Misdirection, And What It Means For Stranger Things

As sad as I am about the prospect of Stranger Things wrapping up for good in January, I realize at the same time this is about as long as it can go and still remain 100% fresh. A lot of the tropes and story tricks in the series are starting to become apparent…the chief of them being the Duffers seem to be big fans of MISDIRECTION.

We’ve seen it multiple times by now, in every season. The show leads you to believe events are heading in one direction, when they’re actually heading in another. And in this final season the fakeouts are happening with increased frequency. It goes without saying we’re about to get into Season 5 spoilers so avoid the rest of this if you haven’t watched yet.

In Episode One the gang thinks Demogorgons are about to emerge where they are, but they’re actually attacking the Wheeler house. Misdirection. In Episode Two Holly is led to believe Mr. Whatzit wants to meet her in the woods, but it’s actually Max, who hasn’t been seen in several episodes. Misdirection. In Episode Three El and Hopper think Dr. Kay has somehow captured Vecna and spend two episodes trying to get to the spot he’s allegedly at, only for Vecna to turn up somewhere else and the true prisoner to be revealed as Kali. MISDIRECTION.

As a gargantuan El fan, I still haven’t forgiven this show for the stunt it pulled in Season Four, where they spent seven episodes heavily implying El was about to turn evil before going “HAHA, MISDIRECTION, BABY! Oh, it wasn’t her after all, it was Henry Creel, who is the real villain in both the past and present. Hey, take it easy, why are you mad? Put down the bat!”

We no doubt have some similar tricks on the viewer coming up. They know you’re afraid and they think your fear is delicious. Not only are these moments going to keep happening, they’re probably about to get a lot meaner.

There’s a scene in the new trailer where Steve and Dustin say to each other “If you die, I die.” There is little doubt in my mind this is misdirection at its most devious. The show knows how many fans Steve has and how many are holding their breaths hoping he makes it (Dustin fans aren’t far behind). If Steve was really fated to die, they wouldn’t be projecting any “warnings” at all. They wound be putting the attention on someone else so you wouldn’t see Steve’s death coming. If it wasn’t obvious by now, that’s how this show and especially this season operates.

So the fact that Steve thinks he’s going to die is actually a good indicator that Steve will live. THEY PUT THIS IN THE TRAILER. That’s how much they want you to believe it. IT’S A TRICK. It’s a distraction to keep your eye off someone else. The question is, who’s the someone else?

There may be a way to sniff it out. As you watch the second half, it may feel like you can’t trust anything you see. But here’s a good rule of thumb: If a character believes they’re going to die, or events are unfolding in such a way that it’s heavily implied, then they probably aren’t going to die. But if a character never expresses such a belief at all, then there’s a chance. Misdirection is the law of the land.

From the start of the show until now, one of the biggest sources of leaks has been Noah Schnapp. No matter how many NDAs they bury this guy under he still leaks information like a sieve; it’s like he can’t help it. Schnapp and his co-stars were guests on a Hot Ones video recently and someone thought it would be a good idea to have him try and recite the entire plot of the series, including Season 5, as quickly as he could within one minute. THE FOOLS.

Any hesitation Schnapp might have had, any instinct that maybe he shouldn’t say one thing or another, went completely out the window as his focus shifted entirely to beating a clock. “In Season Four Vecna is introduced, he’s the big bad boss who’s run by the Mind Flayer, we get deeper into the lore….” Caleb looked at Gaten like, “uh?” It wasn’t the only thing Schnapp spoiled and the video has since been edited, but of course, the unedited bits are fully out there.

Lucky for Schnapp the idea of the Mind Flayer pulling the strings was already heavily implied by the Broadway play Stranger Things: The First Shadow, so it’s not completely out of left field. But it doesn’t appear to be something the actual program wants us to know right now. Matt and Ross Duffer were asked about the play in a post-Season 5a release interview, and they couldn’t talk about it. “You’re asking questions that will be answered in the last episode,” they told Variety.

Now think about how Season 5 has unfolded so far. We’ve seen lots of Vecna and heard lots of talk about Vecna. WHO HAVEN’T WE SEEN? The Mind Flayer has been absent all season. They wanted us not to think about him. MISDIRECTION! (And they would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids and that Schnapp!)

Let’s bring up Kali now. She was set up to be the next big thing in Season 2, but the reaction to her was instead negative. That was more the fault of the episode she was contained to, but still. It was believed The Lost Sister and the events and characters thereof would just never be referenced again. But now she’s back. Why? Filling plot holes is a good answer. The Duffs have also confessed that episode was written under time constraints and needed polishing — and they’ve certainly had plenty of time to craft Season 5. But there is probably one massive, major reason that Kali is here right now if you think about it…

MISDIRECTION IS THIS CHARACTER’S LITERAL SUPERPOWER.

Kali is different from El; she can only do one thing, but it’s a pretty interesting thing: she can cast illusions. The show explains this by saying she plants hallucinations in her targets’ minds to make them see what she wants them to (though any explanation is unnecessary; this has always been a show that skirts the line of pseudoscience to the point of magic; you cannot possibly explain what’s happening to Max right now with science). Kali’s presence means you can’t really trust what you see anymore. And it means the show is now free to pull off the meanest tricks of misdirection that it possibly can.

I’ve always thought “if this show brought Kali back, it could fake-kill someone.” Imagine this: Vecna kills off a beloved character, violently and with no hope of recovery, visibly on screen. Every viewer in America is horrified. Then the body dissolves and…FAKEOUT! MISDIRECTION! It was Kali, ha ha!

Worse, imagine if they split it in half. They “kill” this person at the end of Episode 7, and then you have to wait until the series finale on New Years to find out it was an illusion. Good Freakin’ Heaven.

I really hope that is not in the cards. It would not just be me that’d be mad. I think people would surround the Duffers’ homes with torches and pitchforks. It’d be the death of them. The moral of this essay is that misdirection can be a powerful tool — in moderation!

If you liked what you read, I’ve also been crafting up a Stranger Things webcomic for the last six years. It’s fun and thrilling and unlike the show, it’ll keep going long into 2026! I love making it and I hope you’ll equally love reading it. Until the post-Christmas essay, sayonara!