In season 4 of Stranger Things, nine months have passed since the Mind Flayer’s defeat
at the Starcourt Mall.
Eleven has moved with the Byers family to California, forcing her and Mike into a strained
long distance relationship.
Mike and Dustin also begin to have a strained relationship with Lucas and Max.
Lucas has joined the high school basketball team and befriended the popular jocks, led
by Jason, while Max has pulled away from everyone as she continues to grieve the death of Billy.
Mike and Dustin join the Hellfire Club, the school’s Dungeons and Dragons club, which
is led by the eccentric outcast Eddie Munson.
When Jason’s cheerleader girlfriend Chrissy is plagued with headaches and nightmarish
visions, she pays Eddie a visit to buy drugs to cope with her symptoms.
While in Eddie’s trailer, Chrissy becomes possessed by an evil force from the Upside
Down, which brutally murders her.
When Chrissy’s body is found, Eddie goes on the run, as he becomes the police’s prime
suspect.
Jason and his gang of bully jocks lead the charge in labeling Eddie and the Hellfire
Club a group of satanic devil worshippers responsible for Chrissy’s death and attempt
to find Eddie to enact vigilante justice.
As Mike departs Hawkins to spend his Spring Break with Eleven in California, Dustin, Max,
and Lucas team up with Nancy, Steve, and Robin to uncover the truth behind Chrissy’s murder.
The group explains to Eddie their previous experiences with the Upside Down and name
this new evil threat Vecna, who continues to possess and murder high school students.
Nancy and Robin follow a lead to the Pennhurst psychiatric institution where they interview
a man named Victor Creel, who had been imprisoned decades prior for murdering his family.
Victor explains to them that after his wife and young children moved into their new home
in Hawkins, they experienced similar horrific visions as Chrissy before being possessed
and killed.
Victor was arrested for the deaths after no one believed his story.
Nancy also figures out from Victor’s story that hearing his favorite song was what pulled
him out of Vecna’s possession and saved his life.
Meanwhile, Max discovers that all of Vecna’s victims experienced severe headaches and nosebleeds,
and were suffering from PTSD from past traumas.
The same symptoms Max was currently experiencing.
And that’s when Max realized that Vecna was possessing her as well.
Fearing Vecna could kill her at any moment, Max writes letters to all of her friends,
then heads to Billy’s grave to read him a letter.
At the gravesite, Max is possessed and taken to Vecna’s altar in the Upside Down where
he prepares to kill her.
Nancy and Robin manage to relay to the others that music can break Vecna’s possession,
and they play Max’s favorite song to her.
This helps Max fight Vecna off and escape the Upside Down, saving her life.
Dustin theorizes that new gates to the Upside Down were being opened at the sites of Vecna’s
murders.
When Steve investigates the bottom of Lover’s Lake to confirm Dustin’s theory, he is pulled
into the Upside Down and attacked by bat-like creatures.
Nancy, Robin, and Eddie enter the Upside Down to save Steve, but are unable to return through
the gate due to it being guarded by more of the creatures.
And so, the group decides to make their way through the Upside Down to Eddie’s trailer
to find another exit.
Back in the real Hawkins, as the police begin to investigate the Hellfire Club for their
involvement with Eddie, Dustin, Max, Lucas, and Lucas’ sister Erica flee the cops and
their parents to head to Eddie’s trailer and save their friends.
They manage to save Robin and Eddie from the Upside Down, but before Nancy escapes, she
becomes possessed by Vecna.
The villain reveals to Nancy the extent of his evil plans, promising to use the newly
opened gates at the locations of his victims to fully break open the rift between the Upside
Down and the real world, which would destroy all of Hawkins.
Meanwhile, Mike arrives in California to spend his spring break with Eleven and the Byers
family.
He quickly discovers that although Eleven had told him she was doing great, she was
actually depressed and mercilessly bullied.
Eleven was also upset with Mike for not telling her he loved her.
Will had his own issues with Mike, feeling abandoned by his best friend who only seemed
to care about Eleven.
And Jonathan was dealing with his own relational issues, too afraid to tell Nancy that he was
having second thoughts about their college plans, wanting to stay close to protect his
family.
The kids quickly have the house to themselves, as Joyce receives a message from Hopper, revealed
to have survived the Starcourt Mall explosion and was currently imprisoned in Russia.
A kindly prison guard named Antonov agrees to help Hopper escape, and tells Joyce to
bring $40,000 to a Russian pilot in Alaska.
Joyce teams up with Murray Beauman to head to Alaska, where they meet the eccentric pilot,
Yuri.
Yuri betrays them, drugging Joyce and Murray, ratting out Antonov to the other Russians,
and thwarting Hopper’s escape attempt.
As Yuri flies a captured Joyce and Murray to turn over to the Russians, they escape
their binds and Murray uses his new black belt skills to subdue Yuri.
They hatch a plan to break Hopper out of prison, with Murray posing as Yuri to deliver Joyce
and the real Yuri to the Russians.
The plan works, and the group are allowed to enter the prison, where they are taken
to watch Hopper, Antonov and a group of prisoners fight a demogorgon.
Hopper uses his prior experiences with the creature to save his and Antonov’s lives,
while Murray and Joyce reveal their ruse, subduing the guards and unlocking the doors
to allow Hopper and Antonov to escape.
Hopper and Joyce have an emotional reunion, and the group make their escape.
But upon learning of the dangers back in Hawkins, Hopper, Joyce, and Murray return to the Russian
prison to battle their lab filled with Demogorgon test subjects in the hopes that it would help
the kids in their battle against Vecna.
Back in California, after her bullies publicly humiliate her, Eleven finally snaps and assaults
one of them.
After being arrested, Eleven is saved by Dr. Owens, who warns her of everything that was
happening back in Hawkins.
While higher ups in the government believe Eleven could be responsible and was too dangerous,
Owens assures her that he believes she was good, and had been working on a program that
could give her her powers back.
Eleven agrees to go with Owens to attempt to restore her powers and save Hawkins from
Vecna, while two of Owens’ men are tasked with protecting Mike, Will, and Jonathan.
When armed soldiers attack the Byers’ house, the boys flee with Jonathan’s stoner friend
Argyle and race to find Owens and Eleven.
Along the way, Will gives a rousing speech to encourage Mike, during which he implies
that he’s gay and in love with his best friend.
Owens takes Eleven to a secret underground lab where he reveals that he has been working
with a very much alive Dr. Brenner to develop an isolation tank known as NINA that would
allow Eleven to access her forgotten memories and reawaken her powers.
Inside NINA, Eleven remembers her time in Hawkins Labs under the care of Dr. Brenner,
where she was bullied by her fellow superpowered experiments.
Eleven had been befriended by a kind orderly, who warned Eleven that Brenner wasn’t to
be trusted.
Eventually, the orderly revealed himself to be One, the first child experimented on by
Brenner, who had a device in his neck that suppressed his powers.
Eleven helped remove the device to allow them both to escape, but the orderly instead massacred
everyone in the lab.
It turned out, the orderly was actually Henry Creel, the son of Victor Creel.
He had used his psychic abilities to murder his mother and sister, and though Victor was
told Henry died, he was actually placed in the care of Brenner.
And now that Eleven knew his villainous secret, he was going to kill her too.
Eleven managed to overpower Henry, ripping open the first portal to the Upside Down and
sending Henry through it, where he was transformed into Vecna.
Back in the present, Eleven has fully regained her powers and wants to return to Hawkins
to save her friends from Vecna.
Brenner doesn’t believe she’s ready, and sedates her.
And that’s when the corrupt group of soldiers arrive, wanting to kill Eleven as they believe
that she was the source of evil in Hawkins.
Brenner protects Eleven and attempts to flee with her from the lab, but is shot and killed
during the escape.
Eleven regains consciousness and kills the pursuing soldiers, and is then rescued by
Mike and the others.
Back in Hawkins, the group devise a plan to defeat Vecna.
Max, Lucas, and Erica head to the Creel house, where Max allows Vecna to enter her mind and
possess her.
While Vecna is distracted with Max, Steve, Nancy, and Robin enter the Upside Down to
kill him.
And to help distract the legion of bats from attacking Steve, Nancy, and Robin on their
mission, Dustin and Eddie enter the Upside Down to act as decoys.
Unfortunately, the plan quickly goes awry.
Dustin and Eddie are quickly overwhelmed by the bats, but instead of fleeing, Eddie sacrifices
himself to buy his friends more time.
Steve, Nancy, and Robin are all subdued by Vecna’s vines, which begin to choke the
life out of them.
And while Lucas keeps watch over the possessed Max, the vigilante Jason shows up to confront
him, still blaming the Hellfire Club for Chrissy’s death.
As Lucas and Jason fight, Max’s Kate Bush tape is destroyed, meaning there was no way
for Lucas to save her if things went wrong.
Luckily, as Max is pursued by Vecna in her own mind, she has some very friendly company.
Eleven enters Max’s mind to fight Vecna, using an isolation tank created by Mike, Will,
Jonathan, and Argyle.
Vecna defeats Eleven, and explains to her that every threat she and her friends had
faced in the past, including the Mind Flayer, was all him.
And now, his plan is fully coming into fruition.
Vecna begins to kill Max, starting by breaking her limbs.
As Mike professes his love for Eleven in the real world, Eleven is given a renewed strength
to fight Vecna.
Meanwhile, Hopper, Joyce, and Murray successfully defeat the Russian demogorgons, which clears
away the bats and vines in the Upside Down.
Finally freed, Steve, Nancy, and Robin attack Vecna’s body, setting it on fire.
As Vecna dies, he tells Eleven that despite her best efforts, she had still lost.
Max succumbs to her wounds in the real world and dies in Lucas’ arms, opening Vecna’s
final gate.
With all of the gates open, they begin to rip through the entire town of Hawkins, destroying
everything in their path and killing several people, including Jason.
A distraught and defeated Eleven manages to use her powers to resurrect Max.
Two days later, Eleven, Mike, Jonathan, Will, and Argyle finally make it back to Hawkins
to reunite with their friends.
The entire town is evacuating, and Steve, Robin, and Dustin decide to volunteer at an
emergency shelter.
Max is alive, but in a coma, with no trace of her in her own mind.
Hopper finally makes it back to Hawkins to reunite with Eleven, and although the reunion
was happy now, the group knew that their greatest battle yet was still ahead.
Will, still feeling his connection to the Mind Flayer, confirms to the group that Vecna
was still alive.
And now, the Upside Down was taking over Hawkins.