Millie Bobby Brown in 'Stranger Things' season 4.Image via Netflix
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Greer Riddell
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Greer Riddell (pronounced Gre-er Rid-dell) is a very tired Londoner who is fuelled by tea and rarely looks up from her laptop. Before joining Collider in March 2024, Greer spent over a decade making social, content and video for UK media brands and freelance clients including the BBC, Bauer Media and Glastonbury Festivals. Greer is first and foremost the Social Media Coordinator at Collider, looking after Social Video and TikTok but is an occasional Features Writer.
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To fully prepare for Stranger Things Season 5, it's essential to revisit where the show left off back in 2022. At the start of Season 4, eight months after the Battle of Starcourt, Hawkins is still reeling, and a new, terrifying threat has emerged. Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) are now navigating life at Hawkins High, while Joyce (Winona Ryder), Will (Noah Schnapp), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) have relocated to Lenora Hills, California and Hopper (David Harbour) remains presumed dead. Relationships are strained, grief is running deep, and dramatic reunions are on the horizon.
'Stranger Things' Season 4 Introduces the Ultimate Villain in Vecna
Henry Creel turning into Vecna in Stranger Things Season 4, Episode 9.Image via Netflix
It wouldn’t be Hawkins without supernatural chaos, and in 1986, events quickly spiral out of control. Hawkins High students begin dying in a gruesomely consistent pattern — levitating, limbs snapping, blood pouring from their eyes — sending Satanic panic through the town. The first victim, cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien), becomes the catalyst for widespread fear among parents and her boyfriend, Jason’s (Mason Dye) basketball team. High school tensions are already apparent at the start of Season 4, with Lucas also playing for the Hawkins Tigers while his friends remain “nerds” in their new club. Here we meet Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), a slightly older metalhead and “freak” who leads the Dungeons & Dragons Hellfire Club, with Mike and Dustin among its members. Eddie’s life becomes entangled with Chrissy’s when she, overwhelmed by her own demons, seeks him out to buy drugs at his trailer. Soon, she begins seeing hallucinations and falls into a trance. Eddie, unaware of any supernatural danger, tries to calm her down, but it’s too late. Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), the sinister new villain from the Upside Down, kills Chrissy in a horrific attack and Eddie goes into hiding as both the only witness and the town’s main suspect.
So who is Vecna, and where has he come from? After being sacked from the Hawkins Post in Season 3, Nancy (Natalia Dyer) is back on the case, now working at the school paper. While investigating the murder at the trailer park, she hears from Eddie’s uncle, Wayne Munson (Joel Stoffer), that a similar killing occurred in the 1950s, committed by the now-institutionalized Hawkins resident Victor Creel (Robert Englund). Later in the season, Vecna possesses Nancy and shows her, via flashback, that he is in fact Henry Creel, Victor’s son. Henry Creel is the first test subject at Hawkins Lab and wields psychic powers that allow him to prey upon those suffering from trauma and guilt. After massacring his family in their home, he is taken in by Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) and becomes 001.
Brenner continues to expand his group of subjects, including a young Eleven, before an attack occurs, leaving the staff and other children dead. Henry tries to manipulate Eleven into partnering with him, but she banishes him into the Upside Down. As he falls into this new dimension, lightning strikes transform him into Vecna: a monstrous figure with one clawed hand and tendrils running over his body. Vecna’s method of killing forces his victims to confront their deepest shame, trapping them in his mind-palace. Each kill opens a gate to the Upside Down, and he needs four to complete his plan to merge it with Hawkins. With Chrissy already deceased, Nancy’s journalist friend Fred (Logan Riley Bruner) second, and Lucas’ teammate Patrick (Myles Truitt) third, he needs one more body, and he has his eyes set on Max (Sadie Sink).
The group discover these mini-gates at each of Vecna’s murder sites, including underwater at Lover’s Lake where Steve (Joe Keery) is dragged under and attacked by Demobats. Robin (Maya Hawke), Nancy, and Eddie dive in behind him and navigate through the Upside Down to the Wheelers’ home to find weapons. They also discover, through Nancy’s diary, that the Upside Down is an exact copy of Hawkins frozen in time on the day Will disappeared — November 6, 1983. This raises the possibility that Vecna may have been orchestrating events across the previous three seasons, manipulating the Demogorgons and the Mind Flayer toward a larger purpose with Will at the center.
‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 Brings Deep Emotional Fallout To Hawkins
Supernatural threats aren’t the only challenges our heroes face heading into Season 5. Vecna’s sights are firmly set on Max, whose entire arc is shaped by the grief she refuses to confront. Since her stepbrother Billy’s (Dacre Montgomery) death at Starcourt Mall, she has withdrawn from Lucas and the rest of the group, isolating herself both physically and emotionally. Max begins experiencing the same ominous symptoms as the other victims — headaches, disturbing visions, and the chiming grandfather clock — and realizes that whatever killed Chrissy is coming for her next. She writes letters to the people she loves, culminating in a visit to Billy’s grave, where she finally voices the feelings she has buried for so long. It’s this moment of vulnerability that allows Vecna to inhabit Max's mind for the first time. After Nancy’s investigation reveals that Victor Creel only survived his son's attack because music disrupted his control, Steve, Lucas, and Dustin place Max’s headphones on her and blast Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill.” Inside Vecna’s void, Max races toward the music and toward the vision of her friends, narrowly breaking free from his grasp. But during the final battle, she removes her headphones to lure Vecna in, drawing him toward her and the rest of the gang hidden within the booby-trapped Creel house. With Eleven “piggybacking from a pizza-dough freezer” across the country, the pair fight Vecna as long as they can before finally becoming incapacitated. Max loses her vision, succumbs to her injuries, and ultimately falls into a coma — her fate still uncertain as Season 5 begins.
Meanwhile, Dustin and Eddie develop one of the season’s most unexpected and heartfelt friendships. Dustin doesn’t see Eddie as the troublemaker everyone does, but as a kindred spirit. He works with the rest of the Hawkins group to protect Eddie and clear his name, but their friendship reaches its tragic peak when Eddie distracts the Demobats in the Upside Down with a memorable Metallica solo. Refusing to run from danger again, he chooses instead to be a hero, sacrificing himself for the group, and dies in Dustin’s arms. This puts Dustin in a particularly vulnerable place heading into Season 5 — Vecna already preyed on Max when she felt similarly lost.
While chaos takes over Hawkins, Mike travels to Lenora Hills to visit Eleven and Will. The reunion is fraught; Mike and Eleven feel distant and awkward, both unsure how to express what they mean to each other after so many months apart. Will, caught in the middle, struggles with feelings he cannot yet voice. His relationship with Mike is filled with longing, a so-far unrequited crush, and the painful sense that he’s drifting away from the person he cares about most. He pretends that Eleven commissioned a painting of Mike as a knight slaying a dragon, a heart emblazoned on his chest, but in reality, he spent all summer creating it for his best friend. Eleven has her own issues in Stranger Things Season 4. Powerless, she is suffering in painfully human ways in California — missing her father Hopper, and struggling to live without her abilities. Vulnerable for the first time, she becomes an easy target at school where Angela (Elodie Grace Orkin) torments her relentlessly and Mike arrives just in time to witness the worst of it at Rink-O-Mania. Cornered and overwhelmed, Eleven “schmacks” Angela in the face with a skate — an act that leads to her arrest and later reunion with Dr. Sam Owens (Paul Reiser) and her “Papa.”
Amid all this, Jonathan and Nancy’s long-distance relationship is quietly beginning to crumble. In Lenora, Jonathan confides in his new friend—stoner and Surfer Boy Pizza employee Argyle (Eduardo Franco)—that he’s been avoiding conversations about college because he’s afraid of leaving his family. In Hawkins, Nancy’s emotional distance creates space for something she’s been trying not to confront: her unresolved feelings for Steve. Steve’s lingering affection is increasingly hard to ignore, and Nancy finds herself noticing the small things about him again—his loyalty, his growth, and his body when jumping into Lover’s Lake!
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Posts By Greer Riddell Nov 17, 2025Hopper Is Fighting The Upside Down From Russia In ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4
So where have the adults been in all of this? Joyce, now a telemarketer selling encyclopedias in California, receives a mysterious china doll in the mail. She calls on the conspiracy-loving Murray (Brett Gelman), who helps her break it, and they discover a hidden message claiming Hopper is still alive. Murray assists Joyce in decoding the secret and, without telling the kids, they board a plane to Alaska, pretending she is attending a work conference. Flashbacks reveal that Hopper in fact survived the explosion at Starcourt Mall, only to be captured by Soviet soldiers and sent to a prison camp in Kamchatka. Joyce and Murray must deliver a $40,000 ransom to prison guard Enzo (Tom Wlaschiha) but are betrayed by their pilot Yuri (Nikola Đuričko) before they arrive. Trapped mid-flight to Russia, Joyce and Murray fight back, crash-land in the wilderness, and are taken to Hopper’s prison. The trio then confront a Demogorgon, discovering that the Soviets have amassed numerous Upside Down specimens and Mind Flayer particles. Defeating the hive-mind in Russia helps the kids in Hawkins take down Vecna in Season 4’s finale, while Hopper and Joyce finally share a kiss, setting up their relationship for Season 5.
Season 4 continues to highlight the broader conflict with the military and their hunt for Eleven. After being arrested for attacking Angela, she is taken by Dr. Owens to the Nina Project in Nevada. There, he and Dr. Brenner have developed a specialized sensory deprivation tank to help her access memories from Hawkins Lab and potentially restore her powers. Eleven finally confronts her trauma and Dr. Brenner, accusing him of manipulating her, and she gradually regains her powers. The Nina Project sessions are pivotal, both for restoring her abilities and for helping her fully remember Vecna’s origin and her own role in banishing him to the Upside Down, laying the groundwork for the climactic confrontation at the Creel House and Hawkins’ final battle in Season 5.
Stranger Things
Like TV-14 Drama Mystery Horror Science Fiction Release Date 2016 - 2025-00-00 Network Netflix Showrunner Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer Directors Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer, Andrew Stanton, Frank Darabont, Nimród Antal, Uta Briesewitz Writers Kate Trefry, Jessie Nickson-Lopez, Jessica Mecklenburg, Alison Tatlock
7 Images
Eleven looking into an opening of the Upside Down with pink light in Stranger Things season 1
Jim Hopper (David Harbour) grabbing Jonathan's (Charlie Heaton) shoulders in Stranger Things season 1©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection
Eleven with cables all over her head in Stranger Things season 4
Vecna looking towards Will in the trailer for Stranger Things season 5 (2025)
Max and Eleven in Stranger ThingsNetflix
Stranger Things season 2, episode 2 "Trick or Treat, Freak".MovieStillsDB
The Upside Down in Stranger Things season 5Courtesy of Netflix Close
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