Stranger Things has avoided the fabled curse that allegedly affects TV series from the second season onwards, given that it remains as strong as ever after three seasons. Its success can be attributed to a variety of factors—bygone nostalgia, eerie atmospheres, relatable characters—an excellent formula for any show.
Stranger Things is packed with mysterious entities, which means that there are obviously going to be moments that nobody expects will happen. These plot twists are often elements that drive the story forward, but they can also be used to flesh out characters or create narrative cliffhangers.
10 Will Is Possessed By The Mind Flayer
Bob Newby encourages Will to stand up against his fears and face them head-on, as the former claims he did when he was terrified of clowns as a child. Given that Will needs (and deserves) some paternal affection, the moment is quite heartwarming and poignant.
That is, of course, until he tries to scream "go away" at the Mind Flayer, who not only ignores the boy's pleas but proceeds to insert itself into his consciousness in the most brutal way imaginable.
9 Ray Carroll Claims His Ex-Boss Isn't Dead
Dr. Martin Brenner is presumed dead since he is last seen being torn to pieces by a Demogorgon. However, the lack of a corpse is quite suspicious, suggesting that the Season 2 villain is still around somewhere.
Further, Ray Carroll asserts that Brenner is still alive, offering Kali and Eleven his ex-boss' location if they spare his life. The claims of a man at death's door should be taken with a grain of salt, but there might just be something to his rambling, after all.
8 Billy Transforms His Ways Right Before His Death
Billy is a violent antagonist, perhaps not as much as the Mind Flayer or its minions, but still enough to cause everyone else unnecessary problems. He bullies his sister, attacks Steve, and shows no concern for anyone but himself.
This is exactly why his redemption after being controlled by the Mind Flayer is such a surprising (and significant) event, as few viewers expected Billy to do an emotional 180 right before he's killed by the main villain.
7 Eleven Loses Her Telekinetic Talents
Everything about El revolves around her role as a telekinetic superhero, from saving her friends to sealing interdimensional gateways. She even lives like an average '80s kid for a short time, proving that she's successfully integrating into a society she didn't know existed for eleven years.
Unfortunately, her most recent "infection" with a fragment of the Mind Flayer has left her without any telekinetic powers, something that fans assumed would happen at some point (but not as early as the Season 3 finale).
6 Hopper Proves That Will's "Corpse" Is Not His
Mike, Dustin, and Lucas waste neither time nor effort in hunting for their missing friend, as do Joyce and Jonathan Byers. Their collective hopes are dashed when Will's corpse is discovered floating in a nearby quarry, seemingly putting an end to the miserable storyline.
Nevertheless, Joyce convinces Hopper that the "corpse" of her son is not real, which he eventually takes seriously. He breaks into the coroner's office, where he discovers that Will's body is a fake—padded with cotton stuffing.
5 Robin Buckley Comes Out As LGBTQ+ To Steve
Stranger Things has zero LGBTQ+ elements until the third season, where an ambiguous sequence between Mike and Will suggests otherwise.
However, the only concrete evidence appears in the bathroom scene with Steven and Robin; the latter hesitantly comes out of the closet by admitting her crush on Tammy Thompson. Many viewers were pleasantly surprised by the revelation, although the show is yet to highlight Robin's sexuality further.
4 The Mind Flayer Creates A Physical Body From Raw Flesh
The Mind Flayer is an imperceptible entity in the second season, despite how much havoc it wreaks on Hawkins with the help of its mini-Demogorgons. Recently, it has figured out how to produce a physical body for itself by using living matter.
It starts with a colony of rats in a warehouse and moves on to human targets soon after. The audience certainly did not expect the sheer gruesomeness of the Mind Flayer's writhing flesh form, especially its ability to collapse and reconstruct its tissues, blood, bones, and cartilage whenever required.
3 Steve Apologizes To & Make Amends With Nancy
Steve's early relationship with Nancy is a typical high school romance, including the part where he coaxes her into sleeping with him. While his girlfriend does offer her consent, what she cannot tolerate is how jealous Steve gets when he suspects that she's having an affair with Jonathan.
Together with his friends, he scrawls a hateful, misogynistic graffiti that naturally upsets Nancy. Being a quintessential arrogant jock, nobody expects the self-titled "King Steve" to immediately apologize and ask for her forgiveness, not to mention becoming close friends with Nancy in the future.
2 Mike Leaps Into The Quarry For Dustin
Troy Walsh and James Dante are furious after Eleven makes them urinate themselves in front of the whole school, so they take it out on their favorite victims. Holding Dustin at knifepoint, Troy threatens Mike to jump into the quarry, a fall that means death for anyone, let alone a child.
Dustin begs his friend to reconsider, but Mike shockingly goes ahead with it, leaving fans utterly awestruck. What isn't a surprise, though, is Eleven catching him mid-fall and chasing the bullies away.
1 Dustin Actually Has A Girlfriend
Dustin constantly brings up his Season 3 camp girlfriend, Suzie, and literally none of his friends (nor the audience) believe him because his only source of evidence is a gigantic ham radio named Cerebro—a tribute to Professor X's mutant detection machine.
As such, Suzie actually picking up his distress signal in the finale comes as a huge surprise to everyone involved. That said, fans hope that Suzie is going to play a role in Season 4.
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