Everything in Stranger Things Season 4 was turned on its head in the show’s two-and-a-half-hour grand finale (overused pun intended). This great battle against Vecna brought together our four groups of warriors separated throughout California, Russia, and Hawkins for the first time (Jamie Campbell Bower). As with most great fights, there were casualties. This season’s climax was a battle of life and death for every character, making the glorious wins and heartbreaking deaths even more poignant. Max (Sadie Sink), Vecna’s primary target for the completion of his evil scheme, bore the brunt of the group’s misery. But there’s always the lingering question: Was Max truly killed in the attack? While the answer is official “no,” her actual situation is far more convoluted. Throughout the season, Vecna was targeting people in Hawkins with unresolved intrusive thoughts from the horrors that went down at the mall back in Season 3. For his own sadistic entertainment, he would torment them after he had identified them as a target.
Their limbs were shattered and twisted out of their sockets, and their eyeballs were savagely removed. More connections between Hawkins and Upside Down may be made if this method was adopted. A genuine apocalypse would ensue if four portals were opened, allowing evil beings from the Upside Down to enter our world. Since Billy’s death in the previous season left Max with confused sentiments, she was precisely what Vecna needed. A more easily manipulated and corruptable mentality. When they first met, it was Kate Bush’s song “Running Up That Hill” that helped Max getaway. Vecna’s allies had the opportunity to murder him while she distracted him the second time around. Max’s second apparition is much more terrifying since Vecna knows exactly how she plans to spare him from further suffering. The wonderful recollections of her time with Lucas provide her with a little respite from her current predicament (Caleb McLaughlin). This prevents Vecna from dragging her back into her painful memories and murdering her. This is a huge relief.
However, the feeling of security is short-lived. He manages to track her down and unleash an array of fresh horrors on her. Among his scare tactics is to have the blood-spattered balloons from Season 2’s school dance explode in her mind, a subtle nod to Stephen King’s IT. In Stranger Things, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) has a method to get in touch with the girl (Jennifer Lawrence) and assist her battle the monster. Vecna’s plot can’t be entirely thwarted, though, by Eleven. When Steve, Robin, and Nancy (played by Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, and Natalia Dyer, respectively) end their assault on Vecna’s corporeal form, she nevertheless manages to open the fourth portal. Except for having her eyes gouged out, Max goes through almost the whole, agonising procedure that Vecna forced his previous victims to go through. Max’s heart stops beating and she dies in Lucas’s arms after he tells her that she can no longer feel or hear anything. She is brought back to life by Eleven in a manoeuvre that can only be likened to the use of the Force in Star Wars.
Max remains in a coma, with both her limbs and legs still fractured, despite being alive. According to Lucas, the doctors aren’t sure if she’ll ever wake up, but she’s still alive, which they consider a miracle. It’s a glimmer of light in an otherwise bleak picture. It appears that Eleven is still haunted by the death of her best friend, Max in the finale, which takes place after Vecna nearly eradicated Hawkins from the face of the Earth. Though she doesn’t talk much about it, her actions indicate that she is too responsible for Max’s current condition. The programme wouldn’t focus so much on how Max’s coma is impacting everyone if she were truly dead. If we showed all of this and then had her die off-screen in-between seasons, it would be a major letdown for the audience. Lucas appears to be keeping a close check on Eleven while she thinks of methods to improve Max’s condition in the hospital.
In the moments leading up to Max’s attack, she and Lucas had resolved their previous failed relationship and agreed they wanted to give dating each other another chance. I was moved to tears when I saw how much Lucas and his sister Erica (Priah Ferguson) were there for Max even if she couldn’t tell them they were there for her at all. Even in the smallest decisions, the characters in this programme demonstrate their deep affection for one another. They did well in spite of the Hell dimension’s intrusion into our world, which set up the fifth and final season with a much larger scope. Our heroes were reunited, and just one of their circle of buddies was killed off among the main cast (Rock in Peace, Eddie Munson). That’s not to say they didn’t lose anything, but until we see the fallout from this season’s Stranger Things climax, they did a fairly good job protecting the planet. When it comes to the next Duffer Brothers film, you can be guaranteed that Max will be returning in some way or another.