Things are about to get even stranger. Across five series and nine years, wildly popular horror hit Stranger Things has become one of Netflix’s flagship shows. What began as a nostalgic Stephen King and Steven Spielberg homage has grown into an all-action sci-fi epic. And now, feverishly anticipated by fans, one last adventure looms.
Created by the Duffer Brothers, the cult phenomenon combines coming-of-age drama with conspiracy thriller to addictive effect, creating a steady stream of viral moments. It made Winona Ryder, Kate Bush and Dungeons & Dragons cool again. Its stratospheric success spawned an entire franchise, with an animated spin-off series, a stage play prequel, books, comics, computer games, board games and merchandise.
Stranger Things has also propelled a generation of future stars into the global spotlight, notably Millie Bobby Brown – not to mention her on-screen father David Harbour, the now-infamous ex of singer Lily Allen and subject of her recent break-up album. Awkward.
Ahead of the fifth and final season, here’s your handy reminder of the story so far. Buckle up and beware the Demogorgon, we’re venturing into the Upside Down…
Season One (2016): Welcome to the Upside Down
The debut series whisked us back to 1983 in the fictional small town of Hawkins, Indiana, where a secret CIA-sanctioned laboratory was experimenting with the supernatural, using human test subjects. Helped by a young girl with psychokinetic abilities known as “Eleven”, they inadvertently created a gateway to a hostile alternate dimension known as the Upside Down.
When local schoolboy Will Byers was abducted by a creature from the Upside Down, his mother Joyce, local police chief Jim Hopper, and Will’s friends – Mike, Lucas and Dustin – launched a frantic search. Eleven escaped from the facility, befriended the boy and assisted them in their efforts to find Will. Also joining the hunt were Will’s older brother Jonathan, Mike’s older sister Nancy – whose best friend Barb had been similarly snatched – and her boyfriend Steve Harrington.
With lab boss Dr Martin Brenner and government agents closing in, Eleven telepathically entered the Upside Down, where she found Barb dead and Will alive, hiding from a demon that the gang call the Demogorgon. Realising the portal was in the lab’s basement, Hopper and Joyce ventured into the Upside Down and found Will unconscious with a tendril down his throat. They revived and rescued him. The Demogorgon cornered the kids, but Eleven disintegrated it, causing them both to disappear.
One month later, Will seemed to have recovered from his ordeal. But then he coughed up a slug-like creature and had a vision of the Upside Down, but hid this from his family.
Season Two (2017): The Mind Flayer and its devil dogs
In 1984, the town was again under threat. Will had a premonition of the fall of Hawkins, caused by an enormous, tentacled shadow creature dubbed “The Mind Flayer”. Meanwhile, Hopper was secretly living in a woodland cabin with Eleven, whom he’d found hiding from government agents after escaping from the Upside Down. She contacted her birth mother and learned there were other test subjects like her, all assigned numbers as names.
As the town was terrorised by “Demodogs”, The Mind Flayer latched onto Will and possessed him. Dustin found a slug-like creature in his trash and kept it as a pet, until it ate his cat and he realised in horror that it was an infant Demogorgon. Hopper found Upside Down-like tunnels beneath the town’s pumpkin fields. When the tunnels were set ablaze, Will collapsed and began convulsing. They realised he was part of the hive mind shared by creatures from the Upside Down.
Conspiracy theorist Murray Bauman helped Nancy and Jonathan disseminate news of a cover-up to prevent foreign governments from learning about the portal to the Upside Down. Along with Dustin’s escaped pet, a pack of Demodogs attacked the lab, killing the scientists. Joined by Max, a new girl at school, the kids managed to close the gateway, while the adults successfully drove the Mind Flayer out of Will.
The season ended with Hopper legally adopting Eleven. As she and Mike had their first kiss at the school’s Snow Ball, the Mind Flayer was seen watching them from the Upside Down.
Season Three (2019): Mayhem at the mall
It was 1985 and unbeknown to Hawkins residents, a secret Soviet base beneath the popular new Starcourt Mall was seeking to reopen the gateway to the Upside Down. After picking up radio transmissions in Russian, Dustin, Steve, his new friend Robin and Lucas’s younger sister Erica investigated Soviet infiltration of the town, while Nancy and Jonathan looked into a plague of rabid rats.
Magnetic disruptions led Joyce to suspect the Upside Down had returned, and she enlisted Hopper to investigate. Meanwhile, Will sensed that the Mind Flayer was still alive. It had taken possession of Max’s violent older stepbrother Billy, using mind control to make him do its bidding. It became a physical creature composed of flesh from the rats and was brainwashing townsfolk to create an army.
Eleven used her powers and found the Mind Flayer at a local mill, now absorbing members of its human army to become ever larger. They realised it was coming for Eleven, since she’d closed the gateway and was its only threat. In a spectacular showdown at the mall, the kids battled the monster with fireworks. It wounded Eleven, who lost her powers, while Billy sacrificed himself to save Max. Joyce triggered an explosion to close the gateway again – seeming to accidentally kill Hopper in the blast.
Three months later, the deaths were covered up and Starcourt Mall was demolished. At a remote Russian gulag, guards were instructed to feed a prisoner – but “not the American” – to a captured Demogorgon.
Season Four (2022): Enter the villainous Vecna
In 1986, the Byers family and Eleven had moved to California for a fresh start, but Eleven was struggling with the loss of her abilities. Back in Hawkins, a powerful humanoid entity from the Upside Down dubbed “Vecna” began killing teenagers, in the process opening new portals between the two worlds. Local misfit Eddie became prime suspect for the murders, so the kids tried to clear his name. Struggling with grief for Billy, troubled teen Max was possessed by Vecna but rescued in the nick of time by her friends.
Eleven went to a secret facility in the Nevada desert, where she was reunited with Dr Brenner. With the aid of an isolation tank, she confronted her past in a bid to regain her powers. She relived memories of bonding with a lab orderly, who warned her not to trust Brenner. Meanwhile, Joyce and Murray flew to Russia to break Hopper out of the gulag. As well as the Demogorgon, the Soviets were studying other creatures from the Upside Down, including a fragment of the Mind Flayer.
The kids linked Vecna to infamous Hawkins resident Victor Creel, who allegedly murdered his family in the 1950s. Searching for the fugitive Eddie, Steve was dragged into the Upside Down and attacked by bat-like creatures. Nancy followed him and discovered that Vecna was in fact Victor’s son, Henry Creel, who killed his mother and sister with psychokinetic powers before being placed in Brenner’s care. Henry was named subject 001, later becoming the orderly whom Eleven befriended. He committed mass murder in the lab, but Eleven overpowered him and inadvertently banished him to the Upside Down, where he became Vecna.
Eleven escaped, and Brenner was shot dead. The reunited gang enacted a plan to fight Vecna in both worlds and Eddie sacrificed himself to draw away the “Demobats”. Vecna revealed that he not only controlled the Upside Down, but he created the Mind Flayer. Mike professed his love to Eleven, giving her the strength to break Vecna’s hold over Max and seemingly kill him. Max died in the process, but Eleven used her powers to revive her. Max was left in a deep coma. However, due to her brief death, Vecna’s rifts opened and destruction tore through the town, which was covered up as an earthquake. Will sensed that Vecna was still alive and the Upside Down began invading Hawkins.
Season Five (2025): Now for the final showdown
The new series is set in autumn 1987. The gang try to find and kill Vecna. Their mission is complicated by the military putting the town under quarantine and hunting down Eleven. Near the anniversary of Will’s initial disappearance, they unite for the final battle for Hawkins, facing a foe more deadly than ever before. Cue 1980s synth music…
When does Stranger Things come out?
Stranger Things season five, part one streams on Netflix from Wednesday November 26. The remaining episodes follow on December 25 and 31.