This is enough to tell you how crucial Max’s role and story arc is to this season of the Sci Fi show. The song that Max listens too, in order to evade Vecna, Kate Bush’s Running up that Hill is now on top of the music charts, despite being originally released in the 1985. Max is being targeted by Vecna and ends up exploring his lair in the Upside Down. While no new female characters are added to the mix in season 4, we see each of the abovementioned girls have their own moments that define the series. We are also introduced to Dustin’s new girlfriend Suzie (Gabriella Pizzolo)- an ace hacker who also gets to play a crucial role in the latest season of the show. Both Max and Erica eventually get bigger roles in season 3 of the show, which also features Robin (Maya Hawke), a friend of Steve who will end up investigating suspicious activities at the mall where they work together. There is also Erica Sinclair (Priah Ferguson), Lucas’ younger sister who is too smart for her own good. In season 2, we are introduced to Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), a no-fuss skateboarder who befriends Mike, Will, Lucas and Dustin. Many might argue that Nancy was a main character in season one, as she investigates Barb’s disappearance, however, other viewers feel that the Miss Wheeler’s part sees an upward graph from the follow up season.
In fact, viewers didn’t hold her in high regards for the way she treats her best friend Barb who eventually dies. Mike’s sister Nancy’s role(played by Natalia Dyer) focused mainly on her developing relationships with Steve and Jonathan. In season one of the web series, there were two primary female characters on the show- Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), a gifted girl who arrives in Hawkins after escaping a research facility and Joyce (Winona Ryder, leading the credit roll for the series)- a single parent desperately searching for her missing son Will. The evolution of female characters in Stranger Things These deaths connect our characters together, and are being orchestrated by Vecna from the upside-down world, who has a special connection with Eleven.
#Stranger things characters Patch
Meanwhile, Mike’s older sister Joyce is going through a rough patch in her relationship with Jonathan and it only gets complicated with the re-entry of her former boyfriend Steve into her life while she investigates the mysterious and gruesome deaths of high school students in Hawkins. She is being bullied at school, misses her adoptive father Jim Hopper and lies about leading a happy and happening life to her boyfriend Mike. Eleven has lost her special powers and is now living with Will and his mother Joyce and his elder sibling Jonathan in Lenora Hills. As it was with its previous two seasons, the story unfolds in different directions, with characters spread across Hawkins, Lenora Hills and Russia dealing with different sets of problems. Stranger Things came out with Volume 2 of its fourth season recently. Apart from the central character of Eleven, many women are integral to the show’s narrative now and we are not complaining.
But with each subsequent season, Stranger Things has not only managed to add more key female characters to its original roster, it has also managed to flesh them out well too. Four childhood friends in the 80s, hooked to a board game about role play, then searching for a lost BFF with the help of a girl with superhuman powers- it had boys bonding written all over it.
When Stranger Things debuted on OTT in 2016, a lot of us women viewers thought that this Sci-Fi show will be all about bromance.