The supporting characters of Stranger Things: 15 files, from Suzie to Victor Creel
Characters · The supporting cast · Seasons 1 to 5
Stranger Things owes as much to its supporting roles as to its band of heroes: a science teacher who explains parallel dimensions, a girlfriend in Utah who saves the world by singing, a mother who fights with a wine bottle. This page brings together, in a short, checked file, each of the characters who do not have their own page, with their role, their seasons, and the moment that sums them up.
The essentials
- Number of files: 15 characters, sorted by circle
- The families: Karen and Ted Wheeler, Lonnie Byers, Terry Ives
- Hawkins: Suzie, Mr. Clarke, Chrissy, Jason, Patrick, Fred, Heather
- Labs and armies: Dr. Owens, Victor Creel, Yuri, Dr. Kay
- Dedicated pages: the main characters each have their own page, listed in the gallery
- Updated: files current through season 5
The families
The heroes of Stranger Things have parents, and the show never quite forgets them. Four figures come back from one season to the next or weigh on the whole story without almost appearing: the Wheelers, an absent father, and the mother from whom Eleven was stolen.
Seasons 1 to 5Karen Wheeler
The mother of Nancy, Mike, and Holly, a Maple Street housewife, long reduced to her glass of wine and her magazines. Season 3 gives her a temptation, Billy Hargrove, which she turns down on the threshold of a motel. Season 5 gives her her hour: when a Demogorgon comes through the door of her bathroom to take Holly, Karen smashes a bottle and fights. She loses, badly wounded, but it is she who, from her bed, gives Nancy and Mike the decisive information: Holly's imaginary friend is named Henry.
Seasons 1 to 5Ted Wheeler
The Wheeler father, asleep in his armchair at every important scene, and author of the most off-the-mark lines on the show. Ted is the comedy of daily life: he sees nothing, understands nothing, and falls asleep while his house serves as headquarters for a war against the beyond. Season 5 finally gets him out of his chair: he is badly wounded alongside Karen during the attack that takes Holly. For a character who spent four seasons noticing nothing, the show at least lets him be there when it counts.
Season 1Lonnie Byers
Joyce's ex-husband and the father of Jonathan and Will, who left to live in Indianapolis with a younger woman. He comes back to Hawkins in 1983, when a body believed to be Will's is pulled from the quarry, and he does not come back to mourn: he wants to sue the quarry and collect money. Joyce throws him out. Jonathan, who has always hated him, will never forgive him. Lonnie is the embodiment of what Joyce fled, and of what Jonathan refuses to become.
Seasons 1 and 2Terry Ives
Eleven's biological mother. A student in the 1970s, she takes part in Dr. Brenner's experiments and gives birth to a daughter the lab takes from her by making her believe she had a miscarriage. When she tries to get her child back, Brenner subjects her to electroshocks that leave her frozen, repeating the same words in a loop: “breathe, sunflower, rainbow, three to the right, four to the left, 450”. Her sister Becky looks after her. In 1984, Eleven finds her mother and understands, in her memories, where she comes from.
In the shop: a piece inspired by the show's supporting roles, chosen by us.
In the shopKids' black Hawkins party T-shirt24,90 €See the product
Hawkins: middle school, Hawkins High, and the town
Seasons 3 and 4Suzie Bingham
Dustin's girlfriend, met at the science camp of summer 1985 and whom nobody believes exists. She lives in Salt Lake City, in a large Mormon family, and talks to Dustin by ham radio. In the season 3 finale, she demands a duet on the song from The NeverEnding Story before giving the Planck constant that opens the Russian vault. In 1986, the California group shows up at her house so she can locate, by computer, the secret project where Eleven is being held. Suzie is the genius of the show who has never set foot in Hawkins.
Seasons 1 to 3Mr. Clarke
Scott Clarke, science teacher at Hawkins middle school and advisor of the AV club. He is the one who gives the boys their Heathkit radio, and the one who, with an image of a flea and an acrobat, explains to Dustin and Lucas what a parallel dimension is: without knowing it, he describes the Upside Down. In 1985, Joyce comes to him with demagnetized magnets, and he explains the electromagnetism that will lead her to the Russians. The ideal teacher: always available, never suspicious.
Season 4Chrissy Cunningham
The most popular cheerleader at Hawkins High, girlfriend of Jason Carver, and Vecna's first victim in March 1986. Eaten by an eating disorder and a mother who watches her, she goes to Eddie Munson for something to hold on, and he is gentler with her than the whole school. It is in his trailer that Vecna takes her: the body lifted, the bones broken, the eyes pushed in. Her death launches the hunt for Eddie and all of season 4.
Season 4Jason Carver
The captain of the high-school basketball team, boyfriend of Chrissy, and the face of the Hawkins panic. Convinced Eddie killed Chrissy in a satanic ritual, he raises a militia of students and turns the town against the Hellfire Club. He watches Patrick die in front of him, which only strengthens his certainty. In the finale, he faces Lucas in the Creel house and almost prevents Max's rescue; he dies when the ground of Hawkins opens under him. An antagonist without a monster, and that is what makes him believable.
Season 4Patrick McKinney
A basketball player on Jason's team, one of the few to hesitate before joining the hunt for Eddie. Patrick carries, like the other victims, a trauma the show only half explains, and Vecna chooses him. He dies at the edge of Lover's Lake, lifted above the water in front of Jason, who concludes that Eddie is a wizard. His death is the third of the season, and the only one with a witness.
Season 4Fred Benson
Nancy's classmate on the school paper, in glasses, who goes with her to investigate the trailer park the day after Chrissy's death. Fred carries the guilt of a car accident in which someone died. Vecna takes him there, among the trailers, in the same hours as Chrissy. Second victim, he serves Nancy as the first proof that the killer is not human.
Season 3Heather Holloway
A lifeguard at the Hawkins municipal pool in summer 1985, coworker of Billy Hargrove and daughter of the local paper's boss. She is the first person Billy, already possessed, delivers to the Mind Flayer. Possessed in turn, she lures her own parents into the trap. Heather is the first link in the chain of the “Flayed” that leads to the Starcourt creature, and one of the quietest deaths on the show.
Another piece from the selection: a piece inspired by the supporting cast of the show.
In the shopLego Hawkins party bikes68,90 €See the product
Labs, asylums, and armies
Seasons 2 to 4Dr. Owens
Sam Owens takes over Hawkins Lab after Brenner, with the job of containing what his predecessor opened. Unlike Brenner, he listens: he helps Joyce treat a possessed Will, looks the other way about Eleven, and gets her a birth certificate in the name of Jane Hopper. In 1986, he is the one who picks Eleven up after her arrest in California and takes her to Nevada, to the project meant to give her powers back, with Brenner. A bureaucrat, but on the right side.
Season 4Victor Creel
Henry's father, locked in Pennhurst asylum since 1959 for the murder of his wife Virginia and his daughter Alice, of which he has always said he was innocent. Nancy and Robin visit him in 1986, disguised as students, and he tells them about the months of haunting in the Creel house: the lights, the dead animals, the music that, alone, protected him. He does not know the guilty one was his son. Victor gives season 4 its key: the song that keeps Vecna at a distance.
Season 4Yuri Ismaylov
A Russian smuggler based in Alaska, obsessed with peanut butter, who is supposed to help Joyce and Murray buy Hopper back in Kamchatka. He betrays them, hands them over to the KGB, and ends up tied up in his own plane after the reversal Murray orchestrates. A pilot against his will, he finally gets the group out of the prison aboard his helicopter. Yuri is the comic of season 4, and the only character who negotiates everything, all the time.
Season 5Dr. Kay
The head of the military operation that locks down Hawkins in fall 1987 and hunts Eleven, whom she holds responsible for the gates. Kay is the new face of the state that wants to get its hands on the children with powers, after Brenner and Owens. In the finale, she intercepts the survivors, including Max and Vickie, before releasing them: with no one with powers left to hold, the army has nothing left to keep.
To complete the reading: a piece inspired by the supporting cast of the show.
In the shopHawkins party pin12,90 €See the product
Frequently asked questions
Who is Suzie in Stranger Things?
Suzie Bingham is Dustin's girlfriend, met at science camp in 1985 and living in Salt Lake City. She gives the Planck constant by radio in the season 3 finale and locates by computer the project where Eleven is being held in season 4.
Who are Vecna's victims in season 4?
Chrissy Cunningham, killed in Eddie's trailer, then Fred Benson at the trailer park, then Patrick McKinney at Lover's Lake. Max Mayfield is the fourth target and survives, her heart stopped for a few moments.
Is Victor Creel guilty?
No. He was convicted for the murders of his wife and daughter in 1959, but the real guilty party is his son Henry, the future Vecna. Victor is locked in Pennhurst when Nancy and Robin visit him in 1986.
What becomes of Karen and Ted Wheeler?
They survive the show. In season 5, a Demogorgon badly wounds them while taking Holly; Karen fights with a broken wine bottle and then reveals that Holly's imaginary friend is named Henry.