“Chapter One: The Hellfire Club”

In a flashback to 1979, Dr. Brenner is experimenting on children possessing supernatural abilities until a mysterious incident kills all of the children except Eleven. In 1986 eight months after the events at Starcourt Mall Joyce, Will, Jonathan, and Eleven have moved to California, where Eleven struggles with the loss of her powers and is routinely bullied by other students. Joyce receives a porcelain doll in the mail, seemingly from Russia, and finds a hidden note stating that Hopper is alive. In Hawkins, Mike and Dustin have joined their high school’s “Hellfire Club,” a Dungeons & Dragons club led by the iconoclast Eddie Munson. As a result, they miss seeing Lucas win the basketball team’s championship game. Max, who has broken up with Lucas, struggles to grieve Billy’s death. Chrissy Cunningham, a student on the cheerleading team, is haunted by visions of her abusive mother and a chiming grandfather clock. While buying drugs from Eddie, Chrissy is possessed and killed by a sentient humanoid creature from her visions.

“Chapter Two: Vecna’s Curse”

Hopper has survived the explosion underneath Starcourt Mall but was captured by Soviet soldiers and sent to a prison camp in Kamchatka. Joyce and Murray call the phone number on the note she was sent and speak to Dmitri Antonov, a prison guard that Hopper has bribed. Antonov has them deliver a $40,000 ransom to his contact in Alaska. Mike flies to California to visit Eleven, where he and Will witness her being bullied by her classmate Angela; Eleven eventually retaliates by striking Angela in the face with a roller skate. Max tells Dustin she saw Eddie run away the night that Chrissy died. Along with Robin and Steve, they locate the traumatized Eddie and explain the Upside Down to him. Eddie and Dustin name the entity that killed Chrissy “Vecna.” Nancy and her fellow student reporter Fred investigate Chrissy’s death; Eddie’s uncle tells Nancy he believes the killer is Victor Creel, a Hawkins resident who was institutionalized after allegedly murdering his family in the 1950s. Fred is lured into the woods by visions of a student he accidentally killed before Vecna murders him.

“Chapter Three: The Monster and the Superhero”

Sam Owens is visited by U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jack Sullivan, who believes Eleven is responsible for Chrissy’s death. Eleven is arrested for assaulting Angela but is taken by Owens, who explains that Hawkins is in grave danger and that he has been working on a program to help bring back Eleven’s powers. Eleven agrees to go with him. Joyce and Murray fly to Alaska to deliver the ransom for Hopper. Hopper bribes a fellow inmate to break his shackles using a sledgehammer. Nancy and Robin go to the library to look up information about Victor Creel and discover that Creel blamed his family’s murders on a demon, which they believe to be Vecna. Jason leads the basketball team to hunt for Eddie, believing him to have killed Chrissy, but Lucas abandons them. Max recalls that Chrissy had visited the school counselor before being killed by Vecna. She steals Chrissy and Fred’s files from the counselor’s office and learns they suffered from PTSD symptoms similar to hers. Max hears Vecna call her name and envisions a grandfather clock.

“Chapter Four: Dear Billy”

Joyce and Murray deliver the ransom payment to Antonov’s contact Yuri, but he drugs them, planning to turn them (and Hopper and Antonov) over to the Russians for a larger profit. Hopper escapes the prison camp but is soon recaptured. Jonathan, Mike, and Will prepare to sneak away from Wallace and Harmon, agents sent by Owens to watch them, but armed soldiers attack the house. They escape with the help of Jonathan’s friend Argyle, bringing an injured Harmon with them. Nancy and Robin interview an imprisoned Victor Creel, who recounts his family being tormented and killed by supernatural forces while he was arrested for their deaths. Max, fearing that Vecna is about to kill her, writes letters to her friends and family and goes to the cemetery to read her letter to Billy by his gravestone. She is soon possessed by Vecna and finds herself at an altar inside his mind. Steve, Dustin, and Lucas learn from Nancy and Robin that playing music can break Vecna’s spell, and they play Max’s favorite song, “Running Up That Hill” on a cassette tape. This opens a portal through which Max narrowly escapes Vecna’s control.

“Chapter Five: The Nina Project”

Owens takes Eleven to an abandoned ICBM silo in Nevada, where he and Dr. Brenner have developed a specialized isolation tank (dubbed “NINA”) that will allow Eleven to access memories of her time with other children at Hawkins Lab. After her first time in the tank, Eleven attempts to escape and briefly regains her powers in the process, convincing her to continue with the experiment. In California, before Agent Harmon dies, he gives the boys a pen containing a phone number for the NINA project that connects to a modem; Mike decides to enlist the aid of Dustin’s girlfriend Suzie in Salt Lake City. After Yuri’s betrayal, Hopper is imprisoned alongside Antonov. While flying to Russia, Joyce and Murray subdue Yuri and crash-land in the wilderness. Max, Lucas, Steve, and Dustin regroup with Nancy and Robin and decide to investigate the Creel house; inside, they encounter flickering lights, which they trace to Vecna’s movements in the Upside Down. Jason and his teammates locate Eddie trying to escape in a boat at Lover’s Lake; Jason and Patrick swim after him. In the water, Vecna kills Patrick in front of Jason and Eddie.

“Chapter Six: The Dive”

Eleven relives memories of befriending a lab orderly, who warns her not to trust Brenner. She also recalls being threatened by other test subjects, leading her to believe she was responsible for the lab massacre. Suzie helps Mike’s group locate the NINA project’s coordinates. Hopper and the other inmates are given a large feast, which Hopper warns is to prepare them to be fed to the Demogorgon. He later manages to pickpocket a lighter, recalling that the Demogorgon’s weakness is fire. Joyce and Murray force Yuri to take them to a nearby town where he stores his goods and decide to have Murray pose as Yuri to infiltrate the prison. Jason galvanizes Hawkins’ residents at a town hall meeting against Eddie’s supposed Satanic cult, the “Hellfire Club.” Steve’s group finds Eddie; Dustin notices his compass misbehaving and realizes there must be a new gate to the Upside Down nearby. They trace the gate to Lover’s Lake, where Steve dives down to inspect it before being yanked into the Upside Down by a tendril and swarmed by bat-like creatures. Nancy, Robin, and Eddie dive down after him.

“Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab”

Joyce, Murray, and Yuri enter Kamchatka and witness Hopper and his fellow prisoners fighting the Demogorgon. Hopper holds the creature back with a flaming spear while Murray and Joyce subdue the guards and open the prison doors, allowing Hopper and Antonov to escape. Joyce and Hopper reunite. Dustin, Lucas, and Erica theorize that Vecna has spawned a gate at the site of each murder, which they communicate to Steve’s group in the Upside Down. Both parties reunite inside Eddie’s trailer at the gate where Chrissy died. Robin and Eddie safely exit, but Vecna possesses Nancy. She discovers that he is Victor Creel’s son Henry, who killed his mother and sister with his psychokinetic powers before falling into a coma and being placed in Brenner’s care. Henry became subject 001 in Brenner’s attempts to replicate his powers and later the orderly that Eleven befriended. Eleven finally remembers Henry committing the lab massacre and trying to kill her when she refused to help fulfill his murderous ambitions; Eleven overpowered Henry and sent him to the Upside Down, where he became Vecna.

“Chapter Eight: Papa”

Vecna shows Nancy, who is still possessed by him, a vision of the future where Hawkins is torn apart by rifts before releasing her. The group determines Vecna needs four gates to enact his plan; Max offers to lure Vecna into possessing her so the others can attack him while he is distracted. Eleven, using her powers, learns of this plan and gets Owens to arrange transit to Hawkins. However, Brenner betrays and secures Owens and traps Eleven, insisting she needs to complete her training. Eleven realizes that Brenner had been using her for years to try to recover Henry from the Upside Down. Sullivan and his forces arrive at the site and kill all the staff; Brenner flees with Eleven but is shot himself. Sullivan’s crew tries to kill Eleven from a helicopter, but she uses her powers to take them out just as Mike’s group arrives. She does not concede to understand Brenner’s motives before he dies. In Russia, Hopper, Joyce, Murray, Yuri, and Antonov escape the base after discovering several more creatures from the Upside Down, as well as a shadowy fragment of the Mind Flayer, under study at the prison.

“Chapter Nine: The Piggyback”

The Hawkins group enacts their plan: Max, Lucas and Erica go to the Creel House while Steve, Nancy and Robin go to its Upside Down counterpart to attack Vecna, with the bats being drawn away by Dustin and Eddie. Eddie sacrifices himself in the process. Eleven’s group creates an isolation tank for her to enter Max’s mind and fight Vecna. However, Vecna overwhelms her and possesses Max, revealing to Eleven that he has controlled the Upside Down ever since she sent him there. Mike professes his love to Eleven, giving her the strength to break Vecna’s control over Max, but after interference from Jason Carver, Max dies from her injuries. Hopper, Joyce and Murray reenter the prison and kill the remaining Demogorgons, weakening Vecna. Steve, Robin and Nancy set Vecna’s physical form ablaze and shoot him, apparently killing him. Eleven uses her powers to revive Max, but the latter’s brief death allows Vecna’s gates to open and tear through Hawkins. Two days later, the town is recovering from an “earthquake”. Everyone unites, while Max remains comatose. Will senses Vecna is still alive, and the Upside Down begins invading Hawkins.