Eleven is returning for Season 2 of Stranger Things, at least according to a few anonymous sources. Even though Netflix hasn’t confirmed it yet, you know and I know that she’s totally coming back. If that’s the case, it’ll be after a year in the Upside Down, which means she’ll be more powerful than we’ve ever seen her before.
As much as we’ve learned about Eleven’s powers, there’s still so much that’s gone unanswered. The show told us that Eleven’s telekinesis and psychic powers came from her mother taking experimental drugs while pregnant with her. She started out crushing Coke cans and eavesdropping on Russians. However, Eleven has clearly grown in her abilities since then. She’s the one who opened the rift between our reality and the Upside Down, but she’s also the one who single-handedly closed it, through what looked like an even larger burst of energy.
Now whether the Upside Down is an alternate dimension or something Eleven created through her abilities, it has its own power that resonates throughout our reality. For example, when Eleven opened up the gateway between our world and the Upside Down, it started out pretty small. However, the gateway continued to grow in size and scale over the season to the point where it completely overtook the facility by the time Hopper and Joyce go inside. Plus, Will’s limited time in the Upside Down has seemingly give him the ability to travel between the two worlds, as well as baby slugs in his stomach.
*Extremely Arnold voice* "I'll be bahck."
If Eleven’s still in the Upside Down, like the last episode of Season 1 heavily implies, that means she’ll have spent an entire year in that place. That’s at least 365 days of being absorbed in a place that was either created by or connected to her psychic power. It’s actually exciting to think about what kind of character we’ll see emerge from the Upside Down next season — someone who’s in command of her abilities and perhaps has picked up a few new ones.
Unless of course, Chief Hopper wasn’t actually leaving waffles for Eleven to pick up from the other side. But come on, when has the show ever been cryptic or misleading?
