Spoilers forward for “Stranger Issues” season 5, quantity 2.
The Upside Down seems to be a bit totally different in “Stranger Issues” season 5. Now, there is a navy lab stationed inside it, together with a large, fleshy wall that kinds a fringe of kinds. In “Chapter 5: Shock jock,” Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Steve (Joe Keery), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Nancy (Natalia Dyer) head to the Upside Down’s model of the Hawkins Division of Power within the hopes of discovering solutions. Recalling the power area across the second Loss of life Star in “Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi,” Dustin deduces that the flesh wall is Vecna’s (Jamie Campbell Bower) defend, so a “defend generator” have to be close by. After lots of forwards and backwards, Nancy shoots at a wierd mild that she and Jonathan spot within the sky, assuming it is what they’re in search of.
This serves as an efficient cliffhanger main into “Chapter Six: Escape from Camazotz.” There, Dustin lastly reveals what he is realized from Dr. Brenner’s (Matthew Modine) journal. Because it seems, Vecna’s defend is fabricated from one thing often known as Unique Matter, which is why it would not work the identical manner an power defend does. He additionally reveals that the Upside Down is a wormhole and never a separate mirror dimension. (A most Stephen King-y twist certainly.) For no matter cause, this wormhole has been secure since its creation, forming a bridge between Hawkins and a world dubbed the Abyss. With Nancy having inadvertently destabilized the Unique Matter wall, it implodes and begins consuming every thing in its path.
Whereas Dustin would not actually clarify it, the time period “Unique Matter” wasn’t invented for “Stranger Issues.” Moderately, it is a scientific label utilized by real-life physicists to explain matter with odd properties. However what does it really imply, and the way is it related to wormholes?
Stranger Issues makes use of the time period ‘Unique Matter’ to clarify an inexplicable phenomenon
Matter normally takes one among three states (stable, liquid, or gasoline), however matter that does not behave like all of those states or displays unusual properties is known as Unique Matter. You would possibly’ve heard of darkish matter, which might solely be understood in hypothetical phrases, because it is not composed of the usual electron-proton-neutron make-up. One other instance is superfluid helium, which is principally liquid helium uncovered to extraordinarily chilly temperatures. As soon as this temperature change occurs, it does issues that liquids can not normally do, like climb partitions or dribble upwards.
Per Albert Einstein’s idea of relativity, we all know that matter can bend area, which explains the existence of wormholes that may bend space-time. One kind of Unique Matter associated to wormholes is matter with destructive mass, which repels different types of matter away from it. Physicist Kip Thorne has proposed that destructive matter is important for a wormhole to stay secure, as this stability permits it to behave as a bridge between two totally different factors. Whereas there is no method to show this (it is a theoretical speculation, in any case), “Stranger Issues” may be working on the notion that Vecna is utilizing the properties of Unique Matter to maintain the Upside Down secure.
This could imply that the flesh wall is made up of matter with destructive mass, inflicting it (and the wormhole) to behave in inexplicable ways in which defy provable scientific idea. As destructive matter has a speculative connection to the idea of time journey (!), “Stranger Issues” might use it to justify shifting ahead or backward in time as quickly because the wormhole collapses. Hopefully, such a twist will justify every thing the sequence has been working in direction of since 2016.
The “Stranger Issues” sequence finale will debut on December 31, 2025, on Netflix.
