Everything that happened in Stranger Things season 1.

This year the fifth and final season of Stranger Things will finally make its ways to the screen. But a lot has happened the past four seasons. And you probably don’t remember all of it. But don’t worry I’ve watched all four seasons again and made a recap for each season, so you don’t have to. But I certainly recommend watching them all again before the final season starts. I very much enjoyed the whole ride all over again.

Stranger Things is an epic coming of age story about friendship, family, love, and courage. It’s suspenseful, emotional. It has a lot of character development and a huge 80s vibe and of course creepy scary monsters, both human and supernatural. 

So let me take you back on this wild epic ride. 

The Characters

• Will Byers. He disappears and is the key story arc.
• Joyce Byers. Will’s mother who is worried and stressed out but one of the few who believes Will is still alive. 
• Jonathan Byers. Will’s older brother who is sensitive and a loner and thinks his mother is going crazy.
• Eleven. The girl who escaped Hawkins Lab. She’s the other story arc that is intertwined with Will’s disappearance. She has telekinetic powers.
• Mike Wheeler. The unspoken leader of the four boys (the Party) who is brave and doesn’t give up on his friends. He’s the only one of the three boys who still believes Will is alive. He has a little crush on Eleven.
• Nancy Wheeler. Mike’s older sister. She’s dating Steve. When her best friend Barb goes missing, just like Will, she doesn’t believe that she ran away but that something terrible has happened to her. 
• Dustin Henderson. He’s the glue of the Party. He’s smart and creative.
• Lucas Sinclair. He’s the careful one who doesn’t like Eleven at first and calls her a freak.
• Steve Harrington. The cool boy who dates Nancy and her influence changes him for the better.
• Jim Hopper. The sheriff. He is divorced after he has lost his daughter Sara a couple of years ago and is still grieving. But he doesn’t trust Hawkins Lab, and investigates Will’s disappearance thoroughly. 

How it all began on November 6 1983

In Hawkins National Laboratory U.S. Department of Energy the alarm goes off and someone is attacked by an unseen something. That same evening Will, Lucas. Dustin and Mike are playing Dungeons & Dragons in Mike’s basement. When Will rides home on his bike he’s almost attacked by something and flees home, but the thing has caught up on him and Will vanishes into thin air. 

But this vicious creature isn’t the only one who has escaped the Lab. A girl named Eleven has escaped too and now some ruthless people led by Dr. Brenner are looking for her. Through flashbacks we learn that she has killed two orderlies to escape.

When Mike, Dustin and Lucas go into the woods at night to search for Will they stumble upon Eleven. Mike takes her home and hides her in his basement. 

They soon find out that Eleven has a connection with Will as she points him out on a picture. They also learn that she has telekinetic powers. She tells them that Will is hiding from a monster and uses the Demogorgon from D&D to demonstrate. She also shows them where he is, at the other side of the board, the Upside Down. 

Continue reading below this announcement.

Searching for Will

While the search party is still going, Nancy is going to another party at Steve’s house. She convinces Barb, her best friend to come with her. But when Nancy goes upstairs with Steve she tells Barb to go home. Barb sits by the pool, while her blood from a finger cut drips into the water. This attracts the monster, the Demogorgon and Barb also vanishes. We now see the Upside Down for the first time. It’s dark, with floating ashes in the air and lifeless, but it looks just like Hawkins. 

Jonathan who has been watching them from the bushes and has been taking pictures, is later caught while developing these pictures. Steve destroys his camera, but Nancy sees a picture of Barb and takes it home with her. She studies it and sees a monster on it. She goes to Jonathan for help to enlarge the picture. This is the thing she saw when she went back to Steve’s house to look for Barb.  

Joyce is searching for Will after he called on the phone and tried to communicate with her through the lights. She hangs up Christmas lights and manages to talk to him. She even sees him behind the wall, through some kind of membrane. Even the Demogorgon tries to break through the wall. She tells Will to run and the portal closes, turning into the wall again. Everyone thinks she’s going crazy and nobody believes her. 

Meanwhile Hopper doesn’t trust the Lab and investigates the Lab and Brenner and finds an old news paper article about Terry Ives who accused Brenner to have taken her baby girl Jane. Hopper thinks that might be the kid, a girl with a buzz cut who has been seen in a diner and that this is somehow connected to Will.

The Gate

But then Will’s body is found in the water by the quarry. And not short after a funeral is held. But not everybody thinks he’s really dead. 

The autopsy is done by state people and Hopper doesn’t trust it. So when he takes a look in the morgue he finds that the body is filled with cotton and it is a fake. He also breaks into the Lab and discovers a portal, the Gate, in the basement and a room for a little kid. He’s caught and tasered and wakes up at home. He discovers he’s bugged and goes to Joyce to look for bugs too. 

Due to Nancy’s description of the monster which is the same as Joyce’s, Jonathan starts to believe both of them. They plan to kill the monster.

Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Eleven find out that in order to get to the Upside Down you have to create a Gate with a massive amount of energy. That Gate gives off a high magnetic field and they discover that their compasses face not true north but somewhere else, probably the Gate. When they follow the signal they are stopped by Eleven who’s afraid to go back. Mike and Lucas get into a fight and Eleven flees after she has thrown Lucas off of Mike with her powers. 

Nancy and Jonathan search in the woods for the Demogorgon and find not only the monster but also a portal which it came through. Nancy goes through the portal and finds herself in the Upside Down. The Demogorgon sees her and she runs and finds her way home thanks to Jonathan. So now they all know it’s all real. 

Eleven’s story

Through flashbacks we learn that Eleven was used by Brenner as a seeker. When put inside a sensory deprivation tank, Eleven can go inside her mind and go to wherever or more importantly whoever she wants to find. She can see that person in this mind-realm and hear them. That makes her a super spy. She also has a variety of telekinetic powers. But using these powers takes a lot of energy. When she’s in that mind-realm she also sees something else, a monster. Brenner wants her to go look for it and make contact. But when she does and touches it she’s so scared that either her fear or the touch, we don’t know, creates a Gate to another dimension, the Upside Down. And the Demogorgon comes through causing a lot of mayhem in the Lab. Eleven might be 12 years old, just like the boys, but she’s not raised to be a normal kid. 

Things always get worse first

Lucas argues with Mike again after Dustin wanted to patch things up, and goes to the Lab all by himself to look for Will, led by his faulty compass. Meanwhile Mike and Dustin are looking for Eleven. But they stumble upon two bullies instead, who want revenge for their last encounter. When they are caught by the bullies Mike is forced to jump into the water of the quarry, what would highly likely have killed him, were it not for Eleven who shows up and floats Mike back onto the ground. She hurts the bullies who flee and the three of them hug.

Meanwhile Lucas is observing the Lab as he sees vans heading out and warns Mike and Dustin with the walkie talkie. When they flee on their bikes for the bad people, Eleven throws a van into the air and they escape. 

Hopper and Joyce go see Terry Ives, but she doesn’t talk anymore. Her sister tells them that she participated in the MK Ultra experiment and that she was pregnant. She lost the baby but she made up a story that Jane was born and that Brenner took her from her. So Joyce and Hopper are none the wiser. 

In the meantime Steve’s friend has written ‘Nancy Wheeler is a slut’ on the movie theater billboard with graffiti. After Nancy and Jonathan went shopping for monster hunting equipment, Nancy finds out and Jonathan and Steve get into a fight, mainly because Steve calls his mother and brother crazy. Jonathan gets arrested. 

When Hopper and Joyce arrive at the police station they meet up with Nancy and Jonathan and they share their information and when the bully is with his mother at the station to complain about a girl with a buzz cut who broke his arm, all the pieces are falling together. 

When things finally come together

Lucas has caught up with Mike, Dustin and Eleven and hide for the bad guys. Nancy contacts Mike with a walkie talkie and Hopper picks them up. They plan to build a sensory deprivation pool in the middle school gym to let Eleven find Barb and Will. She finds Barb but she’s dead. She sees Will in his Castle Byers alive, but not doing well. 

So Joyce and Hopper go into the Lab to get Will. When they get caught, Hopper makes a deal. They go through the Gate to get Will and he tells them where Eleven is. 

Nancy and Jonathan are still planning on killing the Demogorgon and turn the Byers’ house into a trap. Then Steve shows up to make amends with Jonathan. He gets really lucky when he realizes he just stumbled into a crazy scene. He wasn’t aware of anything that was going on, but still decides to fight with them. Together they manage to wound and burn the Demogorgon but he escapes by vanishing on them.

In the Upside Down Joyce and Hopper find Will with an organic vine tube in his throat and perform CPR on him and take him home.  

When Brenner and consorts arrive at the gym, Eleven manages to fight a few of them off, but then the Demogorgon shows up. It attacks Brenner and all the other bad guys. To save Mike, Dustin and Lucas, Eleven destroys the Demogorgon after she says goodbye to Mike and vanishes with the monster. 

One month later

Everything seems back to normal. But Mike mourns Eleven. And Will isn’t doing all that well either. He still sees visions of the Upside Down and even throws up a black slug. But there are some good signs as well. Hopper is leaving food in a box in the woods with Elevenl’s favorite food. 

So what does Will’s visions mean? If Eleven is still alive, where is she? What is the Upside Down exactly and can the Demogorgon open portals all by itself? What was the purpose of the experiments on Eleven? And is Terry really Eleven’s mom? All questions we like to be answered.

See you for the recap of the second season to hopefully get some answers. 

Read more about Stranger Things:

• Stranger Things season 2 recap
• Stranger Things season 3 recap
• Stranger Things season 4 recap
• Stranger Things season 1 review
• Stranger Things season 2 review
• Stranger Things season 3 review