Heading into season 5, Max is technically alive, but things look pretty bleak. The book Lucas was reading to Max - Stephen King's The Talisman - may offer some clues for what lays ahead in season 5. The popular 80s novel has many similarities to Stranger Things with an adventure about parallel universes.
In going over the fates of many major characters, the creators confirmed Max's fate at the end of the season, assuring Max is alive in Stranger Things, but is in a bad way.
There are many questions about Eleven, like whether Eleven created The Upside Down, and in the season 4 finale, she brings Max back to life. Eleven uses her telekinetic powers to get into Vecna's mind and battle him herself.
And though Season 4 concluded with Max downer than down, she shouldn't be counted out. She is “not really alive,” co-creator Ross Duffer told our sister site Deadline this past summer, “in the sense that you and I think of alive.” But that also doesn't mean that she's dead-dead.
In the final moments, Max is in a coma. With that said, if Max were to make a full recovery, would she be blind? Well, based on the injuries she sustained, it's likely Max will be blind going forward.
The reason that Eleven couldn't find Max is actually pretty simple -- Max had already died. That means her soul had already been absorbed into Vecna's consciousness. So, while Eleven restarted Max's heart and brought her body back to life, she was trapped inside of Vecna's hive mind.
Patrick was targeted due to his father's abuse of him. Finally, Vecna targets Max for her trauma from witnessing Billy's death and uses Barb's (Shannon Purser) death as a way to use Nancy.
Meanwhile, on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Duffer brothers added more insult to injury by saying that Max is literally "braindead and blind and all of her bones are broken".
However, Vecna might go a step further and won't kill Nancy as he did with his previous victims, and instead, he will torture her by attacking and tormenting her loved ones, which could lead to the deaths of some of the characters closest to Nancy.
In episode 7, Vecna is revealed to be Henry Creel (played as a youngster by Raphael Luce), the son of Victor Creel (Robert Englund) and his wife Virginia (Tyner Rushing) shown in the 1950s flashbacks.
Max's death was used a device to push Murphy toward killing Josh in the series finale. Max didn't need to die to wrap up the story this way. Sure, Murphy needed to have a complicated place to land.
Is Max alive at the end of Season 4? Physically, yes. Lucas tells his friends that Max is in a coma, and we see her wearing casts on her arms and legs. The Duffer brothers have also confirmed that at the end of Season 4, Max is alive yet "brain dead, blind, and all of her bones are broken."
Max has touched back down on solid ground in Roswell, New Mexico ... for now. After five (long) episodes, Max (Nathan Dean Parson) is finally out of the pod and fully (we hope?) alive again on Roswell, New Mexico.
While Max was certainly blind in this instance leading up to her death, the Stranger Things season 4 ending didn't confirm whether Eleven's powers to resurrect Max also revived her sight.
After serving as bait for Vecna, she becomes his “final sacrifice,” getting her bones broken and losing her vision during a low point.
Through the window, Max saw her real body levitating above the cemetery, her friends panicking on the ground below. Bracing herself, Max pulled at a vine in Vecna's neck, causing him to writhe in pain and accidentally release her from the vines' grasp.
Vecna holds off Eleven long enough to brutally attack Max in his signature style—she levitates, her eyes go white and bleed, and he snaps her limbs. Eleven regains her strength and pushes Vecna off before he can complete the job, but the damage is already done.
The fan-favorite character ended the season in a coma with her bones broken and eyes blinded at the hands of Vecna. Max technically died for one whole minute before Eleven revived her friend, but Eleven's powers weren't enough to bring Max fully back to life.
At his empire's height, Vecna was betrayed and destroyed by his most trusted lieutenant, a vampire called Kas the Bloody-Handed, using a magical sword that Vecna himself had crafted for him, now known as the Sword of Kas.
Tragically, Vecna succeeds in killing Max, though she's shortly resurrected by Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) — or is she? Vecna doesn't just kill, he consumes his victims, absorbing the essence of their minds and souls. Max, who lies in a coma, might have a pulse, but, as Eleven discovers, her mind is empty.
"I don't want to die. I'm not ready," Max cries as she succumbs to her wounds — even if only for a minute. Max is clinically dead before being revived by Eleven's powers, but a psychic probe of Max's mind reveals an empty void.
Technically, Max does die from sustained from Vecna's curse during "The Piggyback" before Eleven uses her powers to restart her friend's heart. Before doing so, Vecna breaks Max's limbs and causes her to go blind before she dies in Lucas' arms.
Stranger Things brings back fan-favourite Eddie Munson - with a twist. Eddie's coming back for a prequel story, but it won't be on TV.