We all know and love the Netflix series "Stranger Things" with its intoxicating mix of 80s synth nostalgia and hip 21st Century self-irony. For Gen Xers its a glimpse into our childhoods; the freshness of Star Wars, Atari and New Wave music. It transports us back to those darken cinemas when horror movies could still scare us without copious amounts of blood and sex. The Duffer Brothers created "The Goonies" if it were directed by "John Carpenter". But ultimately Stranger Things tells us of a time we are probably misremembering. With the uncertainty and jiggery pokery of the current presidential administration, we all long for the simpler time of what we are now thinking the 80s were. The show is set in 1983 in a small Indiana town. Our stalwart crew of 5 friends were all born in the early 1970s. That would put them around their mid-to-late forties now. Here's my guess of what happened to the Boys and El in those 30 intervening years.
Will Byers, the boy whose disappearance kicked off a phenomenon realized during high school that it wasn't Jennifer Hayes--the girl crying at his funeral--that he wanted but his best friend Mike. He suppressed his feelings during college, even joining an ultra-religious cult. He tried his hand at being a Christian minister, finally coming to turns that he was gay. He left his wife and children in Hawkins and is not the manager of a graphic design business living with his 28 year-old Honduran boyfriend named Javier in Riverside, CA.
Mike Wheeler, the leader of the group, remained friends with the Boys until attended Notre Dame where he majored in accounting. He briefly lived in Chicago with El but had to return to Indiana when his father died of a massive heart attack. Eleven kept going back to the Upside Down so he ended up marrying Jennifer Hayes--the girl crying at Will's funeral--before they moved to Arizona and buying a lawn care/ beauty salon business in strip mall in Scottsdale. They named their oldest daughter, Twelve.
Lucas Sinclair, the brains and soul of the group graduated Hawkins High School, where he became class president, before going to Northwestern University where he majored in journalism and communication. After college he briefly came back to Hawkins where he ran as a Republican for the Indiana state senate. He languished on the back bench for a few years when he realized he was too ambitious for a small Midwestern town. He left Indiana and now owns a media company and frequently appears on cable news as a Never Trumper GOP strategist. He lives in Dallas with his wife who is a local newscaster.
Dustin Henderson, the funniest member of the group, never really hit his "stride" or at least that what he tells people where he works. He is the co-owner of a comic books store/ coffee house. He still lives in the same house he grew up in. He emails Lucas, Mike and Will regularly but they rarely email him back. He's the only one who is still in contact with El and he tries to go see Mr. Clarke at the SpringCare Nursing home but sometimes his 1997 Toyota Corolla breaks-down. Every Friday night he hosts a classic Sci-Fi party at the Hawkins Cinema.
Eleven finally found her birth mother in the neighboring town. Their relationship was turbulent and thankfully short. Plus her aunt kept wanting El to give her money for cigarettes and drugs. She lived with Mike for a while when he was in Chicago but she could never adjust to normalcy. She joined the Peace Corp and travelled the world helping people. The last anyone heard of her she had invited a sustainable sweet potato--the proceeds from which she bought stock in Kellogg.
Nancy Wheeler, Mike's precocious sister, left Hawkins and never looked back. She attended NYU--along with Jonathan Byers. They hooked up once after a drunken party at friend's apartment on St. Mark's but nothing came of it. She went to graduate school in Boston where she studied Political Science. She interned in the Clinton White House. She kept telling Monica Lewinsky, "Don't get caught with the monster, Barb." but the intern just looked at her with distain. Afterward she went to work in various organizations until she was tapped to run the New York Office of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. She and Steve Harrington still see each other whenever they have time.
Jonathan Byers, Will's brother, got his lifelong wish and attended NYU and studied photography. He never went back to Indiana to live. In 2016 he won a Pulitzer Prize for his coffee table book entitled "Hillbilly Hawkins: A Town and Country in Crisis". The book was about the poor downtrodden white families of Hawkins that had succumbed to drugs when the government shuttered Hawkins National Laboratory.
Steven Harrington went to the University of Indiana on a lacrosse scholarship. He flunked out and ended up going to East Indiana State where he became a computer programmer. He met his future wife there and they both moved to Indianapolis and started a company that helped corporation protect their data from cyber-attacks. He was fired after one of his major clients, the DNC, was hacked in 2016. His son Kenny, who doesn't talk a lot, also attended East Indie with a kid named Axl Heck.
Joyce Byers remained in Hawkins. She went on to manage Melvin's General Store when Donald got too old. There were always rumors that she and Hop had an affair but she and the guy who ran the local Hawkins Radio Shack ended up in a common law marriage. She quietly tells friends that Will "turned gay" after the tragic events of that week in November, 1983.
Karen Wheeler, Mike's mom was devastated after her husband died of a massive heart attack. She didn't love him but who else was going to take care of her and her young daughter. To get her mind off things she went on a cruise where she met a former Indianapolis Colt running back who owned a string of car dealerships across the Midwest. They were married before the cruise was over and she moved with him to a mansion in Indianapolis. Her daughter Holly, grew up and is the communications director of a mega-church near Cleveland and spends all her time spreading the word of God and trolling liberals with pro-Trump propaganda on social media.
Chief Hopper stayed on as the local sheriff. He successfully kept the town safe. He never seemed to find love and went through years of unsuccessful relationships with a succession of librarians. He finally retired from the force and pretty much stays in his trailer. He's sometimes seen in town where people whisper that he sits in front of his TV watching Fox News and screaming about the Deep State. They say he refuses to use any electronic devices.
