Let’s talk about “Papa.”
If you haven’t yet watched the second to last episode of Stranger Things Season 4, titled “Papa,” then (1) stop reading right now — major spoilers (like spores floating in the Upside Down) lurk ahead — and (2) get to it and come back here to hear all about it once you’ve watched.
The fourth season’s penultimate episode really lives up to (slash dies by) its name, as the relationship between Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Dr. Brenner, aka Papa (Matthew Modine), gasps its last breath when Papa does too. Yep, Brenner dies — for real this time.
Since Season 1, Modine has played the manipulative scientist and father figure to Brown’s Eleven, intent on harnessing her telekinetic powers to weaponize them. Though, in many ways, theirs is a relationship based on exploitation, there’s also a deep bond between Eleven and Papa, one which is mirrored (minus the mad scientist part) by Modine and Brown. The two actors have forged a true friendship since they started sharing the screen when Brown was just 11 years old. That meant shooting the moment where Papa dies by Eleven’s side was emotionally loaded and one of their biggest on-screen challenges.
Filming that final scene together was the only time Modine had seen the show’s creators, the Duffer brothers, give “a really specific direction” to Brown. “We were emotional, and they said [to her], ‘You’re saying goodbye. You’re cutting the cord,’ ” Modine tells Tudum. The Duffers believe both of their actors “delivered some of the “best acting either of them have ever done” in those final scenes, but what stands out for Brown is how much it resonated personally. “Because it was Millie saying goodbye, it was horrible,” she says.
Despite the finality of that moment, this isn’t the end of the road for Brown and Modine’s friendship — nothing could turn their real-life bond upside down. “I found that person to rely on and know he’s always got my back,” Brown said of her friend and mentor in Tudum’s recent cover story. Having been thrust into the chaos of a globally successful show at such a young age, Brown is happy she had Modine as her “partner” through it all. “And anyone that goes through that same situation now, I’m able to try and be a Modine for them.”
