The first part of Stranger Things Season 4 has been out for a little over a week now, which in Netflix streaming time makes it ancient. Suffice to say, there are spoilers in this article, so if you haven't yet watched the latest batch of episodes then you might want to stop reading.
The explosive new season of Stranger Things was, perhaps, the gruesomest yet for the series and for a while it seemed no character was safe from Vecna. Speaking to TVLine, series creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, revealed the one character they actually regretted killing early on in the season.
As it turns out, the character they wish they hadn't killed was Chrissy Cunningham. The popular cheerleader just so happened to be Vecna's first victim. She was brutally murdered by him at the end of "Chapter One: The Hellfire Club," right after she met up with Eddie Munson to buy some drugs, which she had hoped would help alleviate the terrifying hallucination she was having. While she no longer has to suffer through the hallucinations, it wasn't because of the drugs, unfortunately.
“We always have those moments [of ‘What have we done?’],” Matt Duffer told TVLine. “We shot the quote-unquote drug-deal scene in the woods pretty late, actually, into shooting.”
Ross Duffer revealed, "We had already killed Chrissy when we shot that."
For everyone who watched Chapter One, you probably understand the regret from the Duffer Brothers. The scene in the woods between Eddie and Chrissy was a heartwarming reunion between the two. And despite knowing so little about both characters at the time, it was hard not too immediately start rooting for them. The chemistry between Joseph Quinn and Grace Van Dien was mesmerizing to watch unfold on screen.
“The scene came alive in a way that was just so beautiful,” said Matt. “And so much of that was Joe and Grace. “t was just one of those fortunate scenes where we were able to have two cameras rolling capturing them simultaneously. Joe was doing a lot of stuff kinda spontaneously, and we were getting these amazing reactions from Grace.”
Unfortunately, Chrissy's screen time was cut short. Soon after their meet up in the woods, Chrissy was pretzeled by Vecna, but the Duffers had nothing but praise for Grace Van Dien. “It’s pretty impressive what Grace was able to do with very, very few scenes to get people to care like she did," Matt marveled.
This isn't the first time the Duffer Brothers have had regrets about killing a character. Matt revealed that he also didn't want to kill Bob (Sean Astin) in Season 2.
"I didn’t want to do that. We had fallen in love with both the character and Sean Astin. And Sean didn’t want to die. Winona Ryder didn’t want him to die," he revealed.
While Grace's time as Chrissy in Stranger Things was short-lived, the Duffer Brothers are hopeful to work with her again sometime in the future. In the meantime, Part 2 of Stranger Things Season 4 drops on Friday, July 1.