Why ‘Operating Up That Hill’ returns for Season 5 of ‘Stranger Issues’

Rather a lot has modified in Hawkins because the final installment of Stranger Issues aired in 2022, however one acquainted touchstone stays in Season 5: the Kate Bush ballad “Operating Up That Hill.”

It is the music that Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) performs for Max (Sadie Sink) as she lays comatose in a hospital mattress. He hopes the tune, which Max performed on repeat in Season 4, will in some way deliver her again from the bodily and psychological limbo she’s trapped in. She was put there by the villain Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), and it is unclear if she’ll ever return.

Season 4 brimmed with gut-punch moments: the humiliation of Eleven by a relentless bully, terrifying encounters with Vecna, and the ultimate reveal of that character’s origin story. However arguably probably the most emotionally highly effective scene of the season’s first quantity arrives in episode 4, when Max is held psychologically captive by Vecna, a serial killer from the Upside Down who entrances after which tortures his victims with their worst fears and experiences earlier than murdering them.

The showdown between Vecna and Max unfolds to the soundtrack of Bush’s ’80s hit “Operating Up That Hill,” a percussion and synth-driven ballad about making a cope with God that occurs to be Max’s favourite music.

Max’s previous expertise with trauma — specifically, watching the Thoughts Flayer brutally kill her stepbrother Billy (Dacre Montgomery) in Season 3 — makes her a goal for Vecna’s manipulation. She’s turn into withdrawn and adrift, pulling away from her buddies and sinking deeper into what appears like melancholy. Whereas sitting at Billy’s grave, she weeps over the loss, trembling as she says aloud how and why he died, and confessing she will be able to’t share these particulars with anybody else.

When Vecna seems on the gravesite, it is first as Billy, mutilated, bloody, and desirous to deepen the emotional wound that’s Max’s survivor’s guilt. Vecna as Billy tells Max: “[L]ate at night time, you’ve got generally wished to comply with me. Comply with me into loss of life. That’s the reason I’m right here, Max, to finish your struggling as soon as and for all” — alluding maybe to suicidal emotions Max hasn’t talked about.

Max tries to outrun Vecna when he materializes as himself, however finds herself within the Upside Down. Whereas caught in Vecna’s grip, a tear at the hours of darkness dimension reveals her buddies on the opposite facet, desperately attempting to avoid wasting her from Vecna’s curse. After all, it is “Operating Up That Hill,” blasted into Max’s headphones that breaks Vecna’s maintain on her.

As Vecna prepares to take her life, Max closes her eyes and sees joyful reminiscences: laughing with El, dressing up as a Ghostbuster for Halloween, dancing with Lucas (and kissing him). She breaks free, momentarily incapacitates Vecna, and runs with the willpower to reside towards her buddies, dodging particles that Vecna throws in her path. Max hurls herself by way of the portal, awakes from the trance, and is held by Lucas. “I believed we misplaced you,” he cries. “I am nonetheless right here. I am nonetheless right here,” she says.

For some followers who’ve skilled melancholy and suicidal ideas, or tried suicide, the prolonged scene reads as greater than only a traditional psychological thriller. As an alternative, it seems like a metaphor concerning the issue of overcoming suicidal ideas and emotions. That interpretation resonated with quite a few commenters in a Stranger Issues subreddit submit about Max’s escape from Vecna, regardless that the phrases “suicide” and “melancholy” are by no means uttered within the present.

“This episode hit me arduous too, as a result of once I was at my most depressed, I discovered my favorite band, and that made me cling onto life,” one commenter wrote. One other stated: “I cried watching this scene as a result of it captured so effectively what it was wish to undergo a significant depressive episode and persuade myself to maintain going.”

Netflix declined to touch upon the scene, however these followers’ interpretation won’t be far off. The present’s music supervisor, Nora Felder, informed Selection: “In some methods, this scene will be understood as alluding extra broadly to the inside struggles with non-public demons that many teenagers wrestle with throughout troubled occasions, particularly when feeling alone and estranged from others.”

From the Upside Down, Max can see her buddies attempting to avoid wasting her as “Operating Up That Hill” performs on her headphones.
Credit score: Courtesy of Netflix

Brett Wean, director of writing and leisure outreach for the American Basis for Suicide Prevention, felt equally.

“Whereas I’m not sure what the Duffer Brothers meant with this sequence when it comes to it being an allegory for somebody going through melancholy or suicidal ideas, it definitely tells me one thing that individuals are assigning which means to it on this means,” he wrote in an electronic mail. “I believe viewers’ interpretation…speaks to the place individuals are at proper now, notably younger individuals, as lots of them face adversity and isolation on account of the pandemic.”

Protecting elements in opposition to suicide embody connections to buddies, household, and group help. Isolation and hostile childhood experiences, together with verbal and bodily abuse of the type that Vecna’s different victims appeared to endure, are among the many danger elements.

Vic Welle, a psychological well being peer help coach who has deliberate however not carried out suicide makes an attempt, informed Mashable that they discovered the scene highly effective.

“The depiction of what it is wish to be at that time of despair is absolutely captured effectively,” Welle stated. “The Upside Down as this place of distortion and a spot of virtually hopelessness the place Vecna is saying the worst issues, the worst fears you might need about your self…and what in the event that they’re true? That is what it is wish to be in that place of feeling fully nugatory.”

“The depiction of what it is wish to be at that time of despair is absolutely captured effectively.”

But what makes the scene so memorable isn’t just its portrayal of psychological and emotional disaster, however the swift, heartfelt efforts from Max’s buddies to avoid wasting her life. They do not flinch at attempting to rescue her. They know which music to play as a result of they have been paying consideration, and so they do not hand over, whilst Max is the one who finally makes the selection to outlive.

“The actually hopeful piece is the position of connection to group and reminders of which means and goal,” stated Welle.

Whereas the scene is not any blueprint for the way to assist somebody in a psychological well being disaster — the present remains to be only a sci-fi/horror collection, in any case — the spirit of Max’s buddies’ intervention could also be price drawing on in actual life.

For these experiencing suicidal ideas and habits who additionally really feel like they lack emotional help, Welle stated the scene can as a substitute level to discovering group elsewhere. Within the absence of trusted, shut family and friends, Welle recommends Options to Suicide help teams just like the Massachusetts-based Wildflower Alliance, which presents digital conferences and has a listing of help teams individuals can discover. Welle has participated in peer help teams once they felt unable to speak to their family members.

And whereas the foreboding sense that weak youth are doomed by Vecna works for the present’s narrative arc this season, Welle famous that experiencing trauma does not all the time result in melancholy or suicidal emotions and habits.

“In case you have one thing actually big occur to you and you might be surrounded with compassion, sources, and the power to course of and make which means of that and combine that into your total life story, I believe that is actually totally different from having to hold that in isolation,” stated Welle, who describes themselves as a trauma and psychiatric survivor.

In the long run, Stranger Issues did not have to spell any of this out. Between the profound writing, Sink’s masterful efficiency, and the impeccable music selection, it was all there, ready for viewers who would perceive.

UPDATE: Dec. 10, 2025, 10:28 a.m. PST This story was initially printed on June 12, 2022. It has been up to date to mirror occasions from “Stranger Issues” Season 5.

In case you’re feeling suicidal or experiencing a psychological well being disaster, please speak to anyone. You’ll be able to name or textual content the 988 Suicide & Disaster Lifeline at 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. You’ll be able to attain the Trans Lifeline by calling 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Undertaking at 866-488-7386. Textual content “START” to Disaster Textual content Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday by way of Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or electronic mail [email protected]. In case you do not just like the telephone, think about using the 988 Suicide and Disaster Lifeline Chat. Here’s a listing of worldwide sources.