Stranger Things Season 5 Theory: The Upside Down Is The Ultimate Stephen King Homage

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

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

The Duffer Brothers have never exactly hidden the fact that "Stranger Things" draws inspiration from classic Stephen King novels like "It" and "The Talisman." King has also showered praise on "Stranger Things," so clearly, the respect is mutual. Granted, the show is full of homages to just about every popular sci-fi and fantasy property from the 1980s — for instance, "Stranger Things" season 4 was heavily inspired by a very specific "Star Wars" film of the era. Even so, King tends to be the go-to comparison point for many of the show's antics. 

Because of the Duffers' well-publicized King appreciation, it's easy to look for additional references wherever the show goes. And since "Stranger Things" season 5, volume 1 keeps referencing the nature of time, a terrible thought arises: What if the show's Upside Down has actually been a giant stealth homage to one particular King story all along?

In King's novella "The Langoliers" (which was a part of his 1990 collection "Four Past Midnight"), a handful of plane passengers end up in a version of the world where everything is dead and dilapidated. They discover that they've gone through a portal-style time rip and the dimension they're in is actually what's left after the present time: a dead, past world that's slowly being consumed into nothingness by creatures that they dub the Langoliers. Is it possible that the Duffers' Upside Down has actually been like this all along? Instead of a separate mirror dimension, could the Upside Down be what's left of our own world after it passes the present, and the creatures that populate it were meant to eat it into oblivion before Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) took control? Let's see if this theory has any legs. 

The main thing that leads me to believe that something time-themed is going on with the Upside Down is the fact that, well, "Stranger Things" season 5 keeps dropping time-themed hints. Madeleine L'Engle's book "A Wrinkle in Time" in "Chapter One: The Crawl." The "Back to the Future" Flux Capacitor name-drop and Vecna posing as "A Wrinkle in Time"-inspired imaginary friend Mr. Whatsit in "Chapter Two: The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler." Wormholes in "Chapter Three: The Turnbow Trap." Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) explicitly comparing Vecna's memory space to time travel in "Chapter Four: The Sorcerer." There really is a lot of this stuff.

Of course, there are also all the pre-existing similarities between the Upside Down and the doomed past of "The Langoliers." Both are creepily trashy versions of the normal-slash-present world. People can use mysterious portals to travel between the two worlds. Even the resident monsters have their similarities: If you've seen the 1995 ABC miniseries adaptation of "The Langoliers," the titular creatures' three-sided mouth design isn't all that far removed from the Demogorgons in "Stranger Things" and their flower-shaped maws.  

Even if this theory turns out to be correct, it's not likely that the true nature of the Upside Down is exactly like the past world in "The Langoliers." Beat-for-beat copying has never really been the Duffer Brothers' game; they're far more liable to wink and nod at something before ultimately delivering their own twist on the theme. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if "Stranger Things" season 5, volumes 2 and 3 continue taking things in this direction — in one way or another.

"Stranger Things" season 5, volume 1 is streaming on Netflix in its entirety.