Stranger Things 5: Why We Can’t Trust Kali and Eleven’s Final Fate

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 2.

Stranger Things season 5 pulls someone back out of the shadows — Kali Prasad, 008. One of the few left standing from Brenner’s lab. One of the last ghosts that still walks with Eleven through the wreckage of their childhood. Out of dozens of numbered children, only three remain after the Hawkins Lab massacre:
001 — Henry Creel, the monster they call Vecna.
008 — Kali, the girl of smoke and illusions.
011 — Eleven… Jane… the girl who refuses to break.

For Eleven, that scarcity turns into something sacred. Sisterhood. Memory. A bond forged in cages and nightmares. What they shared in season 2 never really faded; time did nothing to loosen its grip. When she sees Kali again, there is no calculation. No hesitation. She opens her heart like it’s an old door she’s been waiting to walk through. She trusts her. Instantly. Completely.

But us? We do not.

Something twists in our gut the moment Kali steps back into the story. Something cold. Something instinctive. It’s not loud. It’s not dramatic. It’s just there — a quiet alarm that refuses to shut up.

We try, at first. We tell ourselves to be kind, to be reasonable, to honor what she means to El. We joke. We play along. We pretend. But the walls rise anyway. And beneath every joke there’s a question mark. Beneath every polite word, there’s a hand hovering right above the panic button.

Because here’s the truth:

We don’t trust Kali. Not even a little.

And it’s not just because she has powers. It’s the kind of power she has — the ability to put visions in our heads, to twist what’s real, to slide into our fears and move the furniture around. It’s hard to feel safe around someone who can reach into your mind and repaint it without asking permission. Wariness becomes instinct. And instinct becomes armor.

But it’s more than that, too.

There is something off about her this season. Something unreadable behind the eyes. Something that makes the air feel heavier when she’s in the room. Maybe she is hiding something. Maybe she isn’t. Maybe the danger is real. Maybe it’s just the echo of old pain wearing a new coat.

Either way, our nerves recognize her before our words do.

And then comes the fracture.

Because while we cling to one dream for Eleven — a future where she lives, laughs, grows up, chooses her life instead of surviving it — Kali sees another ending entirely.

In season 5, episode 7, the truth comes out like a blade pulled slowly from its sheath. To Kali, victory doesn’t look like living. It looks like a sacrifice. She believes that she and El should burn themselves out completely after defeating Vecna — extinguish their light to stop Dr. Kay from continuing Brenner’s legacy of making more children like them.

To her, their lives are the price.
To us, their lives are the point.

She and I are staring at the same girl and seeing two different destinies.

And so the tension stops being subtle. It becomes a fault line.

Because even before we know the details of her plan, our bones already know: our vision of Eleven’s ending is nothing like Kali’s. We want El to survive the story. To step out of the war she never asked for. To have mornings and birthdays and boring afternoons. To get to simply be.

Kali wants something else.

So maybe our unease isn’t paranoia. Maybe it’s prophecy. Maybe it’s love wearing the shape of fear.

All we know for certain is this:

Our instincts about Kali aren’t going away.

And when it comes to Eleven — to the girl who has carried the weight of every gate and every monster and every goodbye — we listen to them.

In the end, our distrust of Kali isn’t born from bitterness — it’s born from love. We want a world where Eleven doesn’t have to bleed for every sunrise, where her story isn’t carved only in sacrifice, where “weapon” is no longer the word people use when they look at her.

Whether Kali is a threat, an ally, or something dangerously in-between, one truth remains unshakable — what we feel for Eleven is fierce, protective, and immovable. As the final chapters of Stranger Things unfold, the question isn’t just whether Vecna will fall.

It’s whether the people who survived the lab will finally be allowed to live.

And that answer is coming.