After a decade, Stranger Things is finally coming to an end. For ten years, the Duffer Brothers have kept us entertained with dark and scary tales from the town of Hawkins, Indiana – beginning with the abduction of Will Byers and ending with the entire town on fire.
As you might expect from a story involving a lot of monsters with heads that open up to reveal many rows of teeth, there have also been a lot of deaths over the course of the show. Like, a lot. So many, you probably couldn’t count them.
Except we did. We’ve left out all the various guards and background players for ease, but still: the list is long, and they all mean something to the plot. Please enjoy.
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The most famous Stranger Things death? Quite possibly, because it was one of the most unexpected. Barb (Shannon Purser) was a friend of Nancy’s (Natalia Dyer), who – it seemed – was being set up for a character arc of her own when she attended a party thrown by Nancy’s then-boyfriend Steve (Joe Keery), only to be left out in the cold.
When some blood from a cut splashed into the pool she was sitting by, Barb was suddenly and ruthlessly dragged into the Upside Down and killed. Cue shock waves; clearly the Duffer Brothers weren’t messing around.
A diner owner in Hawkins. Shot by Connie Frazier after calling Social Services on Eleven.
Shock factor: 3/10. It was always going to happen.
One of season one’s big bads. A government agent (played by Joyce Van Patten) who worked alongside Dr Brenner (Matthew Modine) and was responsible for protecting the secrets of Hawkins Lab. When Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven fled, she hunted her down, posing as a social worker and various other things to gain the trust of people close to Eleven and her new friends.
Connie and her fellow agents did eventually corner Eleven at Hawkins Middle – but then Eleven disintegrated Connie’s brain and killed her instantly.
Shock factor: 1/10 . Justice!
The other villain of season one. A monster released from the Upside Down into Hawkins, who goes on a killing rampage that ends with Eleven disintegrating it telekinetically – though she also transports herself into the Upside Down in the process.
Shock factor: 1/10. More justice!
The biggest death of season two by far as sweet ol’ Bob Newby, played with panache by The Lord of the Rings’ Sean Astin. A schoolfriend of Joyce’s (Winona Ryder), turned boyfriend, Bob was a radio whizz who worked at the Radio Shack and was trying to convince the Byers family to move out of Hawkins.
However, when Will started having seizures, he was moved to the Hawkins National Laboratory for studying. Dog-sized monsters started to attack the lab, trapping the Byers family inside; Bob used his computer skills to turn off the security system, but was ambushed and mauled to death as they escaped.
Shock factor: 9/10. RIP Bob.
Otherwise known as Dart, this odd-looking specimen was found by Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) at the start of season two. For reasons best known to himself, he kept it, and though the group soon realised that it was a creature from the Upside Down, he continued to insist it was his pet.
Dustin took Dart home to care for it. Dart returned the favour by eating the Hendersons’ cat Mews. At this point, Dustin realised it was a danger, but Dart escaped before the gang could kill it, and later ambushed them in a junkyard with a whole load of other mini-flayers.
Things came to a head when the group were ambushed in the tunnels underneath Hawkins – where Dart recognised and spared Dustin. Eventually, Eleven closed the Mother Gate, cutting off his connection from the Upside Down and killing him.
Shock factor: 4/10. Really the most shocking part was that he was allowed to live for so long.
At the start of season three, Nancy’s attempts to do some actual journalism lead her to the door of Doris Driscoll, a kind widow living in Hawkins. Doris has been complaining about rabid rats, and shows Nancy her basement, where the rats had eaten several bags of fertiliser. Spoiler alert: the rats are possessed and later explode into a pile of biomass.
Shortly after, Doris becomes possessed by the Mind Flayer too. She’s taken to hospital, but is very obviously under the influence of something unholy. When she leaves, the gang decide to follow her, in the hopes she’ll lead them to the source of the Mind Flayer; instead, they’re ambushed in the hospital by two other infected, Tom Holloway and Bruce Lowe.
The gang manage to kill them, but their bodies melt into a pile of sludge and ultimately wriggle off to form the hospital monster. We assume this is what happened to Doris, too.
Shock factor: 5/10. Mainly for the gruesome method of death
Tom Holloway was Nancy’s misogynistic boss at the Hawkins Post. He and his entire family become possessed and end up attacking Nancy and Jonathan at the Hawkins Hospital when they come to see Doris.
Shock factor: 6/10, for same
Part of the Russian operation. He captured Robin (Maya Hawke) and Steve when they infiltrated the Russian base underneath Starcourt and tortured Steve. Eventually, he was electrocuted to death by Dustin and Erica Sinclair (Priah Ferguson), Lucas’ sister.
Shock factor: 3/10. He looked creepy, he was destined to die
Courtesy of Netflix
We’re not sure if we should be mourning this one. Alexei was a Russian scientist moved to their base underneath Starcourt Mall to work on The Key, the Soviet operation for opening a bridge to the Upside Down.
Part of the Soviet operation involved siphoning off energy from a base underneath the Hess Farmhouse, which is where Joyce and Hopper (David Harbour) found Alexei. After a fight, they took him hostage, and proceeded to take him to their friend Murray (Brett Gelman) – who spoke Russian – to milk for information. Despite being difficult, Alexei did tell them about The Key, and expressed an interest in switching sides and working for the US. Then the Soviet assassin Grigori killed him.
Shock factor: 5/10. Reasonably expected.
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Max’s elder step-brother. Billy (played by Dacre Montgomery) was cruel and abusive, and was even possessed by the Mind Flayer during the events of season three. Though he was never absorbed by it, he did become superhumanly strong and managed to capture Eleven, with the aim of offering her up to the Mind Flayer.
At this last moment, Max managed to appeal to his humanity, and Billy had a change of heart. He held off the monster, but was impaled by a tentacle and finally died.
Shock factor: 7/10. A sad redemptive arc
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The Soviet assassin and KGB enforcer tasked with keeping the Russian operation in Hawkins a secret by doing a lot of bloody murders. He scuffled with Hopper several times over the course of the series, and the two eventually duked it out in front of the Russian machine as it geared up to rip reality apart.
Eventually, Hopper got the other hand, and told the Russian he would “see you in Hell” before throwing his body into the machine and shredding it.
A lot of Russian scientists
Do we know how all those Russian scientists hidden beneath Starcourt Mall got there? No. Do we know if they enjoyed their jobs? Also no, but that’s less important, as most of them are dramatically killed in various ways over the course of season three as their experiments go wrong or they get torn apart by monsters from the Upside Down.
Shock factor: 1/10. Part of the job
Season four (the one where the killing really ramps up)
The Hawkins Lab test subjects really couldn’t get a break. Pretty much all of them are killed (shown in flashback) when Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower), aka Number One, has his power dampener removed by Eleven. He then goes on a killing spree, slaughtering them all before Eleven banishes him into the Upside Down with her powers. Spoiler alert: he then becomes the super-monster Vecna.
Shock factor: 6/10, mainly because they were kids and it was gruesome
A scientist working in the Hawkins Lab who is killed by One/ Vecna. Not one to weep for.
Courtesy of Netflix
Vecna’s first victim in the present day. A pretty, popular cheerleader who was dating the captain of the basketball team. Despite this, she was struggling with depression and self-esteem issues; then she started having hallucinations.
Eventually, she went into a trance – and though Eddie Munson tried to wake her up, she was brutally, psychically killed by Vecna, her bones crunched and head crushed. After she died, a gate to another dimension started to open, which the gang later went through.
Shock factor: 8/10, for just how grisly it was
Another victim of Vecna’s. Fred was a fellow student and wrote for the school newspaper The Weekly Streak. He was also wracked by guilt after a car crash he was involved in the previous year, where another student died. In season four, Vecna targeted him and killed him the same way he did Chrissy.
Tina Rowden/Netflix
Vecna’s family. They moved to Hawkins to start a new life after young Henry suffered some kind of psychic break as a child. Unfortunately, they brought the nightmare with them: Henry had been twisted into a malevolent creature by the discovery of a mysterious alien artefact. He also had powers, and he used them to kill his mother and sister – and later, father.
Shock factor: 5/10. Poor, doomed Creels
A bodyguard working for Sam Owens, Dr Brenner’s partner. He is assigned to protect the Byers family in season four, along with his partner, Agent Wallce. Unfortunately, the Byers’ house is raided by soldiers working for US Army Lt. Colonel Sullivan, and Harmon ends up being shot.
Will, Jonathan and Mike drag him out to Jonathan’s friend Argyle’s van, and ask him where they can find Eleven. Harmon tells them to find NINA, which is where she is being kept… then dies.
A basketball player at Hawkins High. The next victim of Vecna’s.
Courtesy of Netflix
Finally! ‘Papa’ escaped death once, but couldn’t escape it twice. The original person to run Hawkins Lab, he crops up again in season four, and offers Eleven a way to access her powers again – by coming with him to the NINA Project in Nevada.
Eleven does manage to unlock her powers, but Brenner insists on pushing them further. When Eleven and Dr Owens decide to return to Nevada, Brenner retaliates by locking down the compound. Then the US Military attack, and Brenner ends up fatally wounded, eventually dying alone in the desert. Is he properly dead this time? It looks like it.
Shock factor: 7/10. Is he actually dead? We’re still not sure
Ran a prison camp in Kamchatka, Russia. Imprisoned Hopper after he ended up there, following the Starcourt Mall operation. Ended up being eaten by demodogs after the prison camp was overrun.
Another very tragic death. The leader of the Hellfire Club (aka the school Dungeons and Dragons group), Eddie Munson became embroiled in the fight to take down the Demogorgon. He travels with the group to the Upside Down, and eventually, he sacrifices himself by providing a distraction (by playing heavy metal on top of a camper van), allowing the others to escape.
Shock factor: 8/10. Alas poor Eddie
Courtesy of Netflix
Dead? Maybe. Sadie Sink’s irrepressible Max Mayfield found herself targeted by Vecna over the course of season four. She managed to beat him with the power of song (Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill) but in the last episode, was eventually attacked by Vecna. Her body was shattered, but she was rescued from the brink of death by Eleven. Nevertheless, her almost-death was the key Vecna needed to shatter the boundaries between the Upside Down and Hawkins.
Shock factor: 10/10. They wouldn’t really kill off poor Max, would they?! Oh wait…
A lot of Hawkins residents
Come on, a rift opened in the middle of town! That must have swallowed a lot of people. Quite how many remains to be seen…
Shock factor: 5/10. Why have these people not moved away?
Stranger Things Season 5, Vol 1 will air on Netflix from November 26
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