The Duffer brothers explained that a change in Eleven's speech between different season flashbacks in "Stranger Things" wasn't a plot hole, and had a logical explanation within the series itself.
Season four of the Netflix series, which premiered on May 27, revealed more about Eleven's (Millie Bobby Brown) backstory and upbringing in Hawkins National Laboratory, under the care of Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine). The memory sequences in part one of season four revealed more about the children that she was raised with inside the lab, as well as Eleven's personal history.
As Teen Vogue reported, fans identified what many thought was a plot hole or discrepancy between seasons. In the first season of "Stranger Things," Eleven's speech is extremely limited. However, in the flashbacks to the lab in season four, the other children — and Eleven herself — speak fluidly and in complete sentences.
According to Matt Duffer, the discrepancy isn't a plot hole. Rather it's a ramification of Vecna's slaughter of the other children in the lab, and how Eleven was raised after the fact.
Duffer told Variety that Eleven "is being socialized the same way with the other children and then she goes into — and she does not remember any of this — she goes into, you learn a little bit more about this in Volume 2, I guess I'm revealing a little bit, she goes into a coma, reawakens, has no memory of these events and then is raised in total isolation by Brenner, who doesn't dare bring in another number, for fear of this happening again."
According to the Duffer brothers, Eleven's flashbacks in season four, including the massacre, took place when she was 9 years old. That means that they precede the events of season one, and Eleven's flashbacks of the lab in that season, by two years, Duffer told Variety.
He added that Brenner "chooses to focus solely on her. She lives alone, in an isolated room. This is the Eleven that we meet in Season 1. Two years in isolation and really limited memories of what had happened to her. And so that's one reason for the speech."
"Stranger Things," also starring Winona Ryder, Noah Schnapp, and Caleb McLaughlin, is streaming on Netflix now.
