As soon as the first chapter of Netflix’s Stranger Things: Season 4 dropped in May 2022, everything was suddenly bigger. The cast were shedding their child selves before our very eyes. The budgets were juiced. As the first volume of Stranger Things closed, Nancy was on the cusp of rescue alongside Steve (Joe Keery), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Robin (Maya Hawke), and Eddie (Joseph Quinn) when Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) put her mind in his clutches. Now, as the group searches for music to play that might snap her out of the trance – an Iron Maiden cassette is proffered, which is crazy because doesn’t Vecna sort of resemble the band’s ghoulish mascot Eddie? – the malevolent being once known as Henry Creel and inside HNL as One shows Nancy his evil plan for Hawkins and the world at large. While Vecna is using Nancy as his supernatural messaging service, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is under observation by Brenner (Matthew Modine) and Owens (Paul Reiser) at NINA, ruminating over what’s remembered from that terrible day at the laboratory and flexing with the return of her telekinetic powers. She can see her friends back in Hawkins, hashing out a plan to take down Vecna; she can also see how dangerous of an idea that is, given all they don’t know about his power and intentions. But what Eleven can’t see is Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Will (Noah Schnapp), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and the perpetually stoned Argyle (Eduardo Franco), who right then are racing across the Nevada desert toward NINA in the Surfer Boy Pizza van.