‘Stranger Things’ Season 5’s First 5 Minutes Reveal What Really Happened to Will Byers in the Upside Down

By Meghan O'Keefe Twitter @megsokay
Published Nov. 7, 2025, 10:29 a.m. ET

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Jamie Campbell Bower) has been in this story since the start.

Stranger Things 5 starts with Will stuck in the Upside Down. He has taken shelter in Castle Byers and is singing The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” to himself. While we saw this in Season 1, we didn’t see what came next.

The Demogorgon arrives at Castle Byers, forcing little Will to first shoot the monster with the shotgun before running away. Will dashes up a tree and thinks he’s in the clear. However, the Demogorgan then scampers up the tree after him.

Then Will does something crazy. He leaps from the tippy top of one tree and lands in another. Branches break underneath him and he tumbles down, grasping for branches as he falls. Eventually his backpack breaks his fall. However, then the straps slip and Will falls to the ground. He is dragged away by a Demogorgon.

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The Demogorgon takes Will to the Upside Down’s version of the Hawkins Library, where Joyce (David Harbour) will eventually find and rescue him. Once Will is ensnared in the grisly living walls of the building, Vecna appears.

Vecna walks up to Will and says, “At long last, we can begin.” We then see that it is Vecna who put that slimy vine down Will’s throat. “You and I, we’re going to do such beautiful things together, William.” 

And that’s where Stranger Things Season 5’s first five minutes ends.

What’s wild about this is that it recontextualizes everything we’ve known about Will’s time in the Upside Down. There are multiple reasons why he survived for so long when say, Barb (Shannon Purser), perished. Will not only was able to use his smarts to hide from the Demogorgon, but the Demogorgon never intended to kill him. Vecna wanted Will for some reason.

The Stranger Things Season 5 trailer ends with Vecna calling upon Will to help him one last time. We’ve been speculating for a while that the final showdown of the series won’t be Vecna versus Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), but Vecna against Will.

If you missed all the hints in Stranger Things Season 1 that Will Byers is way more important than he might initially seem, we just rewatched the first season and pointed all those clues out.

Stranger Things Season 5 Part 1 (Episodes 1-4) premieres on Netflix on Wednesday, November 26 at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT.