Fly or die Buy? Bradley's Big Buy and how Erica foreshadows how we win
I've tried to make this post as accessible as possible if you haven't read my previous Bradley's Big Buy theory but it does provide useful context. The main things you need to know for this one:
The Bradley's Big Buy lorry is Camazotz/Vecna's mind. Murray is Santa and therefore Vecna.
Will is possessed in the coming out scene. It's a game of chess and this is where Mike is finally 'taken' but it's likely our characters are flayed all season.
Robin's Tammy advice makes her unintentionally one of Santa's (Vecna's) elves. Vecna exploits her advice to drive Mike and Will away from each other.
If you want to know how we got here read that previous post. I'm going to take them for granted here.
Housekeeping:
I include meta stuff like the documentary in the 'ending' of the show. I'm going to refer to this as a 'timeline' despite believing the other 'timeline' will follow on from the current one.
Whenever I talk about fault I'm only talking on a coding level. The moral of the show is that these characters' actions are a result of social conditions that affect their interactions with others. Likely supernaturally explained by our characters being 'flayed.' I don't think anyone's evil or intentionally unhelpful.
I stand by that Lucas' friends should have come to his basketball game.
I am going to jump back in at Will's coming out scene. At this point we've identified that almost every thing Will lists that he 'loves' is odd or a clue in some way. I want to talk about two more odd details: drinking Coke and Pop Rocks, and NASA. First...
Coke and Pop Rocks
This is weird because of the myth that drinking Coke and Pop Rocks could cause your stomach to explode. It was especially popular in the 70s and 80s.
It came from an urban legend that the actor who played Little Mikey in the Life cereal advert had died from a stomach rupture after drinking Coke and Pop Rocks.
We've seen coding related to Little Mikey and Life cereal before.
Oh yeah. So we're in the cereal aisle of Bradley's Big Buy again.
This makes it two times Will references cereal in his coming out and both times it leads back to Big Buy.
This shot has been interpreted as Byler evidence because of the Life cereal advert. Little Mikey is given Life cereal to try. His two brothers say he won't eat it because "he hates everything," but when he does eat it they say, "He likes it! Hey Mikey," which has since become an iconic line associated with the brand.
It's very similar to the whole "try before you deny," situation from S4. Will being framed with Life cereal suggests it's him that 'Mikey' likes.
It's interesting then that Will brings up Coke and Pop Rocks which people believe killed Little Mikey. The thing is though it's a myth. Little Mikey is fine and drinking Coke and Pop Rocks won't kill you.
This fits into the Vecna is a cereal (serial) killer puns.
Chrissy wants 'Special K' before she gets Vecna'd
Vickie has a bowl of cereal before she just straight up disappears.
When Jason is dressed as One in 4x02 he's eating a bowl of cereal.
I completely forgot about this thread in my previous Big Buys posts. An aisle of cereal suddenly seems very sinister though when we know that Vecna absorbs his victims. If this Big Buy is also Vecna's mind then it having a cereal aisle is just a tad concerning.
And it is implied that this also might be the mindscape. They break in through the window in the door -> they break into the Creel House through the window in the door -> the Creel House is Camazotz -> therefore Big Buy is Camazotz.
Mike and El sit underneath a big sign that says meat which is a hint that our characters are flayed (this could be true of S3 technically but I believe it's more likely foreshadowing for S5). This links to some other hints like Hopper being 'beef' since S2 (when he absorbed all the particles in the tunnels) and ordering a filet (flayed) in the epilogue.
Thank you to @there-was-a-hole-here-itsgonenow who pointed this out in 2022 but on the wall we also have a neon sign that says "Always #1 at Bradley" above Will. Also concerning.
It creates a purplish red light, especially on El. They used a similar technique in S5 with the red light in the Big Buys lorry. It's less starkly bright red in S3 because at this point going inside the mind of those possessed by the Mindflayer looks more like this colour.
Because I've brought up Coke and cereal we've gotta talk about Lucas. He is both in the cereal aisle and has a speech about Coke.
We got a reference back to Lucas' New Coke speech in S5.
In S3 Lucas' remarks about New Coke is met with the Classic Mike Disgust. Mike, and literally everyone else, prefers Coca-Cola classic. Mike and Lucas then go on to have a very meta argument about whether Coke can be used as analogy for the film 'The Thing' and its remake. Mike's relationship with El is described as "this thing" by Hopper. With all the coding that El is Will's replacement then his relationship with Will is Coca-Cola Classic and his relationship with El is New Coke
People have already pointed out that Lucas' and Erica's plans are a reference to the two 'endings': Lucas' is stupid as shit, Erica's is slow as shit.
But GOD does it go deep. It's not just their plans that foreshadow the two endings, their simultaneous wins in 4x01 do too.
Lucas' ending, the ending we got, is New Coke
There is a conspiracy theory that New Coke was brought back to improve sales of Coca-Cola Classic. Theoretically it would remind people why they should be drinking the original formula. This would be one of the points of making a bad ending to Stranger Things. You either have to choose the straight, boring, bad ending or the well crafted, entertaining, gay one. Do you care more about good art or heterosexual art?
This week we got yet another reference to the current bad timeline being 'New Coke'. Tales From '85 was announced to come out on April 23rd, the same date New Coke was released.
Information about this animation comes from an account called @/BradleysBigBuy (there it is) who might be a Netflix plant, discovered by @whispering-goat (source) and some of the other folks on the Conformitygate discord server (thanks guys).
Why Big Buys though? Because we are being 'sold' the current ending by Vecna/Mindflayer. Murray keeps advertising products like Truman's wife from the Truman show, and WSQK sync plays adverts over characters 'selling' you a certain narrative. It's the music that wakes you up from your trance. Will's coming out speech reads like an advertisement because he's possessed but they're 'selling' that he's not. Big Buys is the kind of big-box store that cares more about profit not quality. The ending of the show, the untrustworthy journalism afterwards, and the animation all fit into this narrative. Everyone, including the writers, have been Vecna'd.
But why is Lucas the person selling us New Coke?
Because he's selling us Mike and El's relationship. Lucas is the person who we see pushing Mike to be with Eleven over the course of the show, enabling Mike's compulsory heterosexuality.
In the S3 vending machine scene, Lucas encourages Mike to get back together with El and as he does so we see him take all the skittles from the vending machine. This gets paralleled in S5 by Robin who symbolically takes Mike's opportunity to "taste the rainbow" (sorry) away from him with her Tammy advice.
We get further parallels between Robin and Lucas as Robin calls Steve and Jonathan 'lovebirds' in 5x08 like Lucas does to Mike and El in 5x01, and Robin has a New Coke can in the epilogue (missed this one in my last post). Lucas and Robin both project assumptions onto Mike based on their own experiences.
Why do I think our 'ending' is Lucas' plan/win?
The S3 and S5 battles are very close parallels, complete with a fancy new meatflayer, and both times it's Lucas who suggests raining fire down from above (S3 in Big Buy again). The final battle we get is how Lucas thinks we should defeat the monster and likely copied from our characters' memories of the S3 meatflayer fight.
We expected a psychological final battle, likely with Mike and Will's relationship helping to save the world. Instead they saved it with firepower. We know that doesn't work.
It links back to the Big Buys Lorry again, where Murray (Santa/Vecna) sneaks grenades in under the expected greens.
Projectiles are usually associated with Lucas because he's our Ranger, and grenades specifically get associated with Lucas in S5.
Lucas' plan itself led to the Mindflayer particles going up the tower (interfering with signals) and Will being trapped in Vecna's mind. This is likely where Will became possessed and gave the Mindflayer the opportunity to exploit Robin's advice.
(Here's Lucas next to more cereal when he comes up with the plan).
Then there's the basketball game in S4 which is absolutely full of clues. Lucas plays on the Tigers. Tammy sings for them. Robin and Vickie are in the band, and Nancy and Steve are also there. Vecna has always been the Tiger.
We've got a lot of suspicious details in this scene:
The number 14, which should be a symbol of our characters winning (Mike 7 + Will 7 = 14), loses against the Tigers.
El (011) is on the falcons, Henry (001) is the Tiger mascot.
Tammy sings and the mascot supports her. Robin's Tammy advice is used by Vecna/Mindflayer against Mike and Will in 5x07. We get the sense here that Tammy and Vecna are aligned; the mascot likes her singing.
The name of the team that loses are the falcons. Mike's chess piece is a falcon (source).
It's difficult to read but I believe one of the posters behind the crows says "Tigers eat Falcon meat" which might be another flayed hint.
The Coke (New Coke not Coca-Cola Classic) logo is next to the scoreboard.
It's also interesting that the falcons have 69 points. The 'good' timeline has a lot of innuendo associated with it (like a lot) and I wonder if the SA allegory (and therefore sexual liberation) might be a bigger part of future episodes.
Lucas wins. But Lucas wins for the Tigers, therefore he wins for Vecna. A win sponsored by New Coke.
So what about Erica?
Well firstly Erica doesn't seem to have any qualms about what relationships should look like. She makes He-man and Barbie kiss, despite the fact they're from different planets, and she straight up calls Lucas Jason's boyfriend. Plus, she gets into D&D as a result of Will and Mike's gay little D&D donation scene and the scene of her receiving it opens on a rainbow.
Erica was very pro-capitalism in S3 and while it hasn't been explicitly brought up since, Erica's general belief system has since obviously evolved.
There's also the very very obvious: it's Erica's natural 20 that kills Vecna. The game starts with him coming back from what they believed to be the dead.
Erica's crit hit takes place backstage. Considering all the play imagery this feels really significant.
I talked previously about how the food items characters touch and eat in the 5x05 WSQK planning scene are significant. There's the skittles exchange and Lucas' popcorn. This is symbolic of Max's survival (their movie date Friday) so it foreshadows that his plan will save Max's life. It pays off that same episode.
Erica is a lot more complex. She briefly touches Chips Ahoy to remind us of Scoops Ahoy and then takes a juice carton of Hi-C Ecto-Cooler. Already we've got a little bit of symbolism in the colour; Hi-C Ecto-Cooler is bright green when it would usually be orange. The opposite of the current timeline.
It's a Halloween speciality drink that's inspired by the ectoplasm in Ghostbusters. This immediately links back to the Scoops Troop in the elevator in S3. There Erica was trying to drink the green fluid, which is also inspired by Ghostbusters' ectoplasm. It's a substance left behind by paranormal activity so this is meant to be the first sign to our characters that the supernatural is involved.
Steve uses the canister to prop open the door and help them all escape. This foreshadows that Erica's plan will save Dustin and Steve, specifically from an underground lab (in this case the lab in the Upside Down). There's quite a few parallels to the Scoops plot-line in general with everyone looking over the wall to see Murray near the entrance. Mike both times struggles to pick up signals from Dustin.
The implication in the S3 scene is that Mike's attempted relationship with El is leading to a breakdown in the party's communication. Guess where this happens guys. Guess! It's Bradley's Big Buy! Because where else?
In S5 it's Murray and Robin (Santa and his elf) who are found at the scene of the crime; they're where the breakdown in communication is coming from.
Mike couldn't tell El he loved her, even in Big Buy. Mike couldn't tell El he loved her even in The Rightside Up aka Camazotz.
Destroying the wall
If we track back to the Russian elevator scene we also got the first reference to peeing on the wall of the Upside Down. Steve refers to it as 'taking a leak' like the S5 soldier.
Before the soldier 'takes a leak' he mentions the letter H and the number 1. H1 is Lover's Lake.
Both peeing and leaks get associated with Mike in S5.
^ All of those parallels take place in bathrooms. There's the additional parallel of Robin saying "Shit." when Will's can explodes.
Mike's coffee and the soldier peeing are also parallels (stream of fluid, steam), and Mike takes a sip as he walks by the bathroom. Can we get another "You still wanna drink that?" from Robin please?
It's suggested that water harms the Upside Down. Water symbolises emotions, memories and romantic feelings. The analogy here is that these things can break down your emotional wall (what the Upside Down represents). Mike needs to use his memories to break down his emotional wall. Robin tells Steve to redirect his stream. Another crime, Robin yet again on the scene. She's stopping Mike from breaking down the wall.
It is interesting that they chose to make a reference to this scene during Erica's plan when any other scene from the Scoops plot would have the same implications for an underground lab escape. Combined with all the other evidence of something going on at Lovers Lake? I think it's likely that LoversLakeGate will happen
So far we've talked about a lotta different subtext and analogies but since Erica's plan involved rainbow balloons we've gotta talk about one more piece of the puzzle...
The Queer Subtext of Flying
There's a lot you could use to support that flying is queercoded in Stranger Things but I think the clearest example comes from Robin's 5x04 speech. She describes the feeling of queer joy/freedom as feeling "Like [she] could fly."
It's not an isolated event; Will is described as flying around in "fairyland", El makes Mike fly to save him from suicide, Will draws a rainbow spaceship.
El is partially an allegorical character but for queerness or queer love ('childhood magic' means the same). I understand why people are uncomfortable with El as an allegory, but the point is that when queerness leaves the subtext El will gain the freedom to be her own person. There is a meta narrative of allegory/control -> text/freedom going on here.
El being able to fly at the start of S5 is foreshadowing. Our queer characters will soon be able to 'fly' too.
In Rink O' Mania we find El crying in a closet next to a broken plane (the inability to 'fly') and a broken water fountain (remember everything I just said about water?). While she does Mike and Will fight outside and the track, "In the closet at Rink-O-Mania" plays. El then lashes out like Mike does. The subtext here is very clear.
The 'Plane Crash'
The plane is very interesting because in S4 aviation is a reoccurring motif. There's 3 planes (to Cali, to Alaska, to Russia) and 2 helicopters (the military, Katinka) but they also get mentioned repeatedly.
My favourite example of this motif is from 4x09. Jonathan tries to get a plane for El (and he says she's not going to make it through the night) but there are none available right now.
As much as there are references to flying there are also references to crashing aircraft.
Joyce and Murray get sedated (Vecna sedates his victims) while drinking coffee (Mike is our S5 coffee drinker) and put on a plane that subsequently crashes.
El crashes a helicopter in 4x08 (the painting lie happened earlier that episode).
Yuri tries to sabotage Katinka in 4x09.
If we go back to Lucas' basketball game, Lucas' vest number (8) was chosen to honour Kobe. He died tragically in a helicopter accident. Kobe also wore the number 24 later in his career as a symbol of his maturity which we see worn by the falcons, not the tigers. Kobe played for the Lakers, which is significant for the water coding.
Will's NASA reference in his coming out is not weird per se, but it is important. In 1987 NASA was recovering from the Challenger disaster, making improvements to safety so that they could reattempt flight. The Challenger disaster occurred because of a known fault that the O-rings were unable to seal properly in cold weather. Lift off took place in very low temperatures -> the disaster occurred and seven people were killed.
The cold makes Will susceptible to possession -> Will gets possessed and crashes the 'rainbow ship' (his and Mike's relationship). Will's memories of the ship are missing alongside his memories of Mike when we see them again in 5x07.
Will needs to keep warm so he doesn't get possessed but he uses his jacket to suppress the leak (his and Mike's feelings).
Then there's a few references to 'The Day the Music Died', the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and 'The Big Bopper' near Clear Lake. In S5 one of the things we get sold are Boppers ("Bopper while we wait?").
Repeatedly in the Russia plotline our characters and the aircraft they use are referred to as birds (Hopper continues to refer to them as such in S5). They again tell us what needs to happen to win.
Get the traitor in line by reminding them of who they really are -> get something to fly -> orchestrate a prison escape. The Russia team are the only team who truly succeed in their plan. Hopper becomes a paladin when he does.
There's the possibility that Robin is Yuri. It's hilarious that he might be named Yuri, as in the genre. He compares getting Katinka to fly with sex. He is the 'Peanut Butter Smuggler' after all and peanut butter gets used repeatedly as a gay innuendo.
Hopper and Joyce get caught 'indulging' in peanut butter in a Church and a plane that crashes.
So basically I think there's a reason that all of Vecna's chess pieces are birds. There's a reason the team that lost against the tigers are the falcons. Robin herself is named after a bird. Our characters have to fly to win.
In 5x07, when everyone is planning how they will get up to the Abyss Hopper suggests using a Helicopter.
Everyone else ridicules him for it but Hopper is wearing a shirt that says "music lives on TDK" that we basically only see in this scene. His plan is the one where the music lives (flight), rather than dies (plane crash), and likely involves a cassette tape.
In this exchange we get the pointed lines, "Fly or die." "Well then I guess we die." We're told that to win we need to fly but that just doesn't happen. So the logical conclusion is that we lost.
This all links back to Vecna's plan which is supposedly to bring the Abyss and Hawkins together to merge them. A plane (as in dimension) crash.
We have a very weird pattern regarding the reporting of Tales From '85 and aviation disasters. I talked earlier how @whispering-goat identified suspicious articles regarding the animation where they take the @/BradleysBigBuy account as an official source (here again). What was most interesting to me are the dates, because they all align with the major aviation tragedies that have been referenced to in the show.
January 26th - Screen Rant article - anniversary of Kobe's death (helicopter).
January 28th - Collider and Dexerto articles - anniversary of the Challenger disaster (spacecraft).
February 3rd - Tales From '85 trailer drops - anniversary of 'The Day the Music Died' (plane).
They're selling us this plane crash. And then there's the two other important dates, also aligning with the things they're selling:
April 23rd - Tales From '85 release date - New Coke's release date
November 6th - Tales From '85 teaser dropped - Date of Will's disappearance.
Additional minor hint I want to point out here: There is an upside down... box? That says Blue Bird in the WSQK basement. Edit for clarity: Blue Bird is the brand of bus that appears behind Max and the 12 children in their parallel shots hinting at their targeting. I briefly noted in my last post that the WSQK in the Upside Down might be where Vecna is actually residing. This is because it has a red tower (Circuit city) and the lorry (Big Buy).
If Will's powers are proximity based it would make sense that there was something in the Upside Down WSQK basement since he tapped into the hive-mind from there. Vance and Mindy are radio hosts and their chess pieces (King and Queen) are inside the booth. This might be where they're keeping everyone's bodies while they're in Camazotz. It would make sense if I'm right about the coming out scene being where we enter complete unreality rather than partial unreality.
Rainbow Balloons
Erica, Mr Clarke and Murray use the balloons to get signals. But they have to cut the string and let them fly to do so. There's references to the Voyager space probes. Voyager 1 is the furthest man-made object from Earth. Literally could not fly higher. Erica is by a lake again.
We know the balloon scene is about Mike and Will because Murray makes the same suggestion that Robin makes:
Been there, done that, didn't work.
This balloon thing also fits with birthdaygate and all the clown coding.
Edit: clearly I was tired when I made this annotation. Gremlins have to be kept away from water because they duplicate and I circled the lion on the big top, which is important to point out because it's significant in relation to El and Will's lion plushies, but the way I've circled it makes it seem like I'm calling the lion the tiger. The tiger is on the bottom left of that image.
There's the suggestion that the balloons relate to Mike or Will's cave memories. It might be both of their cave memories. Someone 'popped their green balloons' at Will's birthday. More about the clown imagery here. I'm curious how supernatural this memory is because the Tiger shows up a lot. (The flayed want to go back to the source, as in water source? Go back to the first feeling/memory/trauma. The source of the water.)
Loosing their balloons might again mean letting go or processing something so that you can accept yourself (fly). Like the riding in the baggage compartment thing from earlier. Then you can pick up signals.
This is a very long post, so... Conclusions?
Bradley's Big Buy (Mindflayer) is currently selling us a bad timeline where:
We get the New Coke ending. Hinted by Lucas.
Mike can't tell El sincerely that he loves her.
They 'defeat' the big bad with firepower.
The plane crashes and therefore music died.
Will is possessed and everyone is flayed.
Vecna uses Robin's Tammy Thomson advice.
But we'll get the good timeline (hinted by Erica) where:
Queer acceptance allows Mike to fly.
The signals get picked up again.
Mike and Will get together.
Our characters breaks out of Camazotz.
We destroy the wall using water -> possibly to do with Lovers Lake.
They finally unpack Mike and Will's baggage - Birthdaygate
The music lives - possible via a cassette tape (For Will?)
So really the question is which ending do you choose?
Do you fly or do you buy?
There's no way to cover everything and how it all connects together but here are some posts I think are relevant. I don't agree with all of the conclusions or all of the connections but I think many of the things brought up are something to chew on with these theories in mind.
Analysis of Mike's quarry jump - About Mike's falcon poster and flying in S1 which I think is the best evidence for Mike being the falcon (Added on 02/04/2026)
Sync confirmation of this theory - Post about the songs that play over the end of 4x01. (Added on 09/04/2026)
Theory that Mike witnessed something happen to Will and that's his cave - I think this is very likely. Lots of the same imagery as the fairground. Links to the coffee stuff I talked about as well because Mike sees into the hospital room after taking that sip of his coffee.
Santa's gifts and Mike's mental space - More about repression and water coding. Not mentioned in post but relevant, there is another 69 in Benny's Burgers.
Vecna is Santa and he ruined our Christmas - More about Bradley's Big Buy and specifically Robin and Tammy's role in it.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Parallels - More about chess and flying.
Clown imagery and Will's fear of clowns
Cherry Cola Float - Connections with ice cream floats, balloons and clowns at the Superbowl. Think about Erica, Scoops and balloons.
Robin, spaceships and Project Mercury - More subtext that flying is queercoded.
Is everyone flayed? - My theory comes down to the coming out scene being where Camazotz starts but I think everyone is flayed before.
More El as allegory for Mike's feelings
Twins and 3 Byers children imagery - Queer subtext becoming text allows El to become a real person with her own arc. Joyce becomes a mother of three on a plane.
More on water symbolism
Mike witnessed or knows about Lonnie's abuse
Another Brick in the Wall pt. 2 Meat vs Pudding - Does not include the fact that the 'filet' points to them being flayed so keep that in mind at the same time.
