🚨🚨Below is a recap of Stranger Things Season 3, aka there are MAJOR SPOILERS. If you haven't watched the new episodes yet, turn back now.🚨🚨
1. The series picks up one year after the events of Season 2.
2. Eleven and Mike are a full-blown couple, as are Lucas and Max.
3. Dustin has been away at camp for a month, where he got a girlfriend named Suzie. She is Mormon and her parents won't let them talk to one another, so they communicate over radio.
4. Starcourt Mall has been built in Hawkins and is putting the Downtown Mom and Pop shops out of business.
5. Steve works at the mall at Scoops Ahoy with a former classmate named Robin.
6. Nancy and Jonathan have an internship at The Hawkins Gazette. While Jonathan is respected as a photographer, Nancy is belittled by the men there, only asked to get coffee and sandwiches.
7. The only one without a girlfriend, Will is the perpetual fifth-wheel and struggles with his friends growing up and not being interested in things they used to do, like playing D&D.
8. Billy works at the community pool as a lifeguard and frequently flirts with married women, particularly Mike and Nancy's mom, Mrs. Wheeler.
9. On his way to a rendezvous with Mrs. Wheeler, Billy crashes his car and is possessed by the Mind Flayer.
10. After a massive power outage, Joyce notices that the magnets at home and her work have somehow become demagnetized and starts to investigate what caused it.
11. Hopper struggles with parenting Eleven, particularly setting boundaries between her and Mike.
12. Hopper asks Joyce on a not-a-date date, but she forgets and goes to talk to Mr. Clark, the middle school science teacher about the magnets, standing him up.
13. After being threatened by Hopper, Mike lies to El and cancels plans with her. Max gives her a makeover to make her feel better.
14. El dumps Mike.
15. On a rogue investigation, Nancy and Jonathan interview Mrs. Driscoll, a widow who has unknowingly captured a rat possessed by the Mind Flayer.
16. Bllly kidnaps Heather, another lifeguard, and she too is possessed by the Mind Flayer. The two team up and do the same thing to Heather's parents, one of whom is Jonathan and Nancy's boss at the newspaper.
17. While trying to communicate with Suzie, Dustin intercepts a Russian message. He, Steve, and (mostly) Robin, translate and decode the message, learning that the Russians are using the mall as a front to receive secret shipments.
18. The three of them ask Erica Sinclair, Lucas's younger sister, to climb into a vent and give them access to the room the shipments are being held in.
19. The four of them enter the room, which turns out to be an elevator that propels them 500 feet underground to a secret Russian base. Now trapped, they discover that the shipments are of a mysterious liquid substance.
20. El uses her powers to spy on Billy and suspects that he is connected to the Mind Flayer. She and the other kids test her theory by trapping Billy in the pool sauna, knowing that the Mind Flayer doesn't react well to heat. They learn that Billy is indeed possessed by the Mind Flayer, who tries to kill Eleven.
21. Joyce and Hopper return to Hawkins Lab hoping to find the energy source that caused the magnets to stop working. Hopper is beaten by a mystery man, who they later connect to the town's mayor. Hopper beats and kidnaps the mayor, who admits that Starcourt is a Russian front, as are a few other town properties.
22. Joyce and Hopper go to one of the properties where they meet Alexei, a Russian scientist. They are discovered by the mystery man, who turns out to be a Russian mercenary who nearly kills them. But they escape and take Alexei with them.
23. Alexei doesn't speak English so they travel to Murray's house— the paranoid journalist from Season 2 — hoping that he will translate their communication. Joyce and Hopper learn that Russians have infiltrated Hawkins and are trying to reopen the Gate to the Upside-Down.
24. Steve, Robin, Dustin, and Erica — AKA the Scoops Troop — manage to escape the elevator, but are later discovered. Erica and Dustin get away and look for a way to save Robin and Steve, who are interrogated, beaten, and drugged with truth serum by the Russians.
25. Dustin and Erica return to save Robin and Steve, and the foursome escape into Starcourt's movie theatre. Robin and Steve wander off and, after getting sick, have a high heart-to-heart where Robin comes out as gay.
26. Nancy, Jonathan, El, Mike, Lucas, Max, and Will — AKA Griswold Family — go to the hospital to free a possessed, or flayed, Mrs. Driscol, hoping she will lead them to the Mind Flayer's base. But, Jonathan and Nancy are attacked by flayed newspaper employees. El saves them just in time and injures the Mind Flayer.
27. The Griswold Family reconvenes at Hopper's cabin and El uses her powers to spy on Billy. She sees his memories, particularly a pleasant one of a beach day with his mom when he was young.
28. The Mind Flayer finds and attacks the group at the cabin and bites El on the leg. They break into a grocery store to get supplies to heal El and they have their first communication with Dustin, learning that he and Scoops Troop are at the mall.
29. Hopper, Alexei, Joyce, and Murray go to the town's Fun Fair carnival to find their kids, but run into the Russian enforcer, who shoots and kills Alexei for being a traitor.
30. El's bite is infected with a piece of the Mind Flayer. Jonathan cuts her leg open and El uses her powers to fling it out of her body. After that, Eleven's powers stop working.
31. Griswold Family, Scoops Troop, Joyce, Hopper, and Murray all reunite at Starcourt and come up with a plan to kill the Mind Flayer and close the Gate. They go their separate ways to put the phases of the plan in motion.
32. Scoops Troop goes to Dustin's radio tower to get a strong enough signal to communicate with Hopper, Joyce, and Murray who have infiltrated the underground Russian base. They need Planck's Constant to open the door, so Dustin radio's Suzie who tells them the number...after a very interesting rendition of the Never-Ending Story theme song.
33. Both Billy and the Mind Flayer are at the mall. Billy knocks El unconscious and presents her to the Mind Flayer to be possessed. While the rest of the Griswold Family attack the Mind Flayer with fireworks, El recounts Billy's beach memory. Seemingly unpossessed now, he fights the Mind Flayer and sacrifices himself for Eleven.
34. In the underground base, Hopper and Joyce are attacked by the Russian mercenary while they're trying to close the gate. Hopper leads him away from the operations room — where Joyce and the keys to close the Gate are — and pushes him into a machine, killing him.
35. Unable to get away from the Gate in time, Hopper sacrifices himself so that Joyce can close the Gate and kill the Mind Flayer. Hopper ~seemingly~ dies in the explosion.
36. Three months later, the town has grieved the loss of Chief Hopper and 30 other Hawkins residents, who they believe to have died in an explosion at the Starcourt Mall. The mayor is arrested and Eleven has lost her powers.
37. Eleven reads a speech that Hopper had written for her and learns how much he truly cared about her.
38. Mike and Eleven profess their love for each other.
39. Joyce has taken in Eleven and they, along with Jonathan and Will, move out of Hawkins.
40. In a post-credits scene in Russia, guards at a secret facility choose a prisoner to be fed to a Demogorgon. They say "not the American," who may or may not be Hopper.
And that's everything! What was your favorite moment of Season 3? Do you have theories about what will happen next? Tell us in the comments!
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