The Real Reason Vecna Is Scared Of The Cave In Stranger Things Season 5

Don't enter the Upside Down if you haven't watched the first four episodes of "Stranger Things" season 5 — spoilers ahead!

In the fifth and final season of "Stranger Things," Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) becomes the latest victim of the show's big bad Vecna, who also goes by One and Henry Creel (and is portrayed by Jamie Campbell Bower). Though we don't know why Vecna specifically chooses Holly in the first four episodes of this closing season, we do know he brings her into his memories and stations her at the Creel house. In his bright, sunny memories, Holly discovers two things: a mysterious cave and the missing Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), who remains in a coma after communing with Vecna in season 4.

I'll come back to Holly and Max's predicament more specifically in a bit, but the gist here is that Max tells Holly this cave is the only place where they're safe from Vecna, Henry, or whatever the guy is calling himself. So, why is that? In an interview with Variety with the Duffer Brothers, the outlet points out that the "Stranger Things" play, subtitled "The First Shadow," mentions "a reference to a cave in Nevada near an army base where a young Henry Creel first encountered something connected to the Upside Down" in said play. But is this the same cave?

Matt Duffer said yes. "There was always a balance that we had to find in terms of how much we were going to put in the play," he confirmed. "[The director] Stephen [Daldry] and [the producer] Sonia [Friedman] were always pushing for more, and we were pushing back and saying, 'Well, we have to wait to reveal that in the show.' You'll see, especially as you reach the final episode, there's more overlap with the play."

If you didn't even know a "Stranger Things" play happened, allow me to refresh your memory. "Stranger Things: The First Shadow," written by Kate Trefry and directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, made its world premiere in London's West End in November of 2023. (As of this writing, it's running on Broadway in New York City if you're stateside and want to try and grab tickets.) The story within is very long and very complex, but here's how the cave thing comes in: Henry, in the second "chapter" of the play, discovers memories of a mysterious cave near the Creel family's original home in Nevada (the play picks up as the Creels move to the fictional and supernaturally plagued "Stranger Things" town of Hawkins, Indiana). While in that cave, Henry was exposed to the Upside Down and the horrors it holds for the very first time; now, as an adult who moonlights as the powerful monster Vecna, he's still afraid.

The cave isn't the only nod to "Stranger Things: The First Shadow," as Ross and Matt Duffer note in the Variety interview. "And, like, Max finds that 'Oklahoma' poster, which people who haven't seen the play are maybe like, 'Why is Henry in 'Oklahoma'?' But I think it's nice for us to start to tie those two together," Ross Duffer offered, referencing a plotline in "The First Shadow" that involves an amateur production of the musical "Oklahoma!" Still, Matt Duffer was quick to clarify that if you missed the play — and most of us probably did — that's okay. "But you absolutely do not have to have seen the play to understand," he clarified. "They're Easter eggs more than anything."

Let's circle back to the circumstances under which Max and Holly find themselves in a scary memory palace cave in the first place. At the beginning of the fifth season of "Stranger Things," we're reintroduced to Holly, daughter of Ted and Karen Wheeler (Joe Chrest and Cara Buono) and younger sister to Mike and Nancy (Finn Wolfhard and Natalia Dyer), as a pre-teen; she's now played by newcomer Nell Fisher, though the background role of Holly was originated by twins Anniston and Tinsley Price in previous seasons. Right out of the gate, we get a huge clue that something's up with Holly — she has an imaginary friend she's named "Mr. Whatsit," and by the end of the season's second episode, we know for sure that Mr. Whatsit is another version of Henry Creel.

This is how and why a demogorgon breaks into the Wheeler house and grievously injures both Ted and Karen before kidnapping Holly, leaving her friends and siblings to wonder why Vecna-slash-Henry would even want to take Holly. We also learn, through Henry's conversations with Holly in his memories, that he wants a bunch of kids from her class to join them (even though this was almost certainly written before Zach Cregger's "Weapons," the overlap here is quite amusing), but when she finds Max and the cave, Holly is able to seek refuge from Henry. It's in this safe space that Holly and Max unite to try and escape, though we don't know specifically what their plan is just yet.

"Stranger Things" season 5 will continue with three more episodes on Christmas Day and the series finale on New Year's Eve; the first four episodes are streaming on Netflix now.