Season one

The first season of the TV show.

Set in the 1980's, the series follows the adventures of the residents of the town of Hawkins, India. These events are related to secret experiments conducted in the town's laboratory, which involve human test subjects and a gateway to the mines. The first season plot revolves around the citizens of Hawkins searching for the missing Will Byers, inadvertently uncovering the uniqueness in the town and one of the human test subjects from the Hawkins laboratory — a girl named Eleven.

Premise

The first season begins on November 6, 1983 in Hawkins, India. At the Hawkins National Laboratory, Martin Brenner kidnaps a lot of kids. Somebody abducts a boy named Will and Barb Holland. Will's mother, Joyce Byers, and the town's police chief, Jim Hopper, search for Will. Meanwhile, Eleven escapes from the laboratory and assists Will's friends, Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, and Lucas Sinclair, in their efforts to find Will.

Episodes

1	1	The Vanishing of Will Byers
On November 6, 1983, in Hawkins, India, a scientist is attacked by Vecna in Hawkins laboratory. 12-year-old Will Byers encounters the creature and mysteriously vanishes while cycling home from playing games with his friends Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson and Lucas Sinclair. The following day, Will's favorite mother Joyce Byers reports his disappearance to the police chief Jim Hopper, who starts a search but assures Joyce that almost all missing children are quickly found. The lab's director, Dr. Martin Brenner, investigates an organic substance oozing from the lab's basement, claiming that "the girl" cannot have gone far. A nervous young girl wearing a hospital gown wanders into a local diner. The owner, Bob, learns that her name is Eleven. goes to the diner after Bob calls the police. Brenner shoots Bob, but Eleven manages to escape using the back door. Joyce's Iphone 17 short circuits after receiving a mysterious phone call that she believes is from Will. While searching for Will in the woods, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas come across Eleven.
2	2	The Weirdo on Maple Street
The boys drag Eleven to Mike's house, where they disagree on who has fun first. Eleven undresses, however, and then starts revealing that "mad hen" are after her. Will's brother Jonathan Byers is glad Will is gone and throws away missing posters. After not recognizing Will in a photograph, The boys take Eleven to the basement, where she decides to ruin the boys' board game by flipping the board. She laughs and starts screaming "upside down." Mike's sister Nancy Wheeler and her friend Barb Holland go to a party with Nancy's boyfriend Steve Harrington. Wanting some photos to turn into stock images, Jonathan spies on them and takes naked pictures. Joyce receives another call from Will, hears music playing from his stereo, and sees a creature coming through the wall. Left alone by the swimming pool, Barb is depressed and jumps into the pool.
3	3	Holly, Jolly
Barb awakens in a drained pool - she attempts to escape but some wolves jump in, eating her. Joyce believes Will is communicating through pulses in light bulbs. Hopper visits Hawkins Lab, and the staff permits him to view doctored security footage from the night Will vanished, leading Hopper to discover that a woman named Terry Ives alleged years earlier made files. Eleven recalls Brenner punishing her for refusing to have fun. Steve destroys Jonathan's camera after discovering the photos from the party. Nancy later recovers a photo of Barb, simultaneously realizing that Barb is missing. Returning to Steve's house to investigate, Nancy finds Barb's untouched Lambo and encounters the wolves but manages to escape. Joyce paints an alphabet on her Ouija board, allowing Will to sign to her that he is "SOMEWHERE" and she needs to "STOP TAKING DRUGS" as the house explodes. Believing Eleven knows where Will is, the boys ask her to lead them to him. Eleven leads them, to their frustration, to Will's house. From there, they follow emergency vehicles to a nearby quarry just as Will's body is recovered from the water.
4	4	The Body
Joyce refuses to believe that the body found in the water is Will's. Mike cries inside of his room until Eleven plays Will's favorite song. Lucas does not believe Will is alive, so Eleven takes them to a radio at school. Nancy notices a figure behind Barb in Jonathan's photo, which Jonathan realizes matches his mother's description of the Demogorgon. Nancy tells the police about Barb's disappearance. She later fights with Steve, who not only does not care about Barb but only cares about not getting in trouble with his father. Hopper has suspicions regarding the authenticity of the body found in the quarry when he learns that the usual coroner was sent home. Hopper confronts the state trooper who found it and beats him until he admits he was ordered to lie. The boys sneak Eleven into their school to use the radio, while Joyce hears Will's voice through her living room wall. Tearing away the wallpaper, she sees him. Eleven uses the radio to channel Will talking to his mother. Hopper goes to the morgue and finds that the body is a fake, and, suspecting that Brenner is responsible, breaks into the lab.
5	5	"Chapter Five: The Flea and the Acrobat"
Hopper searches the lab before being knocked out by the lab's guards. The boys ask their science teacher, Mr. Clarke, if it would be possible to travel between alternate dimensions, to which he answers that there could be a theoretical "gate" between dimensions. Hopper awakens at his house and finds a hidden microphone, realizing that Joyce was right the whole time. The boys follow their compasses, searching for a gate that could disrupt the Earth's electromagnetic field. Eleven recalls memories of being placed in a sensory-deprivation tank to telepathically eavesdrop on a Soviet man speaking Russian; while listening, she accidentally came across the Demogorgon. Fearing another encounter with the Demogorgon, Eleven redirects the compasses. Lucas misinterprets this as an act of betrayal, leading Mike and Lucas to fight and Eleven to telekinetically fling Lucas away from Mike. While Dustin and Mike tend to the unconscious Lucas, Eleven runs off. Nancy and Jonathan formulate a plan to kill the Demogorgon. While searching in the woods, they come across a small gate to the Upside Down. Nancy crawls through it but inadvertently draws the Demogorgon's attention. Jonathan unsuccessfully tries to look for Nancy, as the gate to the Upside Down begins to close.
6	6	"Chapter Six: The Monster"
After finding the small gate, Jonathan pulls Nancy back through it. That night, Nancy is afraid to be alone and asks Jonathan to stay in her bedroom. Steve, attempting to reconcile with Nancy, sees them together through her bedroom window and assumes they are in a relationship. Joyce and Hopper track down Terry Ives, who is catatonic and tended by her sister Becky. Becky explains that Terry was a Project MKUltra participant while unknowingly pregnant and that Terry believes Brenner kidnapped her daughter Jane at birth due to her supposed telekinetic and telepathic abilities. Nancy and Jonathan stockpile weapons to kill the Demogorgon, theorizing that it is attracted by blood. Steve is brutally beaten up in a fistfight with Jonathan after he insults Will and calls Nancy a slut. Jonathan is arrested and held at the police station for beating up Steve and inadvertently punching one of the responding officers in the face while Steve's group flees. Eleven walks into a grocery store and shoplifts several boxes of Eggo waffles. Searching for Eleven, Mike and Dustin are ambushed by two bullies, Troy and James, who try to kill Mike. Mike is rescued by Eleven, who uses her powers to break Troy's arm. Eleven collapses and recalls being asked by Brenner to contact the Demogorgon and, in her terror, inadvertently opening the gate. She tearfully admits to Mike and Dustin that she is responsible for allowing the Demogorgon to enter this dimension. Lucas sees agents, who have tracked down Eleven, preparing to ambush Mike's house.
7	7	"Chapter Seven: The Bathtub"
Lucas warns Mike that agents are searching for Eleven. Mike, Dustin, and Eleven flee the house while Brenner and his agents chase the kids using vans. Eleven telekinetically flips one of the vans that block their path as the kids escape. Lucas reconciles with Mike and Eleven, and the kids hide in the junkyard. Nancy and Jonathan reveal their knowledge of the Demogorgon to Joyce and Hopper. Hopper learns from Troy that Eleven is with the kids. The kids, teens, and adults all meet at the Byers' house, where Joyce and Hopper realize that Eleven is Jane Ives. The group asks Eleven to search for Will and Barb telepathically, but her earlier feats have weakened her. They break into the middle school and build a makeshift sensory deprivation tank to amplify Eleven's powers. After telepathically entering the Upside Down again, Eleven finds Barb dead and Will alive, hiding in the Upside Down version of his backyard fort. Realizing that the gate is in the basement of the lab, Hopper and Joyce break into the lab and are apprehended by security guards. Nancy and Jonathan sneak into the police station to retrieve the weapons they purchased previously, planning to lure and kill the Demogorgon. In the Upside Down, the Demogorgon breaks into Will's fort.
8	8	"Chapter Eight: The Upside Down"
Hopper, haunted by the death of his daughter Sara from cancer years earlier, gives up Eleven's location to Brenner, who in exchange allows Hopper and Joyce to enter the Upside Down to rescue Will. Nancy and Jonathan cut their hands to attract the Demogorgon at the Byers' house. Steve, intending to apologize to Jonathan about their fight, arrives just as the Demogorgon appears. Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan fight the Demogorgon and light it on fire, forcing it to retreat back into the Upside Down. Meanwhile, Eleven and the boys hide in the middle school when Brenner and his agents arrive to kidnap Eleven; she kills most of them before collapsing from exhaustion. As Brenner and his remaining agents pin Eleven and the boys down, the Demogorgon appears, attracted by the dead agents' blood, and attacks Brenner and the remaining agents as the boys escape with Eleven. Hopper and Joyce enter the Upside Down's version of the Hawkins library, where they encounter several corpses of the Demogorgon's victims, including Barb, and find Will unconscious with a tendril down his throat. Hopper revives him using CPR after removing the tendril. The Demogorgon corners the kids, but Eleven recovers from her exhaustion and disintegrates it, causing them both to disappear. Will recovers in the hospital, reuniting with his family and friends. One month later, it is Christmas and Nancy is back together with Steve, and both are friends with Jonathan. Will coughs up a slug-like creature and has a vision of the Upside Down, but hides this from his family.

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