Satanic panic is taking hold of America in 1986, which is when we rejoin the party in Stranger Things Season 4. The kids just want to celebrate spring break, play some D&D, and hang out with their friends. But a terrifying new monster from the Upside Down is ruining their intended good time yet again.

The members of the party must look at the past if they want to find a way forward this season. They need to dig into Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) past, specifically. Her memories of a traumatic event at Hawkins National Lab are the key to understanding the latest Upside Down threat, but Eleven is now thousands of miles away from Hawkins and her powers are still on the fritz.

Distance is a major obstacle for our tenacious heroes this season. The Byerses and Eleven are in California. The remaining Hawkins crew may be in physical proximity to each other, but there’s significant emotional distance between many of them. High school has changed things for everyone, and they need to figure out how to come together — literally and metaphorically — if they want a chance at defeating the new enemy that is turning teenage shame into a potentially unstoppable energy source. 

How does Stranger Things Season 4 start?

Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) is alive! Well, he is in 1979 at least, which is when the season-opening flashback takes place. He’s getting ready for a day at Hawkins National Laboratory, where he’s proctoring “lessons” with multiple buzz cut–sporting psychics in training. He’s working with a kid called Ten when they hear screams coming from the hallway and other sounds of an attack. When he steps outside Ten’s testing room to investigate, Brenner finds his staff and the rest of the kids at the lab massacred. Eleven is at the center of the chaos, chest heaving as blood pours out of her eyes and nose. There’s literally blood on her hands, but did she cause this carnage? It’s going to take a few more flashbacks before we figure that out.

What is everyone doing in 1986?

The Byerses and Eleven are at the tail end of the school year in California. Joyce (Winona Ryder) has a new job selling encyclopedias from home to pass the time — until a mysterious box from Russia arrives, sending her into full Investigator Joyce mode. Moving to California may have gotten her, Eleven, and the boys out of immediate danger, but it’s clear Joyce hasn’t let go of what happened to them at Starcourt Mall.

Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) has everyone believing he’s waiting for his acceptance letter from Emerson College, but he’s actually avoiding telling Nancy (Natalie Dyer) that he’s going to community college in California to stay close to his family. His best friend, Argyle (Eduardo Franco), is the only one who knows the truth, as Nancy is preoccupied with taking over the Hawkins school newspaper instead of coming to California to visit her boyfriend. He and Argyle sling pies for Surfer Boy Pizza after school — and that neon delivery van will matter later.

Will (Noah Schnapp) is leveling up his art game. He’s graduated from crayons and sketches to acrylic painting. Eleven suspects that he may have a crush at school, but there’s no evidence to support that, except that he’s “acting strange,” according to Eleven. She is writing letters to Mike (Finn Wolfhard) about how much she loves California, but she’s not telling the entire truth. She’s getting bullied by the kids in her class, and she can’t figure out how to fit in with her classmates. It’s not like she can flaunt her powers and find a band of nerds to be her ride-or-dies like she did in Hawkins. First, because that would be incredibly dangerous, and second, because Eleven’s powers still haven’t returned after she was attacked by the Mind Flayer in Season 3. 

Mike is faring only slightly better on the social front. He and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) have joined a new D&D clique called The Hellfire Club. It’s captained by Hawkins High “super senior” Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), who takes their weekly campaign meetings very seriously. That’s an issue because Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) is torn between his commitments to Hellfire and his spot on the Hawkins High basketball team. One option means staying close to his best friends, and the other means a golden ticket to popularity and never being called a geek again. The chasm between Lucas and his friends deepens when he sees them invite his sister Erica (Priah Ferguson) to join Hellfire instead of supporting him at the championship basketball game. 

Steve (Joe Keery) has found his groove again when it comes to the ladies, but he’s still in search of a genuine emotional connection instead of a hookup partner. At least he and Robin (Maya Hawke) are still friends. She has a new crush on a fellow band geek named Vickie, who Steve is convinced plays for Robin’s team, but Robin is terrified of making a move and being outed to the whole town. 

So everyone has a lot on their plate and is thinking about their future, except for Max (Sadie Sink), who is still thinking about the events of the previous summer. Her stepfather left town. She and her mother live in a small trailer on the edge of town, and she’s in school-mandated counseling to help her work through all of this change after Billy (Dacre Montgomery) died at Starcourt Mall. The town, and the nation at large, believe that Billy and the Mind Flayer’s other victims died in the mall fire, but her stepbrother’s sacrifice haunts Max. She’s distancing herself from Lucas, Mike, and Dustin while she battles through the grief that won’t go away. 

What about this new threat from the Upside Down?

There’s a new terrifying creature in Hawkins, and he’s not just referencing Freddy Krueger; he’s stealing the slasher’s entire playbook. The humanoid monster has more defined features than the Demogorgons, but his wrinkly skin and the tentacle-like veins framing his head and shoulders definitely indicate he’s from the shadow dimension. He can also talk to his prey, which makes him worse than everything that’s come before. 

His first victim of the season is a bulimic cheerleader named Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien). We get a first glimpse of him when Chrissy imagines him outside the stall door when she’s throwing up in the high school bathroom. The visions continue in the woods where she’s meeting up with Eddie, the Hellfire dungeon master, to buy drugs. She sees a haunted clock with spiders crawling out of it and tells him she feels like she’s losing her mind. In one of her most disturbing hallucinations, her mother’s face briefly morphs into a rotting corpse, pushing Chrissy further toward panic. Eddie’s so compassionate about what she’s going through that Chrissy feels safe enough to ask him if he has anything stronger than weed.

He does, but the stronger drugs mean that Chrissy needs to come back to his trailer (which happens to be right across from where Max lives now) after that night’s basketball game. After they get to his place, Eddie searches through his room for his stash, leaving Chrissy in the living room when the monster attacks. Like Krueger, this new monster comes after his victims by preying on their visions and fears. Chrissy is stuck in a nightmare in which she’s running through her house, finding her parents with their eyes and mouths sewn shut. In the nightmare, there's no escape, and she's cornered by the new monster, who knows her name and says it is time for her suffering to end.

Back in the trailer, Eddie tries to wake Chrissy out of her trance (cue Eddie’s cries of “Chrissy, wake up! I don’t like this! Chrissy, wake up!” getting stuck in your head for weeks). Nothing he does works, and he watches in horror as Chrissy levitates to the ceiling. Her bones snap, and then her entire face collapses. This new monster does not play around. 

Does Eddie know about the Upside Down?

He doesn’t know about the shadow dimension when Chrissy is killed, but he’s lucky that Max lives right across the trailer park. She doesn’t see what happens to Chrissy, but she sees Eddie run out of the trailer, terrified, and she spots Chrissy’s corpse after Eddie’s uncle, Wayne Munson (Joel Stoffer), finds her and calls the cops. The authorities immediately suspect Eddie is responsible for Chrissy’s death. 

Something doesn’t feel right to Max about the situation. When she tells Dustin her theory, it spooks him too, so they rope in Steve and Robin to find Eddie and hear his story about what really happened. 

They track Eddie down at his drug dealer Reefer Rick’s boathouse. He recounts the events of the previous night, which convinces the gang there’s definitely new Upside Down weirdness going on. They fill Eddie in on their previous adventures, and He and Dustin label the new monster Vecna, after the powerful undead spellcaster from D&D. 

Why isn’t Lucas with Dustin and Max trying to clear Eddie’s name?

Lucas scores the winning shot at the Hawkins championship basketball game on the night that Chrissy is murdered. So the morning after celebrating, he’s recovering from his first hangover, throwing up at the team’s hangout when the cops pull up. They’ve come to question Jason (Mason Dye), the team captain and Chrissy’s boyfriend, about his whereabouts the night before. 

So Lucas isn’t home when Max goes to tell him about her theory before she finds Dustin. Lucas is with Jason and the guys when they decide Hellfire Club is a cult of satanists and Eddie deserves vigilante justice for what’s happened to Chrissy. Lucas is the only one who can warn Dustin that the basketball team is looking to avenge Chrissy, and no member of Hellfire Club is safe. 

What is our intrepid reporter Nancy doing during all of this? 

Nancy is on the case as soon as she hears that a Hawkins High student has been found dead in a trailer park. She and her assistant managing editor, Fred (Logan Riley Bruner), head to the crime scene to investigate. They tell the cop controlling access to the trailer park that they’re there to check on Max. As As Nancy talks to the officer, Fred imagines the cop they’re chatting with accusing him of murder because of a hit-and-run car accident Fred was involved in the year before. In Fred’s mind, the cop’s face mutates into the same rotting form that Chrissy saw on her mother in her first visions. Uh-oh, looks like Vecna found his next victim. 

Fred shakes off the vision — he’s not about to tell Nancy he left a kid for dead — and the two conduct interviews in the trailer park. They don’t come up with any leads until Nancy talks to Wayne Munson, who tells her Chrissy’s body reminds him of the Victor Creel murders that occurred before Nancy was born. Victor Creel allegedly murdered his entire family and plucked out their eyes. Wayne thinks he must have escaped from the Pennhurst Mental Hospital and killed Chrissy because he doesn’t believe that Eddie is capable of hurting someone like that. 

Nancy doesn’t get to ask many follow-ups, though, because she realizes Fred’s gone missing. She searches the entire trailer park, unaware that Fred is stuck in the woods, imagining the same haunted clock that Chrissy imagined during her meeting with Eddie in the same woods. By the time Nancy tells the cops that Fred has wandered off, it’s dark, and Vecna is claiming his second victim. 

What message is inside the Russian doll that Joyce Recieved?

The message reads, “Hop is alive.”

But let’s back up for a second. It’s not Stranger Things unless Joyce has something to investigate. Her detective instincts kick in when she receives a large box covered in Russian stamps and a creepy doll inside. She calls Murray (Brett Gelman) for advice on what to do with it, and he walks her through destroying the doll without potentially blowing herself up. There are no explosives inside the doll, but there is a note saying that Hopper (David Harbour) is alive! 

And guess what, he is! The explosion in the Russians’ lab knocked Hopper to a far-below platform, which is why Joyce didn’t see a body. The Russians found him and squirreled him away before Dr. Owens (Paul Reiser) and the military could secure the premises. Hopper is, in fact, “The American” alluded to at the Kamchatka prison in the Season 3 post-credits scene. 

The note inside the doll is from a guard calling himself Enzo (Tom Wlaschiha). Murray flies to California to help Joyce call the number on the mysterious note. When they make contact, “Enzo” offers to get Hopper “unstuck” from his current predicament if Joyce agrees to bring $40,000 to his associate in Alaska. Murray is dubious about the plan, but Joyce believes that Hopper is truly alive, so she heads to the bank so they can bring him back home. 

Wouldn’t Eleven be useful for a prison break or fighting Upside Down monsters?

Eleven definitely would be — if her powers were working. However, even if she was in fighting shape, she has a lot going on already. The bullying at school intensifies when Eleven does her “hero” project on Hopper. The ringleader of Eleven’s tormentors, Angela (Elodie Grace Orkin), trips her in the school courtyard and crushes the project. Eleven tries to use her powers in retribution, but they fail, which leads to more mocking. A teacher notices Eleven in distress and drags Angela off to see the principal.

Bullies do not love consequences for their actions. Angela and her cronies catch up to Eleven after Mike arrives in California. Our girl is just trying to enjoy a cute skate date with her boyfriend when Angela and her friends humiliate her in front of Mike and everyone else at the rink. You can only push someone so far, though, and Eleven gets even by smashing Angela’s face with a skate, breaking her nose and giving her a grade 2 concussion. 

That’s no schoolyard scrap. It’s assault, so the police show up and take Eleven into custody. There’s nothing Mike, Jonathan, or Will can do, and Joyce has already left to try and save Hopper. 

Instead, Dr. Owens comes to the rescue, springing Eleven from police custody before she can be put in a juvenile detention center. Owens has been visited by the military about the developing situation in Hawkins. The armed forces believe that Eleven is the cause of what’s wrong in Hawkins, while Owens thinks she’s the only way they can fight it. He wants to help Eleven regain her powers at an even higher level than before so that she can help her friends in Indiana defeat Vecna. It sounds pretty risky, but Eleven agrees to try his deal so that she can save her friends. 

Who is Vecna’s next victim?

Vecna’s energy is increasing with every new victim. After Fred, he targets Lucas’s teammate Patrick (Myles Truitt) ... and Max. She, Dustin, Steve, Robin, and Nancy (who’s brought in after they find her talking to the cops about Fred disappearing) realize that Chrissy was seeing the school guidance counselor before she died. Max and the boys break into the school to look through Ms. Kelley’s files while Nancy and Robin go to the library to research Victor Creel. 

As she goes through the files, Max discovers that Fred was also seeing Ms. Kelley. She realizes that she’s already experienced many of the same symptoms that Chrissy and Fred report to Ms. Kelley in their paperwork: nosebleeds, nightmares, and hearing a strange voice. Before Max can tell Dustin and Steve what she’s figured out, she has a vision of the same haunted clock Chrissy and Fred imagined before their gruesome deaths. That can only mean Vecna is coming for Max too — and soon.

Is anyone able to save her? 

Obviously, the mission to find out who Vecna is and how to defeat him goes into overdrive once the crew realizes Max is in danger. Lucas ditches the basketball bros and joins in to help Max. Nancy and Robin pose as psychology students to visit Pennhurst Mental Hospital and Victor Creel (Robert Englund). Victor’s family was killed “by a demon” in a similar fashion to Chrissy and Fred. The crew believes that the demon is Vecna, making Victor the only known survivor of the monster’s attacks. 

Preparing for the worst, Max writes letters to friends and family. She makes Steve take her to the cemetery so that she can say goodbye to Billy as well. She reads him a letter she wrote, revealing that she regrets not doing more to save him during the Battle at Starcourt. This shame is how Vecna gets to her. He puts her in a trance in the cemetery and makes her imagine Billy saying she wanted him to die. In the vision, Billy says he knows that Max secretly wishes she could follow him to death. But Max has the good sense to run away, forcing Vecna to chase her through the delusion. 

Watch Max Hear Her Favorite Song, ‘Running Up That Hill,’ in Stranger Things Season 4

In the meantime, Nancy and Robin talk to Victor and hear his story. The key to surviving a Vecna attack, it seems, is music. As soon as they realize this, they bolt out of Pennhurst to relay their theory to Dustin just as Max enters the deep throes of Vecna’s trance. And as Max tries to escape, she somehow runs straight into Vecna’s lair, where he ties her up in his courtyard of victims. 

In the real world, the boys grab Max’s Walkman and cue up her favorite song — “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush. Cranking up the volume, they put the headphones on Max. The song gives her a glimpse of the actual graveyard, which triggers happy memories of her friends. That gives Max enough strength to free herself from Vecna’s binds, stab him in the neck, and run for her friends. It breaks the trance, and she’s safe from Vecna, at least for now. 

Are there any adults who could help with this? 

Unfortunately, no. Hopper’s plan to break out of a Cold War Russian prison does not work out. He makes it as far as the church in the neighboring town where Enzo’s contact, Yuri (Nikola Djuricko), is supposed to pick him up. Yuri decides that turning in Hopper and Enzo is more profitable. To sweeten the pot, he also throws in Joyce and Murray, who flew to Alaska to deliver Hopper’s ransom money in person. 

Enzo and Hopper are thrown into a cell together and realize they’re on the waiting list to fight the Demogorgon the Russians have captured. Joyce and Murray manage to free themselves from Yuri’s bonds, but not before he has them on a plane flying to Russia. They fight back, and the plane lands in snowy woods. 

Joyce, Murray, and Yuri survive the crash, but now they have to make it into the prison, break Hopper out, and get home safe. And they have to accomplish all that before the Russian guards feed Hopper and his prisoner friends to the Demogorgon. Their work is definitely cut out for them. 

At least Jonathan, Will, and Mike are safe? 

Think again! The three boys are under the watch of Owens’s agents once Eleven agrees to work with him to get her powers back. But the military is also looking for Eleven. They show up at the Byers’ house and shoot the agents looking after the boys. The trio manages to escape only because Jonathan calls Argyle to pick them up in his Surfer Boy Pizza delivery van.

They make it out of the house with a singular agent, who dies shortly into their journey. He leaves them with a phone number to get in touch with Owens, though, so that they can find Eleven and warn the doctor that the military is closing in. But, it turns out, the phone number isn’t exactly a phone number. It’s a number to dial into a computer. So the quartet head to Utah to talk to Dustin’s genius girlfriend, Suzie (Gabriella Pizzolo), who you may recognize from her “Never Ending Story” fame in Season 3. 

Suzie uses the number to hack into Dr. Owens’s system and finds them a location in Nevada, which is thankfully just one state over. It’s back in the van they go, in hopes of breaking out Eleven and getting to their friends in Hawkins.

How are the kids in Hawkins at this point? 

Things are predictably worse in Hawkins. The basketball bro Patrick is killed just as he and his pal Jason find Eddie hiding in Reefer Rick’s boat shed. Jason is still convinced Eddie is behind the murders even though Eddie watched Patrick’s bones snap just like Jason did. 

Now that the police have three bodies on their hands, Eddie’s name is released to the public. Jason tells everyone at the police town hall that Eddie is a vessel for Satan, and they must band together to stop the evil. Sorry, Officer Powell (Rob Morgan), it doesn’t look like anyone will be abiding by the town curfew after this. 

Meanwhile, the members of the party still in Hawkins reunite with Eddie at Skull Rock. They deduce that Vecna’s lair is in the Upside Down version of the Creel House. They cannot get to him, let alone kill him, without a way to the Upside Down. Dustin realizes that his compass has gone wonky again and points out that the last time this happened, it led the crew to the gate at Hawkins National Lab. 

The older teenagers follow the compass onto Lover’s Lake where Patrick was killed. Steve volunteers to dive to the bottom and investigate, and indeed finds a miniature gate. He barely has time to tell Nancy, Robin, and Eddie about it back on their little boat before he’s dragged down through the gate into the Upside Down. He’s got good friends, though, because all of them jump in the water — and through the gate — to save Steve from the Upside Down and the Demobats attacking him. 

Max, Lucas, and Dustin give the older teens more time to investigate by drawing the cops who are tracking Eddie away from the lake. The cops eventually catch up with them, and they’re brought back to the Wheeler house, where their families are waiting. Erica corners Dustin and Lucas while Max is being questioned by the cops, and the three of them realize that Vecna is opening mini-gates to the Upside Down with each of his kills. 

The Upside Down quartet makes it to the shadow-dimension Wheeler house. Nancy hopes they can use the guns she has stored in her room to fight the Demobats and make their way home.

What year is the Upside Down frozen in?

The Upside Down is stuck on Nov. 6, 1983, so Nancy’s guns aren’t in her room yet. Without weapons, they cannot fight the Demobats and get back through the Lover’s Lake gate. However, they can make contact with Dustin and the other kids through the lights. 

Dustin shares that there’s a gate at each of Vecna’s murder sites. Nancy and the Upside Down crew grab bikes and head for the shadow version of Eddie’s trailer. Dustin, Lucas, Erica, and Max sneak out of the real Wheeler house and head to the real Munson trailer. Robin and Eddie make it through the Munson trailer gate to the kids, but Vecna taps into Nancy’s shame and regrets before she and Steve can make the transition, and there’s no Walkman in the Upside Down to save her.

Is Eleven any closer to getting her powers back? 

It is a process! Owens takes her to an underground bunker in Nevada to reunite with Dr. Brenner. Yep, he’s still alive in 1986, too, and no one asks him how he survived the Demogorgon attack from Season 1, which is rude. 

The more pressing matter is getting Eleven’s powers back. Brenner believes that Eleven’s powers short-circuited when she was attacked by the Mind Flayer in Season 3. She needs to remember the first time she truly owned her powers in order to reteach her brain how to use them. This means hourslong sessions in “Nina” — a new and improved version of the bath where Eleven is forced to sort through traumatizing, repressed memories of the Hawkins National Lab massacre we saw at the top of the season. 

Eleven is not responsible for those deaths. One of the lab workers (Jamie Campbell Bower) sees Eleven being bullied, and uses this to manipulate her. He reveals that he’s actually One, the first of the kids in Brenner’s experiments, and tells Eleven that all he wants to do is break both of them out of Brenner’s prison. Eleven removes the power dampener and tracker from One’s neck. He tells her to stay in hiding while he finds them a way out.

But when she hears screaming from down the hall, Eleven can’t stay put. She runs out and finds One immediately after he’s killed all of the kids in the rainbow room of the lab. Now he delivers his supervillain pitch, revealing that he, One, is actually Henry Creel. He killed his mother and sister and let his father take the blame, but Brenner abducted Henry after he fell into a coma. When Brenner couldn’t get Eleven’s powers under control, he created the entire Hawkins National Lab project, which led to Eleven and her other “siblings.” Now that Eleven’s helped One ditch the power dampener, he wants them to leave the lab and rule the world together.

Eleven is not interested in being part of the evil plan, so she and One have a psychic showdown in the rainbow room. Eleven taps into the memory of being born and seeing her mother for the first time. It gives her the strength to eviscerate One and push him into the Upside Down. Eleven opens the first gate, and One becomes the first resident of the shadow dimension. He becomes Vecna. 

When Eleven wakes up in Nina from the final revelatory session, she has her powers back. She’s ready to defend Hawkins and the rest of the world — from the monster she technically created. 

Does anyone else know that One is Henry and Vecna?

There’s some dual storytelling going on at this point in Stranger Things Season 4. While Eleven is remembering One’s supervillain speech from 1979, Vecna is lecturing Trance Nancy in 1986 about his past. He reveals to her that he’s Henry Creel and that he is responsible for the gruesome deaths of his family. 

Each kill he executes makes him stronger, and his “gift” is showing people their deepest shame. It’s accidentally killing a baby during World War II for Victor Creel. For Chrissy, it’s her eating disorder. It’s the hit-and-run accident for Fred, Billy’s sacrifice for Max, and, for Patrick, it’s hiding the abuse he suffers at home. Nancy’s deepest shame is ditching Barb (Shannon Purser) the night she disappeared. 

Vecna shows Nancy his vision for the future, which is basically the Upside Down invading Hawkins with monsters and bending the town to his will. He lets Nancy live so that she can share with Eleven what he showed her. 

How is Eleven getting back to Hawkins? 

It’s the boys to the rescue! Once they get the coordinates from Suzie, the Surfer Boy Pizza crew — Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle in his delivery van — heads to Nevada to break Eleven out of Owens’s lab.

They soon arrive at the coordinates Suzie gave them, but can’t find Eleven. Argyle spots military tire tracks in the desert sand, and they follow those to the underground lab where she’s being held. Owens wants to let her go to fight Henry/One/Vecna, especially after Eleven uses her powers to check on her friends and discovers that Max has already been attacked. Brenner wants to keep Eleven to hone her powers. Brenner has to sneak a sedated Eleven out of the lab while Lt. Col. Jack Sullivan (Sherman Augustus) and his men storm the facility. Soldiers shoot Brenner from a hovering helicopter, but Eleven crashes it just as the boys arrive in the pizza delivery van to rescue her.

Who did Will call the ‘heart of the group’?

On the way to Nevada, Mike gets nervous that Eleven isn’t going to want anything to do with him once she gets her powers back, but Will isn’t going to let his best friend be down on himself. 

He shows Mike the painting he made of him leading the party against a three-headed dragon and says that Mike is the heart of the entire group. Will says Eleven pushes Mike away because she’s afraid of losing him, but she’ll always need him. Mike eats it up, but in an increasingly emotional scene, it becomes obvious (at least to the audience) that Will is actually talking about his feelings for his best friend. Inside the van, Jonathan is the only one who notices his brother’s distress about the almost confession, but he doesn’t say anything. 

Meanwhile, Joyce and Hopper are still stuck in Russia? 

Yeah, getting out of the Soviet Union in 1986 is not easy. Murray and Joyce make it to the prison with Yuri just in time to watch Hopper and Enzo fight a Demogorgon. The Demogorgon is just one of about half a dozen the Russians are keeping for experimentation. They also have an entire room full of Mind Flayer particles. It’s a whole Upside Down creature zoo in this prison. 

Enzo, Joyce, Yuri, and Murray crawl through a storm drain to get back to Yuri’s van and then continue to another one of his hideouts. Yuri wants to fly them back to the US in a helicopter, but no one is falling for another one of his tricks. Instead, they settle for calling Owens in hopes of getting a military extraction. They need to reach the doctor — who is being held captive in the Nevada lab by Sullivan and his men — and then negotiate travel without the KGB realizing who and where they are. This is some superspy stuff. 

They eventually receive a call from Owens’s second-in-command (and Joyce and Hopper even find some time to finally kiss beforehand!), who relays that the kids in Hawkins are facing some real evil. Eleven escaped the lab and is with Jonathan, Will, and Mike (and Argyle, but they don’t know about him yet). They’re headed to Hawkins to help their friends, but there is no way for Hopper and Joyce to join them in time, even if a plane arrived that second. 

Joyce theorizes they don’t actually need to go back to the US to help. The Russians have active Mind Flayer particles in the prison. If they go back and destroy everything in the prison’s Upside Down zoo, they’ll weaken Vecna and give the kids a better chance of survival. 

So what is the party in Hawkins going to do with many of their most valuable players unable to reach them?

They’re going to try to kill Vecna while he’s in a trance of his own. Just like Eleven, Vecna becomes vulnerable whenever he attacks his victims. The group knows they have to strike now — before he can claim another victim and open more cracks between Hawkins and the Upside Down. This is their one shot to stop him before the worlds fully merge.

They stock up on weapons and defense materials at the military supply store a couple of towns over, where Jason and the basketball goons spot Nancy picking out a new shotgun and get suspicious. That’s going to be a major problem after the crew sets up in the Creel House. The plan is, Max will act as bait, luring Vecna back to her brain and into his own trance. After their previous encounter, Max believes she can avoid Vecna capturing her by hiding in happy memories. She’s going to “hide in the light.” Lucas will stay with her and play Kate Bush if it looks like Vecna is getting the upper hand. Meanwhile, Dustin and Eddie will stick with the Upside Down gang to distract the Demobats so Robin, Nancy, and Steve can get to Vecna unnoticed. 

It would be a great plan if one of the vigilantes from the police town hall didn’t spot Erica running from the Creel House to signal the older teens in the Upside Down that Max and Lucas are ready for Phase 1. The man calls Jason, and the cavalry suits up to avenge Chrissy. 

Can Eleven and the boys at least make it back to Hawkins in time?

No, they’re kids who can’t afford plane tickets, and there are no available train or bus tickets that will get them back to Hawkins fast enough. But they have a psychic and a Surfer Boy Pizza employee with them. Argyle gets the crew into a Nevada Surfer Boy Pizza location, which provides them with access to salt and a tub to create a DIY sensory-deprivation chamber. Eleven knows the Hawkins plan from checking on the party in the psychic dark space. She wants to use her powers to piggyback into Vecna’s mind through his and Max’s connection. She can fight him and protect Max simultaneously. 

This plan works. Eleven is able to infiltrate Max’s memories and fight Vecna inside of Max’s mind, but the monster is too strong. He takes both Eleven and Max to his mind and strings them up in his mind lair. Eleven tries to talk him out of killing Max by revealing that Brenner is dead, saying there’s still time for Vecna to change. Eleven wants to blame everything on Brenner, but then Vecna reveals his true plan and motive. 

The motive isn’t revenge? 

He’s not mad at Eleven for sending him to the Upside Down and turning him into Vecna. He’s grateful. A flashback shows Henry discovering the Mind Flayer particles in the Upside Down. He’s the one who shapes them into the giant spider monster. (See, everything is starting to make sense now.) He sends the Demogorgons to Hawkins and uses the Mind Flayer to push Eleven to open the gates for Vecna to return to the real world. When she closes them instead, he realizes he needs to develop his own method of opening the gates, and that’s why he’s been killing teenagers all season. 

Killing Max will give him a fourth gate, which will break the barrier between the Upside Down and the living world. When he kills Eleven, he’ll absorb her power and have the ability to open and close gates wherever he wants. He’s been controlling everything since Season 1, so he can remake the world according to his creepy desires, but he can only do it if he has Eleven’s powers. That’s why he built everything “for her.” 

What happened to the trio trying to kill him in the Upside Down?

Nancy, Robin, and Steve are making their way through the Upside Down Creel House, but Vecna knows they are there. The creepy vines grab Robin first and pin her to the wall, making Steve and Nancy stop to free her before they can get to flambéing Vecna in his trance state. They’re not quick enough, and eventually the vines get them, too. 

Can’t Lucas bring Max out of the trance by playing Kate Bush again?

He would, but Jason and the basketball bros show up before things get to that phase of the plan. Jason sees Max in the trance and immediately assumes that Lucas is trying to kill Max in the same way that Chrissy was murdered. He pulls a gun on Lucas and tells him to wake Max up. When Lucas refuses (because waking her up too soon will sentence Nancy, Robin, and Steve to certain death), Jason goes ballistic and starts beating up Lucas. He eventually gets the upper hand and knocks Jason out, but not before Vecna has broken Max’s arms and legs. 

So who saves Max?

Eleven does, with a bit of help from Mike. Vecna also has Eleven tied up in his mind while he goes to kill Max. Mike and the boys in the Surfer Boy Pizza kitchen realize Eleven is in distress, and Will tells Mike to remember that he’s the heart of the group. He tells Eleven that he loves her and will always love her, whether she has powers or not. He believes she’s a superhero and can do anything, so she needs to get back up and finish the job. 

This is exactly what Eleven needs to hear. The mind fight is back on! She frees herself from Vecna’s vines and pulls him off of Max. She pins him up on one of his pillars just like he did to her. Thisthrows Vecna off so that he loses control of the vines securing Nancy, Robin, and Steve. They continue to the attic of the Upside Down Creel House and throw Molotov cocktails at Vecna’s tranced body, which immediately snaps him out of the fight with Eleven. Steve and Robin hit him with more makeshift fireballs, and then Nancy goes into full Sarah Connor mode and fires off a few rounds from her sawed-off shotgun into Vecna’s burning body. He falls out of the attic to the ground outside the house, but when the trio checks on the body, he’s pulled a Michael Myers and disappeared. 

What are Dustin and Eddie doing while the trio is at Creel House?

Dustin and Eddie complete their phase of the plan by drawing the Demobats to Eddie’s trailer with “the most metal” guitar performance of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.” Eddie did not exaggerate throughout the entire season. The kid can shred, and the bats come flying. The duo takes shelter in the trailer, but eventually the bats find their way through the vents in the trailer’s ceiling. 

The next logical move is to escape back through the gate in the ceiling to the real world. Dustin goes first, but Eddie is tired of running. He wants to be a hero. So he ditches Dustin, grabs a bike, and draws the bats away. Dustin uses a chair to launch himself back into the ceiling gate, but without a mattress to fall onto on the other side, he injures his leg upon landing. That slows him down a lot in the chase for Eddie. By the time he makes it to his friend, Eddie is bleeding out from bat bites. The only reason they didn’t completely tear him to shreds is that Joyce and Hopper have managed to kill the Demogorgons in Russia, and the Creel House trio set Vecna on fire. This gives Eddie a few more minutes to live and say goodbye to Dustin. (An entire box of tissues is required to make it through this scene.)

How did Stranger Things Season 4 end? 

They are one of the ultimate duos for a reason. The Demogorgons previously seen in glass cages are already on the prowl when Joyce, Hopper, and Murray return to the prison. The original Demogorgon that Hopper fought earlier broke out of his cage, and when the Russian guards shot at it, they shattered the glass holding the other monsters, who all sprang to life. 

The freed Mind Flayer particles bury themselves into the Demogorgons, strengthening the hive mind. The new plan is to lure all the Demogorgons to the prison’s central fighting pit. Hopper is the bait. Joyce will close the gates from the control room, and Murray will take out the monsters with the flamethrower they brought from Yuri’s hideout. Hopper is caught by one of the Demogorgons before he can get to the fighting pit, so Joyce leaves the control room to save him. She electrocutes the Demogorgon with a cattle prod, and then she and Hopper run to the pit with the rest of the monsters on their tail. 

They lock themselves in a cell for protection, and Murray uses the flamethrower on the gathered monsters. He torches nearly all of them, but the largest Demogorgon survives the inferno. Luckily, Hopper has a giant sword in the pit with him. He squares off against the Demogorgon and slashes its limbs off while it’s simultaneously weakened by the Creel House trio attacking Vecna. That’s the power of the hive mind, baby! 

Hopper decapitates the Demogorgon just in time for Yuri and Enzo to arrive in Katinka (Yuri’s helicopter). Now they can return to Hawkins and help the kids. 

But is there a Hawkins to get back to? 

Just barely. Eleven frees Max from Vecna’s trance, but she’s very weak. She can’t see or feel anything when she wakes up, and then her heart stops. Eleven is still in the psychic space and refuses to accept that Max is dead, so she uses her connection to motivate Max to fight for her life. Max’s heart restarts, but she’s in a coma. 

Max’s heart stopping means that she is technically dead. Even if it was for less than a minute, it’s enough for Vecna to open a fourth gate and break down the barrier between worlds. Massive fissures spread from each of Vecna’s kill sites in the real world to the center of town. The biggest gate yet forms at the juncture of the fissures in front of the Hawkins Public Library. The attack on Vecna may have weakened him, but the plan he showed Nancy is coming to fruition. 

Is the party able to fully reunite if Hawkins is wrecked?

The Surfer Boy Pizza crew is the first to return to Hawkins. The national news story is that the town suffered a massive earthquake. Now there’s a mass exodus of residents and another horde of people taking shelter in the Hawkins High gym after Vecna’s fissures destroyed their homes. 

The first stop is the Wheeler house so that Mike can reunite with his family and Jonathan can see Nancy. Dustin tells them that Max is in the hospital, and the Surfer Boy Pizza crew heads there next. The situation is critical. Max is still in a coma, and doctors have no idea when, or if, she will wake up. Eleven tries to look into Max’s mind, but can only see the dark space. She can’t reach Max to try to bring her home. 

Meanwhile, Dustin, Steve, and Robin head to Hawkins High to help with the relief effort. Robin gets a chance to actually talk to her crush, Vickie, and it feels pretty safe to say that Steve is right about the spark between those two. 

Do Jonathan and Nancy still have a spark?

The long-distance lovers are very glad to see each other, but it’s clear that things have shifted between them. Nancy has unresolved feelings for Steve; she should probably tell her boyfriend about them. Jonathan decides to continue lying about his application to Emerson. They need to have some hard conversations, and soon, but they also have to prepare for the upcoming apocalyptic battle with Vecna. College and romance are at the bottom of the priority list. 

Is Eddie’s name cleared after his sacrifice?

The national news still blames Eddie for the murders before the earthquake, but his closest relative is allowed some closure. Dustin finds Eddie’s Uncle Wayne at the Hawkins High earthquake relief drive. He’s not able to tell Mr. Munson exactly what happened to Eddie, but he can, unfortunately, confirm that he’s dead. He tells Wayne that his nephew was a real hero, a person who died fighting for the town that hated him. (Again, tissues are recommended for this scene.) 

Do Joyce and Hopper ever return to Hawkins?

The Byers boys, Argyle, and Eleven are in need of a place to stay after they return. The Byers’s house has new owners, so they head to Hopper’s cabin. It’s still wrecked from the Mind Flayer attack in Season 3, but Nancy is determined to make it work for them. Additionally, they receive some reinforcements to assist with the renovation. 

Dr. Owens’s people come through and deliver Joyce and Hopper to their children. Hopper and Eleven have a tearful reunion — it’s worth considering cutting a bag of onions while watching this episode to help explain all the tears — and compare their new buzz cuts. Eleven never stopped believing that Hopper was still out there. Neither did Joyce, Hopper jokes. With Hopper and Joyce back in town, they can all face Vecna together.

So, Vecna is definitely still alive?

Oh, yeah. Will is the first one to feel his presence. Vecna is hurt — and hurting — but he’s not going to stop. Will’s uneasy feeling leads him, Eleven, Jonathan, Nancy, Mike, Hopper, and Joyce, to a large hill behind the cabin. From there, they can see ominous smoke gathering over Hawkins, with the Upside Down’s signature red lightning flashing through it. The flowers and grass on the ground begin to rot, and Upside Down dust floats through the entire town. The shadow dimension is officially in Hawkins, and a final battle is near. 

Need a refresher before returning to Hawkins one last time? Check out our Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3 recaps.

Stranger Things Seasons 1–4 are now streaming on Netflix. Stranger Things 5 will release this fall: four episodes on Nov. 26, three episodes
on Christmas, and the finale episode
on New Year’s Eve.

Watch the Stranger Things 5 Trailer