Is Daniel Fischer Alive in Tales From ’85 Season 2? His Return Explained
Daniel Fischer appeared to be finished at the end of Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Season 1. His secret experiments had already unleashed catastrophic consequences in Hawkins, and his encounter with the creature created by those experiments seemed to provide a suitably grim ending for the former Hawkins Lab scientist. Season 2 reveals that Daniel’s…
Daniel Fischer appeared to be finished at the end of Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Season 1. His secret experiments had already unleashed catastrophic consequences in Hawkins, and his encounter with the creature created by those experiments seemed to provide a suitably grim ending for the former Hawkins Lab scientist. Season 2 reveals that Daniel’s story did not end there. He survived, although not in anything resembling a normal life.
Related: Who Is Bloodaxe Bill in Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Season 2?
Daniel’s Body Is Still in the Upside Down
The clearest explanation comes from Eleven after she psychically locates the Lich. She recognizes Daniel and realizes that his body is still in the Upside Down while his mind is operating in Hawkins. That means Daniel never physically returned after the events of Season 1.
Instead, he has spent the intervening period trapped on the other side. Will immediately understands how horrifying that would be, having survived his own much shorter experience in the Upside Down. The others even debate whether Daniel deserves sympathy. He has endangered Hawkins and previously tried to kill them, but Nikki argues that being trapped there indefinitely is a terrible fate regardless of what he has done.
How Can Daniel Appear in Hawkins?
Daniel’s serum is the key. The group concludes that he is using it to control plants and project his consciousness through them. The strange flowers spreading across Hawkins therefore serve a much larger purpose than simply producing Hate Sprites. They create a biological network Daniel can manipulate from the Upside Down.
His apparent ghost form is made from pollen, while the root-based golems give him stronger physical bodies to inhabit. That is why Eleven describes the Lich as being in two places at once: its mind is inside a golem in Hawkins, but Daniel’s real body remains elsewhere.
Why Did Daniel Become the Lich?
Daniel is trying to get home. That motive does not make his actions harmless. To generate enough energy for another gate, Daniel deliberately terrorizes Hawkins and feeds on people’s fear. He eventually admits exactly what he needs when Nikki tries to reason with him: “fear.”
The flowers and Hate Sprites gather that energy across the town. Daniel then uses it to begin forming a new gate large enough for his real body to escape the Upside Down.
Mike becomes especially important because Daniel can exploit Eleven’s fear for him. Capturing Mike gives Daniel another way to increase the energy feeding the gate.
Does Daniel Escape in the Finale?
No. Daniel’s plan fails before the gate fully opens. The H.I.C. destroys the flowers and disrupts the Hate Sprites while Mike stops allowing his fear to feed Daniel. Once those energy sources disappear, Daniel can no longer complete the gate.
The wooden Golem is neutralized, but the series does not show Daniel’s original body escaping from the Upside Down or definitively dying there. Season 2 therefore leaves him in an unusual position. Daniel is defeated, but his physical fate remains unresolved. Unless a later story establishes otherwise, his body is still stranded in the Upside Down after the Season 2 finale.
