Since its debut on Netflix in 2016, Stranger Things has become a critically acclaimed TV show, known by fans worldwide. Set in Midwest America in the 1980s, the show follows a group of adolescents and their numerous experiences with paranormal activity in a unique parallel universe. As the kids grow older, the show increases its depth and intensity, creating a wealth of lore and backstory in each episode. Over the course of the first four seasons, the show slowly develops and builds characters and plots, with each season changing and transforming the existence of the prior seasons.
Stranger Things One
When the 12-year-old Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) vanishes during a bike ride in Nov. 1983, in Hawkins, Ind., he undergoes a series of events never seen before. Season One follows Will’s friends, Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin), as well as older characters, Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer), Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) and Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) as they all embark on an intense journey to retrieve their friend from the unknown “Upside Down” world.
While searching, many new faces are introduced, namely Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), a girl with telekinetic abilities, weaponized by a malicious government laboratory. Eleven joins the group of boys and helps fight the Demogorgons (monsters from the Upside Down), as well as other problems that arise during their mission to find Will.
Will’s mother, Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder), is shown to have her own peculiar adventure when searching for her son. Joyce insists that she can communicate with Will via decorative Christmas lights, which eventually pulls Jim Hopper (David Harbour), a local police chief, into the extraordinary case of Will’s disappearance.
Stranger Things Two
A year later, Will has been rescued, and life has gone back to normal — or as normal as it could be. Though Will is now safe from the Upside Down and its spawn, he is still experiencing PTSD and other mental abnormalities. These visions are important, as they act as an oracle for a future monster that will be advancing from the Upside Down. This smoke-like creature, known as the Mind Flayer, is a giant entity that later advances from a portal beneath a still-intact Hawkins Lab.
Eleven, hidden and housed by Hopper, grapples with identity and belonging as a child with supernatural abilities. As the Mind Flayer’s influence tightens its hold over Will, Eleven does anything she can to save her friends from both the Mind Flayer and Will.
This season ends with an enthusiastic attack on the unkept laboratory, an exorcism of the Mind Flayer from Will, and Eleven’s success when closing the dangerous portal. Though the immediate threat might have been overthrown, the larger problem of the Upside Down still has a grasp on Hawkins, and the town remains the subject of an uncontrolled government cover-up.
Stranger Things 3
Season Three starts in 1985, and Hawkins has a new hot hangout spot, the Starcourt Mall. However, beneath the monument lies a Soviet outpost determined to undo the hard work of Eleven by reopening the gate to the Upside Down.
Eleven and Mike start uncovering a romantic connection, and as a result, the entire friend group’s bond throughout the first two seasons undergoes pressure. During these complications, the group of friends also face the immediate effects of ‘The Flayed’, or townspeople and animals overtaken by the Mind Flayer’s power. Eleven and a newcomer, Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), investigate the increasingly aggressive behaviors among the possessed. While the two girls advance, Henderson and Harrington incorporate nearby relations into a unit to discover more about the Russian laboratory hidden beneath Starcourt.
The fight culminates as the friend group attacks the Mind Flayer in its most grotesque physical form. Hopper and Joyce team up to attempt to destroy a Soviet machine, which results in Hopper being engulfed in an explosion and vanishing in the blast. The entire mall is engulfed in flames, and though the portal closed, the complications are once again prominent in the aftermath. The Byers family packs to leave Hawkins, and Eleven, now left without a place to call home, leaves with them.
Stranger Things 4
Starting with another time skip, Hawkins has once again become the epicenter of a new horror. Teenagers start dying in graphic and supernatural ways. Their killer is Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), a powerful psychic entity who feeds off of adolescents and their traumas.
Another investigation of these deaths goes into full swing, and Eleven’s backstory pre-Hawkins’ arrival is unmasked. Vecna, or Henry Creel, was the first experiment of Hawkins Lab, and with that, he has a unique origin story as well as unparalleled power. Eleven’s previous rebellion against him had sent him to the Upside Down, where he brewed in his anger, eventually creating the distorted Vecna he had transformed into.
While half the characters adventure into Russia to rescue Hopper, who survived Soviet imprisonment and brutal labor camp, the core group in Hawkins struggles to keep up with the hints Vecna is dropping throughout his executions. These characters split into groups as they fight different soviet soldiers, monstrous Demogorgons and Vecna’s psychological traps.
The season crescendos with a costly victory. Though Vecna is wounded, he manages to escape and leaves Max in a comatose state after an almost fatal attack. After Vecna escapes, a large split in the ground is visible throughout Hawkins’s geography, and the Upside Down is now visible in broad daylight in Hawkins, for all of the citizens to see.
Conclusion
The first four seasons were released from July 2016 to July 2022, amassing a total of 34 episodes throughout the period. The show quickly evolved from a small-town mystery to a worldwide supernatural phenomenon known by the entirety of the fictional U.S. military. The show’s evolution has been vast and varied, along with the widespread opinions and understandings of its content. Season five has been released as of late 2025, bringing the story to its long-awaited conclusion.
