'Stranger Things' Fan Theory Suggests That Hawkins School Counselor, Ms. Kelley, Is Actually Working With Vecna

The fourth season of Stranger Things has been a roller coaster ride. A lot of revelations have been made and even more, has been left unsaid. The first Volume of Season 4 premiered on May 27 with seven episodes. In these episodes, we meet the antagonist from the Upside Down, Vecna. The arachnid villain is preying on the high schoolers of Hawkins High and this time it is harder to stop the bad guy with the gang split up and in different places. 

With a little more than a month to dissect the first season, fans have been coming up with various theories as to what is going on in the Stranger Things world. (Warning, spoiler ahead!)

First, fans believe that Eddie could be Number 10 from Hawkins Lab. And there is another theory that the fans have picked up that also seems very plausible.

In the fourth season, we see the Hawkins gang try and save Eddie from false accusations of having murdered Chrissy while also trying to stop more deaths from happening particularly Max's death. For this, they go to great lengths to find out what was causing these deaths, how they were connected, and how to stop them. Max remembers how Chrissy had visited the school counselor, Ms. Kelly (Regina Ting Chen) just before her own visit. They decide to get the counselor to disclose some intel on the first victim of Vecna's attack. 

While she keeps up the facade of a good counselor by not divulging any information from her private sessions, some hawk-eyed viewers noted how Ms. Kelley was wearing a necklace with a tiny clock pendant. In the world of Stranger Things, this can hardly be a coincidence considering the ticking grandfather clock indicates the approaching Vecna attack. This is only reinforced by the fact that during that scene in Ms. Kelley's house, you can hear a ticking noise in the background the whole time. Max then steals her school office keys and what they find there is further proof against Ms. Kelley.

When the gang goes through the student files, they find that the two victims before Max, Chrissy and Fred, were also visiting the school counselor. They all had the same symptoms before their deaths stemming from their previous trauma that included — headaches, nightmares, and lack of sleep. No one had caught on to this pattern except the kids. If she was really innocent, Ms. Kelley would have probably brought it up with the authorities that the kids visiting her with similar symptoms ended up dead. So why didn't she?

Moreover, Ms. Kelley also tried to rehash Max's trauma of having witnessed her brother, Billy, sacrifice himself to save her. Was she trying to prep Max for Vecna's meal? We will probably find answers to all these questions in Volume 2 of the fourth season which is set to premiere on July 1. Is Ms. Kelley sacrificing her high school students to Vecna or is she under the Mindflayer's control like Billy and Will were in the previous seasons? There is much to look forward to.