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Fridge Brilliance

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Season 1

The D&D sessions mirror real life in a number of ways.
- The final battle mirrors the climax of the first season: an army of G-Men (troglodytes) charge in, followed soon after by the Demogorgon.
- Will, playing a wizard, is given advice from his friends, one telling him to protect himself with a spell, leaving him safe but his party members in potential danger, the other saying to immediately attack, putting himself at risk, but potentially saving his friends. He chooses to attack. When confronted by the real Demogorgon, Will fetches a gun and tries to attack it. His attack fails, just like it did in the game.
- While Will is gone, Eleven essentially replaces him. In the climax of the first season, she attacks the Demogorgon with her real magic powers, putting herself at risk to protect her friends, and kills it, just like Will manages to do in the season 1 epilogue. In Season 2, Mike calls Eleven a wizard.
- Additionally, the fight leading up to the defeat of the Demogorgon mirrors the opening D&D game in setup.
- In the gaming session at the end of the season, the players complain about the campaign's dangling plot threads, all of which mirror the show's unanswered questions at that point. The "brave knight" is Hopper, the "lost princess" is Eleven, and the "strange flowers" are the Upside Down.
When Lonnie tells Jonathan to take down the poster because it's inappropriate, at first, it appears that he's just an out-of-touch deadbeat dad who's throwing his weight around just because he can (which he otherwise is). His reaction makes a bit more sense if you recognize what the poster is of: Evil Dead — not something a family who had just lost a child would care to see.
- Double fridge for the context: the poster features one of the characters being dragged underground by a malevolent supernatural force. Will was dragged "elsewhere" by a malevolent supernatural force. . . not that Lonnie knows this, but the poster is actually a spot-on representation of Will's predicament.
Mike's dad. It's been said that Hopper is in a conspiracy thriller, Joyce is in a psychological horror movie, the kids are in a Spielbergian coming-of-age dark fantasy and the teens in a John Hughes movie with horror elements. Mike's dad is in a sitcom. When everyone else storms out of the dinner table, he even looks at the little girl like he's expecting a cute one-liner.
- Likewise, Mike's mom is in a soap opera. Consider the series from her perspective: She's having a nice and normal life then, one day, her son's friend goes missing and her daughter starts acting distant. Any attempts to connect with these family members backfire miserably, and the suspicion only increases when her son's friend's mom starts acting off as well and suddenly throws her out of the house. Then, her daughter reveals that she slept with her boyfriend, and she learns that her son is harboring a dangerous individual underneath her nose.
We briefly hear about two men going missing after going hunting in the woods the Demogorgon frequents. They likely shot an animal and the blood attracted the monster.
- Even more likely, the animal they shot was the deer that Nancy and Jonathan finds that the Demogorgon drags into the Upside Down while Jonathan and Nancy are looking for the creature.
Flo tells Nancy that Jonathan is in love with her after Jonathan pulps Steve's face, because "only love makes someone that crazy. . . and that stupid." She's right on that point. . . but it wasn't Jonathan's feelings for Nancy, but his love for Will. Jonathan only hit Steve after Steve made a crack about Will's recent "death." Jonathan might like Nancy, might be crushing on Nancy, might even be falling in love with Nancy, but he loves his brother.
How do the boys avoid the attention of the Government Conspiracy for so long? Especially when the government is monitoring all phone calls in town? Simple — the government is monitoring all phone calls... but the boys mainly communicate using their walkie-talkies. They're unwittingly off the grid.
Notice how Will's first phone call from the Upside Down comes almost immediately after Joyce insists to Jonathan that Will "is close... I can feel it." In a later episode, when Joyce herself is in the Upside Down, she realises she can hear Jonathan inside the alt-dimension version of her house. Will almost certainly heard those words and tried to call home in order to contact her immediately after. So he was a lot closer than Joyce at the time suspected.
Karen and Ted Wheeler are clearly not very affectionate nor happy with each other and there is a clear discrepancy in their appearances as the series goes on, the script from the first episode actually lists Karen's age as "late 30s" (possibly 36-39) and Ted as clearly 45 years old. There has been research that said that cisgender women's sex drives increase with age while men decrease, possibly along with personality differences and lack of affection or regard and being married for shallow reasons, there is perhaps another reason for their strained marriage? One that Nancy may not be aware of (or want to be).

"My mom was young. My dad was older, but he had a cushy job, money, came from a good family. So they bought a nice house at the end of the cul-de-sac and started their nuclear family."

Many see Joyce getting Will an Atari game system as a mistake, due to the fact that the Video Game Crash of 1983 would have occurred just before the Christmas scenes in the show's first season. However, it counts as Fridge Brilliance when you take into account both that Joyce, who is a single mother who works at a small town store, getting the game system and the Video Game Crash of 1983 occurring allowing her to get the game system. Joyce, like many single parents in that time, wouldn't have been able to afford a lot of popular toys for her kid. With the VGC occurring, and Atari having so much stock left over, there's a good chance that Joyce got the Atari at a heavy discount to the point where she could buy it and some games for Will and not have to worry about it affecting other finances.
El getting powers from the MK-ULTRA experiments when Terry didn't seem to, or at least didn't as strongly makes sense if we assume her powers originate in some for of genetic mutation induced by the experiments. In a fully formed adult body this mutation would have to individually affect every cell (and an adult's body has millions of cells within it), not to mention any physical mutation that plays a role in El's powers, but in early development, a zygote is only a small bundle of cells, a mutation could fully take hold, and the subsequent fetus would develop based on that mutation, making it more likely for the mutation to blossom.

Season 2

Zombie boy - traditionally, a Zombie isn't someone who comes back from the dead. A Zombie is someone possessed by an evil magician and forced to do their bidding. The horror of the original Caribbean legends is in the servitude. Now think about what's going on with the "Zombie Boy".
- Additionally, Dustin remarks that an army of zombies is required to beat the Mind Flayer, which is a fun little nod to the fact that, though Will's brain has been taken over by a very real Mind Flayer, it is his clue to close the gate that eventually points the group in the direction they need to defeat it.
The title of the Season 2 episode "Chapter 8: The Mind Flayer" is a either a subtle Double-Meaning Title or a very dark Stealth Pun. It is ostensibly named for the creature that the characters dub The Mind Flayer in the episode. However, it is also the episode in which "Bob the Brain" is physically ripped apart by Demodogs. That is, in which a character whose name is a synonym for Mind is literally Flayed.
- "Mind Flayer" is appropriate on another level. All season, the creature has been invading and taking over Will's mind, controlling him to its own ends and uncaring about the damage to his relationships and mental state this causes. . . flaying his mind, one might say. And as that damage affects the people Will is closest to, their own minds begin to flay as they try and cope with this new trauma. . .
Lucas taunts Dustin for not getting the princess in Dragon's Lair. Dustin would eventually lose out to Lucas for Max's affections.
When Mike is selecting toys to give away, he pauses on the Tyrannosaurus. This is "Roary," the toy he showed to Eleven when they first met. Similarly, he pauses to regard a Millennium Falcon toy, which Dustin had tried to convince El to make fly.
Will's Ghostbusters costume is slightly different from the other party members, signaling both his detachment from the rest of the group and his family's lack of funds.
On the topic of Ghostbusters, when the Party is walking down the hallway at school after realizing that nobody else was wearing costumes, some kid in the background taunts them with "who you gonna call ? The Nerds !", which causes Dustin to crack a grin. While it could be easy to chalk it off as some mild Corpsing from Gaten Matarazzo, it's important to remember that Dustin is very much aware that he is a nerd, and he's proud of it. With that in mind, of course Dustin wouldn't take offense at that taunt : if anything, he grinned because he thought it was Actually Pretty Funny.
The YMMV page for this show has criticized Will's monologues about the Upside Down and his connection to the Mind Flayer as being unnatural, bordering on Fauxlosophic Narration at times. But then Dr. Owens reveals that the Mind Flayer is slowly taking over Will from the inside, and has been for a while. By that logic, it's reasonable to assume that "Will's" speeches are the Mind Flayer's attempts at replicating a human-like speech pattern, which go awry due to its general inexperience with humans.
By the end of the second season every kid ends up having an older sibling/younger sibling dynamic. Mike/Nancy and Will/Jonathan are the most prominent. Then there is Lucas/Erica which is more matter of fact and the most normal followed by Max/Billy. El/Kali is adoptive due to their shared history. Then there is Dustin/Steve, who had nothing in common beyond being involved in the events of season 1. Then they end up bonding due to their interactions. They also happen to be the only child of their families.
Mike and Eleven's reunion at the Snow Ball is set to "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, a song infamously known as the "stalker song." However, the use of the song in the finale is appropriate in a couple ways:
- The first is that the episode ends with the Mind Flayer hovering over the school in the Upside Down, seething with rage over its defeat. This makes it a disturbingly appropriate Villain Song. Gaten Matarazzo even calls out the use of the song, with the Duffer Brothers pointing out this very fact in the Beyond Stranger Things after show.
- However, it also works on another level. A part of the infamy of "Every Breath You Take" is that if you're unfamiliar with the song, it certainly sounds like a romantic ballad, and it's only upon paying closer attention to the lyrics that one notices the darker meaning. Now, look at how the song is used in the episode: It begins at the Snow Ball, as Mike and Eleven finally have their dance and cement their Relationship Upgrade, before the scene shifts to the Upside Down and ends with the Mind Flayer watching over the ball. Just as in the song, the final moments of the season appear to be sweet and romantic on the surface, only to reveal something much more sinister when one looks deeper.
- While the creepier lyrics aren't relevant to Mike and El's relationship, the refrain "I'll be watching you" is apt, as she's been watching him through her clairvoyance the whole time they've been apart.
- The preceding song, "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper, might have been considered too on-the-nose to use for Mike and El's first dance. Much of that song could practically have been written for them, especially the soprano/tenor duet in the chorus - "If you're lost you can look and you will find me... If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting." Mike's look of longing as the song plays suggests that he recognizes that.
It is fitting that the darkly clothed super powered Indian girl on a quest of vengeance to kill the evil people who wronged her, and who has been separated from her "sister" El for years, is named Kali, considering in Hinduism Kali is a god associated with darkness and time who destroys evil forces.
Mike complains about Max not fitting into their party, using D&D classes as analogues for their real world skills, and since she doesn't play she suggests "zoomer," which isn't a thing. But over the season she picks a lock, stealths out of her house, takes down Billy with a sneak attack, and steals a car. She's their rogue.
- This has a whole other level if the person watching knows D&D. When Mike describes the Party, they have a Paladin, Cleric, Ranger, Bard and Wizard. While a Bard has some Thief abilities (specially in the older editions of AD&D), they're clearly missing a character dedicated to that skillset.
The original Demogorgon had pale white skin and never came out during the day as it came from the sunless Upside Down, Dart and the other demodogs had much darker skin and could handle direct sunlight (at least when they got older) and they were all (presumably) born on earth. This implies the Demogorgons have some kind of low key Adaptive Ability.
A minor one at the start of season 2: Hopper always waits for Eleven to unlock the cabin for him. When he enters, she's never anywhere near the door - she's unlocking it telekinetically.
Plenty of film history buffs consider the opinions Mr. Clarke has on The Thing (1982) rather head-scratching considering how many critics and audiences at the time (most of the former of whom basically retroactively went "hold my beer" at pretty most modern Internet critics) didn't like the movie because they thought it was an overly gory version that was inferior the 1950's version. I personally don't see it that way, since considering how slightly eccentric Mr. Clarke is he seems like the type of guy to have unpopular opinions anyway.
- Also, the movie eventually became a cult hit, and that cult had to start with some people.
- Also also, the woman he's watching it with holds the majority opinion. . . "No, no, this is too gross". . . until he explains how the effect was done. And given his established love of science as a process of figuring things out, he'd probably appreciate the scientific thinking (if not necessarily scientific plausibility) of the film itself.
- Also x3, given how his comforting of the woman revolves around explaining the practical reality behind the gore and body horror, he probably enjoys watching movies like The Thing in part simply to figure out how they achieved the effects.
- Also also², earlier in the season Mr Clarke demonstrates clear evidence of familiarity with Dungeons and Dragons, much to Dustin's delight. He is clearly a sci-fi / fantasy / horror nerd like our heroes, a group of people who, even at the time, loved the movie despite it's poor popular reception.
- There is the fact that many fans of The Thing know that even though the film failed at the box office both critically and commercially, the film found its audience on home video release. So, Mr. Clarke and the boys represent the first wave of fans who found the film via the VHS market. It's not the only film that didn't survive during the Summer 1982's movie theater release and ended up finding its audience via the VHS market.
At the end of Season 1, Hopper is seen leaving food at a dead drop for Eleven despite seemingly having no possible way of knowing and little reason for suspecting that she's alive. Early in Season 2, however, we see a flashback where Eleven uses her powers to mug a hunter and steal his clothes. We don't see it, but that almost certainly made it to Hopper's desk, the hunter almost certainly mentioned that a short-haired girl in rags psychically beat him up, and Hopper clearly put two and two together, realized Eleven was still alive, and started leaving dead drops to try and lure her.
- He knew to leave Eggo waffles because she stole four boxes of them from a grocery store in Season 1; that incident also came to Hopper's attention because on her way out she telekinetically slammed the doors in front of the manager chasing her, hard enough to shatter the plate glass.
The Mind Flayer hates heat, but it's never explained why. Well, in real life, heat is the most effective way of killing a disease. Of course the Mind Flayer as a parasitic disease would hate heat, it's the only thing that can kill it.
The Demogorgon last season was unharmed by bullets and most other conventional weapons yet goes crazy when around fire and this season we learn the Mind Flayer hates heat. It seems most likely the Demogorgon was infected.
- Demogorgon only ever shows itself at night or inside buildings where it would be colder than during the warm summer day. This also follows the behaviour of it wanting to avoid heat and stay in the cold.
Dustin's comparisons of Hopper to Lando Calrissian makes perfect sense — Both of them help the main heroes but at one point end up betraying said heroes' trust by turning them over to an evil government, but only out of noble reasons, and both end up regretting their respective decisions. The only difference is that Hopper's betrayal from season 1 has not been made known.
META: Casting Sean Astin as Bob is more than just a nod to The Goonies. With all of the Dungeons & Dragons references in the series, the logical casting choice would have to be an actor from a franchise that helped inspire D&D.
After visiting Dr. Owens and hearing about his PTSD assessment for Will, Hopper tells Joyce that "the PTSD thing is real." Hopper would know that PTSD is a real thing, as he's a Vietnam vet; he probably knew other vets who had it, and might have has suffered from it himself at some point.
- If his experiences in the war didn't leave him with PTSD, the experience of losing his little girl to cancer surely did.
Dustin's fondness for Three Musketeers candy bars and naming his new pet after d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer in the original novel, could allude to Dustin having been the last of the four boys to join the Party; his conversation with Mike in the first season reveals that he moved to Hawkins when they were in third grade, when Mike, Will, and Lucas were already friends. (Although if one were to draw parallels between the Party and the musketeers as Dumas created them, Dustin would definitely be the Porthos of the group, while Mike, Lucas, and Will would probably be Athos, Aramis, and d'Artagnan, respectively.)
One point that initially looks like an oversight: during the exorcism, Nancy brands Will with a red-hot poker to stop him from strangling Joyce. You would think he'd have an extremely painful second or third-degree burn afterward, which is completely ignored when he recovers. However, when El fights the possessed Billy in the locker room in Season 3, we learn that when the Mind Flayer is actively using its host's body to fight (indicated by the appearance of black veins under their skin), it dramatically enhances their strength and durability: Billy got clobbered over the head with a steel weight bar by Mike, which barely slowed him down, and then thrown through a brick wall by El, after which he was almost immediately able to get up and run off, so it's likely that the possessed Will didn't take any serious damage from Nancy's poker.

Season 3

Why do Steve, Dustin, Erika and Robin not contact the government immediately when they discover the Russian base? Well, by the time they have evidence of their claim it's too late, as they are trapped in the Russian facility. Also it makes sense they'd never contact them due to personal reasons:
- Both Dustin and Steve would distrust the government after the events of the last two seasons. After experiencing the cover ups and how corrupt it is first hand they naturally would be reluctant to bring them back to Hawkins and into their lives. Also, doing so could risk blowing Eleven's cover.
- Robin is gay and in the 80's the government was not very kind to the LGBTQ+ community. It makes sense she would be hesitant to call them in after seeing how they treat people like her, delaying things further.
- In a less personal but more pragmatic example, as the last season showed with Nancy and Jonathan's efforts to expose Hawkins Lab, the government would never have believed a full-scale Russian infiltration in the American heartland in time, possibly laughing the kids away as they would have believed no one had the guts to infiltrate America right under the officials' noses. By the time they would have gathered evidence, it would have been too late and the Russians would have succeeded in completely opening the Gate. So stopping the Russians immediately took higher priority.
- And Erika is ten and didn't seem to fully understand the danger till later. It would never have crossed her mind. Also she had reason to not believe anything she was being told anyway, as far as she was concerned Dustin, Steve and Robin were just talking nonsense. She only agreed to help after getting free ice cream.
In Season 3, we see Joyce noticing that magnets are losing their magnetism. This seems like an out of character thing for Joyce, as any adult would have not put much thought into magnets losing their grip. However, this is fridge brilliance because of the fact that last season, Joyce acknowledged her lack of being observant when it came to Will and what he was going through, mostly being dragged along in the situation. This season, she's more observant of the smallest thing and is being proactive, most likely out of concern that either Hawkins Labs was back up and running without the town knowing or that somehow, the gate to the Upside Down was open again. Joyce learned from last season, and as a result, led to her and Hopper discovering that Russians were in Hawkins trying to open the gate again. All this simply being observant and proactive, even more so in comparison to the last two seasons.
Billy is delirious when outside at the pool yet seems perfectly fine otherwise. He never shows any signs of being delirious after it. Well the Mind Flayer hates heat, his delirious state was probably because of the Mind Flayer reacting negatively to having to stay outside in the warm sunshine.
Why does Max assume the worst about Mike and his intentions? She grew up in a divorced household, her mother married an asshole and her brother bullies her, of course she'd feel that boyfriends lie!
- Another factor in their conflict is that Max has only seen Eleven as a badass, tending to overestimate her. However, in Season 1, Mike witnessed Eleven's limits and her Heroic RRoD, which culminated in her Heroic Sacrifice — none of which Max has seen. Thus, Mike is fully aware that not only is Eleven not invincible, but she will endanger herself for her friends.
Alexei at one stage mentions how Russia's greatest soldiers and engineers are guarding the site of the new portal to the Upside Down claiming it impossible for anyone to get in. Except Robin, Erika, Dustin and Steve got in seemingly contradicting this statement. Or it's entirely possible Alexei fell for propaganda, a thing the USSR was very well known for.
The Mind Flayer seems oddly confident that once Eleven is gone nothing can stop it. The only reason it was stopped the first time was because Eleven closed the portal. With her dead no one would be able to close it once it was fully open.
- Of course people like Eight might be able to do it. The Mind Flayer however doesn't know any of them exist and so thinks Eleven is the only one with her powers. From its perspective once Eleven is gone it's won.
The Mind Flayer focuses on killing Eleven and her friends, coming up with an impressive plan to do so, yet it completely ignores Joyce, Hopper and the other adults. Of course it would, as the only people who outright hurt it last season were the kids and teenagers. Hopper and Joyce never actually dealt any significant damage to it and only helped the kids and El close the portal. It wouldn't see them as a threat at all.
- Also Hopper and Joyce are the last to get caught up in events and are out of town for most of the plot. Of course the Mind Flayer wouldn't bother with them as it can't even find them anywhere. As far as it is concerned they are both a non-issue and nowhere to get involved in its plans.
How did Billy and by extension the Mind Flayer find the group at Starcourt? A piece of the Mind Flayer was inside Eleven until they got to the mall and is capable of hearing. The Mind Flayer heard them say where they were going to the mall.
- Alternatively it may have been using what it implanted as a tracker to attract the rest of the mass, as Billy arrives at the grocery store they'd made a brief stop at to find the parts of the Mind Flayer that had been cleaned out of the wound.
Fridge Awesome for Billy. The Mind Flayer is shown to be able to control its hosts perfectly until they just give up fighting it. With its intelligence, taking over Billy again would have been its first reaction when he showed resistance. Billy was not just physically defying the Mind Flayer but also holding it back from controlling him again.
Why did Eleven have to go with Joyce and not live with any of the other parents to stay with her friends? She had no choice as no one else is aware of the events going on in Hawkins meaning Dr. Owens could only send her to live with Joyce.
- Also it's probably the safest course of action as the Mind Flayer has shown interest in wanting to kill El. Having her away from Hawkins prevents it from being able to do this if the portal ever opens again.
- Additionally, along with the argument that the other families are out of the loop, it would be highly inappropriate for the Wheelers to allow their fourteen-year-old son's girlfriend to live with them. Given their history of consistently making out, despite Eleven's lack of knowledge about sex, in a couple of years if Mike's ready, Eleven could know enough about it to want it, too. And yeah, like Karen would go for that, considering the fit she had pitched when she learned of Nancy and Steve.
Robin gets Steve the job at the video store by saying that he will attract all the female customers for the teenage manager to have himself. She's asked what's in it for her but claims nothing is. Except Robin is gay so she'd also have an interest in attracting more girls to the store...
- Also, Steve has totally accepted Robin being gay after she came out to him. In Small Town America in 1985, that kind of friendship is hard to come by. Of course she'd want to help her friend out and keep him close.
- Also, Steve accepting Robin's homosexuality so easily can be see as weird, especially in the 80's. But, just look at what Steve has experienced for the last three years: the Demogorgons, the Mind-Flayer, the Upside Down, Eleven's powers, etc. Compared to that, Robin being lesbian is the less weird thing Steve has seen in a long time.
The Russians and the Mind Flayer never interact in any way, not even when it's crawling over and inside the Starcourt Mall. Except the Russians are the ones keeping open the portal to the Upside Down, meaning it's in the Mind Flayer's best interest not to spook or attack them in order to have power.
Most of the land that the Russians take is farmland, like the Hess Farm. When you consider the events of the previous season, it makes perfect sense that farmers in Hawkins would be willing to sell; the tendrils from the Upside Down were killing all their crops and probably severely hurt business.
When Hopper was stood up at the restaurant, he was drinking a wine that the waiter told him contained a hint of cherry. Given how bitter he was after that, it's entirely possible that he deliberately picked out a strawberry slurpie for Alexei purely because the cherry flavour is still a sore spot for him.
- Possible, but he could have been telling the truth. Anyone who's gotten slurpies (or any kind of fountain flavored drink) knows that running out of flavors is a thing, and especially since Seven-Eleven is nowhere near Burger King, he's not going to make an even bigger detour to find a place that has cherry flavoring.
Due to the success of MK-ULTRA and the opening of a portal to another dimension, it makes perfect sense why the Soviet Union would be so bold as to directly infiltrate an American town; they are growing very desperate to catch up with America.
The kids barely question why Hopper and Joyce are going to Illinois after they figure it out. Considering that Nancy and Jonathan show up in the following scene, it's more than likely that they figured out where Hopper was going, and knew he'd be out of reach, since Murray doesn't answer his phone.
The kids being blasé over a horror movie as graphic as Day of the Dead (1985) makes perfect sense considering how much real death and terror they've already experienced so fiction could never compete in shocking them.
- That and considering before the events, they've watched movies like John Carpenter's The Thing and Sam Raimi's first Evil Dead film, which were considered rather gory and violent. Mike even has a Dark Crystal poster in his room, which contains some dark moments in the film. Seeing that at this point in the story (1985), the kids would have been some of the viewers of the horror film boom of the 1980s, which would have included the bulk of the Slasher film genre (with films like A Nightmare on Elm Street, the first five films of the Friday The 13th franchise and others being released on VHS if they weren't caught in theaters). A lot of horror films in the 1970s and 1980s were rather gory and with the introduction of the VHS/home rental market, a lot of movies found their audiences at home (which happened to include The Thing and The Evil Dead).
This applies to all three seasons, but some of the 80s music sound a bit off. Examples include to be "Melt With You" from Season 1, "Rock You Like a Hurricane" when introducing Billy in Season 2, and "Rock This Town" in Season 3. They sound strikingly similar, but the vocals sound slightly different. This counts as Fridge Brilliance in regards to the fact that a lot of TV series in the 1980s utilized a lot of hit music that were not done by the original artist. For example, Knight Rider had music such as "Cruel Summer", "When Doves Cry" and "Take It Easy" featured in the show, but they were not performed by their original artists.
Lucas' comment about New Coke while Eleven is trying to locate the Mind Flayer after the encounter at the cabin may seem like historical irony joke, but Lucas likens New Coke to John Carpenter's The Thing, as it being a remake superior to the original. The Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you realize that both New Coke and John Carpenter's The Thing were both critical and commercial failures but had developed a niche/cult following afterwards.

Season 4

The overabundance of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" seems random if extremely badass, but think about it: the song is about a woman asking God to make men and women switch places. Max's enjoyment of the song reveals guilt about Billy's death, down to openly suicidal wishes it was her instead at the worst of times. When the climax happens three things in line with the song happen: a "miracle", Vecna's dominance is replaced by Eleven's and Eleven uses some of her power to resuscitate Max, hence "switching places". Plus, when Nancy shoots at Vecna the lyrics "deal with God" show up, almost like he's begging.
Eleven being called a "superhero" makes perfect sense for the story, because what does every good superhero need? A supervillain, and that's where One comes into play.
- The playing of Phillip Glass's Prophecies during Henry's/Vecna's/One's narration also fits this idea perfectly when you realize another telekinetic character that loves clocks, and becomes something akin to a god, is closely associated with this piece.
  - As noted by the viewer "Mr Soaner", Prophecies was composed for the film Koyaanisqatsi, which has commonly been interpreted as a warning for humanity not to allow technology to fall out of our control. It's played at the end of the film while showing the potential extinction of mankind. This theme matches Vecna's ambitions.
The original French opera referenced as the inspiration for the name of the Nina Project, Nina, ou La folle par amour (Nina, or the fool in love), is about a woman who represses the memory of her beloved dying in a duel. Except the actual ending of the opera is not mentioned in the show. Nina ends with her believed-to-be-deceased love actually showing up alive and well, meaning the version of events presented to the audience in the opera are revealed to not be accurate by the end, just like the version of events in Eleven's flashbacks are revealed to not be completely accurate in episode 7.
Back in Season 1, it was rather odd how, unlike the Demogorgon's other victims, Barb's body wasn't crushed in and spit out when Eleven found her. Instead, Barb's eyes had been gouged out and her body covered in a weblike or cocoonish goo, which was very unusual for a Demogorgon...but on-brand for Vecna. In fact, while the Demogorgon might have kidnapped Barb, it was never seen actually attacking Barb, and another Demogorgon in the episode this was revealed gives a clearer refresher on its fighting style, further hinting as far back as then there was something else in the pool that night. Eleven also had a noticeable Freak Out over finding Barb's body, something which was attributed to her horrific ending at the time, but when Nancy is pulled into a mental re-creation of the swimming pool where she died, a wider shot of her body shows that her limbs were hideously twisted, deformed and broken. It's likely that, even through her Trauma-Induced Amnesia, Eleven was reminded of the similar brutality One inflicted on their 'siblings' in the lab, and her indirect role in that.
Episode 4, "Dear Billy", is a perfect metaphor for overcoming suicidal thoughts. Vecna represent depression/grief. He targets people with mental trauma because they are more vulnerable than those who are more stable. He tells Max that "She belongs with him" and that he will bring her pain to an end. However, after thinking about the love she has for her friends and the love they have her, she finds a reason to keep fighting and breaks free. After she comes back, she tells Lucas, Dustin, and Steve that she's "still here."
- Also as another page on TV Tropes points out, what does the Party do after Vecna almost kills Max? They keep their eyes on her to make sure she's safe and doesn't wander off. What's a common practice after someone attempts suicide? They're put on suicide watch.
The moment when Eleven lost her powers in season 3 was when she used them to remove a small object from her body- in particular, the Mind Flayer's leech tracker. While Brenner's explanation on it being because of a stroke from the action may be partly correct, there's more to it: the last time El removed a small object from someone else, that individual killed a large number of people. In other words, like with the bullying incident at the Lab repeating at the skating rink, removing the Mind Flayer from her body caused her to relive a pivotal moment leading up to the most traumatic event of her life, which may have caused her body to shut off her powers.
When Eleven first met Mike in season 1, he tried to explain to her what a "friend" was, and she even narrowed her eyes suspiciously when he explained that friends told each other things that they wouldn't even tell their parents. Given that the closest thing Eleven had to a friend before she met Mike was One (and in particular how the two of them had kept secrets from Dr. Brenner), and how evil One turned out to be, her confusion and suspicion at the concept of friendship are perfectly understandable.
Remember when Steve explained to Eddie that all the creatures in the Upside Down are "like, all one, or something"? They are, in fact, all One.
Eleven and One's standoff reflects the training exercise Brenner set up with the rest of the kids, in that they both tried to get the other to fling off the ground using their psychic powers.
Why did, out of all the children, One chose El? He saw her as a reflection or duplicate of himself. Eleven, when written out is two Ones. This is driven home when he reveals his own number tattoo as proof of his identity, contrasting it against Eleven's to show how similar they are. As a bonus, if you look on the ones and zeroes as being 'positive' and 'negative' numbers, then One's Tattoo is a visual foreshadowing that he's naturally got more negativity in him than Eleven.
When Robin asks how they should refer to Vecna, Nancy refers to him as Henry, Dustin and Lucas call him 001, and Erica refers to his as Vecna, just as they have the whole time while Robin refers to him by all three names. As one YouTuber noted, there are reasons for this: Nancy calls him Henry because she investigated and saw his story herself and understands him the most. Dustin and Lucas refer to him as 001, because they are closer to Eleven and her history with Hawkins Laboratory, and Erica refers to him as Vecna simply because she enjoys D&D and lacks the experiences that Nancy, Dustin, or Lucas have. Robin meanwhile refers to him by all three names due to her Motor Mouth and rapid-panicking and thinking behavior.
Victor Creel being played by Robert Englund, even if it's a Casting Gag to how A Nightmare on Elm Street influenced Season 4, leaves a pretty blatant Celebrity Paradox, since Dustin namedrops Freddy Krueger in the episode after Nancy talks to Victor. But it makes sense from a meta perspective. Vecna is a clear Expy of Freddy, though he lacks the latter's dark quips. Henry, Vecna's true identity, is the son of the character played by Freddy's actor. Thus, Vecna is in a sense his son.
El having the ability to bring Max back to life (in the physical sense at least) may seem like an Ass Pull, but given how her powers work, she may have psychically forced Max's heart to start beating again, and because every organ was still fresh, it worked. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to bring back Max's mind.
Though subtle, the various characters and situations involved in cornering and overcoming Vecna and the Upside Down beings under his command correlate to a D&D party. Eleven is the wizard, facing Vecna on a similar playing field and with abilities that match and counter his own. Hopper is a Knight, wielding a sword in battle against the Demogorgon. Eddie, with his guitar and rocking out as a massive distraction to lure Vecna's monsters away from the Creel house, is a Bard, casting a alluring magical song to ease the party's way through Vecna's forces. Steve, with his axe and physical skills, is a barbarian, Robin is a sorcerer, casting fireballs (Molotovs) against Vecna's physical form, whilst Nancy, a ranger, pelts him with ranged attacks with the shotgun. All 3 battlefields interconnected by the Hive Mind Vecna controls also make it equivalent to the 3-headed red dragon painting that Will created, and Vecna's downfall starts with Mike's Anguished Declaration of Love to Eleven giving her the positive emotions she can channel to overcome Vecna, just like Will said he was the inspiration for the rest of the party.
Of course Lucas wouldn't want Erica spilling the beans about his implied Porn Stash beyond general embarrassment. He still has feelings for Max and wouldn't want her finding out, lest his chances at rekindling their relationship are set ablaze.
Mike being The Heart of the party takes on another meaning when you realise that out of all of them, he's the only one that hasn't had a negative encounter with Vecna/Henry/One yet. Eleven is deeply traumatised by their shared past and her unintentional aid with his nihilistic plans multiple times, Max was subjected to Mind Rape by him and technically killed for a minute, Lucas was Forced to Watch and unable to save Max as she Died in Your Arms Tonight, Dustin also had to endure the same with Eddie, who was wrongfully blamed for Vecna's killings, Will was kidnapped by his monsters, possessed into his Unwitting Pawn by Mind Rape, and still maintains a connection to him that is implied to be deeply traumatic for him. All of them have been in some manner 'broken' and become more jaded as a result of their encounters with Vecna — all except Mike, who can inspire the rest with hope and optimism despite the odds because he's still 'whole' inside. Indeed, Eleven might be Vecna's Good Counterpart as the super-powered psychic powerhouse he perceives himself to be, but Mike is his complete antithesis, a normal, unpowered kid who just wants to have fun with his friends and enjoy life together, contrasting against his human self as 'Henry', and especially against him as a Creepy Child around the same age Mike was in season 1, an antisocial loner who believed he was destined for greater things and found kinship in things others were repulsed by, like spiders, whereas Mike was also a weirdo and an outsider at first, but opened himself up to others and learned to change for the better. It's fitting therefore that Vecna's victory starts to come undone from Mike's Anguished Declaration of Love, something he'd been struggling with for a long time towards Eleven, but found the courage to say so despite his insecurities when she needed it most, inspiring her to find enough strength within her to overpower Vecna's greater psionic abilities. Max points out that Vecna can only see and understand the dark parts of people, despite his mental abilities, which is why he uses them mainly for Mind Rape, so fittingly, Mike the ordinary kid can see the good side in others that they themselves can't.
We get a bit of Foreshadowing of Eddie's Cowardly Lion tendencies a short time before Vecna claims Chrissy. During the D&D game being played by Erica and the other members of the Hellfire Club, the group are huddled and discussing the options of fighting or running. When Dustin and Erica try to talk the group into completing the fight with Vecna, Eddie interjects, telling the group, "There's no shame in running."
It makes sense that Eleven was able to defeat Vecna with The Power of Love after Mike confesses his feelings for her. As an orderly at the lab, Henry taught Eleven to control her powers through anger and sadness. Vecna, being The Cynic, was angered by almost literally everything in the human world, so he had plenty to draw from. Eleven was able to defeat him before this way, but now she not only has friends and family by her side, but Brenner, the main source of her anger, is dead. Meaning he won't cause her any problems anymore. But by tapping into The Power of Love, she was able to access a force to control her powers Henry couldn't even imagine. So of course he would be powerless against it.
Jason Carver is a stand-up young man who shows us in his first appearance that he really does genuinely care about Hawkins, he knows the names of the students who died by heart and, knowing that Hawkins needs a win right now because everything's been going to Hell lately, used that to inspire his friends and teammates when that was the only arena available to him. He's willing to risk life and limb to save his town from evil, and most importantly, he's fearless in the face of doubt and danger, including the fear of being wrong. He's a Paladin.
Several people complained about there not being an explanation on how Brenner survived the Demogorgon attack in Season 1, but once realizing that Vecna wanted Brenner to watch his life's work go down in vain as a Cruel Mercy, and how he has been behind the Mind Flayer (and thus the Demogorgon) all along - in a way there was!
In Season 3 after it flayed people, the Mind Flayer directly speaks to three people who end up surviving confrontations with the Flayed (Jonathan, Mike, Lucas and Will also do this but they aren't spoken to in these scenes). Nancy after it flays Bruce in the hospital and repeats his mocking Nancy Drew comment to her, El during the scene where the Flayer catches her after she accesses Billy's mind to see what he's doing and Max with the Flayer as Billy calling her out when they put him in the sauna. These 3 also happen to be the 3 characters who see into Vecna's mindscape and leave to tell the tale, El by piggybacking into Max's mind, Max when Vecna goes for the kill and Nancy when Vecna shows her his plan.

Fridge Horror