Every Stranger Things Plot Hole That Fans Are Still Upset About

A lot of stuff happens on Stranger Things. Like, a lot. In the process of all that dimension-hopping, monster-hunting, telekinetic chaos, things don’t always make a ton of sense. The rules of the Upside Down and the demonic creatures that lurk there have changed a bit since they were first introduced, and some plot points just have to be accepted as something that can’t fully be explained. While that all feels like unavoidable territory for a sci-fi show this expansive, there are still those standout plot holes that superfans will always bring up.

Ever since the first season of Stranger Things, viewers have always managed to pick out the rule-breaking moments that technically shouldn’t work, and there have been more and more with each new chapter. Even in the show’s fifth and final season, continuity errors were immediately called out.

But the show’s cardinal sin goes all the way back to one of the most iconic set pieces in the debut season.

1. Joyce’s Alphabet Wall

After her son Will was taken to the Upside Down, Joyce managed to communicate with him by hanging holiday lights corresponding to different letters on her living room wall. The device established that the Upside Down is an inverse dimension to the show’s main world, and electrical manipulation can pass through the realms.

However, the wall shouldn’t actually work given a later revelation about the Upside Down. In Season 4, Nancy discovered that the Upside Down is a frozen snapshot of the exact day that Will was taken. Since Joyce drew the alphabet on her wall after that day, Will should not be able to see the letters in the Upside Down, since they wouldn’t exist yet.

2. Steve, Nancy, Robin, & Dustin’s Upside-Down Escape

The Season 4 finale ended with a massive battle against Vecna, with Steve, Nancy, Robin, and Dustin entering the Upside Down to attack him head-on. After the attack, it’s now shown how the foursome return to their dimension. The episode just does a quick “two days later” time-skip, and everyone’s back together in Hawkins again.

It’s frustrating that their return is left unexplained, considering how much effort the show has put into showing how difficult it is to travel between the realms.

3. Joyce’s Plane Crash

There are a lot of logical issues with Season 4, but perhaps the most baffling is Joyce’s nonplussed attitude after crashing an airplane in Alaska. She doesn’t appear to have any injuries at all from what should have been a cataclysmic disaster.

4. Eleven’s History At Hawkins Lab

When the fourth season shifted the focus to Eleven’s childhood in Hawkins Lab, it basically rewrote a huge chunk of her Season 1 lore. Originally, the show hinted that Eleven first opened a gate to the Upside Down in the series premiere while attempting to telepathically spy on the Russians. This would later be confirmed by the discovery that the alternate dimension is a snapshot of the exact day Will Byers went missing.

However, new flashbacks revealed Eleven actually opened a gate when she was much younger during an altercation with One. This revelation that the Upside Down existed before Will’s disappearance kind of ruins the whole idea that it’s stuck on that date.

5. Will’s Birthday

One of the most depressing plot holes involves Will’s birthday, which was explicitly stated to be March 22 in a climactic Season 2 scene. In Season 4’s premiere, a video recording states that it is currently March 22 when Mike visits Eleven and Will in California. But nobody ever mentions Will’s birthday — not even his loving mother Joyce.

Initially, some fans believed this to be an intentional choice to underscore just how isolated and ignored Will’s California life had become. But showrunners the Duffer Brothers later revealed that the date was a total accident, and they had also forgotten it was Will’s birthday. Ouch.

To make matters worse, Will’s birthday seemed to be incorrect once again in Season 5. Fans pointed out Joyce mentioning that Will disappeared when he was 11, but the show had already established he was 12 when he vanished.

6. Castle Byers’ Construction

In Season 5, Will reminisces about building his backyard fortress Castle Byers with his older brother Jonathan. In the memory, the two are happily building the the shelter on a sunny day. But back in Season 2, Jonathan made a point to detail the day he and Will built Castle Byers was miserable — it was pouring rain and the brothers got sick for a week because of the terrible conditions. Perhaps Will is just choosing to remember it differently... or perhaps the writers forgot about that detail.