Suzie in Stranger Things: who is Suzie Bingham, Dustin's girlfriend, and her role season by season
Character · Suzie Bingham · Seasons 3 and 4
All summer 1985, nobody believes Suzie exists. Then, at the worst moment of the battle of Starcourt, a girl's voice answers the radio and demands a song before giving Planck's constant. Suzie exists, and she saves everyone. Here is who she is.
The essentials
- Name: Suzie Bingham, from Salt Lake City
- Meeting: Dustin's science camp, summer 1985
- Cult scene: “The NeverEnding Story” as a duet, Season 3
- Played by: Gabriella Pizzolo
Contents
Who is Suzie
Dustin comes back from science camp in June 1985 with news: he has a girlfriend, Suzie, a math genius, “prettier than Phoebe Cates,” who lives in Salt Lake City in a very strict Mormon family. Nobody believes him, especially not Steve. Dustin puts up a giant antenna on the highest hill in town to reach her by radio; she does not answer, and it is while searching for her frequency that he picks up the Russians.
Suzie is the comic thread of season 3, and its engine: without her, no antenna, no Russian message, no discovery of the base under Starcourt.
The Dustin Henderson T-shirt, Suzie's boyfriend.
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The song
In the finale, Dustin has to get Planck's constant to open the Russian base vault; he does not remember it. He calls Suzie. She answers, and first demands that he sing with her their song, “The NeverEnding Story,” as a duet, on the radio, while Hopper and Joyce wait in front of the machine and the monster attacks. The scene, between comedy and tenderness, has become one of the most famous in the show.
| Season | What Suzie does |
|---|---|
| 3 | Exists only in Dustin's stories, then answers on the radio; the duo; Planck's constant |
| 4 | Locates Project Nina by computer, where Eleven is being held, from her bedroom |
| 5 | Stays at a distance; the relationship with Dustin holds, by radio |
Season 4: the hacker
In 1986, when the California group looks for where Eleven has been taken, it is Suzie who finds it: Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle show up at her house, in Salt Lake City, in the middle of her siblings filming an amateur movie, and she hacks in a few minutes the Nina Project computer to give its coordinates, in Nevada. A choral scene, in a house full of children, that shows Suzie does not live in a vacuum: she has a family, as loud as the group.
Gabriella PizzoloSuzie's actress, born in 2003, comes from Broadway, like Gaten Matarazzo: both actors were already singing on stage as children. Their duet is no accident.
Why the character matters
Because she is the proof that Dustin never lies, even when nobody believes him, and because she is the group's only ally never to have set foot in the town: she saves everyone twice from a bedroom in Utah. The relationship, at a distance and by radio, lasts through the end.
What to keep
Suzie is an antenna, a song and a computer. Three times, she gives Dustin what the party needs, without ever leaving Salt Lake City. For a character the show first presented as an invention, that is a fine run.
The Dustin figure, radio in hand.
In the shopLego Dustin Henderson mini figure14,90 €See the product
The Bingham family, in 1986
Season 4 finally shows Suzie's house, in Salt Lake City, when Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle come to ask her to locate the Nina project. You discover a large Mormon family, held by a strict father who does not know Dustin exists and watches the computer. Suzie mobilizes her brothers and sisters to create a diversion, hacks the coordinates, and one of her brothers, Eden, hops in with Argyle.
The scene is written as a comedy of kids organized into a commando, and it says what the show thinks of Suzie: a girl as ingenious as Dustin, with as many constraints as he had few. Her coordinates lead the group into the Nevada desert, to the hideout where Eleven gets her powers back.
Why that song
The Duffers wanted to introduce Suzie in a spectacular way and give Gaten Matarazzo, a singer trained on Broadway, the chance to show his voice. The first choice was the Ent and his wife's song, from The Lord of the Rings; on learning a Tolkien-based series was being prepared at a competitor, they changed their mind, and writer Curtis Gwinn proposed the theme of The NeverEnding Story, released in 1984.
Gabriella Pizzolo, who plays Suzie, also sings on Broadway. The two actors were on neighboring stages and sang together without music, harmonizing naturally; the result was even too tight for two teenagers separated by hundreds of kilometers, and it had to be detuned in the edit. The scene has become one of the most shared of the whole show.
Suzie and Dustin: a couple by radio
Suzie and Dustin met at Know Where science camp, in the summer of 1985, and their story lives entirely on a radio. Nobody believes she is real: Dustin describes her as "prettier than Phoebe Cates," his friends mock him, and Suzie does not answer when he calls her from the hill, at the start of season 3. She answers in the last episode, at the worst moment, and demands a song before giving Planck's constant.
The couple survives Season 4 thanks to a computer, and the show never reunites them physically: Dustin and Suzie are, to the end, a story of voices. In the 1989 epilogue, Dustin is a full-time student; the show does not say whether Suzie is still at the other end of the radio.
Suzie in three moments
-
The hill
Dustin calls her from Cerebro, his giant radio, and nobody answers: his friends laugh.
-
The code
She refuses to give Planck's constant before the song; Dustin sings.
-
The hack
In 1986, her siblings create a diversion while she locates the Nina Project.
A voice, then a face, then a family: Suzie grew on screen in stages, without ever leaving Utah.
The Season 3 poster.
In the shopChibi Dustin Henderson trucker keychain12,90 €See the product
TakeawayDustin's girlfriend, in Salt Lake City. The radio duet, Season 3. The hacker of the Nina Project, Season 4. Played by Gabriella Pizzolo, from Broadway.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Suzie in Stranger Things?
Suzie Bingham, Dustin's girlfriend, met at science camp in 1985 and living in Salt Lake City. She gives Planck's constant by radio in season 3 and locates Project Nina in season 4.
What song do Dustin and Suzie sing?
"The NeverEnding Story," the theme of the film "The NeverEnding Story," as a radio duet, in the season 3 finale.
Does Suzie really exist?
Yes. Nobody believes him through the whole of season 3, until she answers on the radio.
Who plays Suzie?
Gabriella Pizzolo, an actress from Broadway, born in 2003.
Where does Suzie live?
In Salt Lake City, Utah, in a large Mormon family that season 4 shows when Mike, Will, Jonathan and Argyle come to ask her for help.
Do Suzie and Dustin meet on screen?
No, never physically: their story happens by radio in 1985 and by computer in 1986. They met at Camp Know Where, off screen.
How many siblings does Suzie have?
A lot: season 4 shows a large family in Salt Lake City, mobilized as a commando to divert the father's attention while she hacks the coordinates of the Nina Project.
Is Suzie in season 5?
No. She does not appear in the last season, and the epilogue does not say whether Dustin is still with her.