Commentary: The Main Villain Of ‘Stranger Things’ Fits Perfectly Into Its Story

It seems as if every new season of Stranger Things is a new pop culture phenomenon. It’s hooked so many audiences that it seems strange the show waited four seasons in order to introduce its main villain. It managed to get around this by having a proxy villain in every season, but the very nature of the alternate dimension known as the Upside Down and the creatures that come from it were not explored. And yet, once this mystery was finally uncovered, the main villain fit nicely within the already existing narrative.

The history behind Stranger Things is that Henry Creel (Jamie Campbell Bower) was a psychotic killer with psychic powers who Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) banished to the Upside Down when she was a much younger child. Once there, Creel used his psychic powers to corrupt the dimension and essentially turn everything there into an extension of his own persona. He then attempts to return to his native dimension by trying to either create or utilize gates. He sends the minions he created as his proxies until the 4th season, when he tries to invade conventional reality himself.

Creel is obviously an invention of the show’s creators that wasn’t devised until the 4th season. And yet, the show leaves plenty of wiggle room to make his existence coherent with the previous three seasons. The psychic hive mind of the entire Upside Down is one such example. Also, the manner in which Eleven is a focal point of the Upside Down’s schemes is another clue of his existence. The characters merely believe that because Eleven closed the gates previously that she is a target for the Upside Down. But their relationship goes much deeper thanks to her past relationship with Creel. It might not have been on purpose, but it’s very clever that Creel’s existence in the show fits so seamlessly into what came before, an example of how a serial narrative can inform itself as it evolves.

Stranger Things is now streaming on Netflix.