The Hidden Clues In Stranger Things Season 5 All Point Toward The Same Thing

This article contains spoilers for "Stranger Things" season 5, volume 1.

The endgame of "Stranger Things" has started, and the show certainly has a fair amount of plot threads to tie into neat little bows. Based on the hints that season 5, volume 1 is throwing at viewers, it intends to do so by using a very particular theme: time travel.

Apart from aliens and interstellar travel, time-traveling antics are just about the last major genre trope "Stranger Things" hasn't touched yet. Still, based on the several time-themed clues in each of season 5's first four episodes, there's definitely something timey-wimey afoot this go around.

It all starts in "Chapter One: The Crawl," where Mike Wheeler's (Finn Wolfhard) sister Holly (Nell Fisher) is seen reading Madeleine L'Engle's time travel-themed 1962 book "A Wrinkle in Time," which kicks off the author's "Time Quintet" series. In "Chapter Two: The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler," we get a nod at the ultimate time travel movie, "Back to the Future," with the mention of Doc Brown's (Christopher Lloyd) time travel device, the flux capacitor. "Chapter Three: The Turnbow Trap" features a lesson about wormholes, which have long been associated with hypothetical time travel. The hits just keep on coming, and a lot of it appears to revolve specifically around the Upside Down-controlling Big Bad, Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower): From the "Mr. Whatsit" alias he uses early in the series to Holly comparing his mind to the corrupted planet Camazotz in "Chapter Four: The Wizard," the villain seems to have a connection to "A Wrinkle in Time" in particular. 

It really is way too early to say how "Stranger Things" season 5 intends to deliver the payload of its assorted time travel teases. Still, should the show indeed choose to embrace this possibility, it would have some pretty interesting options. Perhaps the most obvious choice would be a "Back to the Future Part II"-style revisit to some of the show's greatest moments while trying to avoid significantly impacting them. Perhaps "Stranger Things" will throw Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) back to the night of Barb Holland's (Shannon Purser) death in "Stranger Things" season 1, or force Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) to live though Bob Newby's (Sean Astin) nasty season 2 death once more.

Another potential possibility would be to simply bring back some of the old, fallen favorites in one time-bending way or another. Should this be the case, we'd quite possibly see the return of the late, great breakout character Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), who was last seen fighting a flock of Demobats with the power of Metallica during that epic "Stranger Things 4" guitar scene. Dacre Montgomery's cruel yet tragic Billy Hargrove would be another potential character to return this way. 

For now, Eddie Munson's spirit lives on in "Stranger Things" season 5 largely thanks to Dustin Henderson (Galen Matarazzo), who remains heavily influenced by his fallen friend-slash-idol. Still, as long as the show keeps sprinkling those time travel references in its episodes, who knows where and when the characters might end up ... and who might be there to meet them?

"Stranger Things" season 5, volume 1 is now streaming on Netflix.