While veggie chips, barbecue chicken, and economy-sized jugs of K-Y Jelly may sound like a shopping list for a very specific adult picnic, these items are also essential ingredients for creating Vecna, the big baddie at the center of Stranger Things, the hit Netflix show lurching eerily through its fifth and final season.
Barrie Gower, the makeup special effects department head for the show’s fourth and fifth seasons, was largely responsible for developing and executing Vecna’s look, both…

