Eddie Stranger Things, two words that have been repeatedly spoken in excitement for Stranger Things Vol 2!
Eddie, to the point of becoming one of the favorite characters in Netflix’s most popular series: Stranger Things won over fans of the show from the very first episode. In the space of one season, he captured the hearts of fans. If we look at Eddie Munson with a microscopic lens we see that he is the leader of the role-players of the Hellfire Club, who joins the gang after becoming an outcast. Eddie gets accused of a murder he did not commit and it helped the story writers pen out the tale of a young man who will take part in the fight against the terrifying Vecna, the antagonist of the 4th season, signifying a cult scene where he plays electric guitar on Master of Puppets by Metallica. Was he the master or a puppet? Fan theories have gotten ridiculous! Let’s dive in!
If You’re A Huge Eddie Stranger Things Fan Then Read This Now!
1. The future for Eddie Munson and fan theories:
The real story behind new gang member Hawkins High offers Stranger Things fan theory that might tell the shocking truth about Eddie.
Background:
As we all know Stranger Things 4 Vol. 1 featured the leader of Hawkins High’s Hellfire Club, a Dungeons & Dragons group created by Eddie Munson (the new fan-favorite character due to his hilarious wit and sense of style).
HHHC or triple H C is a group that also includes Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), and Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin). At the start of Season 4, it is revealed that Eddie is a senior at the school, but he was held back twice. So he’s a bit older than a typical high schooler.
Eddie (played by Joseph Quinn) witnesses the death of Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien) while in her trailer for a drug deal. Because of this, he becomes a suspect in her murder case and goes into hiding. Mike and his friends suspect that Vecna, a monster from the Upside Down, may be responsible for Chrissy’s death, so they track down Eddie and tell him about their previous encounters with the other realm.
Later in the season, Eddie joins the children of Hawkins High on their mission to find an open door to the Upside Down. He finds himself with Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Robin (Maya Hawke) and Steve (Joe Keery) in Upside Down, where season 4, volume 1 ends.
Is Eddie TEN (10) aka ELEVEN’s (11) friend?
Many Stranger Things fans are wary of Eddie’s mysterious past, whose complicated past isn’t really touched on in the new season.
One stranger thing fan theory has gone viral on social media sites like Reddit and TikTok: Eddie is actually 010 (Ten), one of Eleven’s “siblings” at Hawkins Lab.
As viewers learn in season 4, Henry Creel/Vecna/One (Jamie Campbell Bower) was responsible for the Hawkins Lab massacre years ago. He presumably killed all of the children in Dr. Brenner’s (Matthew Modine) program except for Eleven. At the time of the massacre, Ten was working with Dr. Brenner who ended up in the right place at the right time in a separate room from the other children. Dr. Brenner survived the attack; what if Eddie survives too?
The theory states that Ten may have secretly survived and escaped from the lab. He then grew up as Eddie Munson.
3 Pieces of evidence point to Eddie being one of the Hawkins Lab kids:
- First, Eddie told Chrissy he had “buzzy hair” in middle school, which is what all the Hawkins Lab kids looked like.
- Second, Eddie wears a watch on his left wrist, which could cover up his 010 tattoo.
- Third, some fans are suspicious of Eddie’s acceptance when the Hawkins children tell him about the powers of the Upside Down and Eleven. He’s not even a little shocked that another realm with monsters could exist and that experiments on telekinetic children took place in Hawkins.
Hawkins Lab kids debunked:
While some Stranger Things viewers agree with Eddie Munson’s past at Hawkins Lab others don’t think the evidence is strong enough. In the comments on a TikTok video, fans mentioned that the timeline didn’t add up. Ten’s age was never specified, but fans believed he was around 12 or 13 when the massacre happened. If Chrissy knew him in middle school, that would mean he went from the lab to regular school with unusual speed, especially after such a traumatic event.
Even though Eddie isn’t Ten, it looks like he’ll be playing a bigger role in Season 4 Vol. 2 based on the fact that the teaser shows him shredding on his guitar in the Upside Down with new photos from upcoming episodes showing Eddie helping the Hawkins gang with their investigation!
2. Eddie is played by British actor Joseph Quinn:
You can’t tell based on his perfect accent and Brendan Fraser in Airheads look, but actor Joseph Quinn – who plays Eddie Munson – is actually British. The 29-year-old actor is one of the most important new characters in Season 4.
And while he’s appeared regularly in big projects alongside big stars since 2016’s Dickensisian (which aired on Amazon Prime Video and BBC as well), Stranger Things is certainly his biggest role to date – and could serve as the starting point for a major breakthrough.
3. Eddie became vital to Stranger Things 4:
Munson is a sixth-year high school student at Hawkins High School and the leader of the Hellfire Club.
When a show is loved—like Stranger Things is—it can be difficult to add new characters. Think of a show like Lost, when an attempt to show what life on “the island” was like for those not in the core group of characters led to the introduction of a couple who eventually became so hated by fans and critics that they were buried alive a few episodes later. It’s not that rare on television – when something works, it works. And playing with that can be difficult.
But that’s not what happens in Stranger Things. Yes, we got used to our core cast of characters in Season 1, with Dustin, Lucas, Mike, Hopper, Joyce, Eleven, and Will. But then the show added great characters – Max, Murray, Billy (RIP) and Bob (RIP – in season 2, and did it again – Robin (!!!) – in season 3. And while season 4 has some interesting entries in this group, the best, by far, is Eddie Munson.
When our story picks up in Season 4, as Lucas moved on to popular school activities like “being on the basketball team”, Mike and Dustin stayed true to their nerd roots and joined the Dungeons + Dragons Company known as The Hellfire Club. And they get cute t-shirts and intense pep talks from their leader – Eddie himself – as a thank you.
We won’t even begin to understand where things are going with Eddie from here. But it’s a joy to watch it on screen, and probably not at all what you’d expect.
4. Offers a deliciously complex charm:
A daring 80s metalhead who runs the Hellfire Club, Hawkins High’s official D&D club. Hated by those who don’t understand him – and loved by those who do – Eddie will find himself at the terrifying epicenter of season 4’s mystery.
Some of us who saw the series Freaks and Geeks can draw a parallel where Eddie Munson is, essentially, the perfect half-freak, half-geek Venn diagram.
He kind of has that James Franco/Jason Segel aesthetic – he’s a slacker, someone who clearly doesn’t care much about school or grades and sells drugs – but is also very embracing publicly his geek side. He’s the leader of the Hellfire Club, a creepy Dungeons & Dragons society, after all.
Eddie is presented as a loud, charismatic, and hot-headed leader; he stomps on the cafeteria table, yells at people, and is usually just intense. And that’s what makes his scenes with soon-to-be-doomed Chrissy Cunningham such a pleasant surprise; Eddie isn’t just the loud guy he showed up in the cafeteria, but someone who can be funny and really listen to someone when they’re in trouble. Eddie and Chrissy seem to be getting along really well and having a great time when, well…Vecna comes along.
The rest of the season finds Eddie on the run and the gang must figure out how to put things right. And it’s going to be hard.
5. Spot the actor Joseph Quinn on GOT:
Quinn is a relative newcomer, but he had a small role in Game of Thrones and the JJ Abrams-produced film Overlord.
After Dickensian — a BBC murder mystery series that brings many Charles Dickens characters together in one neighborhood, much like a Charles Dickens multiverse situation — Quinn has regularly appeared in major works. In 2017, he played Koner – a guard who took in Arya Stark – in an episode of Game of Thrones. That same year, he appeared in Kenneth Lonergan’s version of Fin Howards alongside Hayley Atwell. in 2019 he appeared alongside Helen Mirren in Catherine the Great, which aired on HBO in the United States
Stranger Things isn’t his first experience in a major genre work, however – in 2018 he appeared in the JJ Abrams-produced film Overlord, a WWII film with a horror twist.
Clearly, however, he showed he was capable of more. Hopefully we can see more of Eddie before too long.
6. Eddie’s character has been adopted from a true crime:
The fourth season of Stranger Things brought not only the mighty monster Vecna, but also a charismatic and aggrieved character Eddie, played by the British actor Joseph Quinn.
The plot creators, the Duffer Brothers, had previously revealed that the inspiration for creating the character was one of the screenwriters. However, they were only inspired by the “metal” look of the 1980s, and Eddie’s story was based on a real and disturbing case.
In the 1980s, the population of the United States went into a mass hysteria called Satanic Panic, where many believed that those involved in “satanic cults” were committing brutal murders across the country.
The Satanic Panic has led to unjust charges and convictions without sufficient evidence, and many people have paid the price for allegedly committing brutal and sadistic crimes. The story was so shocking at the time that one specific case served as inspiration for the latest season of Stranger Things.
Even before the Netflix series, a case inspired the making of the documentary. Paradise Lost: The Robin Hood Hills Child Murders 1996. Shows how three teenagers were wrongfully convicted of the murder and mutilation of three pre-teen boys, with charges pointing to alleged satanic rituals.
In Stranger Things, the Hellfire Club was accused of being satanic. The population is very conservative and uber-religious in the community where the crimes took place, in the US state of Arkansas, and in the documentary, the directors interviewed several people connected to the case, including the accused and the relatives of the victims.
In the trials, the teenagers even took responsibility, but the documentary shows reasons that indicate the statements were the product of coercion. Documentary production also provided relevant information on the progress of the case which has been neglected by the police or the army. It was not until 2011, more than two decades later, that they were freed, and to this day it is unclear who the real killers of the children were.
In Stranger Things, things happen the same way. With Vecna choosing traumatized and psychologically shaken youths as victims, these teenagers were cruelly murdered, leaving no idea who the criminal might have been.
As Eddie was with the first victim, character Chrissy (Grace Van Dien), the young man fled to avoid arrest for believing he was the murderer. Then begins a search for him, reinforced by prejudices in the image of the character and the Hellfire Club.
While the people of Hawkins believe the Hellfire Club was a satanic cult, the group is actually a collection of nerdy teenagers who are fans of the Hellfire Club playing Dungeons and Dragons.
7. Everybody loves Eddie at Comic-Con:
The actor who plays the favorite character Eddie from Season 4 of Stranger Things was moved to tears by the statements of a fan during the London film & comic con.
Those who found this character particularly endearing, it is thanks to the performance of its interpreter, the British actor Joseph Quinn, who has gained popularity thanks to the series.
When a project becomes a pop culture icon, it’s customary for actors to tour conventions. The organization of the London film & comic con probably did not expect such enthusiasm from the public. Indeed, the actor had to be escorted by the security forces following a crowd movement. The actor would also have been manhandled by the security of the event which would have prohibited him from interacting with the people who came to see him to save time as there were so many of them.
Most interestingly the organizing company ShowMasters overbooked Joseph Quinn with more than 400 tickets sold for a meeting with the actor, who, despite the fatigue, did everything to satisfy the public who came to meet him.
The actor couldn’t hold back his tears and stated:
“I don’t really have a question to ask, I really wanted to express my gratitude. I’m sure many of us heard what happened yesterday, whether it was true or not, about how you were treated. I will not comment on that. But I just wanted to say thank you from all of us, we really appreciate you taking your time for us. Thanks for signing our stuff. Thank you for spending time with us and making our summer better. I think we’re all really connected to Eddie, for one reason or another, whether we like his taste in music or he’s an outsider like you mentioned. I think we all have a part of Eddie in us.”