Fans of “Stranger Things” may have already identified the monstrous creature the second season will focus on, and the teaser trailer released during the Super Bowl might prove it.
The final scenes of “Stranger Things” Season One see the show’s protagonists, Will (Noah Schnapp), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) are again playing Dungeons & Dragons, like they were at the start of the season. And again, they go up against a frightening fantasy monster. At the start of the season, it was the Demogorgon, a beast similar to the creature they actually encounter in real life. At the end, they run up against a monster called the Thessalhydra in the game.
Fans think the Thessalhydra might be another monster from the supernatural realm called the upside-down, which the Department of Energy tore to a doorway with their experiments. And images from the teaser look like the could confirm it.
First, a bit of explanation. The Thessalhydra is similar to its namesake from Greek mythology, the hydra. Hercules defeated the beast in the myth, which had many heads. Severing any one of the heads wouldn’t kill the hydra, and it could regrow lost heads.
https://youtu.be/gIxpq9oxrcQ
In Dungeons & Dragons, the Thessalhydra is a similar animal. It has eight heads and it’s a kind of hybrid creature.
According to the fan theory, posted by Reddit user poptart92 four months ago, supposes that the whole game scene is foreshadowing Season 2. There are even some clues in the dialogue: when Will defeats the Thessalhydra in the game, Mike says that the kids sever and collect its seven heads. Seven, not eight, leaving one that could regenerate.
Then, in the teaser, we see this image:
Sure looks like it could be a hydra of some sort.
The theory goes on to speculate that Will, seemingly infected by the upside-down, could also be a creature of the Thessalhydra — or maybe even the start of the hydra itself. Just before the end of the episode, we see Will vomit up a strange slug that crawls into his sink drain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIXnpw9f15E
If Will really is infected by the upside-down, it seems plausible the other kids will have to find a way to help him. We know the Department of Energy is back in action in Season 2: Paul Reiser has been cast as a member of the agency. The agency’s supernatural experiment, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is also coming back and is clearly important in the teaser. And with Netflix’s tagline on the trailer, “the world is turning upside-down,” we definitely haven’t seen the end of the frightening realm to which Eleven has deep ties.