Why Did It Take 2 Days For The Upside Down To Take Over Hawkins?

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This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 4.

Stranger Things season 4 ended with the Upside Down invading Hawkins — but the invasion was mysteriously put on hold for two days, allowing the heroes to assemble in their hometown's defense. Stranger Things season 4 introduced a new threat, Vecna, retconned as the Upside Down's greatest threat all along. Born Henry Creel, Vecna had become Dr. Brenner's first test subject, but had been banished to the Upside Down years ago by Eleven.

Vecna sought to bring the Upside Down into a spectacular collision with Hawkins, and he achieved this through a series of apparently supernatural murders. Each one of Vecna's victims was tortured psychologically until he finally killed them, and their deaths tore open small gates into the Upside Down. The Hawkins kids rightly deduced Vecna needed to create four of these gates to bring about this interdimensional collision. Unfortunately he'd already created three gates by the time they figured this out, and they were forced to use Max as bait to draw Vecna out and give them a chance to kill him. They were unable to protect Max, however, and her death opened the fourth gate.

Related: What Happened To Hawkins In Stranger Things Season 4, Volume 2

But the end of Stranger Things season 4 featured a surprising twist, because the fourth and final gate seemed to seal itself shut — before mysteriously reopening two days later. In narrative terms, this was clearly a plot contrivance to give all the heroes time to get to Hawkins — they'd been scattered across the entire world for the entire season. No in-universe explanation for the delay was provided in Stranger Things season 4, leaving it feeling like something of a plot hole.

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