In Stranger Things season 4, we finally learned more about Eleven's origin and witnessed the apparent creation of the Upside Down.
When the young Eleven clashed with the manipulative Henry Creel at Hawkins lab (moments after he murdered her fellow gifted children), her powers tore open a hole to another dimension and left him stranded in the Upside Down where, in the ensuing years, he became the monstrous Vecna. It was a neat twist but one which raised a lot of questions.
In that moment, did Eleven somehow create the Upside Down? If nothing else, we know her actions set the events of the series in motion but actress Millie Bobby Brown recently shared her thoughts on the theory in an interview with Variety.
"Of course," she told the trade when they asked if it was satisfying to finally get those long overdue answers. "I’ve had so many questions for years and years as to where Eleven came from, who she is. What were Dr. Brenner’s intentions? What are his intentions now? Is he still alive?"
"But, you know, the Duffer Brothers, they’re the only people in this world that know 'Stranger Things' better than we do. I trusted that they would always bring it home and answer everyone’s questions. So this season was the season that you will get all of those questions answered."
As for whether the Duffers told her Eleven created the Upside Down, Brown responded, "They did tell me. She does. She opens the rift."
However, she quickly clarified, "This is too big of a debate for me to answer. I’m so worried. I think - no, no, no. I think that the alternate universe was always there. That is always going to be under Hawkins. I just think she has access to it. I don’t think that she created the Upside Down. No, I think that it was always there, I think she just created a gate to it which no one could before."
It's previously been revealed that the first season 5 episode will be titled "The Crawl," with Prey director Dan Trachtenberg at the helm. Shawn Levy will also step back behind the camera, but production was forced to come to a halt back in May due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike.
The latter is still ongoing, of course, meaning we don't know when Stranger Things will return for its fifth and final season (2024, however, is looking increasingly unlikely).
Stay tuned for updates.