Stranger Things, where we left off

Stranger Things

When Netflix released the exciting final trailer for Stranger Things 4, we suddenly realized that it's been a full three years since the previous season's airing. Stranger Things 3 arrived on the well-known digital distribution platform on July 4, 2019 with an eight-episode package that concluded with an ending that seemed to have a definitive tone, had it not been for a very last scene that opened the door to another. season. But that the series created by Matt and Ross Duffer - affectionately known as the Duffer Brothers - would continue, we already knew: Stranger Things was a resounding success and the two brothers have always claimed to have stories in mind for at least four or five seasons.

What they didn't know, however, was that a global pandemic would break out in a few months, slowing down if not even making it impossible for filming and the entire television and film industry, postponing the making of Stranger Things 4 for years , while the cast also took new paths which, in turn, complicated everyone else's calendars.

In short, it took almost three years, but Stranger Things 4 is finally coming to our screens, and it is highly probable that many viewers, having made the so-called binge of the previous seasons to the publication, will not remember anymore what happened and how we left our favorite Hawkins denizens at the end of season three. Luckily we are here with our summary that takes stock of the situation a bit, retracing the salient moments in the history of Eleven, Hopper and company.

Keep in mind, however, that this time around Netflix will distribute Stranger Things 4 in a different way. The season will in fact consist of nine episodes in total, but on May 27 only the first seven will be released, classified as Volume 1 (here our review). The other two, however, will be published on July 1 as Volume 2, and will close this season, without putting an end to the story yet, which will end, as already officially announced, with the fifth and final season.

We don't know when we'll see this epilogue yet, but for now let's focus on the past and our recap of Stranger Things from the beginning.

Season 1

Stranger Things, the four friends just before Will disappears In case you have forgotten the basics, it should be remembered that Stranger Things takes place in the past, in the wonderful 80s, and to be precise it begins in November 1983 when the little Will Byers mysteriously disappears in the town of Hawkins. In fact, the story follows the vicissitudes of a heterogeneous cast of characters who, in one way or another, find themselves involved in this disappearance. First, there are Hawkins' "losers", that is, Will's three friends - Mike, Lucas and Dustin - who were with him playing Dungeons & Dragons just before he disappeared on his way home.

Mike has an older sister, Nancy, who is with the most popular boy in school, Steve, a kind of bully who, however, seems genuinely in love with the young and ambitious high schooler. Will's brother Jonathan has a crush on Nancy, but he is an extremely unsociable type with a passion for photography. The Byers family is a bit of a mess: Mom Byers, Joyce, is a single mother who, after being left by her abusive and unfaithful husband, tries to raise her children as best she can.

Stranger Things, Eleven immediately became one of Netflix's mascots Jim Hopper, the gruff sheriff of Hawkins, also investigates Will's disappearance. "Hop" has a dramatic past: his marriage fell apart after his daughter died very young from cancer, and he now leads a rather wild life. Meanwhile, another girl also disappears: Barbara Holland, Nancy's best friend. At this point, however, we already know that the executioner is a real monster.

The story, at this point, begins to follow different groups of characters. Will's friends run into a weird little girl who goes by the name of Eleven, and Mike gets a beastly crush on her. We discover that Eleven possesses various paranormal powers, and was raised in a secret laboratory, along with other children, by a group of scientists led by Dr. Martin Brenner. "Undi", unwittingly, tests the friendship of the three kids, revealing however that Will is still alive and is a prisoner in the so-called Upside Down, a dimension parallel to ours in which the monster lurks, which the boys nickname Demogorgon as a creature of D&D.

Stranger Things, Sheriff Jim Hopper Will, meanwhile, has found a way to communicate with his mother Joyce through electric current. Everyone initially takes her for crazy, but in the end it will be Hopper - with whom Joyce had a fleeting but past relationship in her youth - to trust her. Nancy and Jonathan, meanwhile, discover the monster's existence through photos that the boy secretly took the night Barb went missing. This initially creates a conflict with Steve, who ultimately turns out to be a good guy all in all, and joins them in the fight with the Demogorgon who besieges the Byers' house while Joyce and Hopper infiltrate the laboratory that holds a breach. for the Upside Down.

Eventually, Joyce and Hopper - who have meanwhile also found Eleven's catatonic mother, discovering that the girl is actually called Jane and has been kidnapped by the government for a secret project - succeed to save Will, but not Barb, who unfortunately is already dead, while the kids, besieged by Brenner's men in their own school, have a fight with the Demogorgon. The latter makes a killing - and apparently kills Brenner as well - but in the end Eleven confronts him in a face to face that ends with the disappearance of both. Some time later, the Byers prepare to celebrate Christmas, but Will, just before sitting down at the table, vomits a larva from the Upside Down into the sink ...

Season 2

Stranger Things 2, Max is a sarcastic teenager who upsets the group The second season of Stranger Things begins a year after the events of the first, but in reality the first episodes show us what happened immediately after the siege of the Hawkins school. We discover, in fact, that Eleven, by killing the Demogorgon, ended up in the Upside Down, but that she managed to get out of it practically immediately. After spending some time alone, Eleven runs into Hopper, who decides to hide her in her cabin until things have calmed down. The two gradually become a family, but Eleven begins to miss Mike and the others, and this creates a strong conflict between the two.

Mike and the others, meanwhile, are convinced that Eleven is dead, but they also have other cats to peel as Will has changed: he suffers from hallucinations that show him a giant sprawling creature in the Upside Down, he can't stand the slightest heat and his memory often fails. Lucas and Dustin, meanwhile, have a crush on Maxine "Max" Mayfield, a newcomer who gives them a hard time with her biting sarcasm.

Stranger Things 2, Bob is Joyce's boyfriend in the second season Max has an older stepbrother, Billy, who is an insufferable punk. Over the course of the season, it turns out that Billy's father - Max's mother's new husband - is violent and bossy, which causes the boy to bully everyone and makes him particularly hate his half-sister. In all of this, Dustin finds a little creature in the garbage - it's the one Will threw up in the sink at the end of the first season - that he calls Dart and takes as a pet, only in a short time he becomes unmanageable, even eating his cat.

It turns out, in fact, that in the laboratory under Hawkins a team of scientists led by Dr. Owens is desperately trying to contain a portal to the Upside Down; despite this, the parallel dimension is slowly invading the city and strengthening her telepathic bond with Will. Given the form and powers Will glimpsed in his hallucinations, the boys call this new enemy Mindflayer, after the fearsome monster from Dungeons & Dragons.

Stranger Things 2, histrionic Murray is now a fixture in the series Also this time the various characters find themselves divided into small groups that converge, without knowing it, towards the grand finale. Joyce, Hopper, Will and Mike manage to narrowly escape Hawkins' laboratory, where the Democans - a quadruped variant of the Demogorgon - make a massacre: unfortunately, Bob, Joyce's nice and affectionate boyfriend, is also killed in the escape. Nancy and Jonathan, intent on finding out who covered up Barbara's death, meet Murray, a conspiracy theorist who is investigating the young woman on behalf of his family: in this circumstance, the two finally come to terms with their mutual feelings, with all due respect to Steve, meanwhile, helps Dustin, Lucas and Max survive first an attack by the Democans, and then Billy's anger.

In one way or another, everyone finds themselves in Hopper's hut, but when things seem to be turning for the worst, Eleven returns to the scene: the girl had in fact escaped after an altercation with the sheriff to go look her real mother, and then joined a group of drifters - led by Otto, a girl who, like her, was raised by the government and possesses paranormal powers - but she realized that her friends were in danger and that he had to go back to Hawkins to help them.

Stranger Things 2, Eight trains Eleven Hoppers and Eleven then go down to Hawkins' laboratory to seal the portal to the Upside Down; Steve, Dustin, Lucas, Max and Mike infiltrate the underground tunnels of the city to mislead the Democans so that the sheriff and the girl can reach the portal undisturbed; Joyce, Nancy and Jonathan deal with Will who expels the Mindflayer as soon as Eleven closes the portal with his powers. All is well that ends well: Hopper gets the custody of Eleven, who becomes Jane Hopper, thanks to the intercession of Owens, who survived the massacre of the laboratory, while the boys can enjoy a moment of peace at the school dance, unaware of the fact that the Mindflayer still observes the city.

Season 3

Stranger Things 3, Billy is one of the villains in the third season It is the summer of 1984 and many things are changing in Hawkins , especially when it comes to the love life of our heroes. Eleven is slowly getting used to the life of a normal teenager, thanks also to the friendship of Max, who in the meantime has become with Lucas. Dustin has returned from summer camp saying that he has found a girl, the elusive Suzie who, however, lives in another city and can only hear on the radio. Nancy tries to get noticed in the misogynistic editorial team she works with Jonathan for, while Steve works as a sales assistant in the ice cream shop of the new mall with the eccentric Robin. Hopper, for her part, has to deal with an adolescent goddaughter in full hormonal crisis and for the feelings she begins to have towards Joyce.

Stranger Things 3, Erica Sinclair is the absolute MVP of the series! In all this commotion, however, some disturbing issues arise. Dustin intercepts a Russian radio transmission that leads him, Steve, Robin and Lucas' irreverent little sister, Erica, to investigate a possible infiltration on American soil: the four discover that under the Starcourt Mall there is indeed a secret Russian base. conducting operations on a portal to the Upside Down. Hopper and Joyce also come to this conclusion on their own, questioning the mayor after discovering a magnetic anomaly that seems to originate from Hawkins' laboratory, now deserted: their research crosses the path of a Russian hitman and a scientist, Alexei. that the two capture and bring to Murray for questioning.

In the meantime, even worse happens. The Mindflayer is taking on physical form by possessing the inhabitants of Hawkins, including Billy. Eleven and the others find out and narrowly escape his fury, reaching the mall just in time to save Steve's group - who in the meantime, declaring himself to Robin, has discovered that the girl has very different tastes in a very tender coming out. - after the Russians discovered them in their secret base.

Stranger Things 3, Robin is one of the best additions of the third season Hopper, Joyce and Murray reach the Starcourt, but the Russians manage to kill Alexei. Even Nancy and Jonathan, narrowly escaping an attack by the inhabitants possessed by the Mindlfayer, arrive at the mall, and there the group devises a plan to stop it: Hopper, Joyce and Murray infiltrate the secret Russian base, while Eleven - which remains wounded in the previous confrontation with the Mindflayer - and the others are hiding in the mall. Things, however, do not go as hoped.

The monster besieges the mall and Eleven runs out of her powers to free Billy from her possession, and the boy sacrifices himself at the last moment to save her from a fatal Mindflayer attack. Meanwhile, to help Hopper's team with a secret code, Dustin resorts to an ace up his sleeve: his girlfriend Suzie, who turns out to really exist and to be a math genius. The "adults" thus arrive at the portal to the Upside Down, but a series of circumstances forces Joyce to detonate the device that holds it open with Hopper trapped in its vicinity.

The finale takes place three months after the " battle of the Starcourt ". With the help of Owens, Joyce has adopted Eleven, who has completely lost her powers, and the whole Byers family moves to California to protect the young woman while Hawkins recovers from the mall tragedy, passed off as a fire by the information. public. Unbeknownst to everyone, however, in Kamchatka the Russians have captured a Democane that they feed with the prisoners of a small prison: the season ends with a guard who mentions a mysterious "American" locked in a cell.

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