The final season of Stranger Things is coming to Netflix. Whether you need a refresher or are new to the series, here’s everything you need to know about Hawkins’ story before the big finale.
Since 2016, Stranger Things has established itself as a global cultural phenomenon. But between the years of waiting between each season and the multiple intrigues that intertwine, it’s difficult to remember all the details. Who is Vecna? Why did Eleven lose her powers? What happened to Hopper?
Don’t panic. We summarize the entire series for you, season by season.
Seasons 1 to 3: the birth of a legend
Season 1: The Disappearance of Will Byers
November 1983, Hawkins, Indiana. Young Will Byers mysteriously disappears after a game of Dungeons & Dragons at his friend Mike’s house. His friends go looking for him and come across a little girl with a shaved head. Her name is Eleven, she has telekinetic powers and she escaped from Hawkins’ laboratory.
Will is trapped in a parallel dimension, which our heroes will call The Upside Down. Eleven, with her powers, can contact Will from the surface and above all fight the terrifying creatures that inhabit this dark and hostile dimension.
Thanks to her, the group manages to save Will, but the young girl disappears while confronting the monster. She passes for dead in the eyes of her friends but the grand finale hides a surprise. Eleven survives and hides in Hawkins Forest. Jim Hopper, the sheriff, regularly drops off frozen waffles for her in the hope that she will reappear.
Season 2: Shadow of the Mind Flayer
A year later. Will tries to live a normal life, but something is wrong. He has visions of a gigantic creature: the Mind Flayer. This conscious entity controls the Upside Down.
Meanwhile, Eleven reappears and lives in hiding with Hopper, the police chief who has become her father figure. Cohabitation is not easy since she wants at all costs to find her friends while he prevents her for fear that she will be found by the government.
New characters enter the scene: Max, pro at skateboarding and arcade machines, and his half-brother Billy, violent to say the least. Will ends up being possessed by the Mind Flayer. To save him, it will be necessary to close the door between the two worlds. Eleven achieves this in an explosive finale.
Before that, the young girl ran away and discovered “a sister” with whom she grew up at the Hawkins Laboratory. Number 8 has gifts of illusion. With her group of misfits, she hunts down the government officials who locked her up when she was younger.
Season 3: The Battle of Starcourt
Summer 1985. The new Starcourt shopping center hides a terrible secret: the Russians have built a machine there to reopen the door to the Upside Down. The Mind Flayer returns, this time in physical form, merging dozens of Hawkins residents — including Billy.
The final fight at the mall is expensive. Billy sacrifices himself to save Eleven. Hopper seems to perish in the explosion of the Russian machine. The gang is separated: the Byers and Eleven leave Hawkins for California.
Season 4: the beginning of the end
Part 1: Vecna hits Hawkins
Six months have passed. Eleven now lives in California, deprived of her powers. In Hawkins, a series of gruesome murders shakes the town. The victims display broken bones and gouged out eyes.
The person responsible? Vecna, a humanoid creature from the Upside Down. But Vecna is no ordinary monster. This is Henry Creel, the first child with powers from Hawkins’ laboratory.
He was the one who massacred the other children, before Eleven sent him to the Upside Down. He killed his entire family in a shocking sacrificial rite.
Since then, he has targeted traumatized adolescents. Max, consumed by guilt after Billy’s death, becomes one of his prey.
In a scene that has become cult, she escapes him thanks to “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush, her favorite song that connects her to the real world. And hop, a trend on TikTok!
Part 2: The battle in two dimensions
Hopper is alive, a prisoner in a Russian gulag. Joyce and Murray go to free him. Eleven regains her powers thanks to the Nina project, which brings back her childhood memories.
The group launches a coordinated assault: attacking Vecna in the Upside Down while the others protect Max in our dimension. The plan almost works.
Vecna is injured, but Max dies for a few moments in Lucas’s arms. Eleven manages to bring her back to life, but she remains in a coma.
The four murders in Vecna open permanent fault lines. In the final scene, the Upside Down begins to invade Hawkins. Ashes fall from the sky. The war has only just begun.
The US military defines a quarantine zone that cuts the community off from the rest of the world. Our heroes are waiting. Waiting to see their world collapse completely, waiting to see Vecna emerge again.
It seems that by saving Max, Eleven delayed the antagonist’s plan. But it’s only a matter of time.
What to remember before season 5
Vecna has been the big bad from the start. He controls the Mind Flayer and all creatures in the Upside Down. Eleven has regained her powers but bears the responsibility for creating Vecna by sending her to the other dimension. She is ready to do anything to defeat him once and for all and protect her loved ones.
Max is in a coma, his mind somewhere between the two worlds. Lucas, at her bedside, hopes that she will wake up. Hawkins is in ruins. Now, four giant rifts now connect the city to the Upside Down.
The group is reunited for the first time in a while: Mike, Eleven, Will, Lucas, Dustin, Nancy, Steve, Robin, Jonathan, Hopper and Joyce. Season 5 begins several months after the events of Season 4, in the fall of 1897.
As the anniversary of Will’s kidnapping approaches, our heroes know: Vecna could return at any time and wreak havoc.
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