Stranger Things: One Thing Made Eddie Munson's Last Words Even More Powerful
"Stranger Things" introduced several new characters in Season 4, including Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), who quickly formed a bond with Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo). Early in the season, Eddie is suspected of being involved in the death of Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien), and Dustin is one of the only residents of Hawkins who comes to Eddie's defense.
In the season finale, Eddie and Dustin form a critical pairing in the group effort to thwart Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower).
While Eddie's epic "Master of Puppets" solo buys the team a few minutes of extra time, Eddie is still killed by Vecna's army of bats, and he dies in Dustin's arms while Moby's "When It's Cold I'd Like to Die" plays softly in the background.
Eddie makes Dustin promise to look after the rest of the group when he's gone, but he claims that graduation — and not his imminent death — will be what keeps him from being there to do so himself.
"I think it's finally my year," Eddie said while struggling to take his final breaths. His last words to Dustin are simply, "I love you, man." Dustin, through tears, replied, "I love you, too." The emotional moment between the two popular characters was apparently improvised by Quinn, something the show's writers confirmed on Twitter in July of last year.
Stranger Things fans did not take Eddie's death gently
The announcement that Eddie's expression of love for Dustin was improvised came via the official Twitter account for the "Stranger Things" writer's team, and fans used that direct access to the writers to make their disapproval known. Twitter user @asolerno did not mince their words one bit, replying simply, "killing Eddie was stupid."
@Hannah99367760 had a compliment for Joseph Quinn to go along with their pointed criticism for the writing team, writing, "Joe brought so much life into this character. But fr screw yall for killing him for the shock value because you're too scared to kill older characters."
Several commenters suggested the show somehow bring Eddie back to life, and others indicated that killing Eddie off was a sin that could not be forgiven. @bestofjosephq suggested unleashing Vecna himself on the writing team, and @tbhpaladin used one of the writers' own weapons against them, quoting a line often used by the characters on the show to make their point. "The duffers said that the demobats don't kill," they wrote. "Friends don't lie."