Stranger Things

Stranger Things
Stranger Things logo
Genre	Science fiction Supernatural Drama Horror Mystery Thriller
Created by	The Duffer Brothers
Starring	Winona Ryder David Harbour Finn Wolfhard Millie Bobby Brown Gaten Matarazzo Caleb McLaughlin Natalia Dyer Charlie Heaton Cara Buono Matthew Modine
Composer	Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	8
Production
Executive producers	Matt Duffer Ross Duffer Shawn Levy Dan Cohen
Production locations	Jackson, Georgia
Running time	42-55 minutes
Production companies	21 Laps Entertainment Monkey Massacre
Original release
Network	Netflix
Release	July 15, 2016 (2016-07-15)

Stranger Things is an American supernatural science fiction horror web television series created by the Duffer Brothers for Netflix. It was written and directed by Matt and Ross Duffer and executive-produced by Shawn Levy.

The show is set in 1980s Indiana and is an homage to 1980s pop culture, including the works of Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, Stephen King, Rob Reiner and George Lucas. A young boy vanishes mysteriously, and a telekinetic girl appears, who helps the boy's friends in their attempt to find him, while the chief of police starts his own investigation to find the boy.

The show was released globally on Netflix on July 15, 2016. It received positive reviews for its characterization, pacing, atmosphere, acting, soundtrack, directing, writing, and homages to 1980s genre films.

Synopsis

On November 6, 1983 in Indiana, 12-year-old Will Byers vanishes mysteriously. Will's mother, Joyce, becomes frantic and tries to find Will, while Police Chief Hopper begins his own investigation. The very next day a mysterious girl with strange abilities appears who knows the whereabouts of Will. But as they get closer to the truth they will have to face not only a sinister government agency, but a more insidious force who plans on devouring them all.

Cast

• Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers, the frazzled single mother of 12-year-old Will Byers and teenaged Jonathan Byers, and one of the main protagonists in the story. Divorced from Lonnie, she relies heavily on Jonathan to help her.
• David Harbour as Chief Jim Hopper, the police chief of Hawkins Police Department, and one of the main recurring characters in the series. Hopper divorced after his daughter died of cancer, which has caused him to lapse into drugs and alcoholism.
• Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, the son of Karen Wheeler and younger brother of Nancy Wheeler, and one of three friends to Will Byers. He is shown as an intelligent and conscientious student and is very committed to his friends.
• Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven, a young child with psychokinetic abilities and limited vocabulary. She becomes close friends with Lucas, Dustin, and most notably, Mike. Lucas and Dustin remain sceptical of her motives and Mike has his doubts after an incident where Lucas is injured.
• Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, part of the clique of friends that include Mike, Will, and Lucas. He is a fan of comic books and a very logical tween. He doesn't have his permanent front teeth because he suffers from cleidocranial dysplasia, which causes him to lisp.
• Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, a member of the clique that include Mike and Will. He is bold, independent and charismatic.
• Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, the daughter of Karen Wheeler, older sister of Mike Wheeler, and the girlfriend of Steve Harrington. Seemingly conventional, she is trying to balance her values with her emotions and responsibilities. She is a good student and is best friends with Barb.
• Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, the older brother of Will Byers and the son of Joyce Byers. Considered an outsider at school, he is a kind and quiet teenager and a talented photographer. He is very close with his mother and brother. He also has a secret crush on Nancy Wheeler.
• Cara Buono as Karen Wheeler, the mother to Nancy and Mike Wheeler as well as their toddler sister Holly.
• Matthew Modine as Dr. Martin Brenner, one of the main scientists of Hawkins Laboratory, and one of the main antagonists. He is shown as an elegant man, with a very blank personality.

Recurring

• Noah Schnapp as Will Byers, the younger brother of Jonathan Byers and the son of Joyce Byers. He vanishes after encountering the strange creature.
• Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, Nancy's boyfriend. He is popular and athletic and at first seems to be only interested in sex, however he turns out to be more compassionate than his friends.
• Shannon Purser as Barbara ("Barb") Holland, the best friend of Nancy Wheeler. She is intelligent and outspoken, and is very loyal to Nancy. She does not care about being popular with the other students at the school she and Nancy attend, but is concerned that their friendship may be threatened by Nancy's relationship with Steve.
• Ross Partridge as Lonnie, the drunk, egotistical, and selfish ex-husband of Joyce Byers, with Jonathan and Will being his only sons. He has a much younger girlfriend named Cynthia.

Episodes

Season 1 (2016)

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original release date
1	"Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers"	The Duffer Brothers	The Duffer Brothers	July 15, 2016 (2016-07-15)
On November 6, 1983, in a US Department of Energy-backed Hawkins National Laboratory, a scientist flees from an unseen menace but is ultimately taken. Meanwhile, Will Byers, a 12-year-old boy, vanishes after encountering a strange creature while riding his bicycle home from a Dungeons & Dragons campaign with his three friends. The next day, a young girl with a shaved head and wearing a hospital gown appears at a local hamburger joint. The owner Benny takes pity on her and feeds her before calling the social services. A woman posing as a social worker arrives, and immediately shoots Benny as a team of armed men search for the girl, but she manages to escape. Eventually, Will's friends Lucas, Mike and Dustin find her in the rainy woods while searching for Will.
2	"Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street"	The Duffer Brothers	The Duffer Brothers	July 15, 2016 (2016-07-15)
Lucas, Mike and Dustin take the girl back to Mike's house. She shows Mike a tattoo of 011 on her arm, indicating it is her name, Eleven. Mike nicknames her El. At Will's home, his mother Joyce claims she received a distorted phone call from Will, but her phone short circuits. Scientists from the Laboratory eavesdrop on a phone call between Joyce and Florence, the police dispatcher. Afterwards, they go to Joyce's home in hazmat suits and radiation detectors and see a substance oozing from the walls. Back at Mike's home, El sees Will's picture and recognizes him. When Lucas and Dustin visit Mike's house and threaten to tell Mike's parents about El's presence, she uses psychokinesis to lock the door and stop them from leaving, insisting that informing anyone else about her is not safe. While searching for Will, Chief Hopper discovers a torn piece of hospital gown fabric, similar to what El was wearing). His investigation leads him to a narrow drain pipe which originates inside the Laboratory's grounds. Nancy goes with her friend Barb to her boyfriend Steve's house for a small party while his parents are away. Meanwhile, Will's brother Jonathan investigates Will's disappearance with his camera near where Will went missing. Hearing screaming, he runs and sees Steve, Nancy and friends playing in Steve's swimming pool. Shortly after the couples at Steve's party pair off for romance, Barbara vanishes. Joyce receives another call from Will and starts hearing music coming from his room, witnessing something coming through her walls. After running out, she returns when she hears more music.
3	"Chapter Three: Holly, Jolly"	Shawn Levy	Jessica Mecklenburg	July 15, 2016 (2016-07-15)
Barbara wakes up at the bottom of the empty pool near a tall, gray creature. Climbing out, the world around her is completely different; dark, gray and the entirety covered in black roots. Nancy notices Barbara is gone, but she assumes she has left the party to go home, and she has sex with Steve for the first time. Chief Hopper goes to the Laboratory to speak to someone but the guard tells him to speak to Rick Schaffer. After some insistence, the guard lets him through. After he leaves, it is revealed that the black root-like substance is growing inside the lab. At Mike's home alone, El remembers being in the Lab, connected to an EEG machine crushing a Coca-Cola can with telekinesis. Shortly afterwards, she gets a nosebleed, and a group of men smile at her amazing demonstration. Joyce stocks up on Christmas lights and strings them around her home, establishing communication with Will. At the library, Hopper and deputies pull up information regarding Dr. Terry Brenner, the Laboratory, and a woman who claimed her daughter went missing because the Scientists took her. El leaves Mike's house to meet the boys for another search, when she has another flashback. Attached to the machine again, she is commanded to inflict pain on a cat. Refusing, Dr. Brenner, referred to by her as "Papa", orders her locked alone in a small bare room. She kills two guards in the struggle; Brenner calls it "incredible." At the high school, Nancy has not heard from Barbara since the party and has become worried. Jonathan develops the photos from the night before but Steve and his friends learn about them. They destroy the photos and Jonathan's camera, but Nancy notices one showing Barbara at the pool moments before she disappeared. She returns to Steve's house to search for her. Nancy finds Barbara's car and sees the creature in the woods. Nancy goes home, tearfully confessing to her mother that she lied about their whereabouts and is afraid for Barbara. Joyce talks to Will with the lights; once for yes, twice for no. Will reveals he isn't safe, with Joyce attaching lights over letters for complex messages. Will tells Joyce to run as a creature begins to climb through her wall. Chief Hopper tries to connect Dr. Brenner to Will's disappearance when he receives a radio call. El leads the boys to Will's house, claiming that he is there, hiding. Confused and annoyed, Lucas, Dustin and Mike accuse her of lying. Following the police, the boys arrive at the quarry and see Will's body being pulled from the water. Mike, upset with El, flees.
4	"Chapter Four: The Body"	Shawn Levy	Justin Doble	July 15, 2016 (2016-07-15)
In Mike's basement, El proves that Will is still alive by making contact through Mike's walkie talkie. Mike hears him singing "Should I Stay or Should I Go", and after further discussion the boys think Will is stuck in the Vale of Shadows, a "dark echo" dimension of death and decay, which El calls the Upside-Down. The next morning, the boys decide to use their science teacher Mr. Clarke's ham radio to find Will. Mr. Clarke agrees to let them use the radio as long as they attend an assembly commemorating Will's death. Overhearing bully Troy and his friend laughing about Will's death, Mike confronts them and pushes Troy. Before Troy can attack, El causes Troy to freeze in place and urinate on himself. Using the ham radio, El and the boys are able to make contact with Will. They overhear him talking to his mother, saying he is afraid and that it is dark and cold where he is. Simultaneously, Joyce hears him through her living room wall and tears the wallpaper, revealing a flesh-like substance on the wall, with Will on the other side. Shortly after telling him to run, she grabs the axe to break through. After making a hole, it only reveals her front porch. Hopper confronts the state trooper who found Will's body. Increasingly suspicious with what he learns, he goes to the morgue. Using a knife, he cuts open Will's body and discovers it is a dummy. He then heads to the Laboratory.
5	"Chapter Five: The Flea and the Acrobat"	The Duffer Brothers	Alison Tatlock	July 15, 2016 (2016-07-15)
Will's father Lonnie comes to town and convinces Joyce that she has imagined everything since Will's disappearance. Later, she discovers he is only interested in suing the company responsible for managing the quarry where Will's body was found, and she demands he leave. After Will's funeral, the boys ask Mr. Clarke about dimensions. Quoting the many-worlds interpretation of Hugh Everett III, he tells them that inter-dimensional travel is presently impossible for humans due to energy beyond threshold, but a space-time tear could create a gate for passage. Returning to Mike's basement, (Is)Dustin reveals to Mike and Lucas that if the gate was created it would disrupt the electromagnetic field, throwing off compasses, and that by following their compasses they should be able to find the gate. During the search, El remembers being weighed down in a sensory-deprivation tank to relay information from a Russian spy, but while under she comes across the creature. Scared of finding the gate, El directs the compasses away from the laboratory. When Lucas notices the distortion, he confronts her. Mike defends her, and a fight ensues between Mike and Lucas. Seeing this, El telekinetically flings Lucas off Mike, but Lucas is knocked unconscious as a result. He recovers and runs away. After looking at Jonathan's photo which shows Barb, Nancy realizes the monster is also present in the photo. She is convinced that the monster is responsible for Barb's disappearance. Nancy and Jonathan decide to search for the creature on their own, using the Byers house, Steve's house and where they found Will's bike, to triangulate the creature's position. While searching, Nancy and Jonathan find a wounded deer. As they are about to perform a mercy kill on it, the creature drags it away. Upon following the trail of blood, Nancy comes across the flesh-like substance from the portal in the base of a tree. She is able to crawl through to the other side and after entering, she sees the creature feasting upon the deer. She tries to flee but steps on a root, alerting the creature to her presence. The creature gives chase. Hearing her screams, Jonathan looks for her as the hole starts to close.
6	"Chapter Six: The Monster"	The Duffer Brothers	Jessie Nickson-Lopez	July 15, 2016 (2016-07-15)
Jonathan pulls Nancy through the portal in the tree, saving her from the creature. Jonathan returns Nancy safely to her room, but she is afraid to be alone and asks Jonathan to stay with her. Steve, dropping by for a visit, sees them together through her bedroom window. Jonathan joins Nancy in her bed, though nothing sexual takes place. The next day they resolve to hunt and kill the monster themselves, purchasing ammunition and bear traps from an army surplus store. Before they head out, Nancy sees a defaced marquee referring to her as a slut. She hunts down and finds Steve and his friends, and as she confronts Steve, Jonathan comes to her aid. Jonathan and Steve get into an argument that escalates into a fistfight when Steve insults Jonathan's family. The cops arrest Jonathan after he inadvertently assaults an officer. Joyce and Hopper decide to investigate together after Hopper discovers his home has been bugged. They track down the woman claiming that a covert facility stole her baby. She is revealed to be El's biological mother, who underwent MK Ultra training while pregnant. Jane, now 011, was confiscated by Dr. Brenner, with a fake story that Terry miscarried. Mike, Lucas and Dustin are still unable to agree about searching for El. Lucas angrily parts ways with Dustin and Mike again after a failed reconciliation attempt, following the compass alone to the Laboratory while Mike and Dustin search for El in the woods. Alone in the woods, El misbehaves, stealing frozen waffles (her new favorite food) from a grocery store and shattering the door on an employee. Flashbacks reveal that while on her reconnaissance mission, El accidentally opened the gate between the normal world and the "Upside-Down", allowing the monster through. While searching for El, Mike and Dustin are ambushed by Troy, threatening Dustin with a knife. He demands that Mike jump off a cliff into the lake where Will's body was discovered, almost certainly fatal. Mike jumps, but is levitated to safety by El, who breaks Troy's arm. Mike and Dustin reconcile with El, and they head back to Mike's house. Lucas sees agents leaving the Laboratory and realizes where they are going: Mike's house to take El.
7	"Chapter Seven: The Bathtub"	The Duffer Brothers	Justin Doble	July 15, 2016 (2016-07-15)
Lucas warns Mike on-radio that "the bad men are coming". Mike, Dustin and El flee the house and narrowly escape with Lucas, with El flipping a van with her abilities to ensure they escape. Reaching their junkyard base, Lucas reconciles with Mike and El. Joyce and Hopper find Jonathan with Nancy at the station, and Jonathan reveals his knowledge about the creature to his mother. The group contacts Mike and his friends and they rendezvous with him at the junkyard, formulating a plan to make a sensory-deprivation tank to amplify El's powers so she can search for Will and Barbara. The united group breaks into the middle school, constructing the tank in the gym. With Joyce's help, El successfully enters the Upside-Down to find Barbara and Will. She finds Barbara dead, partially eaten, and Will alive, hiding in the Upside-Down version of "Castle Byers", his fort. Hopper and Joyce attempt to break into Hawkins Laboratory to save Will, but are apprehended by security guards. Nancy and Jonathan resolve to kill the monster, and steal their hunting gear back from the police station. In the Upside-Down, an incapacitated Will is shown singing in Castle Byers, as the monster breaks in.
8	"Chapter Eight: The Upside Down"	The Duffer Brothers	Story by : Paul Dichter Teleplay by : The Duffer Brothers	July 15, 2016 (2016-07-15)
Joyce and Hopper are detained in the Hawkins Laboratory and interrogated by Brenner. Hopper negotiates a deal: He will give up El's location, in exchange for neutrality and access to the gate. Brenner, assuming they won't survive, agrees. Joyce and Hopper enter in Hazmat suits, traveling extensively, and discover the creature's nest. They find Will there, unconscious with a slug-like creature down his esophagus, and revive him. Nancy and Jonathan turn the Byers home into a trap for the creature, then cut their hands to attract it. As they wait, Steve - having had a change of heart - unexpectedly arrives, intending to apologize to Jonathan about their fight. As the three argue, the monster attacks. A confused and disoriented Steve manages to trap it. Jonathan sets it on fire, injuring it, but it escapes back to the Upside-Down. El and the boys hide out in the middle school. Mike asks El to a school dance, then kisses her. Following Hopper's information, Brenner arrives with agents. As the kids attempt to escape, they are surrounded by the "social worker"'s agents. El squeezes their brains, killing them. As Brenner recovers a weakened El, the monster enters, attracted to blood on the floor and kills Brenner and the other agents, cornering the kids in a classroom. El pins it against a wall, and both vanish. Will is hospitalized and reunited with his mother, brother and friends. As Hopper exits the hospital, a black car pulls up and he reluctantly gets in. A month later it is Christmas; Nancy has gotten back together with Steve and both are friends with Jonathan, gifting him a new camera for Christmas. Hopper leaves an office Christmas party with leftovers, which he leaves in the woods in a concealed box along with waffles, obviously a gift for El, who is presumed dead. Will and his friends have resumed their Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. After returning home to eat dinner with Joyce and Jonathan, Will excuses himself to wash his hands. In the bathroom he coughs up a slug. Will briefly sees the world like the Upside-Down, and then calmly returns to dinner as the screen fades to black.

Reception

Stranger Things has received largely positive reviews from critics and viewers. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave the series an approval rating of 93%, based on 46 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 8.1/10. The site's critical consensus states, "Exciting, heartbreaking, and sometimes scary, Stranger Things acts as an addictive homage to Spielberg films and vintage 1980s television." Metacritic gave the series a normalized score of 75 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

External links

• Official website
• Stranger Things at IMDb