You may not remember that before Robyn (Maya Hawke) checked out Nancy (Natalia Dyer)’s Tom Cruise poster and ballerina jewelry box in the “Dear Billy” episode, El (Millie Bobby Brown) was also fascinated by Nancy’s jewelry box in Season 1. And Nancy’s wardrobe came in handy when it was time to disguise El in Season 1 and to make Robin seem like a studious college student in Season 4.
Early on in Season 1, Mike (Finn Wolfhard) tries to hide the fact he’s being bullied at school, which leads El to utter the immortal line, “Friends don’t lie.” Their positions are reversed in Season 4 when Mike finds out El was lying about life in her new town and that she has been the victim of merciless bullying the whole time.
That animal-themed figures El and the orderly Peter (Jamie Campbell Bower) use in the tense chess game in Season 4 Episode 7 makes us think of the moment in Season 1 when El uses the Demogorgon figure in Dungeons & Dragons to let Mike and his friends know what they’re up against. Both the Demogorgon and Vecna — the Season 4 villain — are named after existing characters in D&D. It’s all the more chilling knowing that Season 1 event takes place shortly after Eleven’s chess game with Peter/Vecna in the official timeline.
Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) arguing about what is really “true north” as he uses his compass to try to find a gate to the Upside Down happens in both seasons. In Season 1, they don’t find the gate, but Dustin the “compass genius” successfully leads them to the new gate at Lover’s Lake in Season 4.
In Season 1, El uses her powers to prevent her friends from finding the gate since it’s too dangerous, which prompts Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) to label her a “traitor” and suggest that maybe she’s the real monster. In Season 4, after her attack on Angela, she tells Mike (Finn Wolfhard) that everyone thinks she’s a monster. And she just might agree with them.
In Season 1, Sheriff Hopper (David Harbour) tells his then-girlfriend that he feels “cursed” because of his daughter’s death, the mysterious disappearance of Will and the apparent suicide of his friend Benny. In Season 4, while facing near death in a Russian prison, he tells former prison guard Dmitri Antonov (Tom Wlaschiha), “I used to think I was cursed,” but now he realizes, after assuming he’s caused Joyce’s death with his failed escape attempt: “I am the curse.”
In Season 4 flashbacks set before the events of Season 1, we learned that One honed his killing skills on poor, defenseless animals. You might have forgotten that Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) tried to force El to use her powers on a cat. When she refused, he had two orderlies drag her to the isolation room. In her fury and panic, she ends up killing one man, snapping his neck with a tilt of her head, just like One did in his attack on the lab.
Where have we seen people with bleeding eyes dropping dead before? When the government agents swarm the school in the Season 1 finale, trapping El, Mike, Caleb and Dustin in a hallway. El lets loose with her powers, killing them all. (Dr. Brenner is conveniently around the corner, and is spared, since El’s powers are now drained.) While El might not remember all the slaughtered kids and staff at the Hawkins National Labs, we certainly do. Most of Season 4 was spent making us think El had killed everyone at the lab (except Brenner) before making her escape.
El’s face off with One in Season 4 echoes (or, rather, prefigures) her battle with the Demogorgon in the Season 1 finale. In both cases, she pins them against a wall and blasts them into the next world — or next dimension.
We all remember Barb (Shannon Purser)’s terrible death and how it haunted Nancy. But we were so caught up with Vecna trying to take Max (Sadie Sink) in Season 4, that we didn’t realize at first he’d be gunning for Nancy next. The finale ends with her in the Upside Down, gazing in horror at Barb’s body.
