List of Stranger Things characters
The first season, set in November 1983, focuses on the investigation into the disappearance of a young boy named Will Byers while supernatural events are occurring around the town, including the appearance of a girl with telekinetic abilities who helps Will's friends in their search.
The second season adds new characters Max Mayfield, her violent stepbrother Billy Hargrove, Erica Sinclair, Lucas’ sassy little sister, and Joyce's new love interest Bob Newby.
[2] The third season (Stranger Things 3) is set in the summer of 1985 and shows the young friends maturing into teenagers and navigating new life challenges, all while a new threat looms over the town.
The series features an ensemble cast including Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Cara Buono and Matthew Modine.
Noah Schnapp and Joe Keery had recurring roles in the first season before being promoted to the main cast for the second, with Sadie Sink, Dacre Montgomery, Sean Astin, and Paul Reiser also joining.
Though Lucas is also a member, he has committed himself to the Hawkins HS basketball team, putting him at odds with Mike and Dustin, who urge him to side with them—the "nerds and freaks".
After Harmon dies and leaves them with a phone number to reach Owens and Eleven, Mike enlists the help of Dustin's girlfriend Suzie, who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Together, they venture to a Surfer Boy Pizza location in Nevada to build Eleven a sensory deprivation tank for her to travel into Max's mind to protect her from Vecna.
Born to Terry Ives, Eleven was abducted by Dr. Martin Brenner at birth and taken to Hawkins National Laboratories to hone her telekinetic abilities alongside other gifted children.
After being bitten by the Mind Flayer, Eleven loses her powers, as well as Hopper at the end of the season and moves with the Byers family to Lenora Hills, California.
In spring 1986, Eleven has attended Lenora Hills High School alongside Will, and here she experiences incessant, daily bullying by classmate Angela and her friends.
Prior to season three, Dustin spends a month at a science camp and, thanks to Steve's advice, is able to get a girlfriend, Suzie, whom he claims is a genius and is "hotter than Phoebe Cates".
She and Jonathan are eventually fired for pursuing a story against their editor's wishes, but Nancy continues to investigate the case, which leads her to multiple encounters with the Flayed being controlled by the Mind Flayer from the Upside Down through Billy.
Maxine "Max" Mayfield is Susan Hargrove's biological daughter, Billy's younger stepsister, an avid skateboarder, and the tomboy of the group who catches the attention of Lucas when it becomes known that she has the highest score in Dig Dug.
After recalling Chrissy attending the counselor's office before her death, Max, Dustin, and Steve break into the school and find her file, as well as Fred Benson's, Vecna's second victim.
He teams up with Robin, Nancy, Dustin, Max, and Lucas for much of the season, investigating the Creel house to search for and learn about Vecna, and also locating Eddie.
After they discover a new gate to the Upside Down in a lake, Steve dives down to investigate and is pulled through, but eventually makes it back with Nancy, Robin, and Eddie after they follow him in.
Owens recruits Eleven to participate in the program after a string of murders in Hawkins; she initially revolted after learning of Brenner's involvement, but the brief resurgence of her powers during an escape attempt convinces her to stay.
In season four, she has embraced her nerdy side and joins the Hawkins High School's Hellfire Club in her brother's place after demonstrating proficient knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons.
In season three, he helps Joyce and Hopper infiltrate the secret underground base in Starcourt Mall, where the Soviets had been building a machine capable of opening a gate to the Upside Down.
He is a dramatic, bearded and balding man who loves vodka and often drinks it to think; he also can predict good couples, for example, Nancy and Jonathan, and Joyce and Hopper.
He preys on individuals reeling from past traumas, and his method of killing involves inducing grandfather clocks and nightmarish visions before telekinetically breaking their bones and imploding their eyes into their skulls.
During their travels, they seek help from Dustin's long-distance girlfriend Suzie in Salt Lake City, and Argyle falls for the hacker's older sister, Eden.
Argyle is pivotal in the California Crew's efforts to aid the Hawkins Gang's plot to defeat Vecna, helping create a sensory deprivation tank for Eleven at a Surfer Boy Pizza location in Nevada.
While the others managed to close the gate to sever the Mind Flayer's foothold, its ethereal fragment took refuge at Brimborn Steel Works after being "exorcised" from Will.
During the events of season three, a new Gate opened by Russians allowed the Mind Flayer to have its isolated fragment create an organic vessel by infecting and possessing living beings and absorbing their entire biomass.
In the fourth season, the Mind Flayer is revealed to have been shaped and controlled by Henry Creel (Vecna), who discovered the entity as a formless mass in the Upside Down (after being sent there by Eleven) and morphed it into its spider-like appearance, owing to his childhood fascination with Latrodectus black widows.
Hopper uses a flaming spear to hold back the creature while it ravages most of the other prisoners, while Joyce and Murray help him escape alongside Dmitri Antonov, a guard he bribed and befriended.
The variant was introduced in the fourth season when Steve Harrington went through Watergate, the gate at the bottom of Lover's Lake which opened up when Patrick McKinney was killed by Vecna.
The isolated fragment later began possessing rats and eventually humans during the events of season three, having most of its hosts ingest toxic chemicals so they could gradually be melted down into materials for the Mind Flayer to create a proxy body to act through in its attempt to kill Eleven.
