Stranger Things (2025): The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler - Season 5 Episode 2 - RECAP

Source

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334/
• Platform: NETFLIX

The opening scene is probably one of the most intense cold opens for this season and I mean that because it does not waste a single second getting into the action and horror, Karen is going to take a bath, drinking wine, listening to ABBA music after clearly having a long day probably and then boom Holly comes running in screaming about a monster in her room, her first reaction obviously was "there is no monster" until she realize shit was real. Ted and Karen obviously think its just a nightmare because what else would they think at this point, they have no idea whats been going on in Hawkins for years now and their kids never told them the truth about any of it which comes back to bite them hard as hell but thats parents fault for not believing their kids, sometimes you just have to compromise and meet in the middle, not that you are going to believe every crazy story but just pay attention and listen. The demogorgon comes crashing through the ceiling and just starts attacking everyone, Holly runs and hides in the bathroom with her mom who was already running a bath, Karen hides with Holly in the bubble bath filled with soap bubbles water and they hold their breath while the demogorgon is right there hunting them down which is so tense, I really though they were going to come up for air. Then Ted shows up and grabs a golf club like thats going to do anything against a literal monster from another dimension and gets absolutely destroyed, Karen starts fighting back with everything shes got and stabs the thing multiple times in the mouth with a broken wine bottle which was badass, she turn into a savage gladiator, no fucks given if she dies and for a minute I thought she might make it but its clear this was the first time I saw a demogorgon fighting. Despite both of them trying their best the demogorgon badly wounds them and takes Holly through some kind of portal or gate it created, Nancy and Eleven show up right after its over and find both parents barely alive, both on the floor covered in blood and Holly just gone with nobody knowing where she is.

At the hospital things get even more complicated because now everyones trying to figure out what the hell happened and why Vecna would target Holly of all people when she has nothing to do with any of this stuff, she is just a little kid who never fought any monsters or closed any gates or did anything to piss off this psycho. Nancy is taking all the blame on herself saying they should have warned their parents or got them out of Hawkins or done something, anything to prevent this from happening, Mike tries to tell her its not their fault but you can tell she is not in the mood to believe anyone considering her family is almost gone. Nancy brings up how this matches the vision Vecna gave her back in season four where she saw her whole family dead and now it feels like some kind of countdown to that nightmare becoming real. Meanwhile Dustin shows up at the hospital all bruised and battered claiming he crashed his bike but Steve does not believe him at all and they get into this argument about Holly getting taken and why nobody could stop it. Ted ends up in a coma from his injuries and Karen is barely hanging on after getting all slashed out by the demogorgon, cant even talk because he throat is really bad same as the rest of her body, I honeslty dont understand how someone would survive its worst than fighting a huge Bear considering the demogorgon claws, this situations makes it even harder for them to figure out what happened or get any answers from the parents about what they saw or why they think Vecna took Holly.

The whole Mr Whatsit thing is probably the creepiest part of this entire episode for me because it means Vecna has been planning this for a long time and grooming Holly without anyone noticing what was happening, but its not only her from the scene that we saw Will been the first victim, a scene from previous episode and he was the very first experiment. Mike talks to Nancy about how Holly kept mentioning her imaginary friend and after everything that just went down Mike thinks Mr Whatsit might actually be real and not just something a little kid made up in her head, its not clear to me how he got to this conclusion because in the heat of the moment sometimes writters pull moments like this from thin air but lets say its because a demogorgon was involve right so makes it kinda obvious. They decide they need to talk to Karen to find out more about Mr Whatsit since she would be the only other person who might know something about this imaginary friend, they sneak into her hospital room to try and communicate with her. When they ask Karen about Mr Whatsit you can see the fear in her eyes because she knows exactly who they are talking about, which confirms that this was not just some random imaginary friend Holly made up but something real that has been around their house for who knows how long watching and waiting for the right moment to strike. The episode ends with this huge reveal that Mr Whatsit is actually Vecna and he has been manipulating Holly this whole time, getting close to her through what we can assume are dreams or visions which is his preferred method to trap his victims.

Meanwhile Eleven is trying to use her powers to find Holly but she cannot locate her anywhere which is really strange because Eleven can usually find anyone if she knows them. Eleven goes into the Upside Down right after the demogorgon takes Holly and Hopper is pissed that she went in without using the tunnels and risked her life again, he warns her that the military is hunting her but she had no choice because Holly needed help immediately, this kind of things are the ones Im like, ok this seems to convinient because either they happen right away or latter they keep happening like a demogorgon taking Holly or latter on at the Upside Down both Hopper and Eleven had to fight the military. Hopper and Eleven keep searching until they reach this enormous fleshy wall that blocks their path and its clear both Holly and Vecna are on the other side of it, Eleven finds Hollys shoe outside the wall and realizes the demogorgon pulled her through the wall itself which is why she could not sense Holly with her powers. Will has this idea that maybe he can use his connection to the hive mind to track down where Vecna is hiding Holly, earlier in the episode Will had some visions and Robin takes him to the spot in the woods where he had his vision to see if they can trigger it again. At the spot they find rocks on the ground placed in the shape of a spiral and Will remembers hearing kids laughing in his vision which leads them to Hollys elementary school, Will realizes his vision was actually through Hollys eyes and he saw Vecna choose her as his next victim outside her school. The military is also tracking Eleven now because they review footage from the Wheeler house and surrounding streets, they pull up a still frame showing Eleven in the car with Nancy the night before which confirms she is back in town and connected to the attack, then again we got very convinient or lets say its coincidenceses but things keep happening in certain order like the series is front running itself and Im not so sure if I like this. After all it was a good episode as its packed with context and action, something I really appreciate as a new viewer to the series without having to watch any of the previous series, I would give this episode a solid 7.5/10.

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