Holly Wheeler's Whereabouts Are a Mystery in Season 5 of 'Stranger Things'

When Will is taken in the first season of Stranger Things, he is in the Upside Down. There is even a shot of him being stuck in the vine-like arms of the huge wall that seems to surround the Upside Down. For Holly, though, it's a bit different. When she "wakes up" after being taken from her home, she is in Henry Creel's childhood home. But where is Holly really in Stranger Things?

Even at the end of the first batch of Season 5 episodes, fans are a little confused about where Vecna, or Henry, is keeping her. There are some clues, however, including what Max explains to Holly about where she believes they are both being held. There might even be a way for Holly to escape, but it's not as simple as running away from Henry's house.

In Season 5, Episode 2, "The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler," Holly is taken from her home in Hawkins. It is revealed that, instead of waking up in the Upside Down and attached to that living slimy wall of demon flesh with tube-like vines suctioned to her face, she ends up in an idyllic version of Henry's house. For a quick refresher, Vecna was Henry, a human boy, before he was ever Vecna.

But this isn't some alternate reality where Henry wants to do right by his evil counterpart and protect Holly and the other kids. Instead, according to Max, this is a part of Henry's mind that was left untainted by scary memories after Henry was exposed to the Mind Flayer as a child. However, Holly and Max aren't physically here. They are mentally here, in this non-physical realm inside of Vecna/Henry's mind.

Max is still in a coma, but her subconscious is stuck inside Vecna's memories. Likewise, Holly is stuck in there while her physical body is in the Upside Down. Much like Will is held with the slimy creature-like vines keeping him pinned to the wall in the Upside Down, Holly and the other kids are kept there too.

In Will's case, as far as viewers know, he was not mentally in the Creel house. For Holly, her mind is there while her body is trapped with the other kids, who are being controlled by Vecna. It's all part of a larger plan, and despite Holly getting unlimited adorable dresses and access to Tiffany on her very own radio, she is definitely in danger.

At the end of the first half of Season 5 of Stranger Things, Vecna doesn't exactly reveal his plan. He does, however, tell Will that he was easy to "break" and that the "weak" kids are similarly easy for him to control. He could be building an army of some kind, possibly in an attempt to open a wormhole.

He might even, according to one user on Reddit, be setting himself up to be the new "Papa." That is, someone who controls children whom he gives powers to. That could be part of Vecna's plan, though the endgame is not revealed by the time Will uses his hive mind powers in those final moments of Episode 4.