Stranger Things season 4 official trailer from Netflix
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Hit supernatural series Stranger Things is counting to captivate and perplex fans in equal measure. The latest outing had some huge twists and turns no one saw coming. Sadly, audiences will have to wait for more answers after Netflix confirmed season four would be split with volume two coming out on July 1.
WARNING: This article contains spoilers from all seasons of Stranger Things and Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds
Is Dr Brenner really Eleven’s dad in Stranger Things?
Season four of Stranger Things saw the return of Dr Martin Brenner (played by Matthew Modine), who seemed to have more lives than a cat when he was revealed to be working on the Nina Project in a bid to save the world.
Eleven/Jane (Millie Bobby Brown) was left terrified when it seemed her ‘Papa’ had survived and was again experimenting on her so she could get her powers back.
Throughout Stranger Things, Eleven has always referred to the paternal figure as ‘Papa’, leading many to question if he was her biological father.
As seen in season four, Eleven isn’t the only one to call him ‘Papa’, indeed all the children at Hawkins Laboratory call him this – even though he carries out tests on them which potentially cause them pain.
Dr Brenner isn’t actually Eleven’s father and ‘Papa’ is simply the name he is known to her by. It seems to be Brenner’s way of making himself appear more friendly to her and the other subjects.
Eleven’s mother was a college student called Terry Ives (Aimee Mullins), who decided to take part in the experiment in the belief she was helping her country during the 1960s.
She was dating fellow student Andrew Rich with the young couple very much in love.
While taking part in the experiment, she fell pregnant with Andrew’s baby and hoped she could withdraw as a participant.
Sadly, Andrew never met his daughter after he was shipped off to Vietnam to fight in the war, where he was killed in battle.
So it was Terry’s boyfriend Andrew rather than Dr Brenner who is Eleven’s father.
To make matters worse, Dr Brenner stole Terry’s baby after she gave birth and faked a miscarriage to hide the abduction.
Despite Dr Brenner’s best efforts, Terry knew her child was still alive and tried several times to get her daughter back, including suing the scientist and talking to the press.
When all failed, Terry’s last-ditch attempt saw her breaking into Hawkins Laboratory where she found Eleven in one of the rooms.
Before she could take Eleven, she was hauled away by the guards and Dr Brenner administered electroshock therapy on her to make Terry forget about Eleven but she never could.
Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, the author of Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds, Gwenda Bond, shed further light on the relationship between Dr Brenner and Terry.
In one scene in Suspicious, Dr Brenner asked Terry if she’s had sex, something she was hesitant to answer and seemed to allude to sexual interest on his part. However, Gwenda said these were among the real-life questions asked by the scientists carrying out MK-Ultra experiments at the time.
The New York Times bestselling writer did a lot of period research and she was also sent a book by the show runners Matt and Ross Duffer to help her further.
Gwenda said: “I was rooting it the screening questions they would have asked. I think one of the threads I wanted to tease out in the book was what it was like for women at that time and different kinds of women.”
She added how she wanted to tap into the misogyny in this era, adding: “I wanted to not move away from those things.”
Reflecting on the relationship between Dr Brenner and Terry, and indeed the other participants, Gwenda said the scientist was ambivalent towards them.
She explained: “But I think Dr Brenner, ultimately if you’re experimenting on children, experimenting on human beings without telling them exactly what you’re doing or trying to do, obviously there is a level of complicity there and a level of seeing them as subjects in an experiment.
“So, I think that’s kind of the dynamic I was trying to get at there. He feels no compunction about asking these questions because they are his lab rats, in a sense.”
She also felt Dr Brenner was still a “villain” in Stranger Things and said he probably saw himself as a “hero” who was trying to save his country – regardless of the terrible things he’d done.
Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds by Gwenda Bond is available to buy now
Stranger Things season 4, volume 2 will be released on Netflix on July 1
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