Max (Sadie Sink) was the best of ‘Stranger Things’ season 4, but what comes next could be heartbreaking for her.
The guys from ‘Stranger Things’ can never take a break, but no one felt that more in season four than Max Mayfield. Played by Sadie Sink, Vecna took advantage of the tough girl in the gang as she mourned the loss of her brother, Billy (Dacre Montgomery), and cut herself off from the friendship group that kept her stable, including her ex-boyfriend Lucas (Caleb Montgomery). McLaughlin).
But after essentially sacrificing himself in a failed attempt to defeat the ruling monster of the Upside Down, he was left fighting for his life in the hospital. The tragedy is, what kind of life will she have when she wakes up from her coma in season five?
There is no doubt that Max died for a few minutes, completing Vecna’s mission to kill four people, creating four gates between worlds in the process and unleashing Hell on Earth. The resulting break in Hawkins devastated thousands of lives and even literally ripped Jason Carver in two (although we can’t say we’re too mad about it).
Her best friend Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) was able to revive her, but the extent of her injuries is unknown as she is in the hospital, split all over the place and bandaged. However, a couple of key scenes may have revealed that her fate could be even worse: she might have lost all the memories of her that saved her the first time.
This was foreshadowed for Eleven throughout the series, particularly in episode eight, ‘Dad’, where, shortly before his death, Eleven was warned by Dr. Brenner that her powers and the audacity of her group of friends would not be enough.
“You have to understand that when 001 kills, he doesn’t just kill,” Brenner tells him. “He consumes. He takes everything from his victims. Everything they are, and everything they will ever be. Their memories, their abilities…and we don’t know where he’s been these lost years. But if he’s survived this long, I can only assuming that he has grown in strength. Underestimating him, acting rashly, is very dangerous.”
Cut to the end of episode nine, where Eleven/Once is teary-eyed as she spins a Coke bottle around the room where she shares so many memories with her friend. The reason for this is simple: she somehow knows that her friend is gone, much more than the rest of the group realizes.
After bringing her back from the dead, Eleven visited Max in the hospital and, in a way only she could, tried to communicate with her comatose friend but ended up in a void. Previously, this void has been a saving grace for Max and Eleven, with the latter using it to spy on the boys and even save her friend when she needed it most.
Unfortunately, when Eleven gets there this time, all she finds is a dark space with nothing on it. The indication is obvious: her friend is completely gone, and if we take this together with Brenner’s warning, not only is Max likely to be blind and forced to face months of recovery after her bones were severely shattered, but you will also have to replace all your memories.
Those adorable prom scenes with Lucas? Girls day shopping for clothes at the Starcourt Mall? The day she met the gang, and even that movie date she promised Lucas at the end of episode 9, right before Vecna caught her? It’s all gone, and there’s no guarantee it’ll ever come back.
With this in mind, the person lying in that hospital bed is a shell of what we know Max was, able to beat every kid in every arcade game and skateboard through the halls of his school while listening to Kate Bush. Even the actress Sadie doesn’t know what this means and has told Entertainment Weekly: “I’m not sure where we’re going and what’s Max’s status. It’s definitely up in the air at the moment.”
The person we meet in season five will likely be completely different, with Vecna successfully removing everything that made Max so uniquely wonderful from her body. But she’s been kept alive for a reason (other than, as Millie Bobby Brown puts it, “the Duffer brothers are sensitive and they refuse to kill anyone”). What’s the point of saving a character if they’re going to put her in a coma or have her die later?
There is always the chance that she could return if they can find a way to defeat the monster formerly known as Henry. But either way, Max faces a very difficult journey as ‘Stranger Things’ heads full steam ahead for its final season.
Source: Fotogramas
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
