Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 Confirms Max's Fate After 3 Years Of Fan Theories

Contains spoilers through "Stranger Things" Season 5, Episode 4 —"Sorcerer"

Ever since Season 4 of "Stranger Things" concluded on Netflix back in July 2022, fans have been wondering about the fate of Max Mayfield, Sadie Sink's character who joined the series in its sophomore season and become a steady fan favorite ever since. As you might recall, during the fateful fourth season of "Stranger Things," Max finds herself preposessed by all-consuming grief for her stepbrother Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), who starts his time on "Stranger Things" as a cruel and abusive bully and ultimately ends the run by heroically saving not just Max's life, but the lives of her friends Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) in Season 3. Because Billy sacrifices his life to do so, Max is in a state of severe mourning throughout Season 4, Max is particularly vulnerable to the series' Big Bad Vecna (also known as "One" and Henry Creel, with all roles played by Jamie Campbell Bower).

Max, sitting by Billy's grave and listening to "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush on her Walkman, finds herself briefly possessed by Vecna, and despite feverish attempts from her friends and ex-boyfriend Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin) to convince her otherwise, Max uses herself as a trap. She dies, comes back to life, and ends up in a coma; as it turns out in "Stranger Things 5," she's been existing in Henry Creel's memory palace ever since. 

As Matthew Modine's Martin Brenner explains to Eleven in the penultimate episode of Season 4 of "Stranger Things," every human being possessed by Vecna (or Henry, as Martin calls him) helps chip away at the boundary between his evil lair in the Upside Down and the real world; basically, as he keeps taking humans captive, he increases his own chances of taking over the world at large and destroying Hawkins as a first step. We know that the earthquake at the end of Season 4 indicates that Vecna has succeeded, but still, in the early episodes of Season 5, he takes another Hawkins kid: Holly Wheeler, the younger sister of Mike Wheeler and Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) who's played by Nell Fisher in this season. (Holly, who was originally a lot younger and more of a background character, was previously portrayed by twins Tinsley and Anniston Price.)

After Holly is taken by Vecna — who transforms into Mr. Whatsit, her "imaginary friend," in order to trick her — Vecna, presenting himself as Henry Creel this time, tells Holly she can leave the Creel house (which we've seen in previous seasons) but that she shouldn't go into the woods, lest she run afoul of monsters. Despite this, Holly finds a map in the house's mailbox that instructs her to go through the woods to a spot marked with an X. Holly faces her fears and disobeys Henry, traveling through the woods and finding a cave. Guess who's in that cave? Max!

Throughout all of this, Lucas has been feverishly playing "Running Up That Hill" at Max's prone, comatose body hoping that she'll spring to life, even reminding her that this is Hawkins' last stand against Vecna; unfortunately, she remains unconscious. As Max tells Holly, though, she can hear bits of the Kate Bush song that Lucas keeps playing for her, but the two girls are stuck within Henry's own personal memories for the time being. Even more unfortunately, Max reveals to Holly that she was the "fourth and final gate" that the whole gang discussed in that aforementioned penultimate episode of Season 4, "Papa," and that Hawkins is now split in two (referring to that "earthquake"). Even more unfortunately, Max tells newcomer Holly that Henry's memories are a sort of maze, and she can't quite figure out where to go because it's all seemingly out of order.

By the end of episode 4, "Sorcerer," we know that Max has a plan to escape — which she hasn't shared with either Holly or the audience — and that the cave is the only place in Henry's memories that he dare not enter. As of this writing, we don't know what Max's plan is or what other secrets the cave holds, but it's comforting to know that Holly is in capable hands with Max, who's faced Vecna before. "Stranger Things 5" dropped its first four episodes on Netflix just before Thanksgiving; three more air on Christmas, and the finale airs on New Year's Eve.