*This article contains spoilers for Stranger Things season 4*
Considering the show's characters often find themselves in life-threatening situations, Stranger Things has seen surprisingly few deaths through its first four seasons. In fact, Eleven actor Millie Bobby Brown has jokingly called out the show's co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer for not killing off enough people.
Despite their show's small number of fallen heroes, the Duffer Brothers still have their regrets – and now they've revealed the two they feel most gutted about stamping out: Sean Astin's Bob Newby and Grace Van Dien's Chrissy Cunningham.
The latter proves to be big bad Vecna's first victim in Stranger Things season 4, the sci-fi series' most recent chapter. Having succumbed to the villain's terrifying visions, her consciousness becomes trapped in the Mind Layer and he fatally crushes the troubled cheerleader. Fans were left terrified by the sequence – and a little disappointed too, a earliers on in the episode, Chrissy had shared a surprisingly sweet moment with Joseph Quinn's misunderstood Eddie Munson.
"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 explained: "We had already killed Chrissy when we shot that."
"The scene came alive in a way that was just so beautiful," Matt recalled. "So much of that was Joe and Grace. It 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 kind of spontaneously, and we were getting these amazing reactions from Grace. It's pretty impressive what Grace was able to do with very, very few scenes, to get people to care like she did."
Mentioning Bob, Joyce Byers' sweet-natured love interest who sacrificed himself in Stranger Things 2, Matt said: "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. But we'll find something else to do with Grace, something else to do with Sean."
Stranger Things 4 - Vol. 1 is available to stream now. Vol. 2 is set to arrive on July 1 – check out our Stranger Things season 4 release schedule for more information. If you've already binge-watched all seven episodes, why not check out our list of the best Netflix shows for some viewing inspiration.
