Warning: If you haven’t finished season 4, volume 1, there are spoilers ahead.
The Stranger Things universe expanded this season, taking some characters way beyond Hawkins and introducing the new creepy, kid-killing villain Vecna.
With only two episodes left in season 4, you may already be thinking ahead to season 5, which will be the final season of Netflix’s massively popular sci-fi show. An interview in The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month seems to suggest that we won’t see the last of Vecna in season 4.
THR asked Jamie Campbell Bower, the British actor who plays Vecna (and his other identities), about the potential for the villain to appear in the last season. The publication pointed out that “other villains have returned for more than one season, and the Duffers have always had a master plan.” As previously reported, Stranger Things creators the Duffer brothers have known the series’ ending for “quite a while.”
“How will Vecna factor into the show’s endgame as Volume 1 sets up the final season?” the news outlet asked Bower.
Bower’s response? “Let me put it this way: I know about season five. Take from that what you will.”
So he seems to be in the know about season 5. Vecna’s return would line up with something the Duffer brothers have already acknowledged about the ending to season 4: It doesn’t wrap things up tidily.
Speaking to Empire, Matt Duffer said, “Usually, at the end of a season, we tie things up with a nice bow, before a little tease that says, ‘Hold on, something is unraveling.’ As we move into season 5, we don’t have to do that. There won’t be a reset from where we finish this season.”
In other season 5 news, we know there will be a time jump between Stranger Things 4 and 5. So if Vecna does come back in season 5, we can probably expect a few more wrinkles on his already terrifying face.
The final two episodes of Stranger Things season 4 are due to drop on July 1.
