The final season of the Duffer Brothers’ show left us with more questions than answers, but it didn’t leave us entirely empty-handed. One of the biggest questions that we were asking and which, thankfully, was answered in Stranger Things Season 5 was: What was Kali’s blood being used for?
Here’s what Dr. Kay and her goons were doing with Kali Prasad, also known as Eight, and what they were hoping to achieve by transferring her blood to other test subjects.
SPOILER WARNING: This guide covers content involving MAJOR spoilers for the Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 2. Proceed with caution.
What Was Kali’s Blood Being Used For?
After being found by Dr. Kay and having her close friends murdered, Kali Prasad became a lab subject again, like she had been back when she was still just Eight.
She was kept barely alive and heavily drugged as Dr. Kay’s scientists kept taking her blood day after day. Eventually, after faking her death as a desperate attempt to escape, Kali finally found out why she hadn’t been killed.
Dr. Kay needed her in order to attempt to recreate Dr. Brenner’s, also known as Papa, initial program. Kali’s blood was being infused into pregnant women in the hopes that their unborn children would develop abilities similar to the ones displayed by Eleven and Eight.
The problem is that it wasn’t working, as revealed by Kali herself partway through Episode 5. She ran by dozens of women who were dying alongside their unborn children as experiment after experiment failed.
Why Was Dr. Kay Using Kali’s Blood?
Kali’s failed escape not only revealed the truth of her captivity, but also how Eleven came to be. She wasn’t born with powers out of the blue, her mother was infused with Henry/Vecna/One’s blood.
Eleven, Eight, and all the other children present in Papa’s lab were the ones who survived Henry’s blood infusion. While they all developed some kind of supernatural power, none managed to approach Henry’s potential, except for El.
When Dr. Kay noticed that Kali’s blood infusions weren’t working, and since she thought that Henry was long gone, she began her hunt for Eleven, Papa’s biggest success. That’s why Dr. Kay spends the entire season hunting El, hoping to replace Kali as the blood donor and to successfully restart the program that Papa started back in Stranger Things’ original season.
We never end up knowing if her plan would’ve worked. Eleven does seem to be close to Henry in terms of her abilities, but there is no indication that Kali’s blood infusions failed due to her lack of power.
Henry is ‘Patient Zero’, so his blood might’ve been the only one capable of infusing other unborn kids with abilities. Do you think Dr. Kay’s plan would’ve succeeded had she been able to capture Eleven?