Stranger Things: A recap of the first four seasons
Brush up on your knowledge as season five looms!
Stranger Things, the hit Netflix series which launched the careers of actors Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, and more, has gone from strength to strength. With the storyline becoming even more complex over the years, check out our handy recap guide to Stranger Things seasons one to four, and find out more about season 5.
Take a look through all four complete seasons, from the flashing alphabet wall to the rise of Vecna, as we follow each main character's journey right from the beginning. As fans of the show will know, things get a little bit crazy (to say the least), so join us as we break down what's happened so far.
Warning spoilers ahead!
A recap of Stranger Things seasons one, two, three and four:
Stranger Things season 1 - Eleven
Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown, is one of the lead characters throughout all of the Stranger Things seasons. She first appears in season one where as a pre-teen, the young girl escapes from Hawkins Laboratory, later attempting to steal food from a local restaurant.
The restaurant owner Benny takes pity on Eleven, calling social services, but what he doesn't realise is that they are in fact Hawkins Laboratory agents. Kind-hearted Benny is killed as Eleven escapes out the back of the restaurant running for her life.
As she's running away she bumps into Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson and Lucas Sinclair who are out looking for their friend Will Byers who has gone missing. The boys take El (as she is nicknamed by Mike) back to Mike's basement, where she lives in a blanket fort, hidden from the rest of the family.
El, who has psychokinetic and telepathic abilities manages to locate their friend, but it turns out he's in trapped in the Upside Down - an alternate dimension which exists in parallel to our world. Eleven enters the Upside Down and confirms that Will is alive, but a monster (Demogorgon) from the Upside Down crosses over into their dimension.
The series ends not knowing if El survives after she appears to sacrifice herself to protect her friends from the Upside Down monster.
Stranger Things season 1 - Jim Hopper
Jim Hopper, the local Hawkins cop appears in the first season as an alcoholic, chain-smoker. Joyce Byers calls on him to help when her son Will goes missing. It appears that Hopper and Joyce have some history, as they were at school together.
Hopper doesn't immediately take Joyce seriously, after she reveals she's received a phone call with what sounded like Will's breathing.
However, as season one progresses, Hopper finds out his house is being bugged, and realises that there is a conspiracy involving Hawkins Laboratory, so begins to take Joyce seriously. It's then that he begins to try and find Will.
At the end of the season, when it seems that El might have sacrificed herself, he's seen walking into the woods with her favourite food - Eggos.
Stranger Things season 1 - Joyce Byers
Joyce Byers, played by Winona Ryder, is mum to two sons, Will and Jonathan. Much of season one follows Joyce on the search for her youngest son Will who has gone missing. In the early part of the season Joyce is often dismissed as crazy by others, on her search for Will, however over time others begin to believe her.
One of the most iconic scenes is when Joyce begins to communicate Will, who is stuck in the Upside Down, through Christmas lights. When they find Will's 'body' in the lake, Joyce begins to doubt herself, but is soon back on track on the hunt for her son when she realises the body is a fake.
Joyce gets back with her estranged husband Lonnie, much to Jonathan's surprise, but not for long when he begins to tell Joyce to give up on trying to find Will.
Lonnie is thrown out of the house and Joyce and Hopper meet to talk about what they've both experienced. The pair sneak into the lab and put on hazmat suits to enter the Upside Down. Once in the alternate dimension, Joyce finds Will's body, taking him back to the real world.
Everything seems to be OK, but Will starts to cough up some small slug-like creatures, similar to what Hopper saw in the Upside Down.
Stranger Things season 1 - Will Byers
Will Byers, played by Noah Schapp, is Joyce's youngest son, and Jonathan's brother. For much of season one, Will is trapped in an alternate dimension called the Upside Down.
At the beginning of the season, Will and his friends are playing Dungeons and Dragons in Mike's basement. As the evening is getting late, they decide to call it a day and the friends ride home. Unfortunately for Will he finds himself trapped in the Upside Down.
While in the Upside Down he attempts to communicate with his mum and Jonathan, primarily using the lights in their house.
Eventually Hopper and Joyce find Will in the Upside Down and bring him back to reality, where he is reunited with his friends. Despite being saved, he still has episodes when he's back in the Upside Down.
Stranger Things season 1 - Barb Holland
She might have only been a series regular in one season of Stranger Things, but Barbara Holland, better known as Barb, became iconic.
She was Nancy Wheeler's best friend and became one of the first victims of the demogorgon when she disappeared into the Upside Down.
Barb did not appear after season one, with just her voice included in the second season.
Stranger Things season 1 - Lucas Sinclair, Mike Wheeler and Dustin Henderson
At the beginning of season one, Will and his friends Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin), Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) and Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) are all playing Dungeons and Dragons in Mike's basement.
However, after saying "goodbye" that fateful night, when Will goes missing, the boys find themselves on a mission to find their friend in season one. Lucas, Mike and Dustin then encounter and befriend Eleven as she tries to escape from the Hawkins lab agents.
Mike hides Eleven in his basement away from his parents, and those who might be searching for her. The boys all attended Will's funeral, and afterwards they questioned Mr Clarke, the science teacher, about alternative dimensions.
The boys then find out about El's special powers and build her a Sensory Deprivation Tank at Hawkins Middle School which she uses to try and locate Will.
Stranger Things season 1 - Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler
Steve Harrington, played by Joe Keery, starts the season as Nancy's boyfriend, however after he breaks Jonathan's camera their relationship gets strained.
Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) beats Steve in a fight and he seems to see the error of his ways, dismissing his former 'friends' and continuing his relationship with Nancy (Natalia Dyer).
Nancy is the oldest of the three Wheeler children and older sister to Mike, who is best friends with poor Will who is trapped in the Upside Down for much of the first season.
In season one, Nancy goes with her best friend Barb to a party, but while she is inside with Steve, Barb goes missing and Nancy feels partly responsible. While trying to find Barb, Jonathan and Nancy discover the Upside Down.
Jonathan is Will's older brother and a budding photographer, the bullies at his school think he is responsible for his brother's disappearance.
Stranger Things season 2 - Eleven
El survives the Demogorgon, finding herself back in the Upside Down, however she escapes through a portal, back to the school, before she runs into the woods away from the government.
El finds Hopper and the pair move into a cabin hidden in the woods. For almost a year El is hidden inside the cabin for her safety, no one knows of her existence, not even her best friend Mike.
After getting frustrated being cooped up, El runs away to the school, where she finds Mike talking to Max, a new student. Mistakenly thinking that Max is flirting with Mike, she uses her abilities to trip her up before going back to the cabin and damaging it with her powers out of anger.
El then comes across some documents in the basement where she finds out her birth mother is alive. Deciding to try and find her, El leaves Hopper and the cabin behind. When she finds her mother, she realises that she's in a catatonic state, which has been induced by electroshock therapy, after she tried to save her daughter from Hawkins Laboratory.
Using her powers, El finds out that she has a 'sister', Eight. El sets out to find Eight, also known as Kali. After spending some time with Kali and her friends she realises that her friends back in Hawkins are in danger and decides to return to them.
When she returns to the town, she's welcomed back by Hopper, Mike and her friends, as she saves them from a Demodog, before realising she needs to try and close the gate into the Upside Down at the lab.
Hopper legally adopts Eleven and her name is changed to Jane Hopper. As a loving dad he then agrees to let her attend the school's Snow Ball where she and Mike dance and have their first kiss.
Stranger Things season 2 - Jim Hopper
Hopper and El are now living in his cabin hidden in the woods. Hopper has refused to let El tell anyone that she is still alive, and she is getting frustrated.
El runs away, but after some time away returns to Hawkins, where she helps to close the gate into the Upside Down at the lab.
After the tension of dealing with the gate, Hopper then legally adopts El.
Stranger Things season 2 - Joyce Byers
Although Will and Jonathan aren't huge fans of their mum's new relationship, Joyce is now dating her high school sweetheart Bob Newby (Sean Astin). Joyce is of course loving having her youngest son back at home, but it's not all good news as Will has episodes where finds himself back in the Upside Down.
Suspicions surround Will's doctor, Sam Owens, and after Will continues to have these episodes Joyce says she won't take him back to the doctor.
Sadly Bob doesn't make it past the end of the season as he gets attacked by a demogorgon when they're at the lab trying to get Hopper back from the Upside Down. Devastated by her loss, Joyce decides to burn the Mind Flayer out of Will.
Stranger Things season 2 - Will Byers, Lucas Sinclair, Mike Wheeler and Dustin Henderson
After Will is saved from the Upside Down at the end of season one, the boys are reunited. Will, Lucas, Mike and Dustin dress up as ghostbusters to go trick or treating. Dustin and Lucas become obsessed with new girl Max, while Mike isn't so happy about a new girl joining their group, so he leaves them on Halloween night.
Dustin makes a discovery finding a new type of creature that he calls D'Artagnan, however when Will sees it he recognises it as something from the Upside Down.
Since returning from the Upside Down, Will has been having episodes where he finds himself back in the alternate dimension, in one such episode he finds himself possessed by a Mind Flayer.
After Will collapses, screaming in agony he's rushed to the lab to Dr Sam Owens who thinks the shadow monster has got to his brain. Mike soon realises that the monster is controlling his friend and persuades Joyce to sedate him while they move him.
Stranger Things season 2 - Maxine 'Max' Mayfield and Billy Hargrove
Maxine 'Max' Mayfield and her stepbrother Billy Hargrove are introduced in season two of Stranger Things. The pair have moved to the area from California.
Max, played by Sadie Sink, is a tomboy and keen skateboarder. She is often at odds with her older step-brother, Billy. Max joins Will, Lucas, Mike and Dustin on Halloween for trick or treating and Lucas and Dustin begin to like Max a lot, which doesn't go down well with the others.
Meanwhile, Billy, who is much older than Max, is sleeping with a lot of girls, including married women. He's also verbally abusive to his younger step-sister, a by product of the abuse he received from his dad.
Stranger Things season 2 - Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler
Steve and Nancy regularly visit Barb's parents, who think she has just gone missing, and hire a private investigator.
Nancy, knowing that her best friend is dead, begins to think that she sees her at the school library.
Steve and Nancy split up, and Jonathan and Nancy get together at the end of the season.
Stranger Things season 2 - Steve Harrington
Steve becomes part of the main cast in season two and starts to mellow. Steve and Dustin get to know each other better when Dustin asks for help finding his new pet, which turns out to be a Demodog.
Steve also looks after the other kids trying to protect them against the Demodogs.
He and Nancy's relationship becomes strained and the pair eventually split up.
Stranger Things season 3 - Eleven
Eleven and Mike have now been dating for seven months and have been spending a lot of time around each other, but to Hopper's dismay.
Hopper and Joyce discuss the situation, with Joyce suggesting Hopper speaks to the young couple calmly, however things don't go to plan when Hopper decides to confront and threaten Mike! Hopper tells Mike he must stay away from El, otherwise he will end their relationship.
Mike finds himself lying to El about why he can't see her so much, so she decides to speak to Max for advice. Max suggests Mike wants to spend time playing games with his friends, so the girls go off shopping at the nearby mall.
While at the mall, the girls bump into Mike and the boys trying to buy El a present, but Mike lies and says they're getting something for his gran.
El ends their relationship and El and Max get a bus back to Hopper's where they have a sleep over and use El's telepathic powers to 'spy' on Mike and the boys.
While using her powers, El sees Billy, and it looks like he's kidnapped someone. It's later revealed that Billy has been taken over by a Mind Flayer, along with the person he has 'kidnapped', a lifeguard called Heather.
The Mind Flayer attacks Hopper's cabin, leaving El with a wound in her leg with part of the monster. When she removes the piece left behind by the Mind Flayer she loses her powers, but the group manage to fight it.
The series ends with Hopper presumed dead by the explosion that closed the gate to the Upside Down, so El is taken in by Joyce and Will. As the family are preparing to leave Hawkins, Joyce gives El a letter written by Hopper which he had hoped to give her when they talked about her relationship with Mike.
Stranger Things season 3 - Jim Hopper
Hopper is getting increasingly frustrated with El and Mike's relationship, which has been going on for seven months now. Confiding in Joyce about how he's feeling, she suggests speaking to the young couple, but that backfires when Hopper's rage gets too much and he threatens Mike to stop seeing El, otherwise he will end their relationship.
Hopper then asks Joyce out for a date, but she misses it, after getting chatting to the school science teacher about the fridge magnets losing their magnetism, resulting in Hopper getting very jealous.
Thinking there could be something sinister by the change in the magnetism, Joyce manages to persuade Hopper to take her back to the lab, where he gets attacked by a Russian enforcer, Grigori.
Hopper recognises Grigori from the Mayor's office and questions the Mayor about the Russian. This is when he finds out that Grigori's employer has bought up properties around the town, so Joyce and Hopper go to visit them, finding one is being used as a Russian lab.
Hopper fights and kills Grigori before getting trapped in the machine used to keep the portal to the Upside Down open. Hopper's fate isn't known, but at the very end of the season a Russian is heard telling guards to feed the prisoners, saying: "not the American".
Stranger Things season 3 - Joyce Byers
Joyce comes to the emotional aid of Hopper when he's struggling to come to terms with the relationship between El and Mike. However, despite Joyce's good advice, Hopper doesn't listen to her.
Hopper then asks Joyce out on a date, but she misses it after chatting to the school science teacher, who has discovered that the fridge magnets have lost their magnetism. Something which appears to have more significance than previously thought.
Hopper and Joyce then decide to investigate the changes in magnetism at the Hawkins Lab, before Hopper is attacked by Grigori. After searching some properties in the town owned by Grigori's employer, Joyce and Hopper find Alexei, a Russian scientist, who they take hostage.
Alexei reveals the Russians are trying to open a gate to the Upside Down under the shopping mall using a machine which Hopper finds himself trapped inside, after fighting and killing Grigori.
At the end of the season, Joyce runs out of time and has to make the decision to destroy the machine, and close the gate on Hopper, who seemingly disintegrates.
Stranger Things season 3 - Will, Lucas, Dustin, Mike, Max, and Billy
In season three Max and Lucas are dating, and Max's friendship with El grows.
Between season two and three, Dustin has been at science camp where he met a girl called Suzie, who he says is "hotter than Phoebe Cates." After returning home he tries to contact Suzie using a radio tower he has built, but struggles to make contact and his friends question if she really exists. Instead of contacting Suzie, Dustin instead picks up a coded Russian transmission.
Will is feeling like the odd one out as many of his friends are now in relationships. He still has a connection with the Upside Down throughout the season.
Billy is taken over by the Mind Flayer so El tries to use her powers to communicate with him after finding out about his troubled childhood.
At the end of the season Billy sacrifices himself to protect Eleven, Mike and Max after the Mind Flayer traps the kids at Starcourt Mall.
Stranger Things season 3 - Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler
Nancy and Jonathan get internships together at The Hawkins Post, but it's a tough job, especially for Nancy who has to deal with sexist colleagues.
One night Nancy is working late and takes a call from a person reporting rats eating their fertiliser. Nancy and and Jonathan pretend to be reporters and follow up the story. It later turns out that the Mrs Driscoll, whose fertiliser it is, becomes possessed by a Main Flayer.
Nancy and Jonathan join the rest of the kids at Starcourt Mall for the face-off with the Mind Flayer.
Stranger Things season 3 - Steve Harrington
In the third season, Steve has a job in Starcourt Mall, at Scoops Ahoy!, the location of the big face-off between the Mind Flayer and the residents of Hawkins.
When Dustin picks up the strange radio transmission in Russian he asks Steve for help translating it and with the help of Robin, who works with Steve, manage to work it out.
Steve and Robin end up being drugged after sneaking into a secret Russian base under the mall, but Dustin and Erica (Lucas' younger sister) save them.
Stranger Things season 4 - Eleven
Season 4 is set six months after the Battle of Starcourt which destroyed much of Hawkins. El moved to California with the Byers family, where she is struggling to cope with the loss of her dad (Hopper) and her special powers. She's also regularly bullied at school.
After Mike comes to visit El, things rapidly take a turn for the worse when she's arrested for assaulting Angela (the bully). She is then taken by Sam Owens who explains events in Hawkins have caused her friends to be in danger.
Sam takes her to a secret facility in the desert, where she is reunited with Dr Martin Brenner (Papa), who promises to help her regain her powers.
El is fitted with an electric collar, before the secret facility is under attack, by Lt Colonel Jack Sullivan's forces, who believe El is responsible for the trouble in Hawkins, but thankfully Mike, Will, Jonathan and his friend Argyle manage to find El and the kids escape.
With the help of Argyle's pizza shop connections, they manage to find a huge freezer they can use as an isolation tank for El, so she can enter the Upside Down and try to help Max, who is fighting Vecna.
Through diving into her memories, El also comes to the realisation that whilst fighting Number One, she created who we now know as Vecna, after trapping him in the Upside Down.
El finally manages to use her powers to revive Max who 'dies' from her injuries inflicted by Vecna, although sadly Max ends up in coma.
Stranger Things season 4 - Jim Hopper
Thankfully, despite Hopper's fate being left unknown at the end of Season 3, he returns in Season 4, in a tricky situation.
The series starts with Hopper in a prison camp in Kamchatka, after the was captured by Soviet soldiers. With the help of a prison guard (Dmitri Antonov) he manages to bribe, Hopper has got word to Joyce and Murray that he is alive.
With a $40,000 ransom to be paid for Hopper, Joyce and Murray fly to Alaska where they meet a pilot, who decides to drug them and turn them over for a bigger profit.
Meanwhile, Hopper is working on breaking out of the prison himself and briefly succeeds, before he is found and thrown back in the cell along with Dmitri, after Yuri's betrayal.
While flying to Russia, Joyce and Murray overcome Yuri resulting in the plane crash-landing in the Russian forest. After finding a town near the prison they get some supplies and break into the prison.
Once inside the prison they find themselves witnessing the prisoners - including Hopper - fighting a Demogorgon. Finally with a bit of help from Joyce and Murray, Hopper and Dmitri can escape and reunite.
While in the prison, they come across more creatures from the Upside Down, including a fragment from the Mindflayer, they then decide to escape, but re-enter at the end of the series, in order to destroy more Demogorgons and weakening Vecna in the process.
Stranger Things season 4 - Joyce Byers
Six months after the Battle of Starcourt and Joyce has moved to California with her sons Will and Jonathan, and Eleven.
When she receives a suspect looking package, saying Hopper is still alive, with a phone number, Joyce decides to get her friend Murray to help. The pair call the number on the note and get through to Dmitri Antonov, a prison guard that Hopper has managed to bribe.
Dmitri wants a $40,000 bribe in exchange for Hopper, so Joyce and Murray travel to Alaska to meet a contact (Yuri), but they end up being drugged and taken to Russia, where Yuri is hoping to exchange them for a larger reward.
Luckily for Joyce and Murray, they wake up on the way to Russia and overcome Yuri, crash-landing in a forest before they can be handed over.
After forcing Yuri to take them to a nearby town where he had some supplies stashed, Joyce and Murray break into the prison to get Hopper.
Once inside the prison Joyce and Murray find Hopper and other inmates having to fight off a Demogorgon. With the help of Joyce and Murray they are able to defeat the monster and Hopper and Dmitri escape.
After a rushed reunion, Joyce, Hopper, Murray, along with Yuri and Dmitri, discover more creatures from the Upside Down, before escaping from the prison. They later decide to re-enter and kill the remaining Demogorgons, weakening Vecna through the hivemind.
After all the drama in the prison they finally make their way back to Hawkins and are reunited with the others.
Stranger Things season 4 - Will Byers, Jonathan Byers, Mike Wheeler, and Argyle
Will and his brother Jonathan have moved to California with their mum Joyce and Eleven, when Mike comes to visit for the holidays.
After Eleven is arrested for assaulting Angela, the school bully, Will, Jonathan and Mike are left feeling helpless at home, in the protection of Sam Owens' agents.
When their house is attacked by soldiers looking for Eleven they manage to escape with the help of Argyle, Jonathan's friend who works at a pizza place, and has a very handy pizza delivery van.
Driving away from California in search of El, the boys manage to track down the secret underground facility way out in the desert where she is being kept.
Arriving just in time for El to get her powers back and escape from the facility, they pick up an exhausted El as they try to get to Hawkins to help their friends.
Unable to get there physically, they decide the next best thing is to create an isolation tank using a chest freezer from a nearby pizza restaurant (using Argyle's connections).
El manages to enter Max's mind as she is trying to lure Vecna, so the others can attack him. Unfortunately for Max, Vecna manages to possess her, and she ultimately 'dies', before El can revive her.
At the end of the season the friends are reunited with the friends and family back in Hawkins.
Stranger Things season 4 - Max Mayfield
At the end of season 3, Billy sacrificed himself to protect Eleven, Mike and Max, and this is something that understandably plays on Max's mind throughout season 4.
After Max and Lucas break up, she becomes withdrawn and spends time with the school counsellor. The teenager has now moved to a trailer park opposite another student at the school, Eddie.
Popular girl and cheerleader Chrissy turns up murdered and Eddie is accused by the town. When Max sees him running away on the night of Chrissy's death, she tells Dustin, who wants to try and find him.
Max then begins to hear Vecna's voice calling her and sees the grandfather clock vision, which Chrissy also saw before her death. Worried that Vecna is going to kill her, Max decides to write letters to all of her friends, including one for her brother Billy, who died six months before.
While at Billy's graveside, Vecna possesses Max, who finds herself trapped inside his mind, until Lucas manages to get her to come round after he plays her favourite song 'Running Up That Hill'.
Later on, Max decides to lure Vecna towards her, so Steve, Nancy and Robin can attack him in Creel House, but Vecna overcomes Max and she 'dies', before being revived by El.
At the end of the season, Max is left comatose in hospital.
Stranger Things season 4 - Dustin Henderson, Eddie Munson, Lucas Sinclair, Steve Harrington, Nancy Wheeler and Robin Buckley
Friends Dustin, Mike and Lucas find it difficult to adjust to high school, as Lucas starts to hang out with the basketball team, Dustin and Mike have joined the Hellfire Club, where they become friends with Eddie.
Meanwhile, Steve and Robin now work in a video rental shop, and Nancy is the editor of the school newspaper.
Eddie finds himself accused of the murder of cheerleader Chrissy, when she is last seen meeting up with him at his trailer. After Eddie decides to run and hide following the accusation, he is finally found by his friends hiding out near a lake, which appears to have a weird effect on compasses.
Steve decides to take a look at a gate which has opened up in the lake, but before he can get away he get pulled into the Upside Down, so Nancy, Robin, and Eddie decide to follow him.
The two groups of friends finally meet back at Eddie's trailer after they manage to escape the Upside Down, but Nancy is left possessed by Vecna, when she finds out that he is Victor Creel's son Henry.
The friends work together to take on Vecna and come up with a cunning plan for Max to lure him, while the others attack him in the Upside Down.
Max, Lucas and Erica (Lucas' sister) go to Creel House, while Steve, Nancy and Robin enter the Upside Down, kitted out with weapons to attack Vecna.
Meanwhile, Dustin and Eddie, also in the Upside Down distract the bats to stop them attacking Max and the others. Overcome by the bats, Eddie sacrifices himself while El manages to find Max as Vecna attacks her, and revives her.
At the end of the season, all of the friends are reunited in Hawkins, along with Hopper and Joyce.
Stranger Things season 4 - Eddie Munson
Eddie was a new character introduced in season four, and is a rather complex and largely misunderstood outcast. He is a metalhead and Dungeon Master, leading the school's Hellfire Club (a Dungeons & Dragons-oriented society). Although initially presented as being a some-what enemy to the 'populars', Eddie is soon seen with head cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham - although this is due to her buying drugs off him, due to her horrifying visions inflicted by Vecna.
Chrissy is possessed by, and falls victim to, Vecna inside Eddie's trailer, which quickly leads to him being falsely blamed for her murder. Eddie is forced into hiding and becomes a fugitive - not only evading the police, but also the angry civilians of Hawkins - including Chrissy's fired-up boyfriend. Despite this, Eddie forms an unexpected bond with Dustin, and the rest of the group, with Mike, Lucas and Dustin being members of the Hellfire Club.
Eddie becomes a vital member of the gang as they battle Vecna, with him even using his Dungeons & Dragons knowledge to strategise, in true Stranger Things fashion. As they head into the Upside Down to continue their battle, Eddie and Dustin are faced with a climactic showdown against the Demobats. In an attempt to distract Vecna, Eddie also plays an epic electric guitar solo, staging a performance of Metallica's 'Master of Puppets'. In a sad scene, we see Eddie bravely sacrifice himself to protect his new friends and keep up the distraction of the Hive Mind. Killed by the Demobats, tragically Eddie also becomes a hero.
In a final scene, showing friends and family members search for their missing loved ones in what they are led to believe was an 'earthquake', we see the heartbreaking moment Dustin reveals to Eddie's uncle that he is gone, presenting him with his necklace, calling him a "hero".
Stranger Things season 4 - Peter Ballard/Subject 001/Henry Creel/Vecna
Another new addition to season four, it becomes apparent that Vecna has actually been lurking all along. First introduced to us in the show as Peter, he and Subject 001/Henry Creel/Vecna are all in fact the same person, so let's break this complex character down chronologically.
Born as Henry Creel, he soon exhibits unusual abilities, which his father describes as 'sensitivity'. The Creel family move to Hawkins, and Henry soon discovers his powerful telepathic and telekinetic abilities. Things turn sinister when Henry begins to use his powers to harm his family, resulting in him killing his mother and sister and hospitalising his father, Victor. Henry is placed in a coma, and Victor is falsely presumed to be the killer, imprisoned and subsequently driven further into madness.
Henry wakes up in the infamous Hawkins lab, and becomes Dr. Brenner's first test subject - becoming Subject 001. His powers begin to increase, however in doing so they also become less stable. When Eleven later enters the lab, they strike up a relationship as 001 'mentors', however also manipulates her. In a showdown between him and Eleven, she ultimately sends him into the Upside Down and traps him there.
Peter Ballard is his assumed identity, who we meet as Eleven is brought back to the lab in season four. Eleven does not remember her previous encounters with him, and the season sees her revisit her memories as she pieces together the horrifying truth. Peter is gentle and kind, gaining the trust of both patients and staff in the lab, however is secretly developing his powers in order to get revenge on Dr. Brenner.
Stuck in the Upside Down, embracing his dark nature and powers, he becomes the sinister entity that is Vecna. Vecna can manipulate reality, and in doing so creates horrifying visions - preying on individuals in the real world who have experienced trauma. As we see with Chrissy, and as he attempts with Max, Vecna tortures people mentally and physically, before killing them. It becomes apparent that Vecna rules the Upside Down, and seeks to merge it with the real world, so he can ultimately dominate.
All four seasons of Stranger Things are available to stream on Netflix now.
Although there is no release date for season five just yet, we do know that July 2024 marked the half-way point for filming.
Netflix's video recaps of each season:
Lucky for us, Netflix have also shared some recap videos to the official Stranger Things YouTube account, and you can check them out below.
Season one recap:
Season two recap:
Season three recap:
Season four Volume 1 recap:
When will season five of Stranger Things be released?
It has not yet been confirmed when Stranger Things season 5 will be released, however with filming hitting the half-way point in July 2024, it is thought that the release could be anywhere from May-August 2025, going off previous post-production trends.
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