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Hawkins Police Department
Powell
Officer Calvin Powell
Played By: Rob Morgan
Debut: "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers" (1x01)
Chief Hopper's second-in-command in the investigation. A laid-back Police Officer, largely uninterested in the investigation.
- Big "SHUT UP!": He interrupts a mass argument between the Sinclair, Wheeler, and Henderson families with one of these.
- Character Development: While not much, it's noticeable. Powell started off in the beginning of the show as very disinterested and usually just following along with whatever Hopper was doing. Following Hopper's "death" however, he is ranked up to the Chief of Police, and begins to take the job more seriously. While he's still a bit clueless, he does try, far far more compared to his Season 1/Season 2 self.
- Clueless Deputy: Played with. What makes him clueless isn't so much a lack of intelligence, but rather the fact that he is too skeptical and uninterested to pick up on all the weird stuff happening in Hawkins. Hopper also seems to consider him the more reliable of his deputies. Given the competition, though...
- Death Glare: Gives one to Jason after he rallies the entire town against Eddie.
- Dude, Not Funny!: His quips tend to be really poorly timed, from cracking about Joyce's Sanity Slippage to suggesting Will is too dead for an interrogation just a few days into the search for him.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Powell's leading questions during Jason's interrogation inadvertently led the latter to realise that Chrissy is the dead Hawkins High student the news was talking about, and that Eddie is a person of interest. This leads to Jason's Sanity Slippage that culminates into Hawkins going on a Witch Hunt for the members of the Hellfire Club by the end of the season.
- Oh, Crap!: Both Powell and Callahan have these looks on their faces when they realise that they said too much during their interrogation of Jason and he now knows that Eddie is a person of interest in Chrissy's murder.
- Rank Up: He is promoted to Hawkin's chief of police after Hopper's apparent death.
- Reasonable Authority Figure:
- Surprisingly gains shades of this in Season 4. After Chrissy is found dead in Eddie's trailer, he doesn't immediately suspect the latter to be a murderer, as just because a corpse is discovered on your property, it doesn't necessarily make you guilty of their murder (he notably also doesn't include Eddie's uncle on his list of suspects). It's only after Eddie is confirmed to be at the location of another murder does he begin counting him as a suspect.
- Likewise, when Dustin, Lucas, and Max are caught out late at night by the lake where Patrick was killed, he opts to interrogate them individually with their parents there as opposed to Ted's suggestion of having the teens spend a night in prison. He also doesn't jump to the assumption that they are in league with Eddie or are guilty of anything (yet). This is in contrast to the rest of the Hawkins residents who have become convinced that the Hellfire club (which includes Lucas and Dustin) is a satanic cult and have organized a Witch Hunt against them.
- Saying Too Much: When he interrogates Jason after Chrissy's murder he asks to many leading questions, by asking if she ever purchases drugs and if she is known to hang out with Eddie, which leads to Jason coming to the conclusion that Eddie was involved in Chrissy's murder. Notably you can see the moment Powell realises he said too much but by then it is too late.
- The Scully: He's not just skeptical, he's also lazy.
- Shout-Out:
- Calvin and Phil bear a more-than-passing resemblance to Lou and Eddie, the cops that support Chief Wiggum on The Simpsons. Calvin is even the more intelligent and competent of the two, like Lou.
- He's also got the same name as Sergeant Powell from Die Hard.
- The Slacker: Yes-no. It's not that he's completely clocked-out, but rather that he jumps on anything that could close a case both quickly and with the minimal hassle for him.
- Small Town Boredom: Contrary to the Chief, Officer Powell is ostensibly a small town cop unwilling to go the extra mile.
- Those Two Guys: He is often seen with Callahan by his side. Even when Powell is made Chief of Police, Callahan is still always around him as his Number Two.
- Token Minority: The sole African-American in the little Hawkins police force until Season 4.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His less than stellar handling of Jason's interrogation sets into motion a domino effect that leads to Hawkins descending into a paranoid Witch Hunt mania against the Hellfire Club.
Callahan
Officer Phil Callahan
Played By: John Reynolds
Debut: "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers" (1x01)
One of Chief Hopper's officers with a tendency of speaking without thinking.
- Character Development: While not as much as Powell, it is a bit there too. Callahan seems to have become a bit more respectful and does put more effort in his job than in Season 1 and 2. Keyword being effort.
- Clueless Deputy: A more straight example than Powell. Compared to him, Callahan is very obviously none too bright.
- Ironic Name: His last name translates to "bright-headed". Not very fitting for the rather dull Officer Callahan.
- Jerkass: He has a tendency to make rather obnoxious comments about people who don't really merit it, including those who are victims of crimes. Given his general demeanour of cluelessness, however, it doesn't really seem to be out of maliciousness as much as just a kind of thoughtless dim-witted insensitivity.
- No Sympathy: No matter what crime he is investigating, this guy will feel not one iota of empathy towards the victim, though in Season 4 he's just as horrified as everyone else seeing Chrissy's mangled corpse.
- Porn Stache: Starting in Season 2, he's sporting a thick, bushy 'stache.
- Those Two Guys: Officer Powell is almost always with him. Even when Powell is promoted, the two of them stick together, with Callahan being his Number Two.
Florence
Florence
Played By: Susan Shalhoub Larkin
Debut: "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers" (1x01)
Hawkins Police station's secretary and clerk. A grandmotherly figure.
- '50s Hair: Wears a fuzzy and soft version of the style worn by HM Queen Elizabeth II.
- Apron Matron: She is the stern yet loving glue that holds the police department together. Her no-nonsense attitude appears to be the only thing protecting Hopper from himself at the start of the series.
- Cool Old Lady: She is completely unfazed by her co-workers' quirks, can snark back and forth with Hopper like a pro, and shows some admiration towards Jonathan for standing up for Nancy.
- The Face: The reason why she's the one to interact with the public the most is that she's not a Jerkass like everyone else in the station and is the one who shows the most empathy towards crime victims.
- Morality Chain: For Hopper and the police department as a whole.
- Only Sane Employee: She routinely has to remind Hopper and his deputees that yes, they have a duty to the citizens of their town and no, they can't laze around the station all day.
- Sassy Secretary: Shows shades of this, having somewhat of a sarcastic streak with Hopper and the deputies, but at the end of the day, always has their best interests at heart.
- The Reliable One: She serves unofficially as the person who talks to relatives at the station.
- Team Mom: Everybody at the station bows to her as if she were their momma. Played for comedy in Season 2 where she plucks a cigarette out of Hopper's mouth and replaces his donut with a piece of fruit all while briefing him on the business of the day.
Hawkins High School
Basketball Team
Tommy Hagan
Tommy Hagan
Played By: Chester Rushing
Debut: "Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street" (1x02)
Steve's former best friend and Carol's boyfriend. A guy with an extremely caustic personality.
- Birds of a Feather: His relationship with utter bitch Carol is a match made in heaven/hell — take your pick.
- The Bully: It comes with being a Jerk Jock. With the exception of his equally horrible girlfriend, Tommy picks on just about everyone.
- Demoted to Extra: For the majority of Season 2, although in the fourth episode, he informs Steve and Billy in the shower about Jonathan and Nancy's relationship going back on. Needless to say, he is still the same, if not on a marginal level. By the events of Season 3, he is completely out of the main character's lives (not that anyone misses him, though).
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The cool and cruel Tommy and Carol have the most consistent relationship in the series. Barb says that they've probably been having sex since the 7th grade. They're always seen together and always support each other. When Steve loses his temper and yells at Carol in "The Bathtub," Tommy's temper explodes.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He is momentarily taken aback when he sees Jonathan's stalker photos.
- False Friend: It doesn't take him long to try spiking Steve's relationship with Nancy. For what looks suspiciously like the giggles. Begs the question of just how much of their relationship is for the lulz on his end.
- Hate Sink: This jock has no redeeming qualities in his soulless bones, other than his love for the equally terrible Carol.
- Jerkass Has a Point: When Steve finally calls him out on his behavior, Tommy immediately points out that he's never stopped him.
- Jerk Jock: Tommy is on the basketball team and is aggressively unpleasant.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Most of Steve's poor behavior is due to Tommy's hateful influence. He eventually comes to realize that Tommy and Carol only serve to bring out the worst in him. Steve undergoes a lot of character development as Tommy and Carol's influence on him fades.
Jason Carver
Jason Carver
"Then I remembered Romans 12:21: 'Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.'"
Played By: Mason Dye
Debut: "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club" (4x01)
The captain of the Hawkins High basketball team and Chrissy's boyfriend.
- Affably Evil: A perfect mix of this and Faux Affably Evil depending on when the mood calls for it. Jason stands up for his teammates to rough play at the basketball games, shows genuine concern for Lucas at his hangover when the latter is sick and does truly care for others. However, he has just enough charisma to manipulate people and act kindly in order to bring them to his side, with examples including him "not pressuring Lucas" to join their search for Eddie, his rabble-rousing speech at the town hall, or his politely threatening scene with Nancy in the gun store.
- Alas, Poor Villain: With everything the guy suffered, including losing two people close to him to Vecna, having to witness the second one be murdered right in front of him, and his genuine misguided beliefs (although with inexcusable actions), it's difficult not to feel some pity at his death. To say nothing of the utterly horrifying manner of his death. Even Caleb McLaughlin feels sorry for him.
Caleb: His girlfriend died, he thought Eddie killed her, and then he was just trying to be the superhero but ended up getting cut in half, sadly. - Anti-Villain: While he leads the basketball team in a manhunt for Eddie so they can kill him, he's got an understandable motive in that his girlfriend was murdered and Eddie is the prime suspect. Chrissy did die horribly in Eddie's trailer, and Jason doesn't know about any of the evidence that shows it wasn't possible for Eddie to have done it. Although his pre-existing dislike and prejudice is clearly a factor in why he latches onto Eddie so strongly, and he ignores any evidence he's presented with that doesn't line up with his beliefs. In his mind, though, he is genuinely The Hero trying to rid their town of a violent and unstable cult-leading lunatic, unaware that he's just a minor antagonist or that he's the violent and unstable one.
- Arch-Enemy: Jason already has it in for Eddie at the start of the season. This only gets kicked into overdrive when it looks as if Eddie murdered his beloved Chrissy.
- Asshole Victim: While one can pity the trauma that led to his actions, he is still a violent Vigilante Man who tries to kill teenagers due to Satanic Panic-fuelled violent prejudice. Not to mention that his grisly death comes down to his own fault.
- Beyond Redemption: Jason's insane belief that he's the hero no matter what he does and unwillingness to believe Lucas drives him to accidentally assist Vecna in his ultimate plan, which ends up getting Max briefly killed despite Jason, ironically, believing he was saving her with his actions.
- Big Man on Campus: He's the most popular guy in school, dating the most popular girl in school, and captain of a basketball team on a winning streak. It shows the esteem with which he's held throughout Hawkins when he's allowed to deliver lengthy speeches at school rallies and at a town meeting, where even the adults listen astutely to what he has to say.
- Black-and-White Insanity: Much like the trope namer for Inspector Javert, Jason's belief in his own righteousness and the evil of others is utterly and completely without bend or compromise, and he refuses to believe anything opposed to his preconceived assumptions even when presented with hard evidence. Unlike said trope namer, he takes this all the way to the extremes of vigilante justice, attempted murder, and torture, even towards children.
- Blatant Lies: He assures Lucas he just wanna talk to Eddie. Given what he did to the members of the Hellfire Club for the crime of knowing Eddie, it's easy to figure what kind of "talk" that would be. We see this when he finally finds Eddie and chases him into the lake, clearly intending to kill him.
- Broken Pedestal: He is this to Lucas, who longs to be normal, but later calls normal “crazy”.
- Bullying a Dragon: Him subtly threatening Nancy, who's faced much more dangerous threats than him, at the gun shop could be chalked up as this. Even had he disarmed her, he was still facing an Action Girl who specializes in firearms in a firearms shop.
- Churchgoing Villain: Jason represents the "wholesome", "Christian values" side of America, ready to support himself with Biblical quotes and to interpret the events in Hawkins through a religious-right lens (slightly downplayed, as he's not explicitly shown as a church frequenter, but that still stands out in comparison to overall secular cast of the series).
- Clear Their Name: With the Satanic Panic and the Witch Hunt taking center stage, it's easy to forget that another one of his goals is what he thinks is this, as he believes that the idea that Chrissy was with Eddie to buy drugs is a smear campaign by the police. The fact that Chrissy was indeed trying to buy drugs is something he seemingly can't accept.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Implied. A big reason he refuses to accept that Chrissy was at Eddie's trailer for a drug deal is because he can't deal with the fact that she would go to Eddie instead of him if she was having troubles.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Getting bisected by lava-like radiation is not an ideal way to go, to say the least. Even Lucas looks horrified despite Jason trying to kill him.
- Crusading Widow: Is motivated for revenge from the minute he finds out his girlfriend was murdered, and the police reveal who the primary suspect is. After Patrick dies, it only furthers his quest for revenge.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype:
- Of The Hero, and of Amateur Sleuth characters like Archie from Riverdale and several characters from 13 Reasons Why. He certainly seems to think he's heroic, as do many others, but the only things he appears to be good at are basketball and self-indulgent speeches, none of which makes him a good detective, yet he still believes he has the right to lead his friends on a manhunt. That, and his "investigation" basically amounts to vigilante justice, torturing Eddie's friends for information, and presumably planning to murder Eddie. Even after witnessing some of the supernatural events firsthand he still winds up being completely wrong about what's going on, demonstrating how easy it actually is for youths with no proper investigation training to come to wrongful conclusions based on the "evidence" they obtain. Jason is basically what these types of characters would be like in real life: biased, irrational, entitled, manipulative, vindictive, and completely out of their depth.
- He makes an excellent deconstruction of the Paladin class, opposed to Eddie's Bard. He's charismatic, able to lead his friends to victory through inspiration and obviously cares deeply about his town. He's also completely fearless, which includes the fear of being wrong, and his quest to avenge his murdered lover overrules his sense of reason and ultimately gets him killed.
- He serves as a thorough deconstruction of the Vigilante Man, as he's portrayed not as a noble crusader doing what's necessary for the common good, but as a stark-raving lunatic whose single-minded obsession with revenge is getting a lot of innocent people caught in the crossfire.
- Driven to Villainy: Jason is presented as a mostly decent fellow, kind to friends, and a pillar of society, with perhaps a smattering of rather low-level flaws such as a distrust of socially deviant types and not enough empathy to clue in on dark secrets of those close to him. Then Chrissy's murder occurs and these flaws form a really nasty synergy with his anger and sorrow; and then, he witnesses Patrick's death in a genuinely supernatural manner and buys completely into Satanic Panic in an attempt to make sense of everything he's seen (albeit in a way that will still let him be The Hero).
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Quite a few of his best friends are non-white and he seems to only somewhat dislike "outcasts", but even then, he seems fine with merely ignoring them unless they provoke him.
- Establishing Character Moment: The first episode hints at his later villainous traits multiple times. He shows himself as a loving boyfriend to Chrissy, but doesn't actually spend any time with her, or at least not enough to know about her struggles. He gives a moving speech to the students of Hawkins High School, establishing himself as a pretty friendly individual with excellent public speaking skills... who has zero qualms using the deaths of the first three seasons in an attempt to motivate his team. While Jason's speech is meant to honor them, it's still rather insensitive, especially when he brings up Billy's name, much to Max's discomfort. And lastly, he shows poor leadership skills and planning during the basketball game, and acts more like a quarterback than a team captain.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Genuinely loves Chrissy and is devastated by her death. His entire goal through the season is to avenge her murder. He also genuinely cares for his basketball friends, especially Patrick, as shown by his reaction to his death.
- Exhausted Eye Bags: By the end of Season 4, Jason has deep eye bags, showing that he has been unable to sleep in the prior few days, furthering the idea that he is truly motivated in a misguided drive to avenge Chrissy and Patrick rather than pure malice.
- Expy: He appears to be a parody of Archie from Riverdale. He's the captain of a sports team, is dating the head cheerleader, gives multiple grandiose speeches, and engages in vigilante justice with his friends.
- Fair-Play Villain: Gets pissed when the opposing basketball team violently assaults his teammates.
- Fatal Flaw:
- Pride. Jason’s brutal undoing would likely not have happened if he had learned to swallow his pride and stopped playing hero and just listened to those around him.
- Revenge. Jason will stop at nothing to avenge Chrissy's murder, all the way up until his end.
- Foil: To Eddie Munson. The pair are subtly set up as rivals in the first episode of Season 4, at different ends of the social spectrum. Both are leaders of their respective cliques, and are prone to grandiose speeches. But while Eddie gives off the perception of being a harsh, unreasonable taskmaster, he's actually friendly, considerate, and cares a great deal about those who he takes under his wing. Jason, on the other hand, expresses a friendly demeanor but masks his darker impulses. Eddie may indulge in things like D&D and Heavy Metal, but he clearly doesn't see them as anything more than fun things that bring them together, whereas Jason legitimately buys into the Satanic Panic lines about them. What's more, people follow Eddie because they want to, whereas they follow Jason because of his position on the basketball team and due to his bullying. Note how in the climax Eddie's main weapons are a guitar and a shield, while Jason uses a gun.
- Foreshadowing: In the aftermath of a party in the second episode of Season 4, he says the below line to a hungover Lucas:
- Half the Man He Used to Be: When the new gate opens up underneath him, his abdomen melts away in mere seconds. You even see his exposed ribs!
- He Who Fights Monsters: After Chrissy and Patrick's deaths, Jason accuses Eddie Munson of being a lunatic cult leader that worships Satan and ruthlessly slaughters innocent people for no good reason. To combat this, he...leads a group of loyal followers to terrorize/kill Eddie and anyone else affiliated with the Hellfire Club. In other words, he's exactly like he imagines Eddie to be.
- Howl of Sorrow: When he learns Chrissy died.
- Hypocrite:
- Throughout the series he begins to act like an increasingly irrational and murderous fanatic driven by cult-like mania — the exact same thing he accuses Eddie of being, just from a different direction.
- While a Christian, Jason forgets several important quotes from the Bible in his Witch Hunt, such as do not judge (which he does to Eddie and his friends for being "freaks") and do not repay evil with evil.
- He says he knows that D&D itself is harmless, but that "the wrong kind of person" can become dangerous when he loses his grip on reality and blurs the line between it and fantasy. Being emotionally compromised by horrible grief ("the wrong kind of person"), he goes on the warpath because he can't tell reality (yes, "the devil" has power in Hawkins) from what's in his own head (Eddie's role in Chrissy's death).
- I Reject Your Reality: He simply won't accept the fact that Chrissy was indeed trying to buy drugs from Eddie; he considers the mere idea as an attempt by the cops at smearing Chrissy's character, and finds it easier to believe that she was with Eddie because she was kidnapped to be sacrificed in some "satanic" ritual. This is in part rooted in his It's All About Me mentality, as he refuses to believe that Chrissy was suffering because if she was, she'd have gone to him, and thus she couldn't possibly have had any problems. When it’s clear he won’t listen to reason during the climax, Lucas fights him.
- Inspector Javert: While Jason's motives are understandable, he's still an antagonist considering he's accusing an innocent person of murder.
- Irony:
- He clearly believes himself to be the hero of the piece, which makes it rather ironic how sudden and unceremonious his death is. Despite thinking he was the savior Hawkins needed, he ends up a mere footnote in the grand scheme of things.
- He manages to get what he wants when Eddie dies in the final episode of Season 4. And then Jason himself dies almost immediately after.
- He does more to further Vecna's plans than Eddie ever did, due to breaking Max's walkman and briefly causing her death. This is enough to count as a fourth sacrifice that allows the Upside Down to begin spilling into Hawkins.
- It's All About Me: Somehow manages to make the multiple horrific deaths in Hawkins about... how important it is for the Tigers to win a basketball game. He also quickly makes Chrissy's death all about how he needs to hunt down Eddie — ostensibly to "help" the cops, but it's clear that Jason actually just wants to get there first so he can get what he believes is revenge. This is to the point he refuses to believe Chrissy was actually buying drugs from Eddie because he refuses to believe she was suffering and needed help, believing with 100% certainty that she would have turned to him if she was.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- While he's completely wrong in his assumptions, the evidence he witnesses does corroborate with what he believes, such as when his friend is killed by Vecna before his eyes right as they have Eddie cornered (and thus, makes it appear Eddie has supernatural powers and killed him) or when he corners Lucas while Max is in a trance, the two apparently performing a ritual. Lucas later tries to explain that Vecna is the one doing the killing, which he seems to believe, but because he's already convinced Lucas, Eddie, and Hellfire are cultists, he assumes Vecna is the being they worship and doesn't let Lucas explain that they're trying to stop him.
- One thing he is surely right about is that there's something evil in the town doing the killings, and the police don't want to believe it. He's just wrong that Eddie and the Hellfire Club are vessels for this evil.
- Jerk Jock: Downplayed. Even as he grows more violent and zealous in his revenge and Witch Hunt for Eddie, he never actually engages in the usual behaviors of a Jerk Jock of lording his position over others, or bullying for the sake of bullying. Even when he gets physical, he clearly takes no pleasure in it. Outside his rousing speeches, when he turns up the charisma, he seems to only display two emotions after Chrissy's death: anger and sadness. This gets pronounced after Patrick's death.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Jason loses some sympathy once he rouses the locals into forming a lynch mob so they can hunt down Eddie.
- Knight Templar: With a heavy dose of Black-and-White Insanity. After finding out Eddie is the prime suspect of Chrissy's murder, anyone remotely close to him is a valid target to be tortured.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All:
- He lectures Nancy on how to wield a shotgun, but his knowledge of the weapon seems to be based on pop culture. He claims it's Awesome, but Impractical, yet we see him choosing to use a magnum revolver, which itself is a case of Awesome, but Impractical (ironically, the weakness he claims shotguns have regarding being easy to disarm at close range ends up proving true for his own gun when Lucas easily disarms him). It's particularly egregious since he's lecturing Nancy about this, who not only has used a shotgun in the past but is a responsible and experienced gun owner and his "advice" about the barrel just leads to her sawing it down to avoid any future problems.
- Much of his sweeping assumption that the Hellfire Club are a cult is based entirely on him recalling vague claims that Dungeons & Dragons preaches Satanism. He doesn't know anything about their club or the game they play, nor does he appear to know much about cults or how they work, either, despite his Witch Hunt against them. Truth in Television as Satanic Panic-style witch hunts are rarely carried out with a full understanding of the target, and mostly just fuelled by baseless assumptions from their imagery.
- This is pretty much how his crusade works in a nutshell. He is convinced he knows exactly what's going on: Eddie is a Satanist who has gained demonic power thanks to playing Dungeons & Dragons and now him and his club are sacrificing teens around town as part of a ritual. He comes to this conclusion largely because Chrissy was killed at Eddie's trailer, unaware that no evidence actually proved Eddie did anything to her there (note, the police label him a person of interest, because for all they know he's a witness, not a killer); because Eddie is a "freak", unaware that Eddie is a Nice Guy without a violent bone in his body; because D&D has a reputation for Satanism, unaware that its misplaced hysteria; and because he witnessed clearly supernatural forces kill his friend Patrick near Eddie, unaware that this is actually the work of a psychic killer in the Upside-Down. When he confronts Lucas, Lucas actually tries to explain The Masquerade to him, but he ignores the parts that don't fit with what he's already decided is happening. He doesn't even appear to have known Chrissy particularly well, despite his claim, given he was oblivious to her depression and refused to believe anything was going on with her.
- Lethally Stupid:
- His actions end up causing more danger, which culminates in both Max nearly dying and becoming comatose and his own death, as well as allowing Vecna to open his fourth portal and release the Upside-Down into the real world.
- A minor example, but he thinks it would be a good idea to threaten Nancy, a frail-looking and well-liked girl who has no clear connection to the murders, in a gun store. One scream from her and it all would've been over.
- Love Makes You Evil: He organizes a Witch Hunt against the innocent Eddie, believing that he is a Satanist who murdered his girlfriend Chrissy and then mutilated her corpse. Eventually he and his posse start buying guns, showing their lust for vengeance has taken them too far.
- Loving a Shadow: While there's no doubt that Jason truly loved Chrissy with all of his heart (to the point of organizing a Witch Hunt against a guy who's only crime was being a nonconformist), it's pretty clear he put Chrissy on a very high pedestal. He absolutely refuses to accept that Chrissy would "ever buy drugs", never once taking into consideration that there's a small possibility she would have. It can even be pointed out that Chrissy didn't tell him she was (unknowingly) cursed by Vecna and dealing with her trauma at home because of this trope.
- Mirror Character: To Steve Harrington. Both are jerk jocks who run with an unsavory crew that undermine the efforts of the heroes. But Steve grows to be the better man, realizing when he was in the wrong and distancing himself from the toxic influences in his life. Jason on the other hand gives into his darker impulses his recklessness eventually leading to his death.
- Moral Myopia: Jason's convinced there's a cult in Hawkins that murders innocent teenagers. His response? Start up a posse, quote self-serving passages from the Bible and buy guns that he plans to use on teenagers.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Literally. Jason views himself as the hero of his story, believing he's saving Max when he finds her in a trance but if he hadn't attacked Lucas and broken Max's cassette player, Lucas might have been able to "call in Kate Bush" and save Max from her trance before Vecna could kill her and open the fourth gate.
- No Hero to His Valet: Lucas, his junior classman, immediately realises that Jason is not the maverick hero he believes himself to be, regardless of how nice he is to him. It's implied Chrissy feels the same, as she never told Jason she was mentally unwell, which given he's a hothead and an overperfectionist demonstrates exactly why she might be keeping secrets from him.
- Obliviously Evil:
- He convinces himself there's a murderous Satanic cult in town and that it's up to him to take action. He honestly sees himself as a hero.
- Notably, after Lucas abandons him and his posse, he concludes that Lucas and the rest of the Hellfire Club are protecting Eddie. It never occurs to him that Lucas actually left after being disturbed by their unnecessary, violent assault of Eddie's band, which is more accurate because at that point Lucas is unaware Eddie is indeed innocent.
- Paper Tiger: Downplayed. He manages to beat up Lucas, but wasn't ready for his Heroic Second Wind and is then subjected to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that leaves him out cold. And for good measure, his pal Andy gets his balls beat in by Erica who then clocks him upside the head. She's eleven. Turns out not only was his vigilante group not as smart as they thought, they were also nowhere near as tough.
- Pet the Dog:
- He's nice to Lucas at first, showing no resentment for him making the game winning shot, inviting him to a party, checking to make sure he's okay, and even going as far as to say that Lucas doesn't have to participate in their Eddie Hunt after Chrissy's death. This all changes when he discovers Lucas is a part of the Hellfire Club and organizes a Witch Hunt against him and the other members.
- He's genuinely worried upon finding Max in Vecna's trance and tries to get Lucas to wake her up in an attempt to save her.
- Politically Correct Villain: Treats Patrick and Lucas just as well as his other friends. His conflict with Lucas is for helping Eddie rather than his race and is absolutely heartbroken by Patrick's death. Caled McLaughlin himself actually came in and denied Jason being racist when comparing him to Lucas' previous antagonist, Billy.Caleb: Jason took Lucas in, was trying to show him the ropes — maybe he was arrogant, a little obnoxious but he wasn't racist. Lucas' girlfriend's brother hated him because he was black and threw him up against a wall in Season 2 and like, Stay away from her!
- Popular Is Evil: More like popular is anti-villainous but he's nonetheless a threat to the protagonists.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Jason's actually completely correct that there is a supernatural evil that is killing people in Hawkins. However, he believes that Eddie Munson and the people associated with him are somehow responsible for all of them through Satanic worship, when in reality it's at the hands of a Humanoid Abomination from another dimension that has psychic powers.
- Rousing Speech: He's really good at them. He delivers one at the pep rally to psych up the whole school for a prospective championship win, gives one to his basketball team (and coach) to score the winning points, and more disturbingly, gives several to encourage first the basketball team and then most of the town to follow him in basically a Witch Hunt.
- Sanity Slippage: A rather chilling example, because it happens gradually yet consistently throughout the season:
- After Chrissy's death, Jason starts out trying to be a Vigilante Man, who, although overly-extreme in his methods, still has understandable motives.
- After witnessing Patrick's death, he starts using Satanic Panic to rationalize the event and forms a lynch mob to hunt down a group of children.
- In the penultimate episode, he starts to develop irritated eyes with bags underneath, indicating a lack of sleep due to his increasing obsession with "justice". This is further corroborated when he threatens Nancy who, as far as he knows, is perfectly innocent, in the middle of a gun store, showing that he's losing his grip on sanity.
- By the finale, it's clear that Jason has become completely unhinged, utterly refusing to listen to reason or accept the possibility that he's wrong, culminating in him trying to murder Lucas, his former friend.
- Satanic Panic: He genuinely believes the Hellfire Club are a cult rather than a bunch of nerds trying to be edgy.
- Shadow Archetype:
- To Steve: Both of them are the Big Man on Campus in high school who are popular and good at basketball. Both of them date a girl (Nancy/Chrissy) that they genuinely fell in love with. Both of them are antagonistic towards the "freaks" of the school (Jonathan/Eddie), and go after said freaks when they think they've done something wrong: Jason attempts to track Eddie down when he thinks Eddie killed Chrissy, and Steve breaks Jonathan's camera when he finds out that Jonathan secretly took pictures of him and Nancy at the pool party without their consent, later spray painting slut-shaming graffiti after witnessing Nancy with Jonathan. The difference is that Steve undergoes massive Character Development after having a My God, What Have I Done? moment when he realizes how despicable his actions were and makes a genuine attempt to atone to Jonathan and Nancy for his behavior, whereas Jason continues to slip further into Knight Templar territory. Unlike Jason, who has deluded himself into thinking he's the hero of the town even as his actions are about to hurt innocent people, Steve actually is heroic, repeatedly putting his life on the line for others, and never goes to the extreme of wanting to kill someone, or rousing a lynch mob. And while Jason continues to hold on to his prejudices against outcasts (to the point of organizing a Witch Hunt against the Hellfire Club), Steve lets go of his old prejudices after taking a level in kindness and becoming friends with "outcasts" like Robin and Dustin.
- His group is one to the main party, trying to solve a mystery they don't quite understand. The differences are the Party are a group of of True Companions who, while they might bicker and have difficulties communicating their troubles, clearly know when one of their friends is bothered, especially Mike. Jason on the other hand is completely oblivious to how stressed Chrissy is, to the point where she was self-medicating with drugs, and that Patrick had issues at home, which shows Jason's behavior as either ignorant or self-absorbed. The Party also manages to work things out through covert legwork, figuring out seemingly innocuous threads, and deductive reasoning and when they are forced to confrontation they usually resort to trickery to keep from drawing too much attention, whereas Jason just barges in, punches first and asks questions later, usually ending up with sloppy details that are unhelpful and tends to create a massive mess that's impossible to keep quiet.
- Skyward Scream: After getting the news of Chrissy's death. And again when he himself dies.
- The Sociopath: Played with. Jason does briefly show grief over Chrissy and Patrick's deaths, and his reaction upon finding Max in Vecna's thrawl hints he's capable of genuine concern for others. From Lucas's perspective however, Jason's behavior comes off as sociopathic, as turns the entire town into a lynch mob to hunt down members of the Hellfire Club (which included Lucas, his sister Erica, and his friends who are all teenagers), tortures people, buys guns with the intention of killing Hellfire members without considering the possibility he might be wrong about them being guilty, implicitly threatens Nancy and makes it clear that he's on the hunt for Mike, follows an anonymous tip to chase down an 11 year old girl (Erica) just for being loosely associated with Hellfire, and refuses to listen to Lucas's attempts to explain what was going on because it doesn't match up with his preconceived notions.
- Spanner in the Works: Acts as one in the Party's plan to stop Vecna. Jason suddenly showing up, attacking Lucas, and accidentally smashing Max's Walkman while having his friend subdue Erica almost completely derails the entire mission, resulting in Max dying for a minute and Vecna's gate being opened up. Even when Max is revived by El, she's still horribly injured and stuck in a coma.
- Tautological Templar: In Jason's mind, everything he does is inherently good. Anyone he doesn't like is an acceptable target for his puritanical impulses and he'll use any excuse to mete out whatever zealous punishments fester in his mind.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: While he holds Patrick's body, which he has dragged out of the lake, he seems completely at a loss and barely reacts to the cops.
- Tragic Villain: First, he tragically loses his beloved girlfriend in a violent murder and then has to witness his best friend get killed in similar brutal fashion, right as they corner Eddie, who promptly escapes. Jason's actions go way too far in the end but it's hard not to feel some sympathy and see why he flew over the edge in believing Eddie and Hellfire was responsible for the murders.
- Trauma Conga Line: First his girlfriend is brutally murdered, then one of his friends (from his perspective) betrays him to help the one most likely to have murdered her, and then another one of his friends dies before him in a horrifying and clearly supernatural way, which convinces him that there's something truly evil in town. Notably, the cops find him holding Patrick's mangled body while he sports a Thousand-Yard Stare, and those same cops then do little more than dismiss his account of the events. Then when he finds Lucas, he believes he's about to kill Max and tries to save her but is beaten down and then killed moments later.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Jason attacks Lucas and accidentally breaks Max's Walkman in a misguided attempt to save Max from Vecna's trance. As a result of his interference, Max has all of her limbs broken, loses her sight, and is left comatose in a body cast because Lucas has no way to save her from Vecna. Even worse, he ends up allowing Vecna to open the fourth gate to the Upside Down, allowing it to spill into the real world and kill over 20 Hawkins residents (including himself), with even more being left homeless.
- Villain with Good Publicity: A clean-cut, God-fearing young man who leads his school's basketball team and knows how to rouse up a crowd. He's also a violent vigilante that refuses to admit to his own imperfections. The tragic irony is that he will be remembered positively in the town, as people at the church are seen spray painting the Bible quotes he gave, whereas the innocent target of his vengeance, Eddie Munson, is to be remembered as a satanic cultist and Serial Killer despite his efforts to save people, thanks to Jason's rhetoric.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Jason genuinely believes Eddie and the Hellfire club are behind the killings in Hawkins and wants to stop them. The problem is, organizing a Witch Hunt is taking things way too far and he's willing to kill Eddie in order to stop him. In the final battle, he tries to murder Lucas while believing Max is in danger and it's Lucas' fault, unintentionally making things worse and putting Max in more danger.
- Went Crazy When They Left: He was never a fan of outcasts and "freaks", but was never seen treating them with anything worse than disdain, and was nice or at least polite with everyone else. Chrissy's murder sends him over the edge, and he becomes a violent Knight Templar when hunting the one he thinks is responsible, and doesn't seem to care about who he has to hurt in the process.
- Witch Hunt: What his desire to see justice served ultimately devolves into. He turns the entire town of Hawkins against the Hellfire Club by convincing the townsfolk that they're a Satanic cult responsible for the recent murders and all the horrible things that have happened in the previous years.
- Would Hit a Girl: Implied. He has a brief interaction with Nancy when she's buying a shotgun. The way he talks about the shotgun's inherent disadvantage over his own gang's choice of firearms - as well as demonstrating his reflexes when he tries to snatch it off Nancy - shows that he'll gladly attack her if she gives him an excuse, and even then he'll probably attack her anyway just for being Mike's older sister (he doesn't but mostly since she isn't scared of him).
- Would Hurt a Child: As his manhunt continues, he makes the rest of the Hellfire Club (which include younger teenagers and an unambiguous child) potential targets for violent death, even subtly warning Nancy that he has no issue with harming her brother Mike due to his affiliation with the club. One of his cronies also physically assaults Erica, and Jason himself also tries to kill Lucas at the end in a misguided attempt to save Max.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: He is correct in that something supernatural and evil is behind the latest string of killings in Hawkins, but he winds up believing that someone completely innocent is the one behind it all after falling for Satanic Panic fear-mongering and a predisposition against outcasts cloud his judgement. He is utterly convinced that he's the lead of this story, rallying the town around him and trusting his own judgement entirely, and very much acting in a manner that The Hero would, unaware that he's completely ignorant of everything that's really going on and how his interference is only making things harder. He may well think he's a determined protagonist in a religious horror story about a Satanic cult, but really he's a side character in a horror-adventure about a very different kind of supernatural.
- You Are What You Hate: He goes after Eddie, believing him to be a fanatical cult leader who’s been murdering fellow teenagers around Hawkins. By the end of the season, Jason himself is leading a delusional group of followers using religion as an excuse to hunt down the Hellfire Club, culminating in him trying to kill Lucas, his own teammate.
Patrick McKinney
Patrick McKinney
Played By: Miles Truitt
Debut: "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club" (4x01)
A member of the Hawkins High basketball team and part of Jason's violent witch hunt gang for Eddie. He's also the third of Vecna's teenage victims, after Vecna fails to kill Max.
- Abusive Parents: Hinted at, as Lucas feels guilty for not asking where Patrick's black eye came from. Domestic violence is a likely cause.
- Body Horror: Dies in a similar manner as Chrissy and Fred.
- Dark and Troubled Past: While his past isn't as elaborated on as Chrissy and Fred's, Lucas's story about his black eye and the fact that Vecna targeted him hints at this.
- Morality Pet: After Chrissy dies, he's this for Jason. Jason's reaction to his death is one of his few moments of humanity after Chrissy's death.
- Mysterious Past: Vecna's torment of Patrick is offscreen, unlike Chrissy and Fred, so while hinted at, we don't as clearly know what trauma lies in his past.
- Token Good Teammate: He's a part of Jason's Witch Hunt for Eddie, but at the same time, he shows a friendlier and more amicable side towards Lucas during their brief time together. He also calls out one of Jason's friends for making a joke about how Chrissy died when it's reported on the news, even though none of them even knew yet that it was Chrissy; Patrick objected to both making light of the murder and the casual joking about Chrissy's safety. He's similarly unimpressed when Andy tries to defend himself by joking that the victim may have been a drug addict. Considering this is in the 80's, it displays notable sympathy for victims of substance abuse.
Andy
Andy
Played By: Clayton Royal Johnson
Debut: "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club" (4x01)
A douchebag jock who follows Jason during the manhunt against Eddie Munson.
- Groin Attack: Erica kicks him in the balls to escape.
- Jerkass: The worst out of the group, due to his violent tendencies.
- Would Hurt a Child: He not only attacks the 11 year old Erica, he also threatens to break her arms.
Cheerleading Squad
Chrissy Cunningham
Chrissy Cunningham
Played By: Grace Van Dien
Debut: "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club" (4x01)
A cheerleader at Hawkins High.
- Abusive Parents: Her mother is implied to be verbally, emotionally and physically abusive to Chrissy, body-shaming her daughter to the point she develops an eating disorder. When under Vecna's spell, Chrissy is seen to be trapped inside a nightmare version of her family home, with her mother upstairs at a sewing machine, frantically letting out Chrissy's cheerleader uniform and ranting about her being "fat". It's implied that her father was much kinder, though.
- All Guys Want Cheerleaders: Is known as "The Queen of Hawkins High" according to Eddie, who seems to be interested in her. Additionally, she already had a boyfriend, Jason, who was crazy about her.
- Alliterative Name: Chrissy Cunningham.
- Body Horror: How she is tragically killed; Vecna telekinetically snaps each of her limbs at right angles, her jaw is snapped sideways, and her eye-sockets are crushed inwards — which is all presented in unflinching detail.
- Broken Ace: On the outside, she appears to have the perfect life. She's a pretty, popular teenager from a wealthy home, she has a boyfriend who cares for her, and she's on the cheerleading squad. However, her home life is less than perfect and she seems to be struggling with anxiety and PTSD on top of her eating disorder.
- Broken Bird: Is a good-natured girl who's been traumatized by the tragedies happening around town all while dealing with her mother's abuse and struggling with an eating disorder. Then she starts having terrifying hallucinations and flashbacks, and ends up getting possessed and being the Sacrificial Lamb to the eldritch horror at the start of Season 4.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Because of the various mental issues she's having, she seeks to score a drug deal with Eddie, hoping that he can prescribe her something strong to calm her frayed nerves.
- Class Princess: She's a rich, popular, good-looking cheerleader who's dating the captain of the basketball team, but that doesn't keep her from being kind to those below her on the social ladder, namely Eddie.
- Decoy Protagonist: Gets a good amount of screentime and characterization in Season 4's premiere, making it look like she might be a new addition to the main cast. Then the episode ends with her horrific death.
- Expy:
- Chrissy's a high school student that appears perfect on the outside but is carrying all sorts of repressed issues and is killed by a supernatural entity which triggers the season's overarching plot, making her akin to Laura Palmer.
- Her name can be a shortened version of Christina, the full name of Tina, the first victim of Freddie Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), who dies in a comparable manner.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Chrissy has strawberry-blonde hair and is a sweet Nice Girl.
- The Lost Lenore: For Jason and Eddie, as her death was a major catalyst for their main motivations. While Jason becomes aggressive and obsessed with avenging her murder that he blames on Eddie out of prejudice and petty jealousy. Eddie simply feels extreme trauma and guilt over not being able to save Chrissy from Vecna and begins to view himself as a coward who runs away the first sign of danger. In the end, Eddie is the one who does right by Chrissy when he dedicates his performance of Master of Puppets to her and honors her memory by not running away again then heroically sacrificing himself for the greater good.
- Morality Pet: For Jason. Even as he falls into villainy, his motive never changes from avenging her death.
- Nice Girl: In spite of her psychological issues stemming from her abusive mom (and Vecna), she's an overall pleasant girl, and even bonds with an outsider like Eddie when she's trying to buy drugs from him.
- Odd Friendship: Chrissy — a popular cheerleader — forms one with Eddie, a nerdy garage guitarist and stoner.
- Pom-Pom Girl: Chrissy's a member of the cheering squad who happens to also be a total sweetheart.
- Sacrificial Lamb: Dies during the first episode of Season 4, being the first to present the season's new threat.
- Satellite Love Interest: Deconstructed. As Jason mentioned, Chrissy never told him that she was suffering, so he doesn't take it well when Lucas says she was willingly buying drugs from Eddie. From there it can be assumed that Chrissy felt pressured to be the perfect girlfriend for Jason.
- Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Eddie said he expected her to be more intimidating given her popularity, and she said she thought the same about him. The fact she is so quickly at ease with someone like Eddie proves she's more open-minded than Jason, who exhibits classic high school hierarchical prejudice.
- Ship Tease: Gets a bit of this with Eddie, but she's unfortunately killed before anything can come of it.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Despite only appearing in the season premiere, her Plot-Triggering Death sets off the events of Season 4 and as such Chrissy ended up a highly popular cosplay choice.
- Stepford Smiler: Is very kind but clearly suffers from trauma. The only person she confides in is Eddie and that's purely because he supplies her with drugs to take the edge off. Chrissy never tells Jason about her issues, which given his Hair-Trigger Temper opens up the possibility she is somewhat afraid of him.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Is a kind and caring sweetheart of a girl who also suffers from trauma and dies an absolutely brutal death at the hands of Vecna that she absolutely did not deserve.
- Weight Woe: To the point of having an eating disorder, most likely bulimia based on her purging behavior in the bathroom.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Dies in her introductory episode.
Newspaper
Fred Benson
Fred Benson
Played By: Logan Riley Bruner
Debut: "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club" (4x01)
A member of Hawkins High newspaper.
- Body Horror: Fred's death is shown in even greater detail than Chrissy's. His limbs break and twist in unnatural ways, his face is disfigured into a horrific gape and his eyes are crushed in their sockets before he drops to the ground in a mangled mess.
- Dark and Troubled Past: He was involved in a car crash at some point, one that left him with a nasty facial scar and took the lives of several members of his family. Vecna uses this incident to torment him before brutally murdering him.
- Developing Doomed Characters: Starts out as a one-dimensional bit character, but before his death we get to know him as a sassy fellow with his own thoughts, as well as having a tragic background.
- Dying Alone: Is the only one of Vecna's victims whose death has no witnesses.
- Geek Physiques: An archetypal short, scrawny, near-sighted nerd.
- Hopeless Suitor: Clearly has a thing for Nancy, but she's just as clearly uninterested.
- Nice Guy: He's a nice guy who Nancy trusts enough to talk to him about her personal issues regarding her boyfriend Jonathan. This only serves to make his gruesome death all the more tragic.
Band
Vickie
Vickie
Played By: Amybeth McNulty
Debut: "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club" (4x01)
Robin's bandmate who she has a crush on.
- Ambiguously Bi: She has a boyfriend, but is also heavily implied to return Robin's feelings. Steve also brings up the fact that she returned Fast Times at Ridgemont High at "that scene" (Phoebe Cates's character removes her bikini top to show off her boobs in a sexual fantasy), which leads him to believe she likes ladies.
- Birds of a Feather: Vickie is pretty much a clone of Robin, though with an apparent interest in boys and lacking some of her more cool girl traits.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: If Steve was right about why she returned Fast Times at Ridgemont High at "53 minutes and 5 seconds".
- Motor Mouth: Like Robin, she talks a mile a minute.
- Nice Girl: She seems to be a friendly person.
- Satellite Love Interest: Little is known about her outside of her relationship with Robin.
- Shout-Out: Her look in the episode "Papa" is one to Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink.
The Hellfire Club
Corroded Coffin
Corroded Coffin
Jeff Played By: Trey Best
Gareth Played By: Gwydion Lashlee-Walton
Freak #1 Played By: Grant Goodman
Debut: "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club" (4x01)
The other members of the Hellfire Club, as well as Eddie's bandmates.
- Berserk Button: Canceling/postponing DnD (at least on short notice).
- Black and Nerdy: Jeff is a DnD-playing metalhead and the only black Hellfire-member apart from Lucas.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: They're on the receiving end of one when Jason comes to ask for Eddie's whereabouts and they won't tell him anything. Though they try to put up a fight they're quickly overpowered.
- Geek Physique: The unnamed member, "Freak #1" is of the obese variety.
- Hot-Blooded: Gareth has shades of it. While all of Hellfire become upset when asked to postpone the campaign, Gareth's reaction is the strongest, looking ready to cause Mike and Dustin bodily harm for suggesting it. Later, when threatened and beaten by Jason, Gareth's response is to scream in Jason's face rather than cower or attempt to calmly talk him down.
- The Lancer: Gareth appears to fill the role, being the one to speak for the group whenever Eddie isn't there to do it.
- Metalhead: They're Eddie's bandmates and are shown wearing metal band-merch while jamming together.
- No Name Given: The third member is never given a name; the end credits only refer to him as "Freak #1".
- Pubescent Braces: Jeff has them. They're likely meant to signify both youth and nerdiness.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Jeff is the blue to Gareth's red. For example, while discussing their DnD strategy Jeff rationally points out they're unlikely to win with only two remaining players. When Dustin calls them pussies for wanting to flee Gareth reacts by impulsively calling Dustin delusional. Fittingly, Gareth sports red flannel while Jeff wears a blue baseball tee.
Other Students
Carol Perkins
Carol Perkins
Played By: Chelsea Talmadge
Debut: "Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street" (1x02)
Tommy's girlfriend. An equally caustic girl with a chip on her shoulder.
- '70s Hair: Her hairstyle retains the face-framing, blown out curls of the prior decade in the first season.
- '80s Hair: She updates her hairstyle with more bouffant waves and heavy bangs in Season Two.
- Alpha Bitch: Played with. She's a clear-cut example of trope of a catty popular girl who torments those she sees as inferior, but normally seems to hang out in a group of friends entirely consisting of guys (aside from herself).
- Birds of a Feather: She's basically a gender-flipped version of her boyfriend Tommy. It's a horrible thing to see in action.
- Bitch Alert: She doesn't even try to pretend to be nice. Just about every word out of her mouth is abuse and condescension.
- The Bully: Just like her boyfriend, Carol enjoys taunting people.
- Demoted to Extra: Appears in the first episode of Season 2 admiring Billy with two other girls and in the background of the second episode. By Season 3, she is completely absent from the main storyline (not that anyone seems to care).
- Even Evil Has Standards: She actually seems distressed when Steve and Jonathan are fist-fighting and tries to get Tommy to break it up.
- Hate Sink: Like Tommy, Troy, and James, she is a bratty ass bully who treats Nancy and Jonathan (two major characters) like dirt. With little to no redeeming qualities whatsoever, she is probably one of the most one-dimensional characters in the show.
- Hypocrite: Slut-shames Nancy after having previously made fun of a teacher for (allegedly) being a virgin. In addition, it's hinted that she and Tommy have played the full baseball game, themselves.
- Jerkass: Every bit as much of an unpleasant, braying jackass as Tommy.
- Slut-Shaming: On the giving end of it towards Nancy, going as far to help spray paint "Nancy the slut Wheeler" on a movie theater marquee. This also drives home what a hypocrite she is, as it's well known that she and Tommy have slept together plenty of times.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Guess who supplies some of the slut-shaming ideas to both Tommy and Steve?
Hawkins Middle School
Students
Troy Walsh
Troy Walsh
Played By: Peyton Wich
Debut: "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers" (1x01)
The boys' classmate and school bully. A cruel, mocking kid.
- Ax-Crazy: Not at first, but when El humiliates him in front of the whole school, he becomes murderously angry.
- Barbaric Bully: He tries to outright kill Mike by threatening to cut Dustin's teeth out of his mouth! That's some Henry Bowers-level shit.
- Bully Brutality: He threatens Dustin at knifepoint so that Mike jumps into the gorge. Even his best friend James is apprehensive about him taking it too far.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Troy is absent from the remainder of the series, save for the tie-in comic The Bully, which reveals what he and James were up to during Season 2.
- A Day in the Limelight: Troy is the protagonist of the tie-in comic The Bully, which expands on his character, actually creating legitimate motivations for his actions and a reason why he is what he is: his parents are rather impatient to say the least.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Eleven makes him pee himself in front of the whole school. His response is to try to kill Mike in retribution. The kid's messed up, alright.
- Enfant Terrible: Easily the cruelest, most malicious kid in the show. Come the tie-in comic The Bully and he's not so malicious.
- Freudian Excuse: His mother is very easily played, and it's strongly implied that she never holds him accountable for any of the things she does find out about. In the comic The Bully, his father ( who is abusive towards him) yells at him for his recurring nightmares about Eleven and even encourages him to dump his "loser friend" James. Furthermore, given his father told him Will was probably “killed by another queer “ suggests his father is anything but a good parent and this might be where he gets his politically incorrect views.
- Hate Sink: There are no redeeming qualities beneath his bullying. Unlike Steve and even freaking Billy, he never reforms, or shows any remorse for his actions. He is also racist to Lucas.
- Jerkass: Who taunts the friends of a missing, possibly dead, kid, saying that he was killed?
- Knight of Cerebus: Despite not being a significant threat in the series, the scene in which he tries to kill both Mike and Dustin is pretty dark and realistic.
- Playing the Victim Card: After Eleven breaks his arm with her powers, he goes with his mother to the police to try to have her arrested, claiming she attacked him for no good reason, conveniently leaving out the fact that he was trying to murder Mike at the time.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He derisively refers to the dark-skinned Lucas as 'midnight' and makes homophobic comments about Will.
- Potty Failure: Eleven makes him piss himself in front of the entire school.
- Sadistic Choice: He bullies Mike into jumping into a gorge by threatening to cut out Dustin's teeth. Considering what Hopper said in an earlier episode, the drop would have been fatal.
- Sanity Slippage: Not at first, but he becomes downright psychotic after some choice humiliation.
- The Sociopath: Even for a schoolyard bully, Troy is shown to be downright evil, shoving Mike face-first into a rock, hurling racist, homophobic and abliest insults at Lucas, Will and Dustin, respectively, and mocking Will's (supposed) death to Mike's face. After Mike and Eleven humiliate him in front of the school auditorium, he goes full mask-off and reveals himself to be a vicious psychopath who wants Mike dead after the incident, consequences be damned.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: He exhibits the standard bullying tactics of name-calling and tripping up his victims, but he well and truly crosses the line into this territory when he grabs Dustin and threatens to chisel his teeth out with a knife. It's pretty clear that whatever's up with him and his home-life, it's very far from normal.
- "Uh-Oh" Eyes: Due to his actor having rather deep-set, dark eyes, Troy looks positively demonic when angry.
James Dante
James Dante
Played By: Cade Jones
Debut: "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers" (1x01)
The boys' other school bully. Mainly tags along with Troy.
- The Bully: He is Troy's stooge and bullies the heroes alongside him.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Like Troy, no explanation is given for his absence in the remainder of the show.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He may be a bully and a serious jerk, but even he's disturbed by some of Troy's actions. The tie-in comic The Bully shows some of his softer side.
- Jerkass: A nasty person all around, but he serves mostly as Troy's enabler. And, even he grows a little hesitant to go that far.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Uses racist and homophobic slurs.
Stacy Albright
Stacy Albright
Played By: Sydney Bullock
Debut: "Chapter Nine: The Gate" (2x09)
An Alpha Bitch who has a couple of encounters with Dustin, Eleven, and Max.
- '80s Hair: Has very crimped and frizzled red hair that she teases to high heaven, often not as aesthetically pleasing to the taste of contemporary audiences, but on-point for the time period.
- Alpha Bitch: Openly sneers at other kids, including Dustin and Eleven, for tripping on heels.
- Bitch Alert: Even just before she cruelly rejects Dustin and he's even asked her, she makes derisive looks and comments about the Snow Ball.
- Bullying the Dragon: She makes the mistake of openly sneering at Eleven and her friends, who happens to possess psychic powers that she uses to explode an Orange Julius in her face.
- Hate Sink: She makes Dustin feel bad after rejecting his offer of dancing with her and sneers at Eleven.
- Hypocritical Humor: She sneers at Dustin's teased hairdo (courtesy of tips and approval from Steve) while sporting frizzled hair that looks even more ridiculous.
Staff
Scott Clarke
Prof. Scott Clarke; Mr. Clarke
Played By: Randall P. Havens
Debut: "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers" (1x01)
"Science is neat, but I'm afraid it's not very forgiving."
The boys' science teacher. A friendly, knowledgeable man and enthusiastic teacher.
- Cool Teacher: He's a smart, compassionate man who loves his job and acts as a mentor to the AV Club. He even purchases a ham radio for our kid heroes to play around with during lunch. Mr. Clarke is also familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, which serves as a plot point, explains parallel dimensions to the boys, and tries to console them at Will's funeral. He even tells them how to build a sensory deprivation tank at night while on a date! Season 3 reveals that he has an absolutely massive custom built and painted D&D board in his basement.
- Demoted to Extra: Has a significantly smaller role in Season 2, only a single scene in Season 3, and doesn't appear at all in Season 4. Justified in Season 3 since it takes place during summer vacation and away from school, making his presence harder to explain, and by Season 4 the kids are no longer in middle school at all.
- I Have This Friend: His students milk him for advice by claiming that all of its applications exist in the realm of the hypothetical.
- Interrupted Intimacy: Dustin easily guilts him into telling him how to create a sensory deprivation tank "for fun"... with the aid of the fact that he's in such a rush to get back to his date, that he gives the boy potentially dangerous scientific information despite trepidations.
- Kavorka Man: He's just as geeky as the main characters, but he's got an attractive girlfriend at home.
- Locked Out of the Loop: The boys actively try to keep him out of what is happening quite deliberately by framing everything in hypotheticals and throwing smokescreens up. They do both like and, to a great extent, trust him. But, they also know exactly how crazy everything sounds. And, that it would be his job to report them.
- Meaningful Name: Given that he explains the some of the more fantastic aspects of Upside-Down in scientific terms that the boys can understand, he may have been named for Arthur C. Clarke.
- Mr. Exposition: Despite having a fairly small role, every single scene with him in it is vital because he explains everything the main characters need to know, especially regarding science and specifically electricity, although he seems to genuinely have no idea why they want to know any of it.
- Nice Guy: He's in the running for the most kind-hearted citizen in Hawkins, and is one of the first volunteers to go out searching for Will.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He is shown to be remarkably caring and nurturing of the kids' pursuits regardless of the weirdness of their requests and the appropriateness of the situation.
- Red Herring: In Season 3, following the revelation that Billy was Flayed there is an extended shot of Scott doing something shifty while Joyce is ringing his house bell. It powerfully indicates that poor Mr. Clark has also been Flayed... then it's revealed he was just really focused on painting his D&D miniatures.
- Science Is Bad: And very, very cool, but it's mostly unforgiving on the careless, therefore he advises that his students treat it safe. Which is this trope played for the better: safety goggles are needed for a reason.
- Small Role, Big Impact: His scenes are few and far between, yet his explanations on electromagnetism gave Joyce the knowledge to investigate the latest town conspiracy that would lead to her helping to thwart the Soviets.
- Super Gullible: The various lies that the boys have fed to him (Eleven is from Sweden, the boys are "in mourning" immediately before Dustin complains about the lack of Nilla Wafers, and they're building a sensory deprivation tank "for fun") really, really have no business working on him. His excuse could be that he's aware they're lying, but assumes mostly benign or childish reasons lie behind the awkward. It's not like "interdimensional shenanigans and governmental conspiracies" would be your first guess, either, in his shoes. It could also overlap with Plausible Deniability, the less he knows, the less he'd have to tell anyone else.
- Unwitting Pawn: He's fooled by Brenner's men into revealing the names of the children in his AV club, under the pretense of enrolling them in a state-wide AV project. Brenner's men knew that Eleven was in the AV room and therefore any kid who used it could have seen her.
The Kline Family
Larry Kline
Larry Kline
Played By: Cary Elwes
Debut: "Chapter Two: The Mall Rats" (3x02)
The mayor of Hawkins, introduced in the third season.
- Asshole Victim: At the end of Season 3, Mayor Kline is arrested by the U.S government after it's revealed to the public that he knowingly and willingly assisted Soviet spies with infiltrating the U.S and performing subterfuge while they were in there. Given how much of a rancid asshole he was though, it's unlikely too many people are going to miss him.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Pretends to be a caring, Nice Guy mayor but is really a slimy, jerkass Sleazy Politician.
- Bullying a Dragon: Practically his hobby. He seems to really like mouthing off to and belittling people that are much bigger and stronger than him. He usually gets his ass beaten for it.
- Butt-Monkey: Guy can't catch a break, receiving beatdowns from the likes of Hopper, Joyce, and Grigori. It's actually very tricky to find one of his scenes that doesn't involve him getting his ass handed to him.
- Cigar Chomper: As shown in the picture, he smokes a cigar while supervising the town carnival setup.
- Corrupt Politician: He's a seemingly folksy and unpretentious politician whose friendly demeanor and warm smile are just cover for his rapacious greed; he knows full well that his approval of that new mall is crushing the townsfolk by driving small companies out of business, but instead of doing anything to address the protestors' concerns, he just calls the cops on them. And that's BEFORE we find out he's colluding with the Soviet government.
- Hate Sink: Mayor Larry Kline is every single Sleazy Politician stereotype imaginable rolled into one, and then multiplied by three. And it works, so, so well. Even when every other scene he's in has other people getting the better of him, it's hard not to watch Hopper threaten to cut his fingers off and Joyce kicking him in the balls and think that he got off easy.
- Hypocrite: In Season 3, Kline is constantly trying to promote American patriotism within Hawkins as part of the general Fourth of July celebrations. Considering he's actually conspiring with agents of the Soviet Union, Kline is the absolute last person who should be celebrating and encouraging it.
- Jerkass: An arrogant, sleazy asshole who is willing to stoop as low as insulting Hopper over his dead daughter.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After aiding the Russians to construct a secret facility under the Starcourt Mall, and ratting out Hopper and Joyce, which led to Alexei's death, Mayor Kline is caught, impeached, and taken to the authorities for his actions.
- Patriotic Fervor: Invoked as a cover. Despite his attempts to invoke Patriotic Fervor throughout Hawkins as the town's mayor, Kline clearly doesn't care that much about America's legacy if he's willing to conspire with the Russians for personal profit.
- Put on a Prison Bus: He's last seen being taken away by the U.S authorities after his crimes became public.
- Sleazy Politician: Tries to blackmail Hopper, and it turns out he's made some seriously shady deals with a group of Russians. Crosses over with Corrupt Politician.
- Spanner in the Works: He alerts Grigori when he spots Hopper and Joyce at the fair, which leads to Alexei getting killed.
- Villain with Good Publicity: To the public, he's the beloved mayor of Hawkins who will happily take pictures and play carnival games with his fellow citizens. Behind the curtain, he's a sleazy, corrupt Jerkass who snorts coke, commits adultery with his secretary, and has secret connections with the Russians. Once said connections come to light however, Kline is permanently disgraced.
Winnie Kline
Winnie Kline
Played By: Caroline Arapoglou
Debut: "Chapter One: Suzie, Do You Copy?" (3x01)
"...And showtime"
Mayor Kline's wife and one of Karen's pool-going friends who is unaware of her husband's affair and shady dealings.
- '80s Hair: Has teased blonde hair that pouffs up above her tennis visor and headband, with long flowing curls underneath.
- Age-Gap Romance: Larry Kline is a middle-aged mayor while Winnie is young (her actress is only a bit older than Dacre Montgomery, who plays Billy).
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite his sleaziness, she is shocked and concerned when she finds Larry tied up to their bed looking bloody and bruised.
- Eating the Eye Candy: She shows up to the community pool to check out Billy with several other mothers (including Karen) and even serves as the lookout for when it's time to pose as Billy walks by. She also catches Steve's eye during the Jazzercise scene.
- Ms. Fanservice: A very attractive, leggy, toned blonde who is seen in era-appropriate lycra and in a swimsuit. She attends the Jazzercise class that Steve ogles, with her butt being his primary focus.
- Not So Above It All: While her husband is cheating on her with his secretary (amongst other traitorous things), she is checking out Billy at the pool with the intention of catching his notice.
- Pink Is Feminine: Her leotard (upon discovering her husband tied to their bed) is a hot pink and bright purple ensemble with a bag to match.
- Trophy Wife: She is the young and beautiful wife of the wealthy and established Mayor Kline, devoting her energies to checking out lifeguards at the pool and taking jazzercise lessons, but she is clearly a means of decoration for him, as he doesn't seem to care for her.
- True Blue Femininity: For the Male Gaze close up, she is wearing bright blue tights with a black leotard covered in matching polka dots.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: No word as to what happened to her, their children, and her lifestyle after Larry was caught, impeached, and jailed.
The Holloway Family
Tom Holloway
Tom Holloway
Played By: Michael Park
Debut: "Chapter One: Suzie, Do You Copy?" (3x01)
Heather's father and the Editor-in-Chief at the Hawkins Post.
- Asshole Victim: A dismissive misogynist who gets brutally knocked out and taken to the Mind Flayer by his own daughter. Then while under the Mind Flayer's control, he gets killed by Jonathan.
- Body Horror: He and Bruce are melted and then merge into a horrific chimera.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: As this is the Mind Flayer's MO, it's to be expected.
- Break the Haughty: Despite being a total asshole, he's subject to one of these after being sacrificed to the Mind Flayer by Heather. It leaves him no less of an asshole, though.
- Da Editor: The bombastic editor of the Hawkins Post.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: When his wife faints to the floor, he frantically yells to Billy and Heather to call 911. When Heather and Billy take him and his wife to the Mind Flayer's lair, he pleads with Heather that she doesn't have to go along with what Billy is doing.
- Happy Marriage Charade: With his wife, Janet. Obviously being married to a misogynist who mistreats his teenage interns is not pleasant at all.
- Impromptu Tracheotomy: When the Mind Flayer-possessed Tom tries to kill Jonathan in the hospital, Jonathan puts him down by stabbing him in the throat with a pair of scissors.
- Jerkass: Cruelly joins on making fun of Nancy (who is the same age as his daughter) with the other male employees of the paper (albeit not nearly as much as Bruce does.)
- Jerkass Has a Point: Ironically, it's only after getting flayed and trying to cover for the Big Bad that he shows any ethics. And technically he's right since Nancy and Jonathan committed fraud, broke into a senior citizen's house and tried to publish a story that came from an unreliable source.
- Mean Boss: At least to Nancy, being generally dismissive and somewhat condescending towards her.
- Orifice Invasion: Subjected to this alongside his wife by the Mind-Flayer.
Janet Holloway
Janet Holloway
Played By: Holly Morris
Debut: "Chapter Three: The Case of the Missing Lifeguard" (3x03)
Wife of Tom Holloway and mother of Heather.
- '80s Hair: Sports a full "she-mullet", a style which actually emerged a little later in the decade.
- Bound and Gagged: The state in which she and her husband are taken to the Mind Flayer after Billy and Heather drug them.
- Happy Marriage Charade: Implied at the one dinner we see between her and her husband, where he seems very critical of her drinking and even voices stern disapproval (like it wasn't uncommon). Yet they look fantastic in photos....
- Housewife: Presents the appearance of being a perfect and cheery homemaker.
- Orifice Invasion: Along with her husband when meeting the Mind Flayer.
- Nice Girl: Like her daughter, she seems to a be a sweet woman that welcomes people in, even strange young girls who enter her home unannounced (like El and Max).
- Pink Is Feminine: She wears a light pink outfit when she gets kidnapped.
- Stepford Smiler: She's relentlessly upbeat even when there are many red flags about Billy, El, and Max's behaviour, and her husband is noticeably dismissive to her.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Gets all of one scene before she's flayed.
Heather Holloway
Heather Holloway
Played By: Francesca Reale
Debut: "Chapter One: Suzie, Do You Copy?" (3x01)
"Take me to him."
Billy's fellow lifeguard at the Hawkins Community Pool.
- '80s Hair: A teased side ponytail with a scrunchie.
- Alliterative Name: Heather Holloway.
- Bound and Gagged: How Billy transports her to the abandoned steel mill to "join" the Mind Flayer's flesh proxy army.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: She gets possessed by the Mind Flayer, thanks to Billy.
- Betty and Veronica: The sweet-natured "Betty" to Karen's "Veronica" for Billy's Archie, not because Karen isn't nice, but because she's much older than Billy and has a family and children. Which gets brutally flipped when the Mind Flayer takes her.
- Double Standard: Not as vivid as the one Nancy has to contend with, but Billy can get away with humiliating kids at the pool (even fat-shaming them) and still be found popular, while she merely scolds a boy for dunking and Karen's pool friends (who are ogling Billy), dismiss her as an annoying girl with a voice similar to "nails on a chalkboard".
- Emotionless Girl: After she's possessed by the Mind Flayer.
- Fate Worse than Death: When the possessed Hawkins citizens are gathered to assimilate into the Mind Flayer's flesh avatar, Heather is seen melting into a puddle of liquid flesh that flows into the creature.
- Girl Next Door: Under the Flayer's influence during dinner with her parents and Billy (until they drug and knock her parents out), she looks very chipper and perky, in pastels and serving cookies, cosplaying a Seemingly-Wholesome '50s Girl, 1980s style.
- Informed Flaw: According to her actress, Francesca Reale, Heather is supposed to be "snooty, popular, and entitled." However, during her brief appearance prior to being possessed by the Mind Flayer she doesn't really demonstrate these qualities and seems like a Nice Girl. She's genuinely concerned for Billy's well-being when he looks sick, and while she does scold a kid for breaking pool rules (which is her job as a lifeguard), her methods are far kinder compared to Billy, who goes out of his way to fat-shame a kid who was running by the poolside.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Her actress Francesca Reale describes her as being "snooty, popular, and entitled". We really don't see a lot of those traits during her time on the show but she is certainly used to courting attention, judging by how she reacts to Billy, and she does come from a family that's visibly well off.
- Ms. Fanservice: Along with Billy, she seems to service this role as a Hawkins Pool lifeguard.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Billy takes her to join the Mind Flayer's army after she checks up on him when he becomes visibly sick from being possessed.
- Nice Girl: Despite her Informed Flaw, she seems to be a decent enough person who shows genuine concern for Billy.
- Patricide: She and Billy knock out her parents and assimilate them into the Mind Flayer's army, which, for all intents and purposes, means death.
- Stepford Smiler: Goes from a bright, chipper young woman to a complete hollow shell under the Mind Flayer's control.
- Valley Girl: She has a rising inflection and stretches out her vowels when yelling as she scolds a pool-goer. She is also very feminine, sporting the up-to-the-minute fashions of 1985 (side ponytail, pastels and bright colors, hoop earrings, and teased bangs). Justified as the archetype became both popular and reviled around the country, where girls in even small-town Indiana would try to imitate the inflection.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: She doesn't appear for very long in the two episodes before being assimilated by the Mind Flayer.
Munson Family
Wayne Munson
Wayne Munson
Played By: Joel Stoffer
Debut: "Chapter Two: Vecna's Curse" (4x02)
"My nephew is innocent, and he’s still missing! I’ll put as many posters as I need til he’s found.”
Eddie's uncle and guardian, with whom he lives.
- Bruiser with a Soft Center: He presents as a typically gruff, emotionally-cool working class male, yet while he's shown to be very distant when it comes to other people, he's helpful to Nancy when she asks him questions and doesn't believe Eddie to be responsible for Chrissy's murder. And although they're never shown on-screen together, it's made clear he loves his nephew and that the two of them are very close. He breaks down into Manly Tears upon learning of Eddie's death at the end of Season 4, having never given up searching for him.
- Cassandra Truth: While he isn't completely right, he's the only one who believes there's a connection between the Creel murders and Vecna's victims in 1986. Pretty much everyone dismisses it.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Introduced smoking one, shaken up by finding a dead body in his trailer.
- Establishing Character Moment: Introduced sitting by himself, not talking to any of the gathered neighbors or the police, showing that he's just as much of an outsider as his nephew.
- Good Parents: Not a biological parent, but defends Eddie and sticks to it no matter how bad things look.
- Mr. Exposition: His first scene exists mostly to explain the history of the Creel family to Nancy.
- Outliving One's Offspring: He loses Eddie at the end of season 4. Eddie was his nephew rather than his son, but Wayne was still his guardian.
- Papa Wolf: Is very combative with Dustin about Eddie's "missing" poster being defaced, until he realizes Dustin is a friend.
- Parental Substitute: For Eddie, with his father implied to be missing due to his criminal lifestyle.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Doesn't appear for very long in episode 2, but his telling of the story of Victor Creel, even if it turned out to be incorrect, does ultimately lead the heroes in the right direction.
- The Stoic: He wears a dour, stone-cold expression and speaks softly and sternly...until the final episode of Season 4 anyway, when Dustin begins to speak about Eddie being a hero (without the Upside Down details), Wayne begins to tear up, not helped too when Dustin gives him Eddie's guitar pick necklace, more or less confirming that Eddie's gone.
Hawkins Post
In General
- Asshole Victim: Tom and Bruce go through a Trauma Conga Line of being Flayed, beaten up, liquefied, turned into a freakish chimera abomination, then absorbed into the Mind Flayer's physical body. Considering the kind of people they were, though, it's hard to feel sorry for either of them.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The editor of the local paper and possibly his entire staff become pawns to some overarching danger right around the time Soviets invade Hawkins. There's clearly meant to be an Orwell-style allegory.
- Fat Bastard: At least one of the men who bullies Nancy is obese.
- Pick on Someone Your Own Size: All the staff are in their 40s and 50s, yet bully teenage interns.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: The male staff all show a regressive attitude towards women, especially women who show ambition.
- Strawman News Media: Possibly the least reliable source of information until conspiracy theorists discovered Patreon. They routinely ignore any topics of interest Nancy brings up based on her gender and lack of experience, then at least two of them become servants of the Mind-Flayer.
Bruce Lowe
Bruce Lowe
"Nancy Drew-eww...Where are youuu...?"
Played By: Jake Busey
Debut: "Chapter One: Suzie, Do You Copy?" (3x01)
A journalist for the Hawkins Post.
- Asshole Victim: Did anyone really cry when he got Flayed? Didn't think so.
- Body Horror: He and Tom are melted and then merged into a freakish chimera.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: He is eventually possessed by the Mind Flayer alongside Tom. Needless to say, his already creepy and assholish demeanor is amplified under its influence.
- Hate Sink: He's even more sexist and obnoxious towards Nancy than Tom, and unlike him, Bruce doesn't have a daughter or a loved one to redeem him.
- He-Man Woman Hater: His behavior towards Nancy reveals deep levels of misogyny.
- Jerkass: Every scene of his is spent bullying/demeaning Nancy with childish pranks and misogynistic comments.
- Large Ham: As is the way of Jake Busey. It only serves to make him more obnoxious.
- Manchild: Bruce, a man who appears to be in his forties, tapes a rubber rat inside a cupboard in order to prank Nancy, a teenage intern.
- More than Mind Control: When he gets flayed and attacks Nancy, his taunting use of her nickname implies that he's not truly a puppet of the Mind Flayer. A more accurate description would be that his nastier tendencies have been enhanced.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: With his blonde haircut, Bruce bears a striking resemblance to Boris Johnson. Similarly, Boris used to be a journalist too before his political career.
- Troll: He seems to get a real kick out of being a general asshole, going the extra mile to annoy Nancy more than most anyone else in the office.
The Creel Family
Victor Creel
Victor Creel
"Survived? Is that what you call this? Did I survive? No, I assure you, I am still very much in Hell."
Played By: Robert Englund, Kevin L Johnson (young)
Debut: "Chapter Four: Dear Billy" (4x04)
A man who was accused of brutally murdering his entire family and cutting out their eyes back in 1950s Hawkins. Was confined to a mental asylum after being found insane.
- Broken Bird: A proud husband and father with a mansion in 1959, now a disturbed mental patient who gouged out his eyes in 1986.
- Casting Gag: Robert Englund is famous for his portrayal of Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street, a franchise that heavily influenced Season 4's story. His character is the father of Vecna, who's very much an Expy of Freddy.
- Celebrity Paradox: The Nightmare on Elm Street films, which starred Robert Englund, still exist in this universe.
- Dad the Veteran: A family man, and saw combat during WWII.
- Dark and Troubled Past: On top of mistakenly shelling a group of civilians during the war (including an infant), his entire family were later killed by Vecna, and he was framed for their murder. He then tried to commit suicide by cutting his own eyes out, but he survived, and has spent the past several years locked up in Pennhurst, blind and half-mad.
- Eye Scream: Cut out his own eyes while in the asylum as an attempt to reunite with his family in death but the doctors stopped the bleeding.
- Fate Worse than Death: Traumatized by war, Mind Raped for months by some evil entity, forced to watch his wife and children being murdered by said entity, framed by these crimes and gaslit by the authorities for all his life. Blind, old, broken Victor is really right when he says he's already in hell. And he doesn't even know yet that the entity was actually his own son.
- Frame-Up: He is framed by his own son for the murder of his wife and daughter.
- Happily Married: He was in love with his late wife Virgina and seeing her die still breaks his heart in his old age.
- I Was Quite a Looker: The flashbacks reveals he was a handsome Standard '50s Father with slick light-colored hair and a fit body before he took his eyes out.
- My Greatest Failure: On top of accidentally killing civilians during the war, his failure to protect his family left him feeling depressed and suicidal. Those incidents, along with spending 27 years in an asylum after being framed for murder, have left him a very broken man.
- Outliving One's Offspring: He not only saw his wife die horrifically, but also his daughter, and was told his son died in a coma. All reports were half right.
- Papa Wolf: As soon as dead animals start appearing around the house, Victor starts guarding his family by sitting on the porch with a shotgun ready.
- Real Men Wear Pink: A WWII Veteran and Standard '50s Father who not only wasn't affected by the toxic masculine standards of his generation but his favorite song is the romantic "Dream A Little Dream of Me". Note
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Was a soldier in WWII who accidentally shelled French civilians and was haunted by it even before his life went completely to hell.
- Sole Survivor: Of the massacre at his house. Or so he thinks. His Survivor Guilt makes him cut out his eyes.
- Standard '50s Father: He was the perfect post-war Patriarch and breadwinner, loving to his wife and children before the events of 1959.
- Stepford Smiler: Exudes an aura of the ideal father for the time, secretly harbors immense guilt for accidentally getting innocent French civilians, including a baby, incinerated, which his son uses against him.
- War Crime Subverts Heroism: During WWII, he ordered the shelling of what turned out to be French civilians.
Virginia Creel
Virginia Creel
Played By: Tyner Rushing
Debut: "Chapter Four: Dear Billy" (4x04)
Victor Creel's wife, said to have been murdered by him.
- '50s Hair: Sports a perky and stylish flip-do.
- Ambiguous Situation: Henry says both his parents did terrible things. While we know about Victor's war crimes, it's not revealed what Virginia did. When he kills her, his reasoning was only that she wanted to have him committed.
- Happily Married: She and Victor were very close and depended on one another, with Victor recalling her as his "my darling".
- He Knows Too Much: Is killed by Henry after she finds out about his misanthropic behavior and plans to have him sent to therapy for it.
- Housewife: The classic post-war image of the Housewife, in sensible (but stylish) fashions, watering her plants, and cooking for her family.
- Posthumous Character: She's long dead by the time the show starts, having been Vecna's first victim.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Virginia has brief appearances in Stranger Things 4, but her being suspicious of her psychic son and contacting Martin Brenner to diagnose him gives Henry an excuse to snap, leading him to kill her and her daughter and frame her husband for it. Her association with Brenner also leads to Henry killing most of the Hawkins Laboratory children and scientists, and his eventual transformation into Vecna, kicking off the events presented by the series.
- True Blue Femininity: She sports a blue dress with a pink collar and trim when she arrives at her new house in Hawkins.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Immediately, planning to commit her son Henry to a psychiatric facility causes him to jump off the slippery slope by killing her, her daughter, and driving her husband insane. Long term, allowing Dr. Brenner to study him leads the good doctor to try and find other children with latent Psychic Powers, like Eleven, and experiment on them, leading to Henry eventually creating the Mind Flayer. Cue Upside Down portal and all the monstrosities that hail from there. Yes, this lady is single handedly the cause for the entire plot of the series, Eldritch Abominations and all.
- Women Are Wiser: She was the only one to suspect Henry to be the evil haunting her family, and took measures to commit him before he could do anything worse. Victor was completely clueless about his son's true nature, and still is, thirty years later.
Henry Creel
See here for more info. (Warning: *MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SEASON 4*)
Alice Creel
Alice Creel
Played By: Livi Burch
Debut: "Chapter Four: Dear Billy" (4x04)
Victor Creel's daughter, said to have been murdered by him.
- Children Are Innocent: A carefree little girl who is excited to move into a new house in Hawkins.
- Death of a Child: Her age is no deterrent for the "demon", who's actually her own brother.
- Older Than They Look: She looks and acts like a young preteen girl, rather than a teen girl of the era, but the newspapers covering her family tragedy note she was 15 when she died.
- True Blue Femininity: Wears a blue plaid two-piece suit and hat when her family moves into Hawkins.
Other Residents
Benny Hammond
Benny Hammond
Played By: Chris Sullivan
Debut: "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers" (1x01)
The towering owner of a diner and a friend of Chief Hopper. He is the first resident of Hawkins that encounters Eleven.
- Boom, Headshot!: His unfortunate fate at the hands of Connie Frazier.
- Gentle Giant: He's big, muscle-bound and intimidating, but he shelters and feeds Eleven for the short time he met her.
- He Knows Too Much: Merely interacting with Eleven was his death sentence.
- It's Personal: Eleven squishes Connie Frazier's brains the next time they meet because of Benny's assassination.
- Never Suicide: Brenner has his murder staged to look like a suicide, but Hopper doesn't totally buy it.
- Nice Guy: He initially runs after Eleven because she's stealing from him, but the second he realizes she's in some kind of trouble, and is not mentally well, he becomes a very benevolent presence.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He discovers a dirty, starving little girl in his kitchen, and after realising she requires aid, he cleans her up, gives her fresh clothes, feeds her burgers and ice cream, and phones Social Services in an attempt to help her. His ultimate reward is to be murdered by the DOE and have his death staged as a suicide.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Hopper justifiably suspects foul play in Benny's "suicide", as he knew him personally. He just wasn't the kind of guy that would attempt such a thing.
- Sacrificial Lamb: His death goes some way to establishing just how ruthless Brenner and his cronies are.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: In fact, he's killed within the same episode he's introduced.
Keith
Keith
Played By: Matty Cardarople
Debut: "Chapter One: MADMAX" (2x01)
"Top three movies: Go!"
An employee at The Palace Arcade and later, Family Video. He is a friend of Robin.
- Abhorrent Admirer: For Nancy, telling the boys he will give them the information they need about Max in the first episode of Season 2 if they can set up a date with her for him. Mike is horrified at the prospect.
- Ambiguous Situation: When Steve applies for a job at Family Video, Keith initially refuses to hire him, and tells Robin (who's speaking on Steve's behalf) that Steve's "a douchebag of the highest order." Robin admits to Keith that Steve was a prick to them in high school, but it's unclear whether or not Steve specifically bullied them, or Keith just knows Steve because of his previous reputation. He is eventually persuaded to hire Steve though, and judging by how Steve manages to stay at his job for nearly 6 months, it's possible that Keith either warmed up to Steve, that Steve was good at his job, or he appreciates Steve's ability to draw the ladies into the store.
- Jerkass: Comes across as a smug know-it-all who has to be bribed with pretty girls.
- Lez Bro: He is friendly with Robin, having been on the fringes of Hawkins High School society together. He isn't aware she is a lesbian, however, since he initially believes her to have a crush on Steve.
- Perpetual Frowner: His facial expressions range from bored to mildly irritated.
- Trademark Favourite Food: Cheetos or any bag of munchies covered in orange powder.
Doris Driscoll
Mrs. Doris Driscoll
Played By: Peggy Miley
Debut: "Chapter Two: The Mall Rats" (3x02)
An old woman who calls the Hawkins Post after rats eat her fertilizer.
- Alliterative Name: Doris Driscoll.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: After the Mind Flayer possesses her, she is found having eaten her fertilizer.
- Christianity is Catholic: When Nancy is looking at photographic evidence she has found of the Mind Flayer's victims, she includes a local Catholic church's bulletin about a senior Bingo night where Doris was in attendance. Also has an Irish last name.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Supposedly, according to one of the misogynists at the Hawkins Post, she believed that President Kennedy was assassinated through orders of Lyndon Johnson.
- Cool Old Lady: During her brief screen time before she's brainwashed, she seems to be a very good-humored woman.
- Killed Off for Real: Along with the rest of the Flayed, she's melted down and used as biomass for the Flayer.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Played With. When she talks to Nancy and Jonathan she seems perfectly lucid, and is aware that her claims of diseased rats eating fertilizer can easily be dismissed as the ramblings of a senile old lady, so she makes sure to have the evidence to back it up. Tom does say that she is a paranoid schizophrenic, but since he is already Flayed at this point and she becomes Flayed soon after, whether this is the truth or an attempt at a cover up is unclear.
Todd
Todd
Played By: Dan Triandiflou
Debut: "Chapter Five: The Flayed" (3x05)
Owner of the car commandeered by Hopper.
- Atrocious Alias: "The Toddfather". It's based on his first name, but after his one scene, we never learn his last name.
- Cool Car: A 1984 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible.
- Metalhead: When Hop steals his car and turns on the radio, heavy metal starts blaring out.
- Rich Bitch: He's credited as "Rich Douchebag Todd".
- Vanity License Plate: TODFTHR
