Neil Hargrove in Stranger Things: Billy's father, Max's stepfather
Character · Family · Season 2
Two family names, one marriage, one house. In this article: who Neil is, the blended family, what he does to Billy, what Billy does to Max, the surfing memory, and the absence afterward. At the end, the chain is named.
Neil Hargrove is Billy's father, and Max's stepfather. He is not a monster from the other world. He is the adult who hits, and whose son passes the fear on.
The essentials
- Neil: Billy Hargrove's father
- Susan: Max's mother, Neil's wife
- The teenagers' link: stepbrother and stepsister by marriage, no shared blood
- The arrival: octobre 1984, Billy au volant d'une Camaro
- The house: Neil humiliates and hits Billy
- The memory: a day of surfing, a seven-foot wave, with his mother
Contents
Who is Neil Hargrove
Neil Hargrove has no power and no lab. He has a son, Billy, and a second family. The story shows him in the house, not inside a creature. That is already enough: an adult who humiliates and hits does not need another world to be frightening.
The father is played by Will Chase, announced in this role in May 2017. Neil appears only in one episode of 1984, then in Billy's memories, in 1985.
The son, on screen, is another file. Dacre Montgomery plays Billy. Neil stays the father in the frame, the one whose weight one understands without being offered a complete biography.
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Before Two households
Billy grows up with Neil. Billy's mother left when he was a child.
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The marriage Neil and Susan
Susan is Max's mother. The marriage puts the two teenagers under the same roof.
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The coast They leave California
A Camaro, a skateboard. The departure is a hill, not yet a town in Indiana.
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October 1984 The arrival
Hawkins, in Indiana, receives Billy at the wheel, and Max with her skateboard.
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The house The chain
Neil hits Billy. Billy terrorizes Max and Max's friends.
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The memory A wave, a beach
Eleven will find, in Billy's memory, a day of surfing with his mother.
The curls in Billy's style, Neil's son.
In the shopDangle earrings Billy Hargrove style12,90 €See the product
The blended family
Max's name is Mayfield. Billy's name is Hargrove. Her mother is Susan. His father is Neil. When Neil marries Susan, the two teenagers end up in the same car, then in the same town. The article on Max's brother holds this civil status. Here, Neil is the marriage.
The coast they leave is in California. The story does not mix this departure with the arrival town in the same image. On one side, a California whose departure the story does not film. On the other, October 1984, a Camaro, a skateboard under Max's arm, a town in Indiana.
One does not invent a common father for them, nor an adoption, nor a paper that is not shown. Max is Susan's daughter. Billy is Neil's son. The adults' marriage is the only link. Without that marriage, those two would not have known each other.
Neil and Billy
Neil humiliates Billy and hits him. The story shows the chain. It does not forgive it. Understanding where the blow comes from does not make Billy's blow acceptable, nor Neil's. The two are on screen so one sees the order: the adult first, the son next, onto someone weaker than him.
Billy grew up with this father. His mother left when he was a child. The only happy memory the story leaves him is a day of surfing, a seven-foot wave, on a beach, with that mother. Max was not on that beach. It is not a memory of the blended family. It is a memory from before Susan.
On arrival, in October 1984, Hawkins is in Indiana, and Billy is driving. The car is a Camaro. The house that follows already has its rule: Neil talks, Billy takes it, then Billy takes that fear out of the house and sets it on others.
Neil and Max
Max is Billy's stepsister by marriage. She is not his blood sister, and Neil is not her father. He is the stepfather, the man her mother married, the one who makes the house unlivable for the son, and therefore, by ricochet, for her.
Billy passes on to Max, and to Max's friends, the fear he takes at home. Max's roof is explained by Neil, not by a popularity contest at the high school. The stepfather does not need to be in every hallway scene to be the cause of several of them.
Susan is the name that often goes missing when one shortens. She is Max's mother, Neil's wife, the reason for the shared move. Erasing her is making Neil a sole father that he is not. The story, for its part, keeps both adults.
The big-head figure of Max Mayfield, Susan's daughter.
In the shopBuildable big-head figure Max Mayfield19,90 €See the product
What the summer of 1985 shows of childhood
Eleven, searching Billy's memory, finds the beach again. A child, a seven-foot wave, a mother who is no longer there in Neil's house. The story sets this shot against all the rest: it is the only happiness it grants Billy, and it is already lost at the moment one sees it.
This image does not wash Neil clean. It makes him sharper. A father who hits, a mother who left, a son who kept only one day. Max does not enter this memory. She enters the house after, the one of the marriage.
Billy dies on July 4, 1985. In March 1986, something that is not him imitates him at the cemetery. The father is not that imitation. The father is the man of the house, well before the cemetery.
Afterward
The pages read do not give Neil a scene after Billy's death. In March 1986, facing Ms. Kelley, Max only confirms that her stepfather has left, and that it is a bit better that way. Susan holds two jobs; the mother and the daughter now live in a trailer in Forest Hills. Neil divorced Susan. On May 3, 2017, the role announcement first presented him under the name Neil Mayfield.
What he leaves is already in the house of 1984 and in the memory of 1985. A stepfather, a father, blows, a beach that belongs only to the son and his mother. Max and Billy carry the rest, including the word “brother”, which the neighbors shorten and which the story, for its part, refuses to shorten.
Three facts close the file. Billy is Neil's son, not Susan's son. Max is Susan's daughter, not Neil's daughter. The marriage put all of them in the same car, then in the same fear. Nothing else is needed to hold the two first names in their true place.
The Max mini figure on a skateboard, the skateboard of the move.
In the shopBuildable mini figure Max Mayfield on a skateboard14,90 €See the product
Frequently asked questions
Who is Neil Hargrove?
Billy's father. He marries Susan, Max's mother. He becomes Max's stepfather, not her father.
Are Billy and Max blood brother and sister?
No. Billy is Neil's son. Max is Susan's daughter. It is a link by marriage, after the adults' marriage.
Where do they come from?
They leave California. In October 1984, they arrive in a town in Indiana. Billy drives a Camaro. Max has her skateboard.
What does Neil do at home?
He humiliates Billy and hits him. Billy passes this fear on to Max and to Max's friends. The story shows the chain and does not forgive it.
What is Billy's childhood memory?
A day of surfing, a seven-foot wave, with his mother, on a beach. Eleven finds it again in his memory. Max was not there.
Who plays Neil?
Will Chase, announced in the role in May 2017. Billy, for his part, is played by Dacre Montgomery.
