Chrissy in Stranger Things: who is Chrissy Cunningham, Vecna's first victim, and her actress
Character · Chrissy Cunningham · Season 4
Chrissy Cunningham has only one episode, and all of season 4 comes out of her death: the most popular cheerleader in high school, broken in a metalhead's trailer, and a town looking for a culprit. Here is who she is, what makes her vulnerable, and why she matters well beyond her scenes.
The essentials
- Name: Chrissy Cunningham, cheerleader, Jason Carver's girlfriend
- His flaw: an eating disorder, a mother watching her
- His death: Eddie's trailer, March 21, 1986, Vecna's first victim
- Played by: Grace Van Dien
Contents
Who is Chrissy
The “queen of high school”: captain of the cheerleaders, girlfriend of the basketball team captain, Jason Carver, smiling, popular, and eaten from the inside. The show shows her in the high school bathroom, throwing up, and at home, facing a mother who watches every bite. She hears a clock nobody else hears, and sees her mother appear to her, distorted, in the mirror.
The Eddie Munson T-shirt, the trailer one.
In the shopMen's Eddie Munson The Piggyback T-shirt39,90 €See the product
Eddie
To hold on, Chrissy looks for something to sleep from the high-school dealer, Eddie Munson, the head of the Hellfire Club, the one everyone avoids. In the woods, Eddie is gentler with her than the whole high school, and reminds her they crossed paths in middle school, at a talent show. The scene is the tenderest of the season, and it makes the next one unbearable.
| Moment | What happens |
|---|---|
| The bathroom | Chrissy hears the clock; first sign of the curse |
| The woods | The meeting with Eddie, the only gentleness of her day |
| The trailer | The trance; Eddie sees her float, the bones break |
| After | Eddie accused, Jason's manhunt, the whole season |
The trailer
In Eddie's trailer, at Forest Hills park, Chrissy goes into a trance. In Vecna's mind, she walks through her distorted house, her mother, her fears, to the wizard who lifts her. In the trailer, Eddie sees her float at the ceiling, her limbs break, her eyes sink. He flees. The next day, the town holds him guilty, and Jason Carver launches his hunt. Season 4 is launched.
Why herVecna picks his victims by their pain. Chrissy's is hidden behind a smile: the perfect girl who no longer eats. The show makes her the first victim to say that the monster sees what the high school does not.
Grace Van Dien
Daughter of the actor Casper Van Dien, Grace Van Dien was twenty-five at filming. In one episode, she made Chrissy one of the most loved characters of the season, to the point that fans demanded her return, in flashback or in Vecna's mind. She has since been one of the show's most present actresses at conventions.
Why the character matters
Because her death is the engine of everything: the hunt for Eddie, the town's fear, Jason's militia, and through to the first gate, opened at the place where she fell. And because she is the first victim with a human face in the show, the one who makes Vecna a killer and not a creature.
The Vecna figure, his executioner.
In the shopLego Vecna mini figure and his vines14,90 €See the product
What haunted her, and how Vecna uses it
Vecna does not choose his victims at random: he enters through the wound. Chrissy, the most popular cheerleader in high school, hides an eating disorder and a mother who watches her and puts her down. Her visions start with headaches and nosebleeds, then with her mother's silhouette in a hallway, a grandfather clock that chimes, and voices. She thinks she is going crazy, and that is why she looks for Eddie, who is said to sell something to sleep.
The show shows the mechanism in one night: on March 21, 1986, in Eddie's trailer, Chrissy goes into a trance, her eyes cloud, she rises into the air, her bones break and her eyes sink in. Eddie, helpless, runs. The curse always works that way, and Chrissy's death is the first of the four that open the gates of Hawkins.
Chrissy and Eddie: the forest scene
The meeting in the woods, behind the high school, is one of the most loved scenes of Season 4. Chrissy, the high-school queen, comes to buy drugs from Eddie, the outcast; and instead of the worrying misfit the town describes, she finds a funny, attentive boy who remembers her from the middle-school talent show, when she had braces and he had a ridiculous haircut. They laugh. He tells her she is not as he imagined; she tells him the same.
That scene fed weeks of speculation about a possible couple, until the end of episode 1 cuts them both down: she dies, he flees, and their only real conversation becomes one of the reasons the audience cried so much for Eddie.
What his death sets off
-
The hunt for Eddie
Jason, her boyfriend, convinces the town that the Hellfire Club sacrificed her in a ritual. The Satanic Panic of Hawkins starts there.
-
The first gate
At the place of her death, in the trailer, a gate to the Upside Down opens. It is through it that Steve, Nancy, Robin and Eddie will pass in episode 7.
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The investigation
Nancy, Robin, Max, Dustin and Steve look for what killed Chrissy, and track it back to Victor Creel and the year 1959.
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The fear of Max
Max understands she has the same symptoms as Chrissy, and writes her goodbye letters.
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Jason's return
He dies in the Creel house, cut in two by the rift, still believing he is avenging Chrissy.
What the show did with its actress
Grace Van Dien, daughter of the actor Casper Van Dien, the hero of Starship Troopers, appears in only two episodes of season 4, and yet Chrissy has become one of the most searched-for characters in the show. Her scene in the woods with Eddie, played as a long conversation, has been cited by fans as the moment the season turns: you understand that nobody, not even the queen of the high school, is safe.
The actress said that after the release she received messages from viewers who recognized themselves in Chrissy's eating disorder, a subject the show approaches without naming it, through a mirror and a mother. That is what gives the character her duration: two episodes, one death, and a place on every list of Vecna's victims.
The Season 4 poster.
In the shopEddie Munson rooftop solo metal sign24,90 €See the product
TakeawayThe high-school queen, eaten from the inside. The meeting with Eddie, in the woods. The trailer: Vecna's first victim, March 21, 1986. Played by Grace Van Dien.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Chrissy in Stranger Things?
Chrissy Cunningham, the most popular cheerleader in the high school, Jason Carver's girlfriend, and Vecna's first victim, in the first episode of season 4.
How does Chrissy die?
In Eddie Munson's trailer, in a trance: Vecna lifts her, breaks her limbs, and sinks her eyes. Her death launches the hunt for Eddie.
Who plays Chrissy?
Grace Van Dien, daughter of the actor Casper Van Dien.
Were Chrissy and Eddie a couple?
No. They meet on the day of her death; their scene in the woods is the only one, and the tenderest of the season.
Did Chrissy and Eddie know each other before?
Yes, from middle school: Eddie remembers the talent show where she wore a dental appliance. The forest scene, behind the high school, is their only real conversation.
Why was Chrissy going to see Eddie?
To buy something to sleep: her visions had started, and she thought she was going crazy. She did not know she was already under the curse.
Does Chrissy appear in season 5?
No. She is evoked through Jason, dead in 1986, and through the satanic panic that followed his death, but the character does not come back.