This Christmas, Netflix gifted its viewers the second volume of Season 5 of Stranger Things. After waiting three years for Season 5 to be released, it drives its viewers to rewatch the show and reminisce on the earlier seasons. But if you find yourself without time or are too lazy to rewatch the previous season, worry not because this is a recap of all four previous seasons of Stranger Things. 

Season 1 

Will Byers disappears after playing DND with his friends Mike, Dustin, and Lucas. His friends search for him and meet a mysterious girl named Eleven who has powers in the woods. Will’s mom, Joyce urges police chief Hopper to further investigate the Will’s disappearance. A few days later, Mike’s older sister Nancy and her friend Barb go to a hang with Nancy’s boyfriend Steve and his friends. While the couples go inside, Barb is killed by a Demogorgon. Will talks to Joyce from The Upside Down, an alternate dimension of Hawkins, through lights. Joyce escapes from a Demogorgon after attacking her. Just after that, Will’s (fake) body is pulled out of the water. Joyce and Will’s friends do not believe that it is Will and continue their search. Will’s brother Jonathan tries to throw Will a funeral since he is pronounced dead, and he and his mom get into a big public argument about it. Nancy sees a Demogorgon and she and Jonathan try to hunt one down. Through everyone’s search, they uncover a secret government lab and find a gate to The Upside Down. At the end of the season, Will is saved from The Upside Down, and Eleven saves her friends and disappears. 

Season 2 

Skip a year to where the town tries to act normal after everything. Will gets picked on and starts getting called “Zombie boy” but none of that really matters to him when he keeps getting flashbacks from The Upside Down and starts getting disturbing visions. Will starts acting more different by the minute. Maxine Mayfield is the new girl, coming from California with her older stepbrother Billy. Lucas and Dustin fight for Max’s attention and she joins the crew, even when Mike is not in favor of it. Eleven leans more about her past by visiting her mom and finding her sister, Eight (or Kali). Eleven learns she is not the only one with powers and her sister helps strengthen Eleven’s powers. Back in Hawkins, Will becomes a spy for Mind Flayer, and the crew must take the Mind Flayer out of Will. At the end of the season, Eleven comes back to Hawkins and saves the town once again. The U.S. government is finally done experimenting with the Upside Down and word spreads about the disturbing events that took place because the of lab. Details about the lab were leaked to news corporations by three anonymous people. 

Season 3 

A brand-new mall has been introduced to Hawkins and it is finally summer break. Mike and Eleven are giving Hopper a headache. Hopper presses Mike and Mike avoids El and lies to her. Max and El become friends, and El dumps Mike. Will starts to feel the Mind Flayer again. Billy crashes while going on a date, and the Mind Flayer takes control of him. Billy starts to kill and recruit people to form an army for the Mind Flayer to defeat El. Nancy and Jonathan start a job at the newspaper and they try to start a story about how the rats are acting differently.  The kids discover that Billy has been taken over by the Mind Flayer and that the Mind Flayer has built an army already. The kids prepare to battle the Mind Flayer. 

Dustin accidentally taps into a transmission from the Russians and learns that Russians have infiltrated Hawkins. He goes to Steve’s while Steve is at work to try and decipher the Russians’ codes. Robin, Steve’s co-worker, helps and solves the Russians’ code. Dustin, Robin, and Steve infiltrate the Russian lair, which is in the mall, through the help of Erica, Lucas’s little sister. 

Hopper gets called in by the mayor because the local stores are upset the mall is stealing their revenue and Hopper spots a suspicious person while waiting. Joyce’s magnets fell off her fridge unprompted, so she bails on her date with Hopper to go to Mr. Clarke, the middle school science teacher, to understand why her magnets fell off. Joyce tells Hopper that she thinks something fishy is going on with Hawkins. Hopper and Joyce press the mayor and find out the Russians have opened the gate again, and they steal a Russian scientist named Alexei. Joyce and Hopper take Alexei to Murray because Murray is the closest person to them who speaks Russian.  

At the end of the season, all the kids meet at the mall to defeat the Mind Flayer as the adults seal the gate once again. While sealing the gate, it obliterates whomever was in proximity outside of refinement, which means Hopper is presumed dead. 

Season 4 

All the kids are in high school finally. Joyce, Jonathan, Will and El moved to California to get away from the chaos in Hawkins. Mike has come to visit El since it is spring break. El lost her powers. Max starts pushing everyone away. Lucas is a part of the basketball team and is trying to fit in. Dustin, Lucas, and Mike are a part of a DND group called Hellfire led by Eddie Munson.  A cheerleader dies trying to buy drugs from Eddie, and Eddie becomes a prime suspect for the murder investigation. More deaths happen, and the gang tries to figure out who is doing all this. Eddie’s uncle mentions a man named Victor Creel and Robin and Nancy visit him. While talking to him, Max, Lucas, Dustin, and Steve go see Max’s councilors and realize that the cheerleader and the other death went to the councilor too for the same things and that they all have the same symptoms. Max realizes that she is next to die. Robin and Nancy come back and explain that Victor Creel believed a demon killed his family years ago. He talked about visions, headaches, and a ticking clock, which all match what the victims have been experiencing. That is when the group realizes the killer is Henry Creel/ Vecna after Vecna gives Nancy a vision while she was in the upside down. They figure out that music can break his control and manage to save Max at the last second. The group splits up trying to stop Vecna. Even though they fight back, he succeeds in opening huge gates, leaving Hawkins severely damaged as the Upside Down begins to cross into the real world. 

In California, El is visited by Doctor Owens saying that Hawkins is in danger; the government is hunting her again, and he can bring her powers back to her if she goes with him. She goes with him and Doctor Owens sends some of his men to go protect Will, Mike, and Jonathan. The boys escape with the help of Jonathan’s find Argyle and one of Owen’s guys in the car with them, who gives them the number to reach El and Doctor Owens. El must train her powers with Dr. Brunner by memory, and she starts to remember all her memories that she pushed down. During her training, Eleven learns that One became Vecna after she “killed” him. Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle end up on the run after the government starts hunting them while they try to contact Eleven. At the same time, Joyce and Murray travel to Russia and discover Hopper is still alive in a prison camp. The adults defeat the Demogorgons that were kept in the Russian prison. El telepathically tries to protect Max from Vecna and revives Max when she briefly dies.   

From Will disappearing to Vecna planning his next attack, the town of Hawkins can never catch a break. With this recap, you are now ready to watch the new season of Stranger Things to see what Vecna plans to do.