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Stranger Things: what’s happened to The Upside Down?

For the last four seasons of Stranger Things, this alternate dimension has been a danger to our heroes - here's what’s happened to The Upside Down

Stranger Things: What's happening to the Upside Down

What’s happened to The Upside Down? For the last four seasons of Stranger Things, The Upside Down has been a perplexing mystery and its denizens a danger to our heroes. Thankfully this deadly dimension has been kept at bay by our heroes, who’ve battled Stranger Things monsters like Demogorgons, Mindflayers, and even a dark wizard to protect our world from its spreading corruption.

Warning spoilers to follow. In the Stranger Things season 4 part 2 ending, it’s revealed that the barrier between our dimension and the hellish world of the Upside Down is no more. Even worse, the chaos seems to be spreading across the horizon as the gate allows the corruption to spread.

But didn’t our heroes stop Vecna’s plan to merge The Upside Down and our world? Why is this happening? And what does it mean for our heroes moving forward? Well, we’ve been back through the last two episodes of Stranger Things to work out exactly what’s happened to The Upside Down. Warning Spoilers!

What’s happened to The Upside Down?

After seemingly defeating Vecna and putting a stop to his sinister plans, the last few moments show our heroes recovering from their last adventure. Max has been hospitalised and looks unlikely to wake up, Hopper and El are getting their lives back together, and there’s a sense that while things were bad, there’s still hope for the future.

Then the snow starts to fall. Only it’s not snow. It’s the characteristic permanent ash rain of The Upside Down. As our heroes head outside, they see on the horizon roiling clouds and red lightning beneath the coming storm ashen land stretches as far as the eye can see. The Upside Down is finally right-side up.

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How did this happen?

It appears that Vecna’s plan succeeded after all. To open his gate to the Upside Down, the creature that was once 001 needed to kill four people. He managed the first three without much difficulty, but he struggled with the fourth, Max. Unfortunately, towards the end of episode 9, Vecna did manage to get Max, momentarily killing her.

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Eleven used her powers to revive Max – who’s now in a coma – but it seems that her death still counted towards whatever ritual Vecna was trying complete. With his spell finished, the Upside Down and our Earth are one.

Stranger Things: What's happening to the Upside Down

What does this mean for Stranger Things season 5?

The merging of our dimension and the Upside Down is an apocalyptic event. Why? Well, The Upside Down is a very dangerous place. It’s full of spores that are toxic to humans, and of course, inhabited by monsters like the Demogorgon and Demobats.

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Not to mention the far more malicious entities like the Mind Flayer and Vecna. Now all of these nasty things are free to make the journey to our world. We’ll have to watch Stranger Things season 5 to find out.