A lot has changed in Hawkins since the last installment of Stranger Things aired in 2022, but one familiar touchstone remains in Season 5: the Kate Bush ballad “Running Up That Hill.”
It’s the song that Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) plays for Max (Sadie Sink) as she lays comatose in a hospital bed. He hopes the tune, which Max played on repeat in Season 4, will somehow bring her back from the physical and mental limbo she’s trapped in. She was put there by the villain Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), and it’s unclear if she’ll ever return.
Season 4 brimmed with gut-punch moments: the humiliation of Eleven by a relentless bully, terrifying encounters with Vecna, and the final reveal of that character’s origin story. But arguably the most emotionally powerful scene of the season’s first volume arrives in episode 4, when Max is held psychologically captive by Vecna, a serial killer from the Upside Down who entrances and then tortures his victims with their worst fears and experiences before murdering them.
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