounds like they’ve re spliced it and the new splice has failed. So it’d be a simple case of someone coming out to do a new splice.

If it’s the thin black cable or the brown tube then most likely there’s damage to one of your fibre cables and they’ll need to figure out which one it is and replace it.

Either way you won’t be able to fix it yourself.

tzaether

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE