Jamie Campbell Bower (‘Stranger Things’) gives cryptic 4-word answer on whether Vecna will return in final season

Warning: this article includes spoilers from the finale of “Stranger Things 4.” Read at your own risk!

When asked by our sister site Variety if uber-villain Vecna will return in the fifth and final season of the Netflix hit sci-fi show, actor Jamie Campbell Bower replied with this cryptic four-word answer: “I couldn’t possibly say.”

Bower added that “Matt and Ross have their own thing going there,” referring to “Stranger Things” showrunners The Duffer Brothers. “When they want to bring forward it, I’m sure they will. So we’ll see. We’ll wait and see what they’ve got planned for sure.” As for whether he knows how the show will eventually end, the English star replied, “I don’t think so!”

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Season 4 was split into two parts, streaming May 27 (episodes 1-7) and July 1 (episodes 8-9). It’s still unknown when Season 5 will debut on Netflix, but rumors have it coming in 2024.

One of the biggest twists of this year was that Bower’s friendly orderly character, who appeared in flashbacks with his scene partner Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), was actually One, a former child patient who grew up as a boy named Henry Creel (Raphael Luce). Spider-obsessed Henry was recruited into the Hawkins Lab by Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine) when he was just a kid. After he caused a massacre at the lab, Eleven sent One to the Upside Down, which is when he fully embraced his true nature as Vecna.

Bower doesn’t “explicitly” know the details of how young Henry became an orderly, but the story he concocted as an actor was that “Brenner had been conducting very similar experiments on One as he had been doing with all the other numbers, and that one day or over a duration of time, One continued to both behave badly and also kill people and manipulate his physical world as it were — so much so to the point that Brenner had to suppress him using this thing that he puts in his neck … He didn’t want to study him, he wants to control him. That’s all he wants is control.”

Even though Vecna is the big bad of the season, and likely the entire series, Bower doesn’t see him as a villain per se. “I’m certainly able to view him as as a point of conflict,” he concedes. “But in terms of, like, is he evil or villainous? I mean, I understand him, and I love him. And I relate to him. I just got a pain in my eyes as I was saying that — maybe I should shut up! Like, I understand him, and so I’m always gonna be on his side.”

In the season ender, Vecna was attacked by our heroes but they failed to kill him. He was able to successfully murder a fourth victim (Sadie Sink‘s Max, who only died for a short time), which put into effect his end game of ensuring that the Upside Down would take over Hawkins. The final shot showed our favorite characters watching from afar as Vecna’s plan came to a frightening fruition.

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Bower numbers among the 22 “Stranger Things” cast members submitted at this year’s Emmys (see the full list below). Phase one voting ended at the end of June and the nominations will be revealed July 12.

BEST DRAMA ACTRESS
Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers

BEST DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTOR
Jamie Campbell Bower as Friendly Orderly
Christian Ganiere as Ten
Brett Gelman as Murray Bauman
David Harbour as Jim Hopper
Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers
Joe Keery as Steve Harrington
Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson
Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair
Matthew Modine as Dr. Brenner
Rob Morgan as Chief Powell
Joseph Quinn as Eddie Munson
Noah Schnapp as Will Byers
Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler

BEST DRAMA SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven
Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler
Priah Ferguson as Erica Sinclair
Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley
Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield

BEST DRAMA GUEST ACTOR
Robert Englund as Victor Creel (“Dear Billy”)

BEST DRAMA GUEST ACTRESS
Amybeth McNulty as Vickie (“The Hellfire Club”)
Gabriella Pizzolo as Suzie (“The Dive”)

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