Is this major character blind in ‘Stranger Things’ season 4? Explained

The following article contains spoilers for season four of Stranger Things.

Vecna wreaked havoc on the citizens of Hawkins in the fourth season of Stranger Things. When the first seven episodes of the season dropped – AKA volume one – Vecna put three Hawkins teens through his curse. The curse involved some emotional abuse in the form of hallucinations followed by Vecna floating his victims up in the air, snapping their limbs and popping their eyes.

So when Netflix dropped the second volume of the season it was all but guaranteed that Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) would put someone else through his curse. As Max (Sadie Sink) had already been a target for Vecna, inflicting her with the curse in the first volume, she thought that being bait for Vecna would make a good opportunity for the others to defeat him. But what went wrong with Max’s plan and did she make it out of Vecna’s curse with her eyes?

Is Max blind at the end of Stranger Things season four?

Max’s plan almost worked, with Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) having Kate Bush’s Running up That Hill on standby. Unfortunately, the king of the jocks Jason Carver (Mason Dye) barged in while Max was trapped in her mind with Vecna. Putting a gun to Lucas’s head, Jason ordered him to wake Max up, which he obviously couldn’t because of the plan to defeat Vecna. The ensuing fight knocked away the headphones and made it so that Lucas couldn’t help Max.

Fortunately, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) came through at the last minute after making a sensory deprivation chamber in the back of a pizza shop. Piggybacking off of Max’s memories she managed to hone in on Vecna, and almost got the upper hand. Vecna proved too much for her though, and tied up with the rest of Vecna’s victims, she was forced to watch as Max succumbed to his curse. Max floated up in the air while Lucas watched, powerless to do anything as her limbs snapped one by one. But while Vecna was finishing her off Eleven and the rest of the Hawkins crew managed to defeat him. Unfortunately, the damage by Vecna’s curse was not to be undone and Max lay with Lucas, blind with broken limbs. Max would have died and was dead for a whole minute, but Eleven brought her back to life.

After Vecna’s curse was completed he managed to successfully merge Hawkins with the Upside Down, severing the need for any doors. Once Eleven and her friends came back to Hawkins they visited Max in the hospital who was put in a coma by the injuries she sustained from Vecna. While she didn’t wake up from her coma at the end of the season, it can be assumed she is still blind, as there was scarring around her eyes. 

This will be an entirely new piece of trauma that Max will have to deal with when Stranger Things returns for the fifth and last season. But at least she has Lucas by her side to help her with it. It will be up to her and the rest of the Hawkins team to try and stop Vecna from taking Eleven’s powers and taking over the world in the next season.

The entire fourth season of Stranger Things is now available to stream on Netflix.