Sadie Sink | Stranger Things | Season 4

 

"Chapter One: The Hellfire Club"

In a flashback to 1979, Dr. Brenner is experimenting on children with supernatural abilities until a mysterious incident kills all the children except Eleven. In 1986, eight months after the events at Starcourt Mall, Joyce, Will, Jonathan, and Eleven have moved to California, where Eleven struggles with the loss of her powers and is routinely bullied by other students. Joyce receives a porcelain doll in the mail, seemingly from Russia, and finds a hidden note stating that Jim Hopper is alive. In Hawkins, Mike and Dustin have joined their high school's "Hellfire Club," a Dungeons & Dragons club run by the iconoclastic Eddie Munson. As a result, they miss seeing Lucas win the basketball team's championship. Max, who broke up with Lucas, struggles to grieve Billy's death. Chrissy Cunningham, a student on the cheerleading squad, is tormented by visions of her abusive mother and a ticking grandfather clock. While buying drugs from Eddie, Chrissy is possessed and killed by a sentient humanoid creature from her visions.

"Chapter Two: Vecna's Curse"

Hopper survived the explosion beneath the Starcourt Mall, but was captured by Soviet soldiers and sent to a prison camp in Kamchatka. Joyce and Murray call the phone number listed on the note they sent him and speak to Dmitri Antonov, a prison guard Hopper has bribed. Antonov asks them to deliver a $40,000 ransom to his contact in Alaska. Mike flies to California to visit Eleven, where he and Will witness her classmate Angela bullying her; Eleven eventually retaliates by hitting Angela in the face with a skate. Max tells Dustin that she saw Eddie fleeing the night Chrissy died. Along with Robin and Steve, they track down the traumatized Eddie and explain the Upside Down to him. Eddie and Dustin dub the entity that killed Chrissy "Vecna." Nancy and her fellow journalist Fred investigate Chrissy's death; Eddie's uncle Wayne tells Nancy he believes the killer is Victor Creel, a Hawkins resident who was institutionalized after allegedly murdering his family in the 1950s. Fred is lured to the woods by visions of a student he accidentally killed before Vecna murders him.

"Chapter Three: The Monster and the Superhero"

Sam Owens is visited by U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Jack Sullivan, who believes Eleven is responsible for Chrissy's death. Eleven is arrested for assaulting Angela, but Owens takes her away, explaining that Hawkins is in grave danger and that he has been working on a program to help Eleven regain her powers. Eleven agrees to go with him. Joyce and Murray fly to Alaska to deliver Hopper's ransom. Hopper bribes a fellow inmate to break his shackles with a sledgehammer. Nancy and Robin go to the library to research Victor Creel and discover that Creel believes his family's murders were committed by a demon, which they believe to be Vecna. Chrissy's boyfriend Jason leads the basketball team to hunt for Eddie, whom he believes is Chrissy's murderer, but Lucas abandons them when Jason becomes violent. Max remembers that Chrissy had visited the school counselor before being killed by Vecna. She steals Chrissy and Fred's files from the counselor's office and discovers they suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms similar to her own. Max hears Vecna call her by name and hallucinates a grandfather clock.

"Chapter Four: Dear Billy"

Joyce and Murray deliver the ransom payment to Antonov's contact, Yuri, but he drugs them and plans to hand them (and Hopper and Antonov) over to the Russians for a larger profit. Hopper escapes from the prison camp but is soon recaptured. Jonathan, Mike, and Will prepare to escape from Wallace and Harmon, agents sent by Owens to watch them, but armed soldiers attack the house. They escape with the help of Jonathan's friend Argyle, bringing the wounded Harmon with them. Nancy and Robin interview the imprisoned Victor Creel, who recounts how his family was tormented and killed by supernatural forces while he was being arrested for their murders. Max, fearing that Vecna is about to kill her, writes letters to her friends and family and goes to the cemetery to read Billy's letter at his gravestone. She is soon possessed by Vecna and finds herself at an altar within her mind. Steve, Dustin, and Lucas learn from Nancy and Robin that playing music can break Vecna's spell, and they put Max's favorite song, "Running Up That Hill," on a cassette tape. This opens a portal through which Max narrowly escapes Vecna's control.

"Chapter Five: The Nina Project"

Owens takes Eleven to an abandoned ICBM silo in Nevada, where he and Dr. Brenner have developed a specialized isolation tank (called "NINA") that will allow Eleven to access memories of her time with other kids at Hawkins Lab. After her first time in the tank, Eleven tries to escape and briefly regains her powers in the process, convincing her to continue the experiment. In California, before dying, Agent Harmon gives the kids a pen containing a phone number for Project NINA that connects to a modem; Mike decides to enlist the help of Dustin's girlfriend, Suzie, in Salt Lake City. After Yuri's betrayal, Hopper is imprisoned along with Antonov. While flying to Russia, Joyce and Murray subdue Yuri and crash in the desert. Max, Lucas, Steve, and Dustin reunite with Nancy and Robin and investigate the Creel house. Inside, they encounter flickering lights, which they attribute to Vecna's movements in the Upside Down. Jason and his teammates locate Eddie attempting to escape in a boat on Lover's Lake; Jason and Patrick swim after him. In the water, Vecna kills Patrick in front of Jason and Eddie.

"Chapter Six: The Dive"

Eleven relives memories of befriending a lab nurse, who warns her not to trust Brenner. She also recalls being threatened by other test subjects, leading her to believe she was responsible for the lab massacre. Suzie helps Mike's group locate the coordinates for Project NINA. Hopper and the other inmates are given a large feast, which Hopper attributes to the Russians preparing to feed them to the Demogorgon. He later manages to steal a lighter, remembering that the Demogorgon's weakness is fire. Joyce and Murray force Yuri to take them to a nearby town where he stores his belongings and decide that Murray will impersonate Yuri to infiltrate the prison. Jason galvanizes the residents of Hawkins at a town hall meeting against Eddie's alleged Satanic cult, the "Hellfire Club." The Hawkins group finds Eddie; Dustin notices his compass is malfunctioning and realizes there must be a new portal to the Upside Down nearby. They trace the portal to Lover's Lake, where Steve dives in to inspect it before being pulled into the Upside Down by a tendril and surrounded by bat-like creatures; Nancy, Robin, and Eddie jump in after him.

"Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab"

Joyce, Murray, and Yuri enter Kamchatka and witness Hopper and his fellow inmates fighting the Demogorgon. Hopper stops the creature with a flaming spear while Murray and Joyce subdue the guards and open the prison gates, allowing Hopper and Antonov to escape. Joyce and Hopper are reunited. Dustin, Lucas, and Erica theorize that Vecna has created a portal at the site of each murder, which they communicate to the older teens in the Upside Down. Both groups meet inside Eddie's trailer at the gate where Chrissy died. Robin and Eddie emerge unharmed, but Vecna possesses Nancy. She discovers that he is Victor Creel's son, Henry, who killed his mother and sister with his psychokinetic powers before falling into a coma and being placed in Brenner's care. Henry became Subject 001 in Brenner's attempts to replicate his powers and later the orderly whom Eleven befriended. Eleven finally remembers that Henry committed the lab massacre and tried to kill her when she refused to help fulfill his murderous ambitions; Eleven overpowered Henry and sent him to the Upside Down where he eventually became Vecna.

"Chapter Eight: Papa"

Vecna shows Nancy, who is still possessed by him, a vision of the future in which Hawkins is torn apart by rifts before freeing her. The group determines that Vecna needs four portals to implement his plan; Max volunteers to lure Vecna into possessing her so the others can attack him while he's distracted. Eleven, using her powers, learns of this plan and gets Owens to arrange transit to Hawkins. However, Brenner betrays and secures Owens and traps Eleven, insisting she needs to complete her training. Eleven realizes that Brenner had been using her for years to try to retrieve Henry from the Upside Down. Sullivan and his forces arrive and kill all the staff; Brenner escapes with Eleven, but is shot himself. Sullivan's crew tries to kill Eleven from a helicopter, but she uses her powers to eliminate them just as the California group arrives. As Brenner bleeds out in her arms, he asks for her forgiveness; Eleven silently leaves him to die. In Russia, Hopper, Joyce, Murray, Yuri, and Antonov escape the base after discovering several more creatures from the Upside Down, as well as a shadowy fragment of the Mind Flayer, which is being studied at the prison.

"Chapter Nine: The Piggyback"

The Hawkins group puts their plan into action: Max, Lucas, and Erica go to the Creel House while Steve, Nancy, and Robin go to its Upside Down counterpart to attack Vecna, with the bats being lured by Dustin and Eddie. Eddie sacrifices himself in the process. Eleven's group creates an isolation tank so she can enter Max's mind and fight Vecna. However, Vecna overwhelms her and possesses Max, revealing to Eleven that he has controlled the Upside Down since she sent him there. Mike professes his love for Eleven, giving her the strength to break Vecna's control over Max, but after Jason interferes, Max dies from her injuries. Hopper, Joyce, and Murray re-enter the prison and kill the remaining Demogorgons, weakening Vecna. Steve, Robin, and Nancy set fire to Vecna's physical form and shoot him, seemingly killing him. Eleven uses her powers to revive Max, but Max's brief death allows Vecna's portals to open and pass through Hawkins, killing Jason. Two days later, the town recovers from an "earthquake." Everyone unites, while Max remains in a coma. Will senses that Vecna is still alive, and the Upside Down begins to invade Hawkins.