Stranger Things Star Still Supports “Justice for Barb” in Netflix Series

In the first season of Netflix’s Stranger Things, Shannon Purser’s Barb was killed off early on, with some audiences being so impressed with the character that they demanded “justice for Barb” in subsequent seasons, a campaign which Season 2 actor Sean Astin also supports. Astin’s character Bob also met an untimely demise, but he recently shot down the notion that there needed to be “justice for Bob,” as he met his end by saving the Byers family towards the end of the season. The new season of Stranger Things is expected to land on Netflix next year.

“This is the thing. Bob had justice. He died a hero’s death. Barb, no one knows what the hell happened,” Astin recalled to ScreenRant. “We need justice for Barb! We can have a statue for Bob, kind of a hero’s… Maybe I’ll stride a horse or something to recognize… Rename the Hawkins school after him or something like that. But he had… What is justice?”

To say that the success of the debut season of Stranger Things was a surprise would be a bit of an understatement, as it was absent of major stars and came from the relatively unknown Duffer brothers. In addition to how many fans were captivated by the adventure, no one anticipated how much Barb, and her death, would resonate with people. 

Barb was Nancy Wheeler’s (Natalia Dyer) best friend in the series who was killed by the Demogorgon as she was outside by a pool while Nancy was inside with Steve Harrington (Joe Keery). Given how early in the series Barb met her demise, the town of Hawkins only knew that she vanished without explicitly knowing the grim demise she suffered. Season 2 offered up “justice for Barb” by the ways in which this loss impacted Nancy, which included the character being seen to be memorialized. 

For Season 2, co-creator Ross Duffer previously shared with The Hollywood Reporter that they had always planned to offer up some sort of justice for the character.

“It’s something we wanted to do, even before the big Barb groundswell,” Duffer detailed back in 2017. “We started writing this season before Season 1 was released. But the storyline ended up taking longer than we expected, and it did evolve as we went forward.”

Neither Astin nor Purser is expected to appear in future episodes of Stranger Things.

Do you think there still needs to be justice for Barb? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars.