When a show is beloved—like Stranger Things is—it can be hard to add new characters. Think about a show like Lost, when an attempt to show what life was like on “the island” for those not in the central group of characters led to the introduction of a couple who eventually became so detested by fans and critics that they were buried alive only a few episodes later. That’s not that uncommon in television—when something works, it works. And messing with that can be tough.
But that’s not what happens on Stranger Things. Yes, we got used to our central group of characters in Season 1, with Dustin, Lucas, Mike, Hopper, Joyce, Eleven, and Will. But then the show went and added some 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 a couple worthwhile entries into this group, the best, far and away, is Eddie Munson.
Munson, played with a delightful and complex charm by British actor Joseph Quinn, is a sixth-year senior at Hawkins High School and the leader of The Hellfire Club. When our story picks up in Season 4, while Lucas has gone on to popular kid things like “being on the basketball team,” Mike and Dustin have stuck with their nerd roots, and joined the Dungeons + Dragons society known as The Hellfire Club. And they get some sweet t-shirts and some intense pep talks from their leader—Eddie himself—as a thank you.
We won’t even begin to get into where things go with Eddie from there. But he’s a joy to watch on screen, and probably not at all what you’re primed to expect.
Who is Eddie, and why is he so vital to Stranger Things 4?
Courtesy of Netflix
Have you ever seen Freaks and Geeks? Eddie Munson is, essentially, the perfect meeting of the Venn Diagram between Freak and Geek. He sort of has the James Franco/Jason Segel aesthetic from that show—he’s a slacker, someone who clearly doesn’t care much about school or grades and sells drugs—but also very publicly embraces his geek side as well. He’s the leader of The Hellfire Club, a freaking Dungeons and Dragons society, after all.
Eddie is introduced as a loud, charismatic, and brash leader; he stomps on the table in the cafeteria, he shouts at people, and is generally just intense. And that’s what make his scenes with the soon-to-be-doomed Chrissy Cunningham such a pleasant surprise; Eddie isn’t just the loud guy he showed himself to be in the cafeteria, but someone who can be funny and really listen to someone when they’re having problems. Eddie and Chrissy really seem to be hitting it off and having a good time when, well….Vecna happens. Womp womp.
The rest of the season finds Eddie on the run—and the gang needs to figure out how to set things right. And that’s going to be hard.
Who plays Eddie?
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You may not 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 of Season 4.
And while he’s been consistently appearing in major projects alongside major stars since 2016’s Dickensisan (which aired on BBC and Amazon Prime Video), Stranger Things certainly is his biggest role yet—and could serve as a jumping point for a major breakout.
Quinn is a relative newcomer—but he played a small role in Game of Thrones and the J.J. Abrams-produced movie Overlord.
HBO
After Dickensian—a BBC murder mystery series that brings many Charles Dickens characters together in one neighborhood, kind of like a Charles Dickens Multiverse situation—Quinn has consistently appeared in major works. In 2017, he played Koner—a guard who greeted Arya Stark—in an episode of Game of Thrones. That same year, he appeared in Kenneth Lonergan’s version of Howards End alongside Hayley Atwell. in 2019, he appeared alongside Helen Mirren in Catherine the Great, which aired on HBO in the U. S.
Stranger Things isn’t his first experience in some major genre work, though—in 2018, he appeared in the J.J. Abrams-produced Overlord, a WWII movie with a horror twist.
Clearly, though, he’s shown to be capable of more. Let’s hope we get to see more of Eddie before too long.
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