The Complete Stranger Things Timeline, EXPLAINED
The Complete Stranger Things Timeline EXPLAINED
“Stranger Things” is known for basking in ‘80s nostalgia, but the story actually begins a wee bit earlier in the late 1950s. Victor Creel thought he’d found the perfect place to raise a family - a big house in the quiet town of Hawkins, Indiana. But his son Henry, however, was not exactly a sunshine-and-baseball kind of kid. He had special powers and was a bit of a budding psychopath. In March of 1959, young Henry murdered his mother and sister in what looked like a supernatural meltdown, and his father was blamed for their deaths and tossed into an asylum, where he remains to this day. Meanwhile, the exertion caused Henry to fall into a coma. The story attracted the attention of one Dr. Brenner, who took an intense interest in the boy with psychic powers. Brenner visited the now-awake Henry and took him into his care, hoping to study his brain and harness his supernatural abilities.
Henry was taken to the brand-new Hawkins National Laboratory, where Brenner literally branded him Subject 001. Henry became the lab’s first psychic guinea pig - and, as it turned out, its last success story. Brenner quickly realized that he needed more test subjects, and thus began a secret MKUltra-like experiment which saw Brenner kidnapping kids, taking them to the lab, and training them to unlock their dormant abilities.
Fast-forward a decade or so. The U.S. government was now very into LSD and telepathy, and a woman named Terry Ives volunteered to undergo some experiments. After being drugged, manipulated, and subjected to psychic tests, she discovered that she had been pregnant the entire time. In 1971, she gave birth to her daughter, Jane, who had special powers owing to the experiments performed on her mom. Brenner, ever the baby snatcher, stole Jane at birth and renamed her Eleven, being his eleventh subject. He told Terry that she had miscarried and then fried her brain for asking too many questions, placing her in a state of near-catatonia.
At the lab, Eleven grew up with other numbered children and Brenner harnessed her abilities. Among her caretakers was a friendly orderly who always seemed to know a little too much. Of course, this was a now-grown Henry, who was manipulating Eleven to join his psychopathic crusade against humanity. He convinced her to remove an implant that Brenner had given him to suppress his powers and went on a psychic rampage, slaughtering everyone in the lab. When Eleven saw the carnage, she faced him in an epic telekinetic showdown. Fueled by rage and heartbreak, she blasted him through the very fabric of space and time and sent him to another dimension entirely. Henry fell into some kind of creepy world filled with monsters and swirling particles, and he then reconstituted these particles into his massive pet spider - The Mind Flayer. Owing to the enormous expense of power, Eleven fell into a coma and suffered amnesia, forgetting the encounter entirely. Brenner, having survived the massacre, swept the mess under the rug and pretended everything was fine, simply finding some new kids and carrying on with his experiments.
Fast forward a few years to 1983. Brenner is still working with Eleven and is now forcing her into a sensory deprivation tank as some kind of Cold War spying scheme. Unfortunately, Eleven entered a dark void and encountered the Demogorgon. But after curiously touching it, a gate to The Upside Down was opened, and the Demogorgon escaped.
And with that, we come to season one. November 6, 1983. Sweet little Will Byers biked home from a long campaign of D&D with his friends and was kidnapped by the Demogorgon, who took him back to The Upside Down for reasons that still aren’t really explained. His frantic mom, Joyce, goes to the police, getting everyone’s favorite Chief of Police Jim Hopper on the case. Hopper deduces that the local lab is somehow involved in Will’s disappearance. Meanwhile, Will’s friends - Mike, Lucas, and Dustin - find Eleven, who had escaped the lab in the Demogorgon chaos. Everything is eventually traced back to Hawkins Lab, Will is rescued from the Upside Down, and Eleven goes missing after killing the Demogorgon. In exchange for both Eleven and Will’s freedom, Hopper promises to keep the whole thing secret.
Eleven didn’t die, but was transported back to The Upside Down, where she stayed for all of two minutes before remerging through another gate. She then wandered the woods until she was found by Hopper, who took her in as his daughter and kept her secluded in a cabin. Unfortunately, the Upside Down wasn’t done, and Henry’s pet, The Mind Flayer, had its eye on Earth. It uses Will’s connection to The Upside Down and possesses him, using him as his conduit in the real world. But once again, the good guys emerge victorious. They force The Mind Flayer out of Will, Eleven closes the gate to The Upside Down and is legally adopted by Hopper, and the lab is closed thanks to the involvement of conspiracy theorist Murray Bauman.
One year later, summer 1985. The heat has arrived, and with it, the new Starcourt Mall, a pastel paradise of neon lights, food courts, and capitalism. Everyone loved it. However, this is really just a cover for the Soviets, who had constructed the mall to mask their true intentions. Just below the mall was a massive device that they were using to open a new gate to The Upside Down, hoping to utilize its monsters for Cold War purposes. The portion of The Mind Flayer that flew out of Will now possesses Billy, who constructs a massive monster out of the melted bodies of Hawkins’s citizens. Once again, the day is saved. The Russians’ tool is destroyed and the body part monster dies once its connection to The Upside Down is severed. Unfortunately, the ending is not so happy this time. Billy dies saving the kids, Hopper is taken by the Soviets, and the Byers leave Hawkins for California, taking Eleven with them.
Spring 1986. Creepy things start happening in Hawkins. Teenagers start dying in horrible ways, their bones shattering and their eyes being gouged out. Poor Eddie Munson, the town metalhead and Dungeon Master, was framed for the murders, sparking a satanic panic in the town. But our heroes weren’t fooled. Nancy, Steve, Robin, Dustin, Lucas, and Max began to uncover the truth - the real culprit was Henry Creel, who has since been transformed into the grotesque monster Vecna. He was targeting those with trauma and murdering them in order to open four gates between The Upside Down and the real world for an impending invasion.
Meanwhile, Brenner finds Eleven again and takes her to a top-secret lab in the Nevada desert. Under his care, she began reliving her memories - discovering her role in creating Vecna and how she was the sole survivor of the Massacre of Hawkins Lab. Their work is soon interrupted by the Army, who invades the secret lab and kills most of its inhabitants, including Brenner. Luckily, Eleven is picked up by Mike, Jonathan, Will, and Argyle, who have traced her to the lab.
Meanwhile, Hopper is being kept prisoner in a remote Soviet camp, where he discovers that they too have been experimenting with The Upside Down and even have a few of its inhabitants, including Demogorgons and some swirling particles belonging to The Mind Flayer. He’s rescued by Joyce and Murray and they return to Hawkins, where they all reunite with the gang.
The Hawkins group invades The Upside Down, and Eddie dies while drawing the bats away from Vecna. Vecna is seemingly killed by Robin, Steve, and Nancy, but not before he attacks Max, who was suffering trauma owing to the events of the previous season. He succeeds in killing her, but Eleven is able to bring her back to life, albeit in a completely comatose form. Owing to the bad news, her brief death creates Vecna’s fourth and final gate, allowing The Upside Down to fully invade Hawkins.
And that’s “Stranger Things!” We can’t wait to see what season five has in store.
