Stranger Things recap: the whole story, season by season, from 1983 to the end
Guide · Recap · Seasons 1 to 5
Five seasons, 42 episodes, six years of story. Here is everything that happens, in order, from the night Will Byers vanishes in November 1983 to the May 1989 graduation. To refresh your memory before rewatching, or to understand the ending.
The essentials
- Season 1: November 1983: Will vanishes, Eleven appears
- Seasons 2 and 3: 1984 and 1985: the Mind Flayer, through Will then through Billy
- Season 4: 1986: Vecna, alias Henry Creel
- Season 5: 1987: the quarantine, the Abyss, the end
Contents
Season 1 recap: November 1983
On November 6, 1983, Will Byers, twelve, vanishes on his way home from a Dungeons & Dragons game. His mother Joyce hears his voice in the lights; the police chief, Hopper, finds his bike. His friends Mike, Dustin and Lucas meet in the woods a girl with a shaved head, Eleven, escaped from the lab where Dr. Brenner raised her for her powers. She opened, against her will, a gate to a mirror dimension, the Upside Down, from which a monster came, the Demogorgon.
Joyce and Hopper enter the Upside Down and bring Will back. Eleven pulverizes the Demogorgon in a classroom and disappears with it. At Christmas, Will coughs up a slug: he is still tied to the other world.
The Will Byers T-shirt, the missing boy of 1983.
In the shopMen's bikes in the forest upside down T-shirt39,90 €See the product
Season 2: fall 1984
A year later, Will has visions of an immense shadow above the town, the Mind Flayer, which ends up possessing him and seeing through his eyes. Eleven, hidden in Hopper's cabin for a year, goes looking for her mother then her "sister" Kali in Chicago, before coming back. The Demodogs, juvenile Demogorgons, invade the lab and kill Bob, Joyce's partner.
Joyce drives Will's shadow out with heat, while Eleven closes the lab gate. A month later, everyone dances at the Snow Ball. The last image shows the Mind Flayer, intact, above the middle school.
| Season | Period | The monster | What is lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | November 1983 | the Demogorgon | Barbara; Eleven disappears |
| 2 | Fall 1984 | The Mind Flayer, through Will | Bob |
| 3 | Summer 1985 | The Mind Flayer, through Billy | Billy, Alexei; Hopper presumed dead |
| 4 | Spring 1986 | Vecna | Chrissy, Fred, Patrick, Eddie, Brenner; Max in a coma |
| 5 | Fall 1987 | Henry, and the entity | Kali; Eleven's fate |
Season 3: summer 1985
A mall, Starcourt, has opened. Under it, Russians try to reopen the gate with a machine, which wakes a fragment of the Mind Flayer left on our side. It possesses Billy, Max's half-brother, then dozens of inhabitants, whom it melts to assemble itself a body of flesh. Dustin picks up the Russians by radio, Steve and Robin discover the base, Hopper and Joyce hunt the machine.
On July 4, in the Starcourt lobby, Billy turns against the monster and dies holding it; Joyce closes the gate; Hopper disappears in the explosion. The Byers leave town with Eleven, who has lost her powers. After the credits: Hopper is alive, a prisoner in Russia.
Season 4: spring 1986
In Hawkins, teenagers die with their limbs broken: it is Vecna, a sorcerer of the Upside Down, who haunts his victims and kills them at a distance. Max, haunted by Billy's death, is saved by a Kate Bush song. In California, Eleven finds her powers again with Brenner, alive, and relives 1979: Vecna is Henry Creel, the lab's first subject, whom she herself had projected into the Upside Down. In Russia, Joyce and Murray free Hopper.
The plan to kill Vecna half fails: Eddie Munson dies, Max dies a few seconds before Eleven brings her back, Vecna disappears, and four rifts join: the town is cut in two, and the Upside Down starts coming over to our side.
Season 5: fall 1987, and May 1989
Eighteen months later, the town is under military quarantine, commanded by Dr. Kay, who hunts Eleven. Henry abducts children, Holly Wheeler first, and holds them in his mind, where Max has been a prisoner since her coma. Will discovers he can turn the hive against the creatures. Max and Holly escape; Max wakes. Kali, freed from the army, dies in the lab assault.
In the Abyss, beyond the Upside Down, Will immobilizes Henry, Eleven impales him, Joyce beheads him; the entity he carried rises as a titan and is destroyed, then a bomb makes the Upside Down collapse. Eleven chooses to stay there. The epilogue, in May 1989, shows the graduation, Hopper proposing to Joyce, and Mike convinced that Eleven is alive.
What the show tellsKids who grow up fighting what a lab released. The monster changes face every season, but it is always the same: Henry Creel, the entity he carried, and the man who made it possible, Brenner.
The Eleven figure, from the beginning to the end.
In the shopLego closed Demogorgon mini figure14,90 €See the product
The story in ten scenes
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The basement, 1983
A game of D&D, a die that falls, and Will who bikes home alone.
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The cafeteria, 1983
Eleven disintegrates the Demogorgon and vanishes: "Goodbye, Mike."
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The lab lobby, 1984
Bob Newby dies a few yards from the exit.
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The gate, 1984
Eleven, held by Hopper, closes the gate; the Snow Ball follows.
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Starcourt, 1985
Billy holds back the flesh monster and dies; Joyce turns the keys; Hopper disappears.
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The cemetery, 1986
Max escapes Vecna by running toward her friends, Kate Bush in her ears.
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The lab, 1979
Henry, One, massacres the children; Eleven exiles him into the Upside Down.
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The Creel house, 1986
Vecna burned, Max dead for one minute, four rifts opened.
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The military base, 1987
Will freezes three Demogorgons: the missing boy has a power.
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The Abyss, 1987
The briefcase, the spider, Joyce's axe, the bomb, and Eleven's choice.
The big questions, and where the show answers them
| Question | Answer | Where |
|---|---|---|
| What is the Upside Down? | A bridge between Hawkins and the Abyss, created by Eleven in 1979, frozen on the day of its first opening | Season 5, episode 7 |
| Who is Vecna? | Henry Creel, number One, exiled by Eleven in 1979 | Season 4, episode 7 |
| Who commands the monsters? | Henry, and the entity he harbors | Seasons 4 and 5 |
| Why did Will survive in 1983? | Henry infected him to use him | Season 5, prologue |
| Who is the real evil? | A fragment of an entity, in a briefcase opened by Henry as a child | Season 5, last chapter |
| Does Eleven die? | The show does not decide; Mike proposes that an illusion of Kali's saved her | Season 5, epilogue |
What remains, once the story is over
In spring 1989, the town is rebuilding, the army has left, and everyone turns the page: Dustin gives a speech for Eddie, Hopper proposes to Joyce, Nancy and Jonathan part without a fight, Max walks, Will leaves and finally feels he belongs. One last Dungeons & Dragons game, then Holly starts hers, and Mike closes the door.
The story of the show thus comes down to two doors: the one at the lab, opened in 1983 by a child they forced, and the one in the Wheelers' basement, closed in 1989 by a boy who had finished telling the story. Between the two, five seasons, forty-two episodes, and a town that does not exist.
The complete-series poster.
In the shop44 mm Stuck in the Upside Down pin9,90 €See the product
Takeaway1983: Will vanishes, Eleven appears, the Demogorgon. 1984-1985: the Mind Flayer, through Will then through Billy. 1986: Vecna is Henry Creel. 1987: the quarantine, the Abyss, the end; 1989: the epilogue.
Frequently asked questions
What is Stranger Things about?
From a group of children in a small Indiana town who, from the disappearance of their friend Will in 1983, face the creatures of a mirror dimension, the Upside Down, opened by a secret lab.
How does Stranger Things end?
Henry Creel is killed in the Abyss, the Upside Down is destroyed by a bomb, Eleven stays on the other side, and the May 1989 epilogue shows each character at peace.
How many seasons and episodes?
Five seasons and 42 episodes, from 2016 to 2025.
In what order do the seasons take place?
1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, with an epilogue in 1989: one season per year, except 1987 which follows an eighteen-month jump.
Where does the show explain what the Upside Down is?
In the seventh episode of season 5, through Dustin's theory: a bridge between Hawkins and the Abyss, created by Eleven in 1979, frozen on the day of its first opening.
What happens in the very last scene?
In spring 1989, after a D&D game with Max, Mike watches Holly and her friends start their own campaign in the Wheelers' basement, then closes the door.