17 Mind-Flaying Moments From "Stranger Things 4 Vol.1"

The world has turned Upside Down.

The long-awaited, highly anticipated fourth season of Stranger Things has finally dropped on Netflix, and it has blown everyone away.

Netflix

Though Netflix has only released seven episodes so far, Volume 1 is full of many memorable and mind-blowing moments that make us anxious to see Volume 2 this July. And so, as we celebrate our return to Hawkins and await more episodes to come, let's look back at the Best Moments From Stranger Things 4 Vol.1.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

17. The Massacre at Hawkins Lab

Netflix

This season begins with a flashback to a seemingly ordinary day for Dr. Martin Brenner. We see the scientist in a rare moment of compassion towards child Ten as he tests his psychic powers. But things go wrong when Ten hears one of the other doctors screaming, and Brenner is knocked unconscious. When he wakes up, he finds Ten and all the other children and workers murdered, and all the evidence points to Eleven as the killer. After seeing this horrifying bloodbath, it’s no wonder why Brenner was so committed to capturing her after she escaped.

16. Brenner Lives

Netflix

After Owens escorts Eleven to his secret compound, she is shocked to see that her dreaded Papa, Dr. Martin Brenner, is alive and working with Owens to reawaken her powers. We all had a feeling Brenner would come back after getting attacked by the Demogorgon, but actually seeing him alive and well still feels like a bad dream.

15. Karate Fight

Netflix

After Yuri betrays Joyce and Murray, both heroes attempt to escape. Murray puts his karate training to the test and fights their captor as he flies them to Russia. Though this is his first official fight (with a grownup, I might add), Murray successfully knocks out his opponent. Though it’s a great moment for Murray, this leaves no one left who can fly the plane, so he and Joyce crash-land in Russia.

14. Hopper's War Story

Netflix

As he laments Joyce getting captured by Yuri, Hopper recounts to his cellmate, Enzo, how he was drafted into the Vietnam War and how he helped make Agent Orange. We then learn how exposure to Napalm chemicals affected him and his fellow soldiers, which explains why Hopper's daughter, Sara, died from cancer. Labeling himself as a curse, Hopper poignantly displays how much he blames himself for the pain and misery of those around him.

13. Victor’s Tale

Netflix

When Nancy and Robin meet the incarcerated Victor Creel, played by none other than Robert Englund, the latter recounts his haunting experience with a demonic force. Flashback to the ‘50s, and we see Creel’s family move into their new home. Of course, things go full Amityville when sinister things occur throughout their stay. Animals show up dead, spiders come crawling out of drains, and everyone has nightmarish visions, with Victor reliving his trauma during the war. In the end, Creel loses his family to the evil force and even decides to slit his eyes to try to join them in death.

12. Enter Vecna

Netflix

After Dustin and co. find Eddie, the former explains to him about their similar experiences with the Upside Down. At the same time, Nancy’s coworker, Fred, is caught under the spell of a demonic creature and gets brutally mutilated. As per Stranger Things tradition, Dustin identifies this dark spell caster as one of D&D’s greatest villains, Vecna. We then see the evil wizard in his Upside Down lair, where a swarm of winged creatures fly around it, establishing the next big bad of Stranger Things.

11. Chrissy’s Death

Netflix

Of course, just when we had grown to love Chrissy and were shipping her and Eddie, Vecna comes along and brutally murders her. When Chrissy goes to Eddie’s place to pick up some drugs, she gets caught in Vecna’s trance as she gets stalked by the evil wizard through Victor Creel's old mansion. Though Eddie tries to wake her up, he can only watch in horror as Vecna pulls her into the air, snaps her bones, and steals her eyes.

10. Home Invasion

Netflix

In an attempt to escape to Hawkins, Jonathan gets his stoner friend, Argyle, to come over to deliver so the boys can escape. But just when you think they’re home free, we see the man at the door is a U.S. soldier that starts shooting. Suddenly, all hell breaks loose as the military bust in and start firing at Owens’s agents. The loud noises and frenetic camerawork make this scene something out of Saving Private Ryan, and by the end, it'll leave you reeling and wondering what the heck just happened.

9. The Great Escape

Netflix

Hopper finally puts his escape plan into action when he breaks his hammer and asks a guard for another. Ambushing him in a toolshed, Hopper gets into a fight with another guard, and things quickly escalate as bullets start flying and Hopper lights some dynamite. Finally, in a 100 to one shot, Hopper manages to escape the camp on a snowmobile like the action hero that he is.

8. Demogorgon Battle

Netflix

Just when Joyce and Murray arrive at the Kamchatka prison, Hopper and his fellow prisoners face off in a gladiator match against the Russians’ Demogorgon. Though the beast rips through his team with relentless ease, Hopper manages to hold it back by setting his spear on fire. In the end, Hopper escapes the ring thanks to Joyce and Murray, and we get to see their long-awaited reunion.

7. Eleven’s Powers Return

Netflix

After waking up from a dream about her past in Hawkins Lab, Eleven tries once again to escape Brenner’s facility. Like the last time, she is cornered by a group of guards who nearly overpower her. But in a burst of emotion, Eleven blows all of them away in a psychic blast, showing that her powers have begun to reawaken. But even after that, she has trouble controlling them, so she decides to go back with Brenner so he can help her become a superhero again.

6. Water Gate

Netflix

After locating a gate to the Upside Down in Lover’s Lake, Steve decides to swim down and check it out. Of course, things go horribly wrong when a tentacle drags him back into the water and right through the portal. As Nancy, Robin, and Eddie swim after him, Steve is ambushed by flying monsters on the other side, and the sight of them trying to feed off his body makes for the perfect hook for the final episode.

5. One Is Revealed

Netflix

As Eleven explores her memories at Hawkins Lab, we see her working with one of Brenner’s orderlies, who clearly has something hidden beneath the surface. Eventually, this man helps Eleven, who returns the favor by taking out a tracker in his neck. But when Brenner's guards corner them, this mystery man reveals that he has psychic powers too. He then shows her a tattoo with the number one on his arm, showing that he was the fabled first child.

4. Dear Billy

Netflix

In what feels like her final moments, Max visits Billy’s grave and shares a letter expressing how terrible life has been for her and their family since his death. She laments not being able to tell the world how he saved her and her friends from the Mind Flayer and how she couldn’t save his life. She also expresses how she imagined things would be different if he had survived and the kind of family they could’ve been. Once again, the show has us in tears thanks to its excellent writing and a terrific performance from Sadie Sink.

3. The Truth About One

Netflix

After One completes his massacre at Hawkins Lab, he reveals that not only is he Victor Creel's son but that he was the demon that haunted his family. In a dark callback to Zack Snyder's Watchmen, the show depicts a disturbing sequence of One tormenting and slaughtering his family to the tune of Philip Glass's "Prophecies," which effectively displays the birth of both a superpowerful being and a cold-blooded killer.

2. One vs. Eleven

Netflix

After One reveals the truth to Eleven, the two of them engage in a psychic battle that almost ends with One as the victor. But at the last moment, Eleven unleashes her true power and overpowers One and banishes him to the Upside Down. And as One hurtles through the cosmic void, his body becomes burned and scarred until we see the demonic wizard that he's become: Vecna.

1. Max Faces Vecna

Netflix

After speaking at Billy’s grave, Max encounters Vecna, taking the form of her brother the night he died. Max flees from Vecna, only to come across the demon’s hellish abode. With Vecna’s hollowed-out victims fused to her surrounding, the scene gives us something straight out of a Lovecraftian nightmare. But when Max is about to meet her doom, her friends reach her by playing her favorite song, Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” and by remembering the good times she had with them, she manages to break free and return to them in a moving triumph over trauma.

Do you agree with this list? Were there any other moments that I missed? Please let me know in the comments section below.