Tear Jerker / Stranger Things

Stranger Things has plenty of tearjerking moments, especially when awful things happen to the main characters.

Spoilers Off applies to Moments pages. You Have Been Warned!

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Season 1

• Just about every scene featuring Joyce having to cope with her son's disappearance.
• Eleven shivering at the sound of thunder in "The Weirdo on Maple Street" after Mike goes up to bed. The implication is that, having spent her entire life in the basement of the fortress-like Hawkins National Laboratory, she's never heard thunder before. What she has heard is gunfire, during the Demogorgon's incursion that led to her escape and four years earlier when One massacred the other test subjects along with any guard or orderly who got in his way. While she has no conscious memory of that incident, it may have left her with a traumatic association to loud banging noises anyway.
• The ending of "Holly Jolly" where the kids see the police recovering what is at first believed to be Will's body out of the quarry pond. Mike snaps at Eleven and rides his bike home, then cries in his mother's arms. Their tearful embrace is Match Cut to Jonathan and his mother finding each other in the middle of the road and doing the same. The whole thing is scored to Peter Gabriel's Heroes.
  • The earlier scene of Nancy crying after Barb disappears.
  • Also in "Holly Jolly," the scene with Eleven exploring Mike's house initially starts off as cute, especially with Eleven humming along with the dial tone. Then comes a flashback of Eleven killing two orderlies trying to force her into an isolation room, since Eleven refused to use her powers on a cat. This is immediately paralleled to Eleven exploring Nancy's room, and upon looking at pictures of Nancy's childhood, you can see on Eleven's face that she knows she's been denied a happy childhood. (The fact that the music is reminiscent of Nancy's music box, except with a much more solemn tone, doesn't help matters).
• Troy being physically abusive with Mike. There is a moment when he physically attacks him by making him stumble, resulting in a slight injury to the poor boy's chin.
• When Lucas calls Eleven out for impeding the mission in "The Flea and the Acrobat", the look on Eleven's face is heartbreaking. It gets worse when she hurts Lucas with her powers and runs away in tears.
  • And the corresponding terror from Lucas' friends when he just won't wake up...
• Jonathan's whole life is sad. In the midst of an already difficult adolescence, he's forced to arrange a funeral for his little brother because his mother appears to slowly be going completely insane. At one point, he has to purchase Will's casket immediately after fighting with his mom in public to keep it together and shooing away several nosy onlookers, and looks completely overwhelmed and lost.
• In "The Upside Down", the flashbacks showing Hopper's daughter's illness and death are a kick in the gut for viewers. Sarah Hopper's illness is first hinted at when she starts hyperventilating while playing with her mom and dad. We then see her on a hospital bed with a shaved head and an oxygen tube, as Hopper reads out to her with a forced cheerfulness while his wife barely holds back her tears even as she tries to smile for her daughter. Right afterwards, Hopper is shown crying alone on a stairwell, revealing just how much it is costing him to put up a brave face through his daughter's illness. And lastly, Hopper and his wife are shown holding each other in pain while the doctors try and fail to revive their daughter.
• Mike kissing Eleven in "The Upside Down" is certainly cute, but the utterly petrified look on his face as he waits for her reaction really drives it home how young and uncertain they are, and the injustice of everything these poor children have been put through.
• Eleven's Heroic Sacrifice. That is all.
  • When she looks back over her shoulder and says, "Goodbye, Mike" – bookending their relationship in the first season, as the first time she said his name was to tell him "'Night, Mike."
  • When the boys are yelling for Eleven afterward, Lucas's face can be clearly seen to be streaked with tears. After how hostile he was towards her throughout the season, it's a sign of how he truly did come to care for her.
• Foregone Conclusion or not, seeing Barb's long-dead body is heartbreaking.
  • The fact that unlike with Will, almost no one besides Nancy was looking for or even seemed to care that she was gone. And unlike Joyce, Nancy had no way of knowing whether or not she was alive until Eleven confirmed it.
• The CPR scene from Episode 8 is one of the most heart-wrenching moments in the whole series, with some excellent acting from both Hopper and Joyce as we see Hopper growing more frantic and emotional as he flashes back and forth between reviving Will and watching his daughter die, eventually resorting to pounding on Will's chest because he's so desperate not to lose another kid, while Joyce tearfully begs her son to Please Wake Up. Thankfully, they succeed. The scene is appropriately (albeit anachronistically) scored to the Moby song "When It's Cold I'd Like To Die."
• When Joyce tells Eleven that she is a very brave girl and to know that Joyce will be with her every step of the way she goes into the isolation tank, we can see Eleven begin to tear up. This is the first time an adult has tried to take care of her and protect her, as adults are supposed to. All her life, she is used to being deployed on missions like she is a feelingless machine, so that she probably never realised that her fear was natural and not a weakness until Joyce told her so.
• In "The Body," where Joyce, finally finds Will alive in the wall, as the Demogorgon is approaching, yet she cannot do anything to help outside of telling him to run, due to a separation. Meanwhile, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin are able to listen in due to Eleven's telepathy affecting the Ham radio, and their utter horror and despair, at the revelation of their friend's frightening and desperate experiences in the Upside-Down.
• The very final scene of season 1 where Will coughs up a slug, and is briefly transported back to the Upside-Down. This poor, innocent kid's been through hell, and it isn't over for him yet.
• Joyce tearfully pleading with Hopper to believe her when she tells him that Will is alive. All she wants is her friend to have her back instead of treating her like she's going crazy, like the rest of the town is.
  Joyce: No. Whoever you found is not my boy. It's not Will.
  Hopper: Joyce-
  Joyce: No, you don't understand. I talked to him a half hour ago. He was here. He was talking with these (holds up Christmas lights).
  Hopper: Talking?
  Joyce: Uh-huh. One blink for yes, two for no. And And, uh And then I made this so he could talk to me. 'Cause he was hiding from that that thing.
  Hopper: The thing that came out of the wall? The thing that chased you?
  Joyce: Yeah.
  Jonathan: Mom, come on, please.
  Hopper: You've gotta stop this.
  Joyce: No, maybe he's It's after him! He's in danger. We have to find him! We-
  Hopper: What exactly was this thing? It was some kind of animal, you said?
  Joyce: Uh, no, it was almost human, but it wasn't. It had these long arms and it didn't have a face.
  Hopper: It didn't have a face? Joyce, listen to me. After Sarah, I saw her, too. And I heard her. I didn't know what was real. And then I figured out that it was in my mind. And I had to pack all that away. Otherwise, I was gonna fall down a hole that I couldn't get out of.
  Joyce: No, you're you're talking about grief. This is different.
  Hopper: I'm just saying that you-
  Joyce: No, I know what you're saying, Hop. I swear to you, I know what I saw. And I'm not crazy.
  Hopper: I'm not saying that you're crazy.
  Joyce: No You are. And I-I understand, but God, I need you to believe me. Please.
• Nancy's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to her mother. It's not in any way awesome or brutal: It's heartbreaking. Put in context: Mrs. Wheeler is scolding Nancy for lying to her and the fact she had actually slept with Steve. Nancy, however, reaches her breaking point and tells her mother off since she (and by some extension, the town) doesn't even bother to focus that her best friend has vanished, and she doesn't know what to do. Mrs. Wheeler's reaction sells it, especially when Nancy tells her to leave her alone in frustration and tears.
• By the time season 2 rolls around, El has been gone for a year. The final season 2 trailer implies that Hopper is still regularly leaving food for her in dead drops.

Season 2

• In "Madmax," Nancy and Steve have dinner with the Hollands (Barb's parents). Nancy and Steve have kept Barb's death to themselves. At dinner, the Hollands mention that they have hired a private detective to find Barb... and that they are selling their house. Nancy excuses herself, goes to the washroom, and cries.
• Mike uses his walkie-talkie in a vain attempt to talk with Eleven. It's been nearly a year, and he still holds hope that the girl he loves may come back.
• When Will wakes up a bit early and is already in the bathroom when Joyce comes into his room, she briefly thinks the whole thing is happening all over again. Just a little reminder that the emotional scars from their experiences are going to be with these people for a long time.
• There is a short scene in "Trick or Treat, Freak" where Nancy is staring at the back of a buxom red-haired girl in a long-sleeved top with ruffles and she is over sharpening her pencil while imagining what Barb's last words must have been. You just wanted to hold her.
• After Nancy gets wasted, she tells Steve that what they're doing, acting like nothing's wrong is bullshit and that them pretending to be in love was bullshit. You can hear the moment Steve's heart breaks when he quietly asks Nancy if she didn't love him.
• Eleven manages to get into the black and sees Mike as he "speaks" to her through the walkie-talkie. She makes to touch him, and it appears as if Mike realizes she is there. It is obvious Eleven misses Mike as much as Mike misses her, and she breaks down in anguish when she loses contact with Mike.
• Max's situation is quite a depressing one. While she seems stand-offish and unreasonably curt to the people in her class, her home life is a mess as she's stuck living with an angry and abusive jerk of an older step-brother who seems to regularly shout at her and bully her. Whenever he's shown to rage at her or threaten her and her friends, you can see her trying so hard not to cry or show weakness to him, which is likely why she has such a tough-as-nails attitude. She hides how afraid she really is of him and how lonely she is.
• Mrs. Henderson was quite desperate to find her cat Mews, who was (unbeknownst to her) eaten by D'Artagnan. Dustin feeds her a line to get her out of the house, but we know she will never find Mews and will never know what happened to her.
  • Mews' little Christmas stocking.
• Hopper reading Anne of Green Gables to Eleven at bedtime. When he reads the part where Anne talks about her mother dying El asks Hopper if she has a mother. Hopper says of "Of course you have a mother. You wouldn't be born without one." When El asks where she is Hopper lies to her and says she's "gone" because the much harsher truth is she's alive but catatonic.
• Eleven yelling at Hopper and asking him when she would be allowed to go outside to see her friends again. While Hopper justifies it by protecting her, Eleven recites all the days she's been locked in the cabin and unable to see anyone. Hopper asks if she thought she was a prisoner, before El lashes out and storms into her room.
  • This later leads to a huge, heartbreaking fight between the two, which culminates in Hopper flat-out exploding at Eleven, causing her to compare Hopper to Dr. Brenner, lock herself in her room and scream when Hopper tells her to "grow the hell up", causing the destruction of all the cabin's windows.
    • Pretty much everything for Hopper after that scene is saddening, especially when he feels he had pushed Eleven too far in threatening to send her back to the lab, as seen when he tries to contact her via Morse Code again from his police truck only to break down in tears.
• When Will is describing to his mother how he felt when the Shadow Monster was possessing him. It sounded chillingly close to the way a rape survivor would describe being sexually assaulted, and to hear it from a kid who's already been through so much...
• Terry Ives (Eleven's mother) goes through an excruciatingly painful birthing process, only to have her baby (Eleven/ Jane) taken from her (which she actually witnessed, but nobody believes). Then when she goes to find her lost daughter and save her, she is captured, then strapped to a table and given electroshock therapy to the extreme. It leaves her in a catatonic state, with nothing for her to remember but the most painful memories of her life.
• When Eleven finally meets her mother Terry, she's in no condition to acknowledge or even talk to her lost daughter Jane.
• How about Eleven meeting her sister Kali, aka 008? She's finally found someone who is similar to her in psychic abilities and has gone through the same pain she went through, but it's obvious when almost killing a man who, despite being a reason Terry is in the state she is in, has a family (something Eleven found herself sympathizing with), she cannot agree with what Kali is doing. There's also the fact Eleven is forced to leave Kali mainly due to the fact she has to return to Mike, Hopper, and the others but also because of Kali's Pay Evil unto Evil mentality, leaving her sister in slow tears at the fact she "can't feel whole" again.
  • Everything about Kali really. Like Eleven, she went through such hell, but unlike Eleven, she never did find someone to support her mentality, and as a result, became a criminal with a Pay Evil unto Evil mentality. The worst part is Kali shows nothing but compassion and love to Eleven/Jane, from their first meeting and the two bonding after so many years to her rag-tag team of misfits making Eleven look more badass. Even when Eleven denies her chance to kill the man who hurt their mother, Kali shows more disappointment than anger and even tells Eleven she understands they have different paths. It makes Eleven's departure from her more heartbreaking, as seen with her mirage breaking apart when Eleven runs off.
    • It's even been stated by screenwriters that Eleven's departure makes Kali realize her quest for revenge is all for nothing as well, meaning all she's doing is senselessly killing.
• Max's conversation with Lucas on top of the bus really highlights just how outcast she feels in her own family:
  Max: And things... are just worse now. My stepbrother's always been a dick, but now he's just... angry, all the time, and... well, he can't take it out on my mom, so...
• Bob's death. After years of struggling as a single mother, Joyce finally met a man who treated her and her boys with all the love and affection of a real husband/father, and who after learning the full truth of everything that happened last year, doesn't run away from the situation but actually seems to double down on his offer to take Joyce (and presumably the boys) to Maine. Then he willingly puts himself in danger just to give them a chance to escape the laboratory when it becomes overrun with Demodogs, and mere steps from the finish line is wolfpacked by the extradimensional monsters. Joyce's visceral reaction really highlights her pain, and her flashback to her and Bob dancing on Halloween shows how much she truly loved him.
• Although he's a jerk, it's hard not to feel bad for Billy when his father punches him in the face and humiliates him in front of Susan for talking back to him. Seeing this guy, who acts so big and tough, be so afraid of his own father is heartbreaking. Even more that he's trying to hold in tears to not show weakness in front of his dad, but as soon as Neil leaves the room, he just breaks into tears.
• Although heartwarming, the scene where Joyce, Jonathan and Mike reach out to a corrupted Will by talking to him about very special memories of their time with him. Everybody is shaking as they recount their memories with Will while he looks back with a dazed expression, making it hard to tell if he's even listening. By the time it gets to Mike's story, Mike is in tears as he tries to reach his friend. All three of the stories show how much Will's family and friends love him and how scared they are to lose him.
• As Joyce turns up the temperature on the heaters, Will begins screaming to let him go. Jonathan is almost in tears and has to turn away and hold Nancy just so he wouldn't untie his brother.
• Dustin saying goodbye to D'Artagnan. Sure, D'Artagnan is a monster from another dimension that ate his mother's cat, but Dustin has had him since he was a "tadpole" and clearly is still quite attached. Yet he knows that D'Artagnan has to die so that their world can be saved from the Mind Flayer. What's worse is that this happens right after D'Artagnan actually declines to attack him, showing that it might feel a bond with him too.
• Mike lashing out at Hopper for not telling him that Eleven was with him. That is 353 days of near constant fear that the girl he loves is missing, possibly dead, all being let out in one awful moment. The poor boy becomes so overwhelmed he actually starts attacking Hopper in rage. If Mike had been older, Hopper might honestly have been in danger of being legitimately hurt.
  • Hopper had spent the entire season (and probably a good chunk of the 353 days) telling Eleven that Mike would be fine without her. At this moment, Hopper finally realizes just how much Mike needed to know that Eleven was okay. Hopper now understands just what he put Mike through by completely isolating Eleven, to the point that he can only let Mike wail on him in rage.
• Mike and Eleven saying goodbye to each other before she leaves to close the gate. Eleven reassures him she'll be fine but his face as she and Hopper drive off shows he's terrified he'll lose her again for good.
• Poor Steve is really put through the wringer in season 2: on top of his legitimate worries about not getting into college and another kid sweeping in and dethroning him as the Big Man on Campus, Nancy (while drunk, admittedly) calls their relationship bullshit and even after sobering up still doesn't admit it was a drunken mistake. His attempts to make up with her are constantly torpedoed by the Shadow Monster situation and Nancy being out of town with Jonathan until he finally gives up to the point where he even calls himself a "shitty boyfriend." Nancy could only respond with silent guilt.
• While on the way to the Hawkins National Lab, Hopper admits to Eleven (and himself) that the reason he has been so harsh on her is because he's scared of losing her, even going so far as to compare himself to a black hole that swallows up everything that's good. He mentions Sarah, and El innocently asks "Who's Sarah?" Hop's face shatters in that moment, not just for being reminded of his little girl, but because he realizes he's been living with El for a year, being her surrogate father, and has never mentioned his daughter to her once. He tragically comes to understand that he's so used to bottling up his feelings that he doesn't even realize he's doing it anymore.
• Steve drops Dustin off at the school dance. Once Dustin goes in, Steve steals a final glance at Nancy and drives away completely alone.
• Dustin finds himself ending up as the Romantic Runner-Up with Max, since she likes Lucas. Not deterred, at the school dance, Dustin tries to take the advice Steve gave him and ask another girl to dance with him, who promptly laughs in his face. He shakes that off and tries to ask another girl to dance, and she completely ignores him and walks right past him. He doesn't even get a chance to try with a third girl, as everyone has paired up by that point. Although Nancy ends up cheering him up by dancing with him, it is still rough to see him get shot down so many times.
  • Gaten Matarazzo sold the "sitting alone on the bleachers at the dance" scene so well that he made the cameraman filming him cry.
• Barb's funeral. You can see her bereft father comforting her mother and her relatives amongst Nancy, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, Steve, and Jonathan. There are some crying kids, likely Barb's cousins or younger siblings. A family that has been put through hell for a year because of the Hawkins laboratory. If nothing else, Barb's parents finally have closure.
• Crossing over with Heartwarming, sharp-eyed viewers would notice Eleven is wearing Sarah Hopper's hair tie as a bracelet, which Hopper himself did after his daughter's cancer diagnosis and death.
• In a case of Harsher in Hindsight, Season 4 confirming that Will is gay and in love with Mike makes his reaction to being asked to dance at the Snow Ball a lot harder to watch. It's clear that he wants to turn the girl down, but when he looks to Mike for help, Mike misreads Will's nervousness and practically shoves him towards her. As Will dances with her, he looks incredibly uncomfortable and tries to hide it with an obviously fake smile. Anyone who's ever felt pressured to fake an interest in the opposite sex or had a crush obliviously try to set them up with someone else knows how terrible Will must be feeling in that moment.
  • What makes it especially heartbreaking is the fact that the Snow Ball scene is a case of Earn Your Happy Ending for the other Party members—Mike and El get their long-awaited dance, Lucas and Max have their Relationship Upgrade, and while Dustin struggles with rejection, he ultimately gets to dance with Nancy and look cool to the rest of his classmates. Will gets no such reward, only a preview of the issues his lack of interest in girls will generate for him and his friendships over the next couple of seasons.

Season 3

• Dustin returning home and believing that only his pet turtle missed him. Quickly turned around into heartwarming when it turns out the Party planned a surprise party for him.
• Hopper asks Joyce out on a date, but she gets distracted by her fridge magnets suddenly losing their magnetism and spends the whole night asking the science teacher what could have caused that, accidentally standing up Hopper.
  • What's sadder is Hopper spends the rest of the season angry at Joyce over this one rejection, only managing to forgive her right before he's killed by the Russian collider's destruction.
    • The real clincher? Joyce was the one to destroy it and she only did so when Hopper told her to. Then she sees Eleven calling out for Hopper and she breaks down.
• Hopper and Joyce revealing to each other that they are still traumatized by the events of season 1 and 2 when they are in Hawkins Lab.
  • In the first episode, it is shown that Joyce still misses Bob.
• While Starcourt Mall is welcomed by the teenagers and kids of Hawkins, a shot of a protest against it shows that the local businesses may be in danger. Even worse, that actually happened in Real Life: downtown areas in many places went bankrupt when malls took business away. And it’s still happening now, albeit with online shopping.
  • Joyce's store is just one of those affected and the season ends with her having to sell the house^note Not that she wasn't going to move anyways, being traumatized by all the events of the previous two seasons..
  • Making it more poignant is the fact that the mall scenes were made with parts of a dying mall.
• Nancy gets an internship at the local paper, but is treated like crap due to her age and gender. Even when she provides newsworthy leads, she's just mocked for trying to play with the big boys.
  • Karen's talk with her about how tough this world is on young women, when you look at her face and listen to her voice, you feel that at one point Karen had a lot of dreams and ambitions to make her own mark in the world, be something other than a wife and mom, but along the way she was told she was not smart enough to succeed.
    Karen: It's not easy out there, Nance...People are always saying you can't. That you shouldn't. That you're not smart enough, good enough. This world, it...it beats you up again and again until eventually, I...Most people, they just, they just stop trying.
• After Mike and El break up, Will tries to get his mind off things by staging an over-the-top D&D campaign. Feeling overwhelmed at Lucas and Mike's obvious disinterest, Will snaps and is about to leave Mike's home. Mike tries to apologize and but Will rebuffs, saying that all the former wants to do is hang out with a "stupid girl" (El), Mike angrily retorts that El isn't stupid and it's not his fault Will doesn't like girls. Mike then tries to calmly explain to Will that their days of hanging together was just kids' stuff and that they would eventually get girlfriends. Given Will's apparent lack of interest in girls (and the homophobic bullying he's received both in school and from his abusive father), Mike's statement obviously hits a nerve. If you buy into the theory that Will is in love with Mike, it's only more heart-wrenching.
  • Even sadder is Will trashing his clubhouse afterwards. Castle Byers was clearly a place of safety and comfort for Will, and the fact that he destroys it along with a photo of the party shows just how much he thinks Growing Up Sucks. Additionally, he and Jonathan had built it together, likely being the most significant project that the two have ever done.
  • Will wanting to play D&D is also him trying to keep the party together and hold on to the childhood that was stolen from him by the events of the first two seasons. Mike refusing to play along (and more or less openly suggesting Will is gay in the process) is not only Will being rebuffed by his best friend/possible crush, it's Will watching his best friend treat him the same way his bullies and father always have at a moment when he needs Mike's support.
  • And even if one doesn't see it as that...it can just be seen as a poor, poor kid who's had such trauma throughout the entire show that he wishes to return to what made him so happy only for things to change.
  • Will's reaction to Mike saying, "It's not my fault you don't like girls!" also deserves special mention. Through the rest of the fight, Will is quick with retorts and Armor-Piercing Questions, but as soon as Mike says that line? Will just goes silent, stepping back with a horrified expression that looks like he's had the wind knocked out of him. It's clear that the moment majorly crosses a line that (judging by Mike's own shocked look and the noticeably gentler voice he switches to afterwards) both Mike and Will are aware of.
• While in the sauna, Billy seemingly momentarily breaks free of the Mind Flayer’s hold and appears to be genuinely, tearfully pleading with Max to let him out. Then he grabs a broken shard of tiling, smashes the window and threatens to "fucking gut" her.
  • The worst part is that it's very likely that the tearful pleading was sincere on Billy's part, but the Mind Flayer managing to simply control his arm to move underneath the shade of a bench was enough for the monster to regain full control over him.
• Steve gives Robin a heartfelt love confession, which she rebuffs because it turns out she was interested in a girl who only had eyes for him, and that Robin hated Steve for that.
  • The way Robin curls in on herself during Steve's confession is heartbreaking; she's a lesbian living in a far less accepting era in a small town, and in that moment she's terrified of how Steve is going to react when she comes out to him.
    • This is even more acute when you look back at history into the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, where Ryan White, an Indiana native who was infected due to a necessary blood transfusion and faced open discrimination in his hometown. He was even kicked out of school, add to that, he was a heterosexual boy and was treated even more like a pariah for his illness. Hate crimes against openly gay people weren't taken seriously at the least in that era.
• Billy's memories. When he was a little boy, he wanted to be a surfer and his mother would cheer him on. Then his homophobic father forced him to take up something more manly (i.e. violent). Billy's mother stood up for him, only to get beaten so badly she had to leave. All this turned Billy into the violent brute we're familiar with. Knowing that he could have been a better person if only he'd had a better father will break your heart.
• Billy cries while the Mind-Flayer is taunting Eleven through him near the end. Regardless of how twisted Billy is, it's hard to comprehend how much despair he must be feeling in that moment.
  • When Eleven uses these memories to reason with Billy, he nearly breaks down in tears of self-loathing then sacrifices himself against the Mind-Flayer to protect Eleven and Max, his final words being "I'm sorry".
• Hopper's sacrifice. Just... all of it: After Hopper finally kills the Russian Assassin, he's caught between the new Gate and the energy pouring out of the Key that could kill him...and he just looks at Joyce and gives a tearful nod, giving her the go to close the Gate even if it means he dies. With no dialogue, it comes off as not only Hopper and Joyce saying goodbye, but finally affirming that they did indeed love each other.
  • Also Eleven looking for him in what appears to be a mix between hope and worry, only to realize he didn't make it.
• Max's breakdown over Billy's sacrifice. Sure, he was an abusive asshole towards her, but in the end, he let himself get killed by the Mind Flayer to save his stepsister and the whole world.
• The letter Hopper wrote to Eleven. To add more tears, it's read over a montage of the Byers family (now including Eleven) moving away.
  • Said montage is also tearjerking because of how many of the characters are openly sobbing as they say goodbye. Will and El are still in tears afterwards as they drive away. Not to mention the whole scene is scored to Peter Gabriel's cover of "Heroes", which was previously used in one of the other saddest moments of the entire series: the discovery of Will's (fake) body in the quarry.
  • There's some lingering shots of Hopper's house, having fallen further into disrepair and collecting dust, with several of Hopper's and Eleven's possessions lying around. Eleven never went back.
  • When Mike comes home and hugs his mother, he just looks numb.
  • The letter in question is just painful: Instead of it being the talk about the boundaries Hopper wanted Eleven and Mike to set up... it was him admitting he doesn't wish for her to grow up, admitting he struggles to admit his feelings, and most importantly... how he simply wants Eleven to still see him as her dear old dad. Eleven really doesn't take it well...
• Alexei's death. Having bonded with Murray in the process of being held captive by Hopper and Joyce, he takes the time to enjoy the July 4th fair, even winning a stuffed Woody Woodpecker at a game, which he happily shows off to Murray... and then he's suddenly fatally shot by the Russian assassin.
  • Made even worse by Murray's despair and guilt afterwards.
  Murray: I left for five minutes to get a corn dog. A stupid corn dog.
• Heather and Billy abducting her parents under the influence of the Mind Flayer. One minute they were enjoying a nice family dinner, only to be drugged, beaten, and fed to a horrifying monster by their own daughter and her "boyfriend". The fear and disbelief in her father's face when he realizes what's happening is utterly heartbreaking. There was every indication that they were a loving, supportive family, and they were all corrupted and destroyed by forces beyond their understanding and control.
• The scene where all the flayed citizens collapse into sludge and surrender what's left of them to the Mind Flayer at the steelworks while they're still fully conscious and very much alive the whole time is as tragic as it is horrifying. Both Heather and Mrs. Driscoll are among the unfortunate townspeople who meet their grisly fates at the hands of the monster.
  • In the scene leading up to this moment, many of the flayed are shown leaving the Fourth of July fair to meet with their master, much to the confusion of their friends and family. We then see a young boy call out to his flayed friend to tell him that he's gonna miss the fireworks, completely unaware that he's never going to see his buddy ever again.
• Season 3 in general ends on a bittersweet note. The Mind Flayer was stopped, and the Russians' plan was thwarted (for the time being). However, dozens of townspeople are dead; the Byers family has moved out of town to get away from the horrors of Hawkins; Hopper is missing and is likely being held captive by the Russians (and subjected to God-knows-what torments); Billy is dead; Alexie was killed by the assassin; Eleven has lost her powers; all but one of the couples in the series have been separated; and with all the negative press surrounding Starcourt Mall and the events therein, as well as the associated political corruption and scandal, Hawkins is probably going to be in worse shape than ever.

Season 4

The Hellfire Club

• Just at the start of this season, it’s clear that the characters have not recovered from their traumatic experiences.
  • Max has fallen behind in her schoolwork as a result of Billy’s death. She’s also more unhappy and reserved than in the previous season, with her relationship with Lucas suffering as a result. Her home life hasn’t improved much, either: Neil abandoned the family and Susan has become an alcoholic.
  • Lucas has drifted away from Mike and Dustin, and chooses to become an athlete because he is tired of being bullied.
• Eddie correctly guesses that Chrissy's assumption of him was that he would be 'mean and scary.' He doesn't act bothered by it, but it's still saddening how aware he is of how people perceive him.
• El has become a victim of bullying at her new school. Her new classmates make fun of her school project (which is about Hopper) and go out of their way to torment her. What’s worse is that she’s lying to Mike, telling him that she’s happy and has made new friends. It’s pretty clear that El is trying hard to be optimistic but is truly on the verge of breaking down.
  • To make things worse, it's later shown she wasn't treated any better at the Hawkins Laboratory, with the fellow psychic children mocking her for her apparent lack of power and jealousy over the way Brenner treated her. The way Two tries to get revenge on Eleven for getting in trouble with Brenner for his own actions towards her mirrors the way Angela treats her in the present.
• Although it’s played for comedy, Jonathan becoming a stoner is pretty sad, especially as he was level headed and ambitious at the start of the show. It’s also implied that Nancy and Jonathan’s relationship will be in trouble.
• In general, for many of them, the main characters are not in a good place right now. Despite how terrifying and dangerous the threat of the Upside Down possessed, it seems to have been the glue keeping them together. Without it, realistically saddening things happen between them.
• Chrissy's death is as horrifying as it is heartbreaking. She's shown to be an absolute sweetheart who came to Eddie for help with the horrible visions she'd been experiencing—said visions very heavily implying that she has Abusive Parents and an eating disorder. Then she's swiftly and brutally killed by Vecna, with her last living moments spent in complete terror, begging for someone to help her.
  • Eddie's terror during said death is also hard to watch, as he's reduced to watching the girl he'd just recently befriended be mutilated and killed by some unknown force. The show onward heavily implies that along with the trauma from witnessing such a thing, Eddie also grapples with an overwhelming guilt for not being able to save Chrissy.

Vecna's Curse

• Jason's reaction to Chrissy's death. As he slowly comes to realize Chrissy was murdered, he walks past his friends without even looking at them. He then breaks down and lets out a scream of regret and sorrow.
• After seeing the horrific murder of a girl he was trying to help, Eddie is on the run, in danger of his life from a town that thinks he's a murderer and certain he's all alone and going crazy. He looks utterly hopeless before Dustin and the others explain they know he didn't do it and what he saw was real.
• The town's reaction to Chrissy's death. The strings of gruesome deaths have really taken their toll on Hawkins, and unlike the main characters, they don't even have the satisfaction of knowing what killed them, much less defeating them.
• Jonathan confessing to Argyle that he got accepted into Lenora Community College, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for others, except that in the first season it was pointed out he'd had aspirations to attend NYU since he was six years old. He is only seen in a woodshop class in the previous episode. While carpentry is just as important of a job as one that requires a a university degree, his passion was photography, which he has since lost as evidenced by his tripod sitting in its box on the closet top shelf; additionally, taking woodshop was often stigmatized back then by the belief that only unintelligent people took such courses. He also doesn't have a job (however, nor did he seem to during the second season, but that could be due to him wanting to be there for Will), and his car is just sitting in the driveway broken down. Between Argyle and Joyce (the latter of whom works from home), or even if Lenora has reliable public transportation, he could get rides to and from work until he saves up enough to get it fixed or get another used one. This is sadly more evidence of how the past 2.5 years have taken their toll on him.
• Another sad element of Jonathan's confession is his explanation to Argyle of why he lied to Nancy. Jonathan feels he needs to stay in California to support his family — a conviction no doubt instilled by the fact that when Lonnie left, Jonathan was forced to step up and be not only a brother to Will, but also a dad, and to work earlier than normal so that Joyce wouldn't be the only one providing. But beyond that, when Jonathan walks through a hypothetical where he asks Nancy to come and live in California and she does, he envisions that she would resent him for taking him away from her potentially more successful life, resentment would build on both sides, and they would ultimately break up and hate each other... exactly as Joyce and Lonnie do. For all his obvious desire to be better than his father was in relationships, it's clear his parents' divorce has twisted Jonathan's view of love, to the point where he thinks that even after everything they've shared it would be possible for Nancy to come to hate him.
• Eleven's reaction to hitting Angela in the face with a skate. While Angela had it coming, it's the first time Eleven has used real physical violence in place of her powers and the result (Angela wailing and crying as she bleeds while everyone around looks on in horror) clearly traumatizes her, even bringing back a PTSD flashback to Brenner blaming her for the Hawkins Lab Massacre.

Dear Billy

• Max, upon realizing she only has a short time before dying a horrible death, just... accepts her fate, not letting any of her friends try to help her. It isn't so much Face Death with Dignity as it is a sobering indicator that Max has lost so much and a part of her just wants it to all end.
• Max reading a letter for Billy in front of his grave. It’s saddening as she reveals that she wished they could have had a good sibling relationship. She even refers to herself as his shitty little sister. They both clearly cared for each other but never got a chance to show it, and Billy never got the chance to grow up and become a better person. Vecna's taunting of her also reveals that Max blames herself for Billy's death, thinking she should have tried to help him, and feels ashamed because part of her is actually glad he's gone because of how poorly he acted—so ashamed that she actually wants to die sometimes.
• It’s hard not to sympathize with poor Victor. Sure he survived the attack by Vecna but as he said, he is still very much in hell.
• "I'm still... I'm still here". Max's survival brought tears to many a viewer's eyes.
  • This scene becomes infinitely harder to watch after finishing the season.

The Nina Project

• El believing that she's been brought back to her old cell at Hawkins Lab is obviously Nightmare Fuel, but it becomes all the more tragic when she reaches up to feel her hair has been buzzed again. After seeing it steadily get longer over the course of the series it could represent El's slow transition into a normal, healthy, life. The idea that people she trusted brought her back to the lab is awful enough, but the extra insult of cutting her hair in her sleep is heartbreaking.
• In a moment of complete hopelessness, Hopper reveals to Enzo and the audience why his daughter got cancer. He was drafted into the Vietnam War and was exposed to Agent Orange, causing a genetic defect in his daughter that didn't cause any visible deformities, but eventually killed her. On rewatching the series, we now know that he basically blamed himself for his own daughter's death.
  • Recalling this part of his life gives Hopper so much grief that he believes he is a curse (as opposed to being cursed) on his loved ones.
  • Enzo's reaction when Hopper tells him how he was exposed to Agent Orange. Given his sympathetic reactions, he knows perfectly well how Hopper's story isn't going to have a pretty ending.
• Patrick being murdered right in front of Jason, who can only take his body back to the shore in grief. He barely even reacts to the cops arriving, he's so badly traumatized by what he saw. He struggles to even speak about it at the town hall and even admits that he briefly became hopeless after watching it.
  • It surely wasn't much easier for Eddie to witness that brutal method of murder happen again.
  • Even worse? Mason Dye himself confirmed if Patrick had died at ANY other point, Jason would have believed in Eddie's innocence. Jason easily could have had redemption and seen the light but due to the unfortunate timing of his friend's murder, it only pushed him further into villainy. The only real difference between him and season one Steve is that the latter had the advantage of knowing about the Upside Down. If Jason had known, it's not hard to imagine he could have been an ally to the Party.
• Joyce’s face when she sees the Demogorgon kill the Russian prisoners is heartbreaking, especially when you consider that she’s scared of losing Hopper the same way she lost Bob to the Demodogs in season 2.

Papa

• Will's speech to Mike about he's the heart and that Eleven and the party will always need him, because Eleven's different and when you're different, it can feel like you're a mistake, but when El is with Mike she feels whole. It's clear that Will is talking more about his own feelings for Mike than El's, but Mike doesn't pick up on it.
• While at the arms store, Robin catches a glimpse of her crush Vickie. But before Robin can do anything, she sees Vickie being embraced and kissed by her boyfriend. Vickie then notices Robin and asks what she's doing at the store, which Robin takes poorly thinking Vickie meant it accusingly, causing her to run off as Steve looks at her with concern.
• Brenner of all characters pulling a Heroic Sacrifice to protect Eleven. No one will forgive him for what he's done to Eleven and the other children, but Eleven gets a chance to give Brenner a final goodbye.
  • Brenner slowly and gently (for the first time ever) telling El that he's proud of her and that he truly cares for her and the others who died because of One. He even pleads for her to understand that he does care and did everything for her, but it's clear El doesn't believe him after all he's done and does nothing but let go of his hand and softly say goodbye to him. The last scene with him is just watching El and the others drive away, before dying all alone in the middle of the desert. It's well earned, but still pitiful to behold, highly reminiscent of Walter White's final fate.
  • Part of the tragedy is that even at the very end, Brenner couldn't let go of his pride. He asked El to understand that everything he'd done had been for her own good, when what he should have been doing was begging her forgiveness for all the ways he'd harmed her. That, she might have been able to give him, but she was never going to agree that he'd been right all along.

The Piggyback

• Eddie's death. In keeping with the show's tradition of killing off a new beloved character each season, Eddie is killed after being mauled by hundreds of Demobats. The poor guy dies after finally standing up to his fears for once rather than running from them. Poor Dustin can only scream and cry as he tried to run and help, but can't due to an injured leg. He tries to reassure Eddie that he can take him to the hospital but Eddie knows that isn't possible, with Moby’s "When It's Cold I'd Like To Die" making its return.
  "I didn't run away this time, right?"
  • His uncle replacing his missing poster after the last one was vandalized doesn't help matters, neither does the people of Hawkins still condemning him as a satanist cult leader.
  • Dustin tries to talk to Eddie's uncle and the only thing he can do is give him his necklace to confirm he's gone, all while he tries to comfort him over the fact that Eddie was a good person in the end.
  " I wish everyone had gotten to know him. Really know him. Because they would've loved him, Mr. Munson. They would've loved him."
• Lucas and Eleven's reaction to Max's death. Holy hell. The Duffers were not kidding when they said Caleb McLaughlin delivers "the most gut-wrenching performance in the show." Lucas begs Max, who's barely living with her broken limbs and bleeding eyes, to stay with him and calls Erica to get help. Max pleads she doesn't want to go but passes in his arms. Eleven bringing her back, albeit in a coma, moments later does VERY little to bring down the emotional impact of this.
  • Caleb's delivery on the "Erica, help" line specifically is absolutely gut-wrenching, with the shaky, breaking voice totally selling how desperate Lucas is in the most painful way possible.
  • When she and the others visit Max in the hospital, she attempts to communicate with Max inside her head. A later scene shows that she couldn’t find Max's thoughts anywhere, which means Max may be braindead. El's screams into the black void that is now Max's mind don't make the scene better.
    • Brenner said in the previous episode that when One kills, he consumes. Everything the victim was, is, and will be. On a spiritual level there may have been nothing for Eleven to save, but this does leave a bit of a Hope Spot as defeating Vecna for good might just free Max's mind.
  • Max herself throughout the scene; she's blinded by Vecna's attack, with all of her limbs broken, and completely terrified over the fact that she can't see or even feel anything. And after having dealt with suicidal ideation since Billy's death, she's finally able to see that she isn't ready to go, she has so much more to do... and then dies in Lucas's arms, hours after planning a date with him. Both Eleven (who is watching this happen in real-time via telepathy) and Lucas completely break down once they realize she's gone, with the former crying profusely, and the latter outright wailing in despair.
  Max: I can't feel or see anything. Lucas, I'm scared, I'm so scared, I'm so scared. I don't wanna die, I'm not ready!
• During the final scene, Will warns Mike that Vecna is still alive. Hopper and Joyce reunite with the teens but then find out that the Upside Down is merging with Hawkins. It's clear that the characters' suffering is not over yet, and that they will likely experience more horror than they have experienced in previous seasons.
• Jason Carver's death. Yes, he went way too far in the end but the guy's still a Tragic Villain and Well-Intentioned Extremist who had to deal with the murder of his girlfriend (whom he genuinely loved) and then his best friend Patrick. He genuinely thought he was acting to save Max and had understandable reasons to be suspicious of Lucas for what was happening but sadly, despite Lucas genuinely trying to reason with Jason, he doesn't believe him and after fighting and trying to kill Lucas to save Max, he's brutally killed by the Upside Down breaking into the real world. His attempt to help her accidentally got not only her but dozens of others, including himself, killed. It's heartbreaking when you consider he wouldn't have ever become like that if not for the losses he suffered.
  • Jason's state in this episode in general. The guy clearly hasn't been getting any sleep, he's in utter refusal to accept the possibility Chrissy wouldn't come to him for help and he's now willing to outright kill the people he believes are responsible for the murders, becoming a vigilante and basically criminal himself. Seeing him fallen this far compared to the happy young adult he was at the start of the season is just heartbreaking.
  • Throughout the season, we've been able to see how much Jason truly loved Chrissy, although he gets painted as a villain a lot, he was truly doing all of this to avenge her death and get her some justice. Seeing how heartbroken he is by it, and how much he believes that if Chrissy wanted help, she would've come to him and not Eddie, is very heartbreaking.
  "If Chrissy was scared, if... if Chrissy wanted help, she would have come to me!"

  • He wasn't even mistaken about who Chrissy was; she wasn't looking to buy drugs for fun or out of curiosity, she was just desperate to find some way of self-medicating that would stop the agonizing headaches and horrible hallucinations she was suffering under Vecna's relentless psychic assault.
  • In his misguided attempt to protect Max, Jason accidentally destroyed the thing that might have allowed Lucas to save her when he stepped on her Walkman.
  • Lucas' face as Jason dies. Despite their previous scuffle, they were friends at a point and Lucas knows Jason is going through pain and grief from losing Patrick and Chrissy. It's clear Lucas didn't wish death onto Jason and he likely feels bad for failing to reason with and save him.
• The simple fact that despite all their efforts and even defeating him, Vecna still won. He succeeded in essentially killing Max, opening the Gate once more and nearly destroying Hawkins as a result. And while again, the Party stopped him, the town was left in half ruin due to the resulting quake and there's a mass exodus because of it, leaving twenty-two dead in its wake.
  • To the "normies" who don't know about Vecna and the Upside Down, the events of the entire two and a half years leading up to the earthquake (including the "mall fire" less than a year before) have been a terrifying, depressing, and almost inexplicable Trauma Conga Line for the residents of Hawkins (as well as, likely, many other Americans and people throughout the world in sympathy). As the TV news reporter said while filming the aftermath and rescue efforts, many Hawkinsites must indeed have been asking, "Why us? What have we done to deserve this?"
• In a more understated sense Jonathan choosing to lie to Nancy again when she asks if he got his letter and their interaction just before that.
  Jonathan: Hey.
  Nancy: Yeah.
  Jonathan: Are we okay?
  Nancy: Yeah.
  Jonathan: Yeah.
  Nancy: Yeah totally. Yeah it's just it's hard.
• The way Will almost instantly bursts into tears upon Jonathan saying that he'll always be there for him and that there is "nothing in this world, okay, absolutely nothing" that could make him love Will any less. Will has been struggling with his sexuality and unrequited feelings for so long that the moment he finds out his brother knows and supports him, it's like a dam breaks.

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