<Li> Will Chase as Neil Hargrove, Billy's abusive father, Max's stepfather, and Susan's husband . </Li> <Li> Jennifer Marshall as Susan Hargrove, Max's mother, Billy's stepmother, and Neil's wife . </Li> <Table> <Tr> <Th> No . overall </Th> <Th> No. in season </Th> <Th> Title </Th> <Th> Directed by </Th> <Th> Written by </Th> <Th> Original release date </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> </Th> <Td> </Td> <Td> "Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers" </Td> <Td> The Duffer Brothers </Td> <Td> The Duffer Brothers </Td> <Td> July 15, 2016 (2016 - 07 - 15) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="6"> On November 6, 1983, in a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory in the town of Hawkins, Indiana, a scientist is attacked by an unseen creature . While bicycling home from a Dungeons & Dragons session with his friends, 12 - year - old Will Byers encounters the creature and vanishes . The next day, a buzz - cut young girl wearing a hospital gown steals food from a local diner . The owner, Benny, takes pity on her and feeds her before calling social services . From a tattoo on her arm, he learns that her name is Eleven . A woman posing as a social worker arrives and murders Benny . Armed men search the diner for Eleven, but she escapes . Will's mother Joyce believes she hears Will's voice on a distorted phone call, but her phone short circuits . Will's friends Mike, Dustin, and Lucas search for Will in the woods and find Eleven . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> </Th> <Td> </Td> <Td> "Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street" </Td> <Td> The Duffer Brothers </Td> <Td> The Duffer Brothers </Td> <Td> July 15, 2016 (2016 - 07 - 15) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="6"> The boys bring Eleven to Mike's house, where she sleeps in the basement . The next day, Mike nicknames her "El". She says that "bad people" are looking for her and refuses to meet Mike's parents . Scientists from the laboratory find a substance oozing from the walls of Joyce's home . At Mike's home, Eleven recognizes and points out Will in a photo . Dustin and Lucas want to inform Mike's parents about Eleven, but she uses psychokinesis to stop them . While searching for Will, Mr. Clarke, the boys' science teacher, discovers a scrap of a hospital gown outside the laboratory grounds . Nancy goes with her friend Barb to a party at her boyfriend Steve's house . Will's brother Jonathan investigates the woods where Will went missing . Hearing screaming, he runs to help but finds only Steve, Nancy, and their friends roughhousing around Steve's swimming pool . He secretly photographs them . Barb, left alone by the poolside, vanishes . Joyce receives another call from Will, hears music from his room, and sees something coming through the wall . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> </Th> <Td> </Td> <Td> "Chapter Three: Holly, Jolly" </Td> <Td> Shawn Levy </Td> <Td> Jessica Mecklenburg </Td> <Td> July 15, 2016 (2016 - 07 - 15) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="6"> Barb wakes up in an empty and decaying pool . She screams for Nancy and attempts to climb out but is dragged down by something unseen . Joyce strings Christmas lights around her home to talk to Will, who can turn them on and off . Hawkins Lab director Dr. Martin Brenner allows Hopper to view the lab's security camera footage . Hopper realizes it is fake . He and his deputies research Hawkins Lab, Brenner, and a woman named Terry Ives who claimed her daughter was taken by Brenner . Eleven has a flashback in which Brenner, whom she calls "Papa," has her put in solitary confinement for refusing to telekinetically harm a cat . Nancy worries about Barb, who is missing . Steve and his friends discover Jonathan's photographs . They destroy them and his camera . Nancy recovers a photo of Barb by the poolside and returns to Steve's house to search for her . Nancy finds Barb's car and sees the creature in the woods . Joyce establishes a code with Will using the lights, which he uses to tell her that he is alive but unsafe . He tells Joyce to run as a creature begins to climb through her wall . Will's apparent body is discovered in the water at a quarry . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> </Th> <Td> </Td> <Td> "Chapter Four: The Body" </Td> <Td> Shawn Levy </Td> <Td> Justin Doble </Td> <Td> July 15, 2016 (2016 - 07 - 15) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="6"> Eleven proves to the boys that Will is still alive by making contact through Mike's walkie - talkie . Joyce goes to the morgue to view the body and refuses to believe it is Will . The boys give Eleven a makeover so they can sneak her into school . Joyce hears Will in her living room wall . Tearing away the wallpaper, she sees him behind a membrane . At school, Eleven uses Mr. Clarke's ham radio to channel Will talking to his mother . Joyce demolishes the wall with an axe but reveals only her front porch . Nancy discovers a figure behind Barb in Jonathan's photo . Jonathan realizes that the figure matches his mother's description of the creature: a humanoid figure with long arms and no face . Nancy tells the police about her missing friend and subsequently admits to her mother that she slept with Steve . When she tells Steve about the police, she is irritated that he cares only about not getting in trouble with his father . Hopper confronts the state trooper who found Will's body and beats him until he admits he was ordered to lie . Hopper goes to the morgue and finds that Will's supposed body is a dummy . He breaks into Hawkins laboratory . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> 5 </Th> <Td> 5 </Td> <Td> "Chapter Five: The Flea and the Acrobat" </Td> <Td> The Duffer Brothers </Td> <Td> Alison Tatlock </Td> <Td> July 15, 2016 (2016 - 07 - 15) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="6"> Will's father Lonnie assures Joyce her experiences are hallucinations . Hopper discovers a portal in the basement of the lab but is knocked out by the lab's guards . He wakes at home and discovers a hidden microphone . Sheriff's deputies inform Hopper that Barb's car was found, but Hopper finds the state's involvement suspicious . The boys determine Will is trapped in an alternate dimension Eleven calls the "Upside Down," and he is being pursued by a monster similar to a Demogorgon . After Will's funeral, science teacher Mr. Clarke tells the boys that a high - energy spacetime tear could create a passage between dimensions . Using their compasses, they search for a disruption in the Earth's electromagnetic field . Eleven remembers encountering the creature during a lab experiment, and afraid, she redirects the compasses . Lucas notices and confronts her . Mike defends her, he and Lucas fight, and Eleven telekinetically flings Lucas off Mike . While Dustin and Mike tend to the unconscious Lucas, Eleven disappears . In the woods, Nancy and Jonathan find a wounded deer . The creature drags the deer away, and Nancy follows the trail of blood to a portal to the Upside Down . She crawls through and discovers the creature feasting upon the deer . She snaps a twig and draws the creature's attention . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> 6 </Th> <Td> 6 </Td> <Td> "Chapter Six: The Monster" </Td> <Td> The Duffer Brothers </Td> <Td> Jessie Nickson - Lopez </Td> <Td> July 15, 2016 (2016 - 07 - 15) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="6"> Jonathan pulls Nancy back through the portal and saves her from the monster . Later, Steve sees them together through her bedroom window and assumes they are dating . Nancy and Jonathan resolve to kill the monster and purchase supplies from an army surplus store . During a fist fight with Steve, Jonathan inadvertently assaults a police officer and is arrested . Joyce and Hopper track down Terry Ives, who is catatonic and tended by her sister Becky . Becky explains that Terry underwent Project MKUltra testing while unknowingly pregnant; she believed her daughter Jane was kidnapped by Brenner at birth . Joyce and Hopper conclude Eleven is likely Jane . Eleven shoplifts Eggo waffles . She recalls being asked to contact the monster and accidentally opening the portal to the Upside Down in the laboratory basement . While searching for Eleven, Mike and Dustin are ambushed by school bullies Troy and James . Troy holds Dustin at knifepoint and demands Mike make a suicidal jump into the lake where Will's body was discovered . Mike jumps but is levitated to safety by Eleven, who scares away the bullies . Lucas realizes agents from the laboratory are heading to Mike's house . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> 7 </Th> <Td> 7 </Td> <Td> "Chapter Seven: The Bathtub" </Td> <Td> The Duffer Brothers </Td> <Td> Justin Doble </Td> <Td> July 15, 2016 (2016 - 07 - 15) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="6"> Lucas warns Mike via walkie - talkie that government agents are en route . Mike, Dustin, and Eleven flee . Eleven telekinetically flips a van that blocks their path, and the kids escape . Lucas reconciles with Mike and Eleven . Joyce and Hopper are called to the police station because of Jonathan's assault . Jonathan and Nancy reveal their knowledge of the monster to Joyce and Hopper . The group contacts Mike and his friends and they rendezvous . They ask Eleven to search for Will and Barb, but her earlier feats have left her too weak to find them . To amplify Eleven's powers, they break into the middle school and build a sensory - deprivation tank . Eleven finds Barb's corpse with a slug - like creature crawling out of her mouth . With Joyce's help, she finds Will alive, hiding in the Upside Down "Castle Byers," his backyard fort . Hopper and Joyce break into Hawkins Laboratory but are apprehended by security guards . Nancy and Jonathan resolve to kill the monster and steal their hunting gear back from the police station . In the Upside Down, the monster breaks into the fort where Will is hiding . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> 8 </Th> <Td> 8 </Td> <Td> "Chapter Eight: The Upside Down" </Td> <Td> The Duffer Brothers </Td> <Td> Story by: Paul Dichter Teleplay by: The Duffer Brothers </Td> <Td> July 15, 2016 (2016 - 07 - 15) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="6"> Hopper gives up Eleven's location so that he and Joyce can enter the Upside Down . They find Will unconscious in the Upside - Down town library . They pull a tendril out of his throat, perform CPR, and revive him . Nancy and Jonathan booby - trap the Byers' home, then cut their hands to attract the monster with their blood . Steve arrives, intending to apologize to Jonathan about their fight, but the monster attacks . The monster springs the trap but escapes back to the Upside Down . Eleven and the boys hide in the middle school . Mike asks Eleven to a school dance, the Snow Ball, and kisses her . The military storms the school to re-capture Eleven, but she kills them and collapses . As Brenner cradles her, the monster attacks, apparently killing him . The boys hide Eleven in a classroom . The monster corners them, but Eleven pins it against a wall . She says goodbye to Mike, disintegrates the monster, and vanishes . Will is hospitalized and reunited with his mother, brother, and friends . Hopper is reluctantly picked up by a black car . One month later, Nancy and Steve are back together, and both are friends with Jonathan . Hopper leaves Eggo waffles and other food in a box in the woods . Will coughs up a slug - like creature and has a vision of the world as the Upside Down, but he hides this from his family . </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Th> No . overall </Th> <Th> No. in season </Th> <Th> Title </Th> <Th> Directed by </Th> <Th> Written by </Th> <Th> Original release date </Th> </Tr>

Name of the first episode of stranger things