For those who don’t remember — which I have to assume is probably most viewers at this point, thank god for the quick flashback that reminded us all who this kid even is – Kali was introduced back in season 2 episode “The Lost Sister.” Like Eleven, she was one of the many psychic children taken by Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine), with the unique ability to project illusions and cause people to see what’s not there. She eventually broke out of the Hawkins lab, ending up as the leader of a gang of teen misfits and eager to take revenge on those who wronged her. Though she helped her adopted sister learn to use her own rage and trauma to tap into her powers — and her introduction foreshadowed many aspects of Vecna’s origins — Kali wasn’t interested in helping Eleven save her friends back in Hawkins, and the two parted ways. We haven’t heard from (or about) her since.
How she fits into the series’ endgame is… well, let’s just call it an open question. On some level, Eight’s return makes sense. The Duffer brothers have been insistent that this final installment of the series is all about going back to the beginning — closing loops, answering lingering questions, filling in all the gaps they’ve left for viewers to speculate over along the way. But while almost everyone is certainly eager to find out the answers to things like “why Will Byers was taken in the first place,” or “is Max ever going to wake up,” it’s hard to imagine that anyone was all that eager to see Kali again, given that the episode in which she originally appeared is almost universally considered to be one of the series’ worst.
It also doesn’t help that the whole “kryptonite” angle really doesn’t make any sense. Sure, Kay and her goons appear to have some sort of… something that can neutralize Eleven’s powers, but it’s not entirely clear what it actually is. Is it Kali herself? Is Kay using the girl’s abilities to somehow suppress Eleven’s? Or was Eight simply experimented on so much that the military finally hit on some kind of universal psychic suppressant? And why does any of this require Kali to be strung up in a sealed room in a position that so deliberately mirrors Vecna’s pose in the Upside Down last season?
It seems likely that Eight is going to have a fairly key role to play in the series’ final episodes — whether we want her to or not. Is she the kryptonite that can stop Vecna? Who will somehow neutralize Will’s newfound, vaguely dark abilities when they go too far? Will have to wait for Christmas to find out.
