‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 Part 1 Ending Explained: How Was the Vecna Monster Created?

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR STRANGER THINGS SEASON 4 PART 1 AHEAD!!**

Stranger Things Season 4 Part 1 ends with quite the major reveal. After years of not knowing much about the origins of the Upside Down or why it’s so interconnected with Hawkins, we might finally have answers. More than that, but it seems that Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) has a new nemesis that puts the Mind-Flayer to shame.

It seems that every major mystery of Stranger Things Season 4 hinges on understanding who Jamie Campbell Bower is playing on the hit Netflix series. And, no, it’s not “Peter Ballard” as Wikipedia would have had you believe.

Stranger Things Season 4 picks things up about six months after the events of Season 3. Everything seems relatively quiet in Hawkins until a demonic force known as the Vecna murders a sweet cheerleader named Chrissy (Grace Van Dien). This new mystery has Nancy (Natalia Dyer) teaming up with Robin (Maya Hawke), Dustin (Gaten Mattarazzo), Steve (Joe Keery), Max (Sadie Sink), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Eddie (Joseph Quinn), and eventually Erica (Priah Ferguson). Meanwhile, the government has asked Eleven to work with Dr. Sam Owens (Paul Reiser) and her resurrected-from-the-dead “Papa,” Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine). She’s lost her powers and they need to her relive her worst memories to reclaim them.

As it turns out, Nancy’s hunt for the Vecna by way of investigating the Creel House mystery and Eleven’s repressed memories share a nexus point: Jamie Campbell Bower’s character.

Here’s everything you need to know to make sense of that wild Stranger Things Season 4 Part 1 ending…

Who is Vecna on Stranger Things?

Before we jump into MAJOR SPOILER territory, let’s warm up with some minor spoilers...

Vecna is the new monster terrorizing Hawkins in Stranger Things Season 4. From the Upside Down, Vecna is able to psychically link up with various teens, including Chrissy and Max, who have experienced trauma in their lives. Once Vecna zeroes in on a victim, he begins to taunt them with waking nightmares and images of a tall grandfather clock. Eventually he kills them in a grotesque bone-breaking way. Max is only able to survive through the power of Kate Bush.

Dustin and his fellow D&D buds of ye olde Hellfire Club surmise that Vecna is some sort of wizard or powerful field commander of the Mind Flayer. Nancy thinks he’s connected to the Creel House. So what is the truth? Who is Vecna? Well to answer that question, we’re going to respond with another question… Who is Jamie Campbell Bower playing in Stranger Things?

Stranger Things Season 4 Part 1 Ending Explained: Who is Jamie Campbell Bower Playing?

So, you finally got to the part of Stranger Things where the hot and creepy actor Jamie Campbell Bower shows up. He’s an orderly at Hawkins Lab who appears to console and coach an itty bitty Eleven in her Nina-induced flashbacks. The only trouble is you don’t know exactly who Jamie Campbell Bower is playing.

If you are at all spoiler-averse, turn back now. The answer to the question, “Who is Jamie Campbell Bower playing in Stranger Things Season 4?” is honestly maybe the biggest spoiler in Stranger Things history???

• Jamie Campbell Bower is playing the mythical 001 or One in Stranger Things.
• Jamie Campbell Bower is also playing the older version of Victor Creel’s “sensitive” son Henry in Stranger Things.
• Jamie Campbell Bower is also (also) playing the Vecna, a formerly human monster whom Eleven trapped in the Upside Down as a child.

Yeah, so Victor Creel’s son Henry became Dr. Brenner’s first subject, “One,” and was later transformed into the murderous Vecna by Eleven.

Let’s break this down, shall we?

We first encounter the Jamie Campbell Bower version of this character in Stranger Things Season 4 Episode 5 “The Nina Project.” When Eleven goes into the Nina pool to relive her earliest, most traumatic memories, Bower is there. He is in fact one of the only people in young Eleven’s life who offers encouragement or advice. However, his character is also the first one to tell Eleven that Dr. Brenner, aka “Papa”, sometimes lies. Case in point: this mysterious orderly reveals the mythic “001” was a real person.

As Two’s bullying of Eleven becomes worse, Bower’s character suggests that Papa is strategically setting things up for the bullies of the group to murder her. The orderly says that he has a plan to help her escape. On the morning of the massacre, he all but pushes little Eleven out of a vent to freedom, but before he does, reveals he is being held prisoner in Hawkins Lab. The orderly shows El where there is a chip implanted behind his ear that controls behavior. She nobly offers to remove it with her telekinesis because he’s helped her so much.

As soon as she does so, however, they are chased by security guards. Bower’s character proceeds to attack them with his own brand of telekinesis. He hides Eleven in a janitor’s closet and reveals that he is 001 (or One, depending on how you want to spell it out). One then proceeds to murder everyone. Hearing the carnage, Eleven decides to leave the closet to find out what’s happening. When she confronts One in the Rainbow Room, he reveals his backstory. At the same time, Nancy, whom Vecna is trying to kill in the Upside Down, sees the same origin story through flashbacks brought to life in the Upside Down version of the Creel House.

One was born Henry Creel. When his family moved into the Creel House, he began to realize that he had powers. Henry also chafed at how his family pretended to be “perfect” when they were not. When Henry learned his mother was planning on sending him to a doctor for his “problems,” he murdered her and then his sister. In trying to murder his father, too, he overdid it and fell into a coma. His father was blamed for the deaths and told that Henry died in his coma.

However, Henry was actually put in the care of the doctor his mother wanted to set him up with: Dr. Brenner. When Brenner realized he couldn’t control One, he put an inhibitor chip in his head and started Project MKUltra to recreate a more malleable version of One. That turned out to be Eleven. Identifying with Eleven, One wanted to kill everyone else and reshape the world with their combined powers. Eleven turned him down. They do battle — which we’ll get to — and Eleven banishes One to the Upside Down. He transforms into the Vecna.

So yeah that’s how Jamie Campbell Bower is simultaneously Victor Creel’s kid, One, and the Vecna.

Stranger Things Season 4 Part 1 Ending Explained: Did Eleven Create the Upside Down?

Um, maybe? She at least opened a portal to it in Hawkins to seal Vecna away.

So as soon as Eleven realizes that One is using his super powers to murder everyone in Hawkins Lab, she confronts him. He gives her the same choice that Darth Vader gives Luke Skywalker at the end of The Empire Strikes Back: She can join him and they can rule over everything as father and son creepy kiddos or she can die. Eleven bravely defies One and the two do battle. Eleven is almost killed by One, but then she draws upon the memory of being loved by her mother. With this, she’s able to banish One to the Upside Down.

Now that he’s been transformed into Vecna, One preys upon teens who have been traumatized. His latest would-be victim? Nancy Wheeler, who is haunted by the memory of dear old Barb (Shannon Purser).

Will Nancy be able to out-smart Vecna now that she understands he’s Creel’s son? (Also why did Vecna reveal his origins to Nancy?) Will Eleven and One eventually have another showdown? These questions and more better be answered by Stranger Things Season 4 Part 2, which will premiere on Netflix on July 1.