Stranger Things: Eddie Munson’s “Master of Puppets” Scene Wasn’t in Original Scripts

The Stranger Things Season 4 finale brought with it a number of memorable moments, though the scene in which Joseph Quinn’s Eddie Munson plays an epic rendition of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” has become a fan favorite. Despite the impact the scene had, creators of the series Matt and Ross Duffer recently revealed that any notion of such a plan wasn’t in the original scripts for the series, but that it was conjured in time for the series to then retroactively include hints that would tease such an encounter. Stranger Things Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.

“What we call a ‘planned payoff’ in terms of, say, we get to the finale and we didn’t have the idea early on that Eddie was gonna be playing Metallica on the roof of his trailer,” Matt Duffer shared with Netflix Geeked. “That was one of our writers, Curtis [Gwinn], threw out that idea, because we were trying to figure out, ‘How are they gonna distract the demobats?’ And Curtis goes, ‘Well, what if he plays Metallica? What if he’s doing that on the top of his trailer? And then they’ve set up all these speakers?’ We fell in love with that idea, we’re like, ‘We have to do that,’ but we hadn’t really set him up as a guitarist.” 

He continued, “We knew that he was into that style of music, but we hadn’t set him up in that way. We were able to then go back, because none of this had been shot yet, and layer in the guitar, layer in his band. That scene with him and Chrissy, which is one of my favorite scenes, which humanized him in a real way and humanized Chrissy in a real way, was sort of a ‘whatever’ scene. It was just a drug deal exchange, so that scene we were able to layer in not just the fact that he has this band, we were able to humanize him.”

To say that the scene humanized him would be a bit of an understatement, as Eddie became one of the most beloved new characters of the season, an impressive feat given how many charming characters were already established in the series. By giving him such a courageous scene, it solidified him as one of the series’ all-time great figures.

Stranger Things Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.

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