The Rightside Up is the Finale of Season 4
The finale of season 4 and 5 parallel each other in ways that are just extreme, at least if you time it correctly. They are literally the same episode and give us so much information. No way in the world that that’s a coincidence!
Take a look yourself, you can watch them side-by-side here:
(I left the other parts out of the video btw and I recommend skipping to 02:30 since the Russian subtitles aren’t working in the first scene).
I'll give you detailed analysis soon, but for now these are the main facts I could figure out:
“The Piggyback” and “The Rightside Up” happen at the same time, on the same day in some kind of way. (meaning the time travel already happened - we did it by going back to season 4)
“The Rightside Up” is the movie Max and Lucas wanted to watch. (explains why the episode was shown in theaters and why there were no names in the intro)
They open the water tank in the Upside Down just as Jonathan starts to stir the water in the freezer to prepare it for El. The Upside Down has no water, so what if they were never there?
The heart-to-heart talk between Will and Jonathan is also fitting for El and Hopper, who have their heart-to-heart moment in silence.
The “best friends” tower scene was between Mike and El, not Will. It was Mike saying sorry to El for everything that happened. (Mike’s equals the pineapple pizza).
Around the time El is searching Max in her mind in season 4, El and Kali greet her in the black void in season 5. That was the real piggyback. (explains why Max was confused about being in El’s mind and not Vecna’s - she never knew about their plan; also Max’ outfit is very similar)
In season 4 Max thinks about good memories, the words here are: “turn around, look at what you see” - which is exactly what the characters at the Squawk tower are doing. And then it's just “Hi” when Mike looks at Will for a second.
The Squawk tower colliding with the Abyss (and the beat of the drums in the play) align perfectly with Eddie’s concert. Dustin wears the same outfit in both; rhythm, lights and words are fitting. (really can recommend watching this one!)
The particles are “the Shadow” that went into the kids. That’s why they disappeared suddenly, but it also means that chopping “Vecna’s” head off did no harm to it.
Children are somehow connected to the origin of the demogorgons. Either the demo’s final form is really human or it’s the other way around - the demo’s are created out of children. The Shadow was also in Will and he was like a host for Dustin’s pet, so maybe the other children are hosts, too. I can be wrong about this, but the escaping children and escaping demos parallel too much for meaning nothing in my opinion.
When Max in Camazotz says Vecna went back to the real world, Jason appears behind Lucas in the attic. (maybe Lucas was having a vision here too)
During their fight Vecna was attacking Hopper in the Upside Down.
Joyce wouldn’t let El die.
Before Vecna connected with Henry he was the stone in the suitcase in the cave and connected to the scientist there in some way. Vecna was also close to dying here. (Henry is highly paralleling El in this)
Vecna does not want you to remember traumatic events in your past, the word “doctor” is important. (Doctor Brenner wanted to restore El’s traumatic memories and help Henry)
It was always Vecna, never Henry.
(You can read more about the last 3 points here.)
El fighting Vecna in her mind from the pizza store and El fighting Vecna in the Abyss are the same scene, the same fight. Yes, she had to hear Mike’s “love confession” during that shitty final battle, it can’t get worse at this point. (During his own speech the season 5 Mike said that hurting the mindflayer hurts Vecna, so maybe he was hurting someone connected to the mindflayer on purpose here? maybe wishful thinking, maybe not...)
When El and Mike were talking in the black void at the end of season 5, El was directly referring to his speech, it was her first chance to talk to him after. He was touching her arm at the pizza store, that’s why they were able to talk at all. El was leaving to save Max. We never saw her wake up. (El vanishing in season 5 equals the “Leaving Hawkins” sign in season 4; I also think that was the Mileven breakup)
Since both fights were the same, that means they killed Vecna only once. (this has a lot of visual parallels like double-sided nosebleed, Vecna falling, flamethrowers, ...)
The epilogue has parallels, too, but I wasn't able to gain much information out of it till now. Except - Mike came out to Karen and that's why he ran away, I guess? (he's paralleled to Robin)
I will give you closer details about this as soon as possible, but for now I need people to see this, to look out for connections between episodes. Maybe there are more episodes like this, maybe there are patterns to find them. I found this one by accident, I'm not quite sure if that was supposed to even happen.
And yes, of course there still are scenes that just don't fit, and not everything makes completely, but these are like 2 hours uncut and the parallels won't stop coming. It feels like a new episode, a new truth - and trust me, it still feels wrong for me to say this, but "The Rightside Up" is amazingly well directed.
(Yeah, I did't knew where to include these, but they are too good to not share them.)