Every major death in 'Stranger Things,' ranked by sadness
Despite its aversion to killing main characters, there have been plenty of tragic deaths in "Stranger Things."
From Barb in season one to Chrissy in season four, we ranked the show's major deaths by how sad they were.
Warning: Major spoilers for seasons one through four of "Stranger Things" ahead.
20. Grigori the hitman was killed while attempting to stop Hopper and Joyce from taking down the gate.
Grigori was a Russian hitman tasked with protecting the secret Russian operation beneath the mall in season three of "Stranger Things." He eventually meets his end during the Battle of Starcourt when Hopper throws him into the gears of the machine that the Russians were using to open the gate.
It's hard to feel much sympathy for him given his own penchant for murder — he killed sweet scientist Alexei, for crying out loud, but more on that later. Hopper sends him off with a well-deserved, "see you in hell."
19. Jason is torn apart by an expanding gate to the Upside Down.
Throughout season four of "Stranger Things," Hawkins High basketball star Jason was on a crusade to avenge his girlfriend Chrissy, who was the first death of the season. Unfortunately, he was way off base about the true threat, instead choosing to demonize Eddie Munson and the Hellfire Club and leading a witch hunt against them.
Those antics, and the way that he gets in the way of Lucas monitoring Max while she's under Vecna's spell, make for exceedingly little sympathy when he ends up getting rent in two by a freshly expanded gate to the Upside Down in the final episode of the season.
18. Dr. Brenner died after attempting to hold Eleven captive in season four.
Season four of "Stranger Things" initially seemed like it was going to give Dr. Brenner — a.k.a. "Papa" — a redemption arc of sorts. After Dr. Owens brings Eleven to the NINA project headquarters and she realizes that Brenner is alive, the two briefly become close again.
However, Brenner once again shows his true colors when Eleven attempts to leave to help her friends in Hawkins, deciding to drug her and hold her captive. Ultimately, though, staying in Nevada proves to be his downfall when Lt. Sullivan attacks the compound. Brenner dies while attempting to escape the attack with Eleven, gunned down from a helicopter.
This is Brenner's second (albeit, more final) death in "Stranger Things," and after seeing him immediately defer to keeping Eleven in custody, there's not much sympathy to be had. In terms of Eleven's character, finally breaking away from her "Papa" was something that needed to happen. Brenner, by season four, had served his time on the show.
17. Tom Holloway and Bruce Lowe, Nancy and Jonathan's newspaper colleagues, were dissolved by the Mind Flayer.
Tom Holloway and Bruce Lowe were two of Nancy and Jonathan's colleagues during their internship at the Hawkins Post. Lowe was antagonistic towards Nancy, while Holloway was eventually the one who fired the couple for investigating Mrs. Driscoll.
Holloway and Lowe end up becoming part of the Flayed, falling under the Mind Flayer's influence and attacking Nancy and Jonathan at the hospital. Eventually, the teens are forced to kill them and the men's bodies dissolve into flesh for the Mind Flayer.
Both Holloway and Lowe were pretty terrible to Nancy and Jonathan, but that didn't mean that they deserved to get dissolved into fleshy goo by a supernatural monster.
16. Several people were killed by the Mind Flayer in the hospital in season three.
As the kids investigate Mrs. Driscoll's condition at the hospital in season three, episode five, two of the Mind Flayer's proxies — Bruce Lowe and Tom Holloway — attack Nancy and Jonathan. In the ensuing chase, they end up seeing the bodies of several hospital employees, presumably killed by the flayed individuals.
The deaths are yet another reminder of the collateral of the fight, which extends far past just the show's main characters. While unnamed deaths, it's still a bit sad to see.
15. Multiple Russian scientists were killed while working on the machine they were using to open a gate in season three.
Over the course of season three, multiple Russian scientists die while working on the gate underneath Starcourt Mall. Several are killed in an explosion in the first episode of the season after Alexei and another scientist open the gate. Others are disintegrated in episode eight, when Joyce shuts it down. Yet another ends up getting strangled to death by Russian hitman Grigori after the gate's initial failure.
While part of what's indubitably a malicious operation, it's still a bit sad to see that many people get blown to pieces from a failed operation.
14. The scientists working at the NINA project were killed by Lt. Colonel Sullivan's men while attempting to escape.
In the eighth episode of season four, Lt. Colonel Sullivan tracks Owens, Brenner, and Eleven down to the NINA project's location in Nevada. There, he commands his forces to attack, taking down some of the soldiers stationed there. When Brenner attempts to escape and carries Eleven out of an alternate exit, he emerges to a dusty field full of dead scientists in lab coats.
While Eleven indubitably suffered while reliving her memories as part of the project, the scientists working there seem to be directly invested in "the cause," as Owens says in episode five, willing to give up their lives and families because they believe in Eleven and her power. It's a bit sad to see that they were caught up in Sullivan's massacre.
13. Agent Harmon took a bullet during the season four raid on the Byers' house, and eventually succumbed to his injuries.
Agent Harmon, one of the two agents reporting to Owens who was stationed to protect Mike, Will, and Jonathan, takes a bullet during the raid on the Byers' house in episode four. In episode five, as he's bleeding out in Argyle's pizza van, he says that they need to warn Owens, and that Eleven's in danger. He then gives them a name, Nina, and hands them a pen while saying that he wanted to give them a number.
While we didn't get to know Agent Harmon very well, he seemed to genuinely care about trying to protect Eleven and the rest of the children. That, and the relative shock of the raid on the Byers' house, makes for a somewhat tragic demise.
12. Mrs. Driscoll, Heather Holloway, and other Flayed residents of Hawkins were dissolved into goo to form the body of the Mind Flayer.
A number of Hawkins residents fall victim to the Mind Flayer over the course of season three. Among them are Heather Holloway, who Billy kidnapped and brought to the monster, and Mrs. Driscoll, an old woman who Nancy and Jonathan attempted to help with a rat problem.
These people were just collateral in the Mind Flayer's attempt to reinstate itself in Hawkins, and their demise is rather tragic. No one deserves to get dissolved into flesh goo to form the body of an otherworldly monster.
11. Patrick was Vecna's third sacrifice.
Patrick, one of the members of the Hawkins High basketball team, begins to show symptoms of Vecna's curse while investigating Chrissy's death with his teammates. Eventually, he succumbs to it in episode five, levitating above Lover's Lake before Vecna takes his life.
While we didn't learn too much about Patrick prior to his death, he seemed like a mostly good kid, and he certainly didn't deserve to die at Vecna's hand. Lucas' connection to him as well makes his death sting that much more.
10. Fred Benson was Vecna's second teenage victim.
Fred Benson, Nancy's managing editor at the Hawkins High school newspaper, is Vecna's second victim in season four. After starting to experience symptoms of the curse while traveling with Nancy to investigate Chrissy's death, he disappears, vanishing into the forest near Eddie and Max's trailer park.
Vecna preys on an incident that clearly still haunts Fred: a car crash, which he survived but another student did not. It's upsetting to see Fred have to relieve a clearly traumatic incident that he still feels some guilt for, ultimately becoming another one of Vecna's sacrifices. His death — and the speed at which it follows Chrissy's — makes clear the stakes of Vecna's aggression, and the plans that he may have for Hawkins.
9. Mews the cat fell victim to Dustin's more dangerous pet, a young demogorgon.
Mews, Dustin's family cat, falls victim to his new — and much more dangerous — pet: Dart (short for D'Artagnan), a young demogorgon. After realizing that the creature is likely from the Upside Down, Dustin decides to keep it.
In episode four of season two, he returns home to his mother looking for Mews, the cat. Upon entering his room, he quickly sees that Dart has broken out of its cage and killed the cat, finding the now-adolescent demogorgon feasting on its body.
Mews was far from a part of the Upside Down fight, and there's something pretty visceral about the death of an animal, let alone a family pet. What's worse is that Dustin outright lies to his mother about Mews' death, pretending to help her search for the animal in later episodes.
8. Chrissy was barely introduced before she became Vecna's first victim of season four.
Chrissy is the first death of season four, sparking the action that drives Hawkins' Upside Down detectives to seek out Vecna. Out of his season four victims (Max excluded) Chrissy is the one that smarts the most.
Over the course of the single episode in which she appears alive, Chrissy's established as more than a one-note character: Despite being a cheerleader who's dating the star of the basketball team, it's clear that she's struggling when Vecna preys on her pain, brought on by her mother's comments about her body.
Still, Chrissy isn't relegated to her trauma, and an extremely charming exchange with Eddie Munson in the woods provides a brief glimpse into what could have been had she not been lost in the season's first episode. That potential makes her death all the more heartbreaking.
7. Billy earned some redemption in his final moments, protecting Eleven from the Mind Flayer.
Billy was a pretty terrible person, lashing out at his younger step-sister Max and generally serving as a bully from his arrival in Hawkins on. That wasn't to say that Billy himself didn't suffer — he was abused by his own father, something that carried on into the man's second marriage to Max's mother, Susan.
Despite spending much of season three acting at the behest of the Mind Flayer, Eleven eventually helps Billy break free of its hold in the season's eighth episode. He then sacrifices himself to stop the Mind Flayer from killing her, taking multiple bloody hits from its tentacles.
That somewhat heroic death was a moment of redemption for Billy after two seasons of antagonism, and watching Max try to revive him and grieve him despite their fragmented relationship is heartbreaking.
6. Alexei died at a carnival while holding a giant stuffed animal.
Alexei was a Russian scientist tasked with opening the gate beneath Starcourt Mall in Hawkins. Eventually, however, he was taken into custody by Joyce, Hopper, and Murray. Removed from his responsibilities, it was hard not to start to feel some affection for Alexei as he gossiped with Murray about Joyce and Hopper's relationship and won carnival games at a Fourth of July festival. One shot of Alexei sipping on a Slurpee became so iconic that Netflix released a bizarre 12-hour supercut of the moment.
Unfortunately, that joy wasn't built to last. As a traitor, Alexei was hunted down by Russian hitman Grigori, who shot him in the middle of the carnival. He wasn't able to be saved, despite Murray attempting to get him help. Seeing him die immediately after winning at a dart-throwing game — and while holding a giant stuffed animal — is heartbreaking.
5. Eddie sacrificed himself to draw the attention of the demobats in the Upside Down.
Despite being a new character in season four, Eddie fit in extremely well with the Hawkins gang. His dynamic not only with Dustin, his junior in the Hellfire Club, but with the older teens like Steve and Robin made it hard not to love him.
Still, he seemed to potentially be on the cutting block going into volume two, particularly as a newcomer who's been pretty heavily involved in this season's action. Luckily, he gets to live out a heroic, rock-star fantasy before his death, drawing the demo-bats towards him and Dustin by absolutely shredding through Metallica's "Master of Puppets."
Unfortunately, he doesn't survive a one-man fight against the bats, but goes out feeling that he redeemed himself by not running away "this time." Eddie's natural charisma, his sentiment of redemption, and his absolutely heartbreaking final words to Dustin make his death an absolute tearjerker.
4. Vecna massacred a slew of children in the Hawkins Lab.
Season four of "Stranger Things" opens with tragedy, showing Hawkins National Lab — the place where Eleven was raised and trained — in utter chaos, with other children's bloody bodies strewn on the ground. While Eleven was the only survivor, she was not the perpetrator: It's finally revealed later in the season that Vecna, then known as One or Henry Creel, killed all of the other children in the lab after Eleven removed the chip limiting his powers.
While some of the children were unkind and competitive, as seen in Eleven's season four flashbacks to her childhood, they certainly didn't deserve to be brutally murdered by One. The entire event is even more tragic given that One presumably could have escaped with Eleven without massacring everybody in sight but chose instead to take out his rage on the other children.
The massacre is one of the starkest displays of violence in all of "Stranger Things," and some of its most tragic deaths.
3. Bob sacrificed himself to help Joyce and the others escape the lab after it was invaded by demodogs.
Joyce's high-school classmate turned adult boyfriend, played by an incredibly charming Sean Astin, sacrificed himself in season two of "Stranger Things" in order to let Joyce, Hopper, Owens, Mike, and Will escape from a pack of demodogs that invaded Hawkins Lab.
After the power goes out in the lab, Bob volunteers to reset the breakers, as he's the only one in the group with a knowledge of the computer programming language BASIC. His mission succeeds, but it's pretty clear that the writing is on the wall for Bob when he accidentally leaves his gun behind at the computer terminal. Unfortunately, he doesn't manage to avoid the demodogs on the way out, making it out to see Joyce's face one last time before one of the demodogs bursts through a door and mauls him.
His death is drawn out and heartbreaking — not only was it the result of a surprising bout of heroism, but he was also so close to survival. It smarts even more given how truly wonderful Bob seems to be for Joyce: "I like you so much. Not just you, everything that comes with you. Your family, your boys," he tells her in the third episode of season two.
2. Barb's death was sidelined in season one amid Will's disappearance.
Will Byers wasn't the only kid to go missing in season one of "Stranger Things." There was also Barb, Nancy's best friend who she leaves alone by the pool to go make out with her then-boyfriend Steve. Unfortunately, Barb's solitude — and a cut on her hand — make her an easy target for the demogorgon, who drags her into the Upside Down and kills her.
Fans rallied around Barb when the first season aired, mostly because it seemed like no one but Nancy really cared that she was gone. Of course, Barb finally gets some justice in the second season after Jonathan, Nancy, and journalist-turned-P.I. Murray Bauman help her parents find closure, tying her death to Hawkins Lab (even if it isn't the whole truth).
Still, the lack of attention for Barb's disappearance in season one — and the fact that she basically died because of being a third wheel to Nancy and Steve — made her death all the more tragic. Without Barb, "Stranger Things" would have had a lot less heart.
1. Benny's murder was a display of heartlessness.
Benny Hammond was the first person Eleven met after escaping from Hawkins Lab — the terrifying government facility where she was tortured and traumatized for her entire life. He gave her food, and showed her kindness. Then he called social services, knowing instinctively that something was wrong and she needed help.
That phone call was intercepted by the Hawkins Lab staff, who arrived at Benny's restaurant that night and murdered him in cold blood. The shooting was staged to look like a death by suicide, leaving Benny's loved ones in mourning and confusion.
All of this happens in the very first episode of "Stranger Things," and it really set the tone for the high stakes involved with the enmity between Hawkins Lab and Eleven. Benny's murder showed us just how cruel and heartless Brenner and his team were.
Read the original article on Insider