Stranger Things Season 4 Vol. 1 has been everything and there are still questions to be answered for the remaining two episodes for Volume 2. One of which is why is the Upside Down frozen in time and how exactly is it possible that the date is still November 6, 1983 when the current year is set in 1986.
Warning! This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things Season 4 Vol. 1! Read at your own risk!
How And Why Time Is Frozen On Nov. 6, 1983 In The Upside Down In Stranger Things Season 4 Vol. 1?
The finale of Stranger Things Season 4 Vol. 1 baffled many of the fans and viewers of the show when Steve, Nancy, Robin, and Eddie went into the Upside Down and ran towards the Wheeler’s house to get some guns since the gate at Lover’s Lake has been plagued by bat-like creatures.
Much to their surprise, the guns of Nancy were nowhere to be found but instead, they found shoes that she already gave away years ago. Nancy rummaged through her stuff and found things that she already disposed of or gave away years before. Unsure of why her stuff was still there, Nancy went straight to her diary.
She knew the contents of it because she personally wrote it but to her shock, the diary that was supposedly full of entries still has pages left unwritten and the last entry was November 6, 1983, the day Will went missing in the first season. Nancy deduced that the reason why her guns were not there was because they were not yet in existence at such time.
This only means one thing: the Upside Down is stuck in time, on November 6, 1983, the exact date when Will went missing.
Exactly how or why the time froze there was not answered by the series but here’s the theory: the time in the Upside Down used to function the same as that of the real world before but the arrival of Will interfered with it, hence, it’s stuck in time, as if the Upside Down is in an endless loop of a day.
See, Will was not supposed to be there; he is no creature of the Upside Down, nor is he a being that belongs to it. Will is from the real world and when he got lost into the Upside Down, his arrival there had an effect on how time works there. He’s a foreign thing to everything happening in the Upside Down and that is possibly the reason why time froze.
When Eleven opened the door through incarcerating One, time didn’t freeze because while One came from the real world, he was consumed by the Upside Down the moment he arrived. It was as if One, Eleven, and the other patients of Dr. Brenner was not foreign to the place because somehow, their abilities are connected to the Upside Down.
Related: Theory: How Can Robin Save Nancy In Stranger Things Season 4 Vol. 1?
With Will’s arrival there, he possibly disrupted how time works because he is so foreign to the place that he has no connections to it at all; just an unfortunate child who fell into it and since then, time stopped.
It is yet unknown whether there would be a recourse on how time would work again on the Upside Down but it should be noted that it is an important element given that one of the visions a victim of Vecna would see is a grandfather’s clock. While it is the same clock in the house of Victor Creel, there is surely some significance as to why time plays a huge role in the series.
Stranger Things Season 4 Vol. 1 is now streaming on Netflix. Vol. 2 will be released on July 1, 2022.
Stay tuned to EpicStream for more news and updates about Stranger Things Season 4 Vol. 1!