“Stranger Things” Season 4 Recap: Getting Upside Down From Eddie’s Guitar Solo to Vecna’s Revenge

We took you through the first three seasons of all the supernatural doings in Hawkins, Indiana. It’s not often that a show surges to its peak level of popularity in the fourth season, but that’s precisely what happened with the Duffer Brothers’ juggernaut series. Stranger Things season 4 broke records and the internet. In June 2022, The Credits wrote that season 4 “smashed the record for the best premiere for an English-language series, with viewers notching 286.79 million hours of viewing time from May 25 to 27.” The cultural popularity of season 4 produced massive social media memes and spiked viewership in the earlier seasons. Now that the final season is finally being released three years later, this overview of season 4 will help to reactivate the Hawkins side of your brain. But if you haven’t read the recap of seasons 1-3, make sure to do that first.  

Season 4 opens with a flashback to 1979 at Hawkins Lab, where children like Eleven were experimented on. Dr. Brenner is shown getting ready for work and going into the lab when he suddenly wakes with a nasty gash to the forehead. He discovers the “Rainbow Room” is a bloody scene with all the children dead except for Eleven, who has a blood-stained medical gown.  

Then we jump to 1986 in Lenora Hills, California. Will, Johnathan, and Eleven are at a new school, and Joyce has a new job. Eleven is not fitting in well and is frequently picked on, but she keeps this to herself and writes letters to Mike.  

Jonathan Byers’ new friend in California is Argyle (Eduardo Franco), a senior at the new high school and a pizza delivery guy, driving the Surfer Boy Pizza Van on adventures with this small crew. The laid-back van vibe fits Argyle, who has the stoner personality that was all the rage in 1980s California.  

Everyone else is still in Hawkins. Steve graduated but is still in town. Robin (Maya Hawke), Nancy, and Jonathan are seniors, and the core kids, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Max, are freshmen.  

Lucas joins the basketball team and assimilates with the jock group. The main leader of this group is team captain Jason (Mason Dye), who is dating a cheerleader, Chrissy (Grace Van Dien). Lucas chooses to hang out with his new friends on the team instead of Dustin and Mike’s Hellfire Club, which hosts Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. This creates a rift in the boys’ friendship, signaling that they’re growing up and growing out of old routines — some more than others. The Hellfire Club leader is Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), a whirlwind character who becomes a season fan favorite. The D&D session now consists of Mike, Dustin, Erica, and Eddie, and they are introduced to a villain named Vecna.  

The case that starts off this season of mysteries is Chrissy’s death. Eddie is shown selling Chrissy drugs, and Chrissy is experiencing hallucinations related to the Upside Down. Max sees Eddie meeting Chrissy in his trailer before Chrissy became possessed and violently died. This produced the “Chrissy, wake up!” meme that became a widely shared audio from the season.  

Nancy and her new friend Fred (Logan Riley Bruner) decide to investigate. While investigating, Fred experiences visions of the same clock tower that Chrissy hallucinated. Max explains to Dustin that she saw Eddie at Chrissy’s murder site, so she is skeptical of Eddie’s involvement. Then, Dustin and Max recruit Steve and Robin in hopes of finding Eddie. Jason, Chrissy’s boyfriend, goes on a revenge mission of his own and wants to get to the bottom of the mystery. Jason and the basketball team plan their revenge against Eddie, which Lucas gets caught up in. 

Meanwhile, while both groups search for Eddie, the military begins their own investigation. Eventually, Lucas warns his original friends about Jason’s aggressive plans for Eddie and his track record thus far of hurting Eddie’s friends to get information. 

Robin finds a way to locate Eddie, and Nancy interviews Eddie’s uncle, who suggests looking into another family, the Creels. They eventually find Eddie in an old boat shed, but Fred is taken over and possessed by a creature that the kids quickly recognize from D&D: Vecna. Vecna resides in the attic of a house in the Upside Down that is surrounded by Demo Bats.  

Robin and Nancy go on a historical deep dive into the Creel family and suspicious deaths similar to Chrissy and Fred. Victor Creel is locked away in an asylum, accused of being responsible for the paranormal activities that killed his wife and daughter. Robin and Nancy go to visit Victor, and he tells them that he heard a familiar song during his hallucinations, which managed to bring him back to reality, but not his wife and daughter.  

In California, Mike comes to visit Eleven, and there is an odd tension between Mike and Will. Dishonesty between Eleven and Mike about her unfortunate situation with mean girls at school is putting Will in a difficult position, and the viewers see the bond between the three weakening. While roller skating, Angela (Elodie Grace Orkin), Eleven’s main bully, humiliates Eleven in front of Mike, revealing that her adjustment to the new high school has been anything but pleasant. Eleven gets overwhelmed and attacks Angela. This results in the police arriving at the Byers’ house later to take Eleven away.

Suddenly, the police transport is interrupted by Dr. Owens, who takes Eleven himself. Dr. Owens fills Eleven in on what is happening in Hawkins and emphasizes the importance of getting her powers back to fight Vecna. They take her to a remote place underground, where Dr. Brenner is leading an initiative called the “Nina Project” to get her powers back. Viewers then see a lot of flashbacks from Eleven’s time growing up with “Papa” in the lab and when she meets an orderly who will eventually be revealed as Henry (played by Raphael Luce as a young Henry Creel, Jamie Brower Campbell later on).

Henry helps Eleven escape the facility and reveals his powers and his identity as “001” to her. We see that Eleven begins to put the pieces together: that Henry was the cause of the massacre in the Rainbow Room that haunts her. Still in her memory, we see Eleven and Henry fight, but Eleven overcomes Henry, banishing him to the Upside Down, revealing that Vecna is Henry. Then, the military visits Dr. Owen to try to track down Eleven, as they believe she is the cause of these unusual and inhumane deaths. 

Will, Jonathan, and Mike are put in a protection program in their home with two security guards. That doesn’t last long, as people come after them and kill one of the guards while the kids get away with the other guard. They set out with Argyle in his “Surfer Boy” van to return to Hawkins and help the group. We see a lot of unaddressed emotions from Will when sitting next to Mike in the van. 

They meet up with Eleven just as Dr. Brenner is escaping with her from the facility, which is being raided by the military. Dr. Brenner is shot down, but Eleven’s powers take down the military forces. 

Back in Hawkins, Max is experiencing hallucinations, and Lucas joins his original crew after feeling torn between them and his new friendship with the basketball team. Steve and Dustin take Max to visit Billy’s grave in the cemetery, but Max gets possessed by Vecna and is trapped in a nightmare that Vecna created. Steve discovers her in this possessed state in a cemetery, and Lucas and Dustin rush over to help her. Nancy and Robin suggest that familiar music could help pull her out of being possessed. Max’s favorite song, “Running up that Hill (A Deal With God)” by Kate Bush, pushes Max to run from Venca and break free because it reminds her of good memories.  

The group locates the Creel house, where flickering lights and suspicious paranormal activity suggest Vecna’s presence. Meanwhile, Vecna feeds on one of the basketball players, opening up another gateway to the Upside Down underwater, just like the gateways opened at previous victims’ sites. Steve gets pulled into this portal of the Upside Down, and Nancy and Jonathan follows, fighting off the Demo Bats. The crew helps everyone escape, except Nancy, who gets stuck in Vecna’s memories, discovering that Vecna was the Creel son.  

The crew rescues Nancy from the Upside Down and focuses on their mission to defeat Vecna. The group is dividing and conquering as part of their master plan to take down Vecna. Eddie plays a wicked guitar solo in the Upside Down to distract the Demo Bats and ultimately sacrifices himself. Eleven travels through Max’s memories, and Erica, Lucas, and Max go to the Creel house. 

Vecna’s curse takes over Max after Lucas and Max agree to go on a date once this is all over. Nancy, Steve, and Robin join the Creel house, but get trapped by the vines of the Upside Down in the house, and Lucas and Erica must fend off Jason, who finds them. 

In a dramatic ending, the group seems to be losing its momentum, but Eleven digs deep to defeat Vecna with her powers. Max is badly hurt by Vecna and starts a long recovery in the hospital. Eddie’s death is devastating to Dustin, but perhaps even more devastating to viewers. A large fandom of Eddie stans quickly emerged from this season. Eddie Munson became a huge trending topic on social media, with fans making songs about him and “Hellfire Club” t-shirts becoming a best-selling item on Netflix Shop and other retail sites.  

Although Vecna is defeated, the Upside Down is opening, creating a rift across all of Hawkins.

And what about good old Jim Hopper? Joyce goes on her own mission to save him after receiving Russian dolls and a note in the mail that read, “Hopper is alive.” It is revealed to the viewers that Hopper survived the explosion in the Russian base but is being tortured by the Russians in a Soviet prison camp in Russia. With Murray coming to town to help Joyce, they call the number on the written note, and prison guard Enzo answers, demanding ransom money for Hopper’s release. Murray and Joyce fly to Russia to try to break Hopper out, while he also plans his own escape. Yuri (Nikola Djuricko), a Russian character they encounter, agrees to search for Hopper and help release him. At first, Yuri is a conman who betrays Murray and Joyce, but he later helps the pair. Ultimately, Hopper has to fight the Demogorgon and, with the help of Murray and Yuri, reunites with Joyce. After they return home, Hopper gets reunited with Eleven.  

Other details include Eleven’s real name, which is revealed to be Jane, and she becomes officially Jane Hopper when Jim Hopper adopts her. Additionally, season 4 introduces Vickie (Abigail Cowen), a member of the Hawkins High marching band who’s unaware of the extent of the strange things happening in Hawkins. After the rift opens through the town at the end of the season, she volunteers to help make sandwiches for the impacted families and shares a sweet moment with Robin, who is crushing on Vickie despite her being shown with a boyfriend.  

The dangers of the Upside Down challenge go beyond the group’s physical strength and investigative skills to their friendships and relationships. One fan theory is that Will has deeper feelings for Mike than he is letting on. Fans also theorize about the Upside Down, speculating that it may have given Will powers, or that it is deeply connected to Eleven’s powers and the day she opened the first gate. 

Season 5 is set in fall 1987 with an 18-month jump from the end of season 4. Volume 1 will be released on November 26, Volume 2 on December 25, and The Finale on December 31 on Netflix and in theaters.  

Featured image: STRANGER THINGS. (L to R) Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven and Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler in STRANGER THINGS. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022