- Stranger Things Season 4 Recap and Ending Explainer: Can Vecna be Stopped?Vecna officially enters the chat, and the endgame is set.By Megan VickNov. 26, 2025
This article contains major character or plot details.
Satanic panic is taking hold of America in 1986, which is when we rejoin the party in Stranger Things Season 4. The kids just want to celebrate spring break, play some D&D, and hang out with their friends. But a terrifying new monster from the Upside Down is ruining their intended good time yet again.
The members of the party must look at the past if they want to find a way forward this season. They need to dig into Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) past, specifically. Her memories of a traumatic event at Hawkins National Lab are the key to understanding the latest Upside Down threat, but Eleven is now thousands of miles away from Hawkins and her powers are still on the fritz.
Distance is a major obstacle for our tenacious heroes this season. The Byerses and Eleven are in California. The remaining Hawkins crew may be in physical proximity to each other, but there’s significant emotional distance between many of them. High school has changed things for everyone, and they need to figure out how to come together — literally and metaphorically — if they want a chance at defeating the new enemy that is turning teenage shame into a potentially unstoppable energy source.
How does Stranger Things Season 4 start?
Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) is alive! Well, he is in 1979 at least, which is when the season-opening flashback takes place. He’s getting ready for a day at Hawkins National Laboratory, where he’s proctoring “lessons” with multiple buzz cut–sporting psychics in training. He’s working with a kid called Ten when they hear screams coming from the hallway and other sounds of an attack. When he steps outside Ten’s testing room to investigate, Brenner finds his staff and the rest of the kids at the lab massacred. Eleven is at the center of the chaos, chest heaving as blood pours out of her eyes and nose. There’s literally blood on her hands, but did she cause this carnage? It’s going to take a few more flashbacks before we figure that out.
What is everyone doing in 1986?
The Byerses and Eleven are at the tail end of the school year in California. Joyce (Winona Ryder) has a new job selling encyclopedias from home to pass the time — until a mysterious box from Russia arrives, sending her into full Investigator Joyce mode. Moving to California may have gotten her, Eleven, and the boys out of immediate danger, but it’s clear Joyce hasn’t let go of what happened to them at Starcourt Mall.
Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) has everyone believing he’s waiting for his acceptance letter from Emerson College, but he’s actually avoiding telling Nancy (Natalie Dyer) that he’s going to community college in California to stay close to his family. His best friend, Argyle (Eduardo Franco), is the only one who knows the truth, as Nancy is preoccupied with taking over the Hawkins school newspaper instead of coming to California to visit her boyfriend. He and Argyle sling pies for Surfer Boy Pizza after school — and that neon delivery van will matter later.
Will (Noah Schnapp) is leveling up his art game. He’s graduated from crayons and sketches to acrylic painting. Eleven suspects that he may have a crush at school, but there’s no evidence to support that, except that he’s “acting strange,” according to Eleven. She is writing letters to Mike (Finn Wolfhard) about how much she loves California, but she’s not telling the entire truth. She’s getting bullied by the kids in her class, and she can’t figure out how to fit in with her classmates. It’s not like she can flaunt her powers and find a band of nerds to be her ride-or-dies like she did in Hawkins. First, because that would be incredibly dangerous, and second, because Eleven’s powers still haven’t returned after she was attacked by the Mind Flayer in Season 3.
Solve word, logic, and visual puzzles based on Stranger Things
Mike is faring only slightly better on the social front. He and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) have joined a new D&D clique called The Hellfire Club. It’s captained by Hawkins High “super senior” Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), who takes their weekly campaign meetings very seriously. That’s an issue because Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) is torn between his commitments to Hellfire and his spot on the Hawkins High basketball team. One option means staying close to his best friends, and the other means a golden ticket to popularity and never being called a geek again. The chasm between Lucas and his friends deepens when he sees them invite his sister Erica (Priah Ferguson) to join Hellfire instead of supporting him at the championship basketball game.
Steve (Joe Keery) has found his groove again when it comes to the ladies, but he’s still in search of a genuine emotional connection instead of a hookup partner. At least he and Robin (Maya Hawke) are still friends. She has a new crush on a fellow band geek named Vickie, who Steve is convinced plays for Robin’s team, but Robin is terrified of making a move and being outed to the whole town.
So everyone has a lot on their plate and is thinking about their future, except for Max (Sadie Sink), who is still thinking about the events of the previous summer. Her stepfather left town. She and her mother live in a small trailer on the edge of town, and she’s in school-mandated counseling to help her work through all of this change after Billy (Dacre Montgomery) died at Starcourt Mall. The town, and the nation at large, believe that Billy and the Mind Flayer’s other victims died in the mall fire, but her stepbrother’s sacrifice haunts Max. She’s distancing herself from Lucas, Mike, and Dustin while she battles through the grief that won’t go away.
What about this new threat from the Upside Down?
There’s a new terrifying creature in Hawkins, and he’s not just referencing Freddy Krueger; he’s stealing the slasher’s entire playbook. The humanoid monster has more defined features than the Demogorgons, but his wrinkly skin and the tentacle-like veins framing his head and shoulders definitely indicate he’s from the shadow dimension. He can also talk to his prey, which makes him worse than everything that’s come before.
His first victim of the season is a bulimic cheerleader named Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien). We get a first glimpse of him when Chrissy imagines him outside the stall door when she’s throwing up in the high school bathroom. The visions continue in the woods where she’s meeting up with Eddie, the Hellfire dungeon master, to buy drugs. She sees a haunted clock with spiders crawling out of it and tells him she feels like she’s losing her mind. In one of her most disturbing hallucinations, her mother’s face briefly morphs into a rotting corpse, pushing Chrissy further toward panic. Eddie’s so compassionate about what she’s going through that Chrissy feels safe enough to ask him if he has anything stronger than weed.
He does, but the stronger drugs mean that Chrissy needs to come back to his trailer (which happens to be right across from where Max lives now) after that night’s basketball game. After they get to his place, Eddie searches through his room for his stash, leaving Chrissy in the living room when the monster attacks. Like Krueger, this new monster comes after his victims by preying on their visions and fears. Chrissy is stuck in a nightmare in which she’s running through her house, finding her parents with their eyes and mouths sewn shut. In the nightmare, there’s no escape, and she’s cornered by the new monster, who knows her name and says it is time for her suffering to end.
Back in the trailer, Eddie tries to wake Chrissy out of her trance (cue Eddie’s cries of “Chrissy, wake up! I don’t like this! Chrissy, wake up!” getting stuck in your head for weeks). Nothing he does works, and he watches in horror as Chrissy levitates to the ceiling. Her bones snap, and then her entire face collapses. This new monster does not play around.
Does Eddie know about the Upside Down?
He doesn’t know about the shadow dimension when Chrissy is killed, but he’s lucky that Max lives right across the trailer park. She doesn’t see what happens to Chrissy, but she sees Eddie run out of the trailer, terrified, and she spots Chrissy’s corpse after Eddie’s uncle, Wayne Munson (Joel Stoffer), finds her and calls the cops. The authorities immediately suspect Eddie is responsible for Chrissy’s death.
Something doesn’t feel right to Max about the situation. When she tells Dustin her theory, it spooks him too, so they rope in Steve and Robin to find Eddie and hear his story about what really happened.
They track Eddie down at his drug dealer Reefer Rick’s boathouse. He recounts the events of the previous night, which convinces the gang there’s definitely new Upside Down weirdness going on. They fill Eddie in on their previous adventures, and He and Dustin label the new monster Vecna, after the powerful undead spellcaster from D&D.
Why isn’t Lucas with Dustin and Max trying to clear Eddie’s name?
Lucas scores the winning shot at the Hawkins championship basketball game on the night that Chrissy is murdered. So the morning after celebrating, he’s recovering from his first hangover, throwing up at the team’s hangout when the cops pull up. They’ve come to question Jason (Mason Dye), the team captain and Chrissy’s boyfriend, about his whereabouts the night before.
So Lucas isn’t home when Max goes to tell him about her theory before she finds Dustin. Lucas is with Jason and the guys when they decide Hellfire Club is a cult of satanists and Eddie deserves vigilante justice for what’s happened to Chrissy. Lucas is the only one who can warn Dustin that the basketball team is looking to avenge Chrissy, and no member of Hellfire Club is safe.
What is our intrepid reporter Nancy doing during all of this?
Nancy is on the case as soon as she hears that a Hawkins High student has been found dead in a trailer park. She and her assistant managing editor, Fred (Logan Riley Bruner), head to the crime scene to investigate. They tell the cop controlling access to the trailer park that they’re there to check on Max. As As Nancy talks to the officer, Fred imagines the cop they’re chatting with accusing him of murder because of a hit-and-run car accident Fred was involved in the year before. In Fred’s mind, the cop’s face mutates into the same rotting form that Chrissy saw on her mother in her first visions. Uh-oh, looks like Vecna found his next victim.
Fred shakes off the vision — he’s not about to tell Nancy he left a kid for dead — and the two conduct interviews in the trailer park. They don’t come up with any leads until Nancy talks to Wayne Munson, who tells her Chrissy’s body reminds him of the Victor Creel murders that occurred before Nancy was born. Victor Creel allegedly murdered his entire family and plucked out their eyes. Wayne thinks he must have escaped from the Pennhurst Mental Hospital and killed Chrissy because he doesn’t believe that Eddie is capable of hurting someone like that.
Nancy doesn’t get to ask many follow-ups, though, because she realizes Fred’s gone missing. She searches the entire trailer park, unaware that Fred is stuck in the woods, imagining the same haunted clock that Chrissy imagined during her meeting with Eddie in the same woods. By the time Nancy tells the cops that Fred has wandered off, it’s dark, and Vecna is claiming his second victim.
What message is inside the Russian doll that Joyce Recieved?
The message reads, “Hop is alive.”
But let’s back up for a second. It’s not Stranger Things unless Joyce has something to investigate. Her detective instincts kick in when she receives a large box covered in Russian stamps and a creepy doll inside. She calls Murray (Brett Gelman) for advice on what to do with it, and he walks her through destroying the doll without potentially blowing herself up. There are no explosives inside the doll, but there is a note saying that Hopper (David Harbour) is alive!
And guess what, he is! The explosion in the Russians’ lab knocked Hopper to a far-below platform, which is why Joyce didn’t see a body. The Russians found him and squirreled him away before Dr. Owens (Paul Reiser) and the military could secure the premises. Hopper is, in fact, “The American” alluded to at the Kamchatka prison in the Season 3 post-credits scene.
The note inside the doll is from a guard calling himself Enzo (Tom Wlaschiha). Murray flies to California to help Joyce call the number on the mysterious note. When they make contact, “Enzo” offers to get Hopper “unstuck” from his current predicament if Joyce agrees to bring $40,000 to his associate in Alaska. Murray is dubious about the plan, but Joyce believes that Hopper is truly alive, so she heads to the bank so they can bring him back home.
Wouldn’t Eleven be useful for a prison break or fighting Upside Down monsters?
Eleven definitely would be — if her powers were working. However, even if she was in fighting shape, she has a lot going on already. The bullying at school intensifies when Eleven does her “hero” project on Hopper. The ringleader of Eleven’s tormentors, Angela (Elodie Grace Orkin), trips her in the school courtyard and crushes the project. Eleven tries to use her powers in retribution, but they fail, which leads to more mocking. A teacher notices Eleven in distress and drags Angela off to see the principal.
Bullies do not love consequences for their actions. Angela and her cronies catch up to Eleven after Mike arrives in California. Our girl is just trying to enjoy a cute skate date with her boyfriend when Angela and her friends humiliate her in front of Mike and everyone else at the rink. You can only push someone so far, though, and Eleven gets even by smashing Angela’s face with a skate, breaking her nose and giving her a grade 2 concussion.
That’s no schoolyard scrap. It’s assault, so the police show up and take Eleven into custody. There’s nothing Mike, Jonathan, or Will can do, and Joyce has already left to try and save Hopper.
Instead, Dr. Owens comes to the rescue, springing Eleven from police custody before she can be put in a juvenile detention center. Owens has been visited by the military about the developing situation in Hawkins. The armed forces believe that Eleven is the cause of what’s wrong in Hawkins, while Owens thinks she’s the only way they can fight it. He wants to help Eleven regain her powers at an even higher level than before so that she can help her friends in Indiana defeat Vecna. It sounds pretty risky, but Eleven agrees to try his deal so that she can save her friends.
Who is Vecna’s next victim?
Vecna’s energy is increasing with every new victim. After Fred, he targets Lucas’s teammate Patrick (Myles Truitt) … and Max. She, Dustin, Steve, Robin, and Nancy (who’s brought in after they find her talking to the cops about Fred disappearing) realize that Chrissy was seeing the school guidance counselor before she died. Max and the boys break into the school to look through Ms. Kelley’s files while Nancy and Robin go to the library to research Victor Creel.
As she goes through the files, Max discovers that Fred was also seeing Ms. Kelley. She realizes that she’s already experienced many of the same symptoms that Chrissy and Fred report to Ms. Kelley in their paperwork: nosebleeds, nightmares, and hearing a strange voice. Before Max can tell Dustin and Steve what she’s figured out, she has a vision of the same haunted clock Chrissy and Fred imagined before their gruesome deaths. That can only mean Vecna is coming for Max too — and soon.
Is anyone able to save her?
Obviously, the mission to find out who Vecna is and how to defeat him goes into overdrive once the crew realizes Max is in danger. Lucas ditches the basketball bros and joins in to help Max. Nancy and Robin pose as psychology students to visit Pennhurst Mental Hospital and Victor Creel (Robert Englund). Victor’s family was killed “by a demon” in a similar fashion to Chrissy and Fred. The crew believes that the demon is Vecna, making Victor the only known survivor of the monster’s attacks.
Preparing for the worst, Max writes letters to friends and family. She makes Steve take her to the cemetery so that she can say goodbye to Billy as well. She reads him a letter she wrote, revealing that she regrets not doing more to save him during the Battle at Starcourt. This shame is how Vecna gets to her. He puts her in a trance in the cemetery and makes her imagine Billy saying she wanted him to die. In the vision, Billy says he knows that Max secretly wishes she could follow him to death. But Max has the good sense to run away, forcing Vecna to chase her through the delusion.
Watch Max Hear Her Favorite Song, ‘Running Up That Hill,’ in Stranger Things Season 4
In the meantime, Nancy and Robin talk to Victor and hear his story. The key to surviving a Vecna attack, it seems, is music. As soon as they realize this, they bolt out of Pennhurst to relay their theory to Dustin just as Max enters the deep throes of Vecna’s trance. And as Max tries to escape, she somehow runs straight into Vecna’s lair, where he ties her up in his courtyard of victims.
In the real world, the boys grab Max’s Walkman and cue up her favorite song — “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush. Cranking up the volume, they put the headphones on Max. The song gives her a glimpse of the actual graveyard, which triggers happy memories of her friends. That gives Max enough strength to free herself from Vecna’s binds, stab him in the neck, and run for her friends. It breaks the trance, and she’s safe from Vecna, at least for now.
