If you even glanced at social media in the days leading up to the release of Volume 2 of Stranger Things Season 4, one thing was blatantly clear: Fans were terrified that one or more of their beloved characters were going to bite the dust — particularly, Eddie Munson.

Devastatingly, that fear was realized. In the Season 4 finale, Eddie (Joe Quinn) goes out in a moment of metal glory, battling a horde of Demobats to protect a town that vilified him for a crime he didn’t commit.

Despite Matt Duffer warning us that fans were likely to be “more frightened than they are normally for our characters” come Volume 2, and the bloodthirsty Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) killing Hawkins teens for sport all season, Eddie’s death left diehards around the world distraught. The Duffer brothers expected nothing less. Before the finale dropped, the co-creators texted Quinn saying, “We’re kind of bracing ourselves,” the actor tells Tudum over Zoom from England.

Eddie Munson (Joe Quinn) goads his D&D party in Episode 1 with a question that will haunt him for the rest of the season: “Do you flee Vecna and his cultists, or do you stand your ground and fight?”

Tina Rowden/Netflix

Like any great — if initially reluctant — hero, Eddie goes out confronting his fears and standing up to his demons. Since the first episode of Season 4, the president of Hawkins High School’s Hellfire Club has grappled with the idea of turning and running in the face of danger or fighting to the bitter end. But after high school cheerleader — and budding love interest — Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien) is cursed by Vecna and dies in front of a powerless Eddie, he feels ashamed. “I think that’s the motif that runs through his arc, really,” Quinn reflects. “It’s about confronting one’s problems. It’s about redemption, about bravery. All of those seeds are planted in those earlier episodes, and they bear fruit later on.”

As the season progresses, and Vecna preys on more victims, Eddie starts to realize his mettle and steps into a more active role in taking his life back and planning the attempted demise of Vecna. “In one of the [Episode 8] scenes, he says, ‘There will be no more running from Eddie the Banished,’” recalls Quinn. “At some point, there’s a shift that happens in his head, and he’s determined to not be this scared little boy and try to be proactive.” 

By the finale, Eddie is prepared to see that brave claim through to the end. Alongside his best bud/younger brother figure Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), Eddie draws out Vecna’s Demobats by playing the most metal concert ever — in any dimension. From the top of his trailer in the Upside Down, Eddie declares, “Chrissy, this is for you,” before ripping his guitar pick off his necklace and going ham, performing a highly anticipated guitar solo from Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.”

“I think he just feels that sense of guilt over everything that happened to Chrissy,” says Quinn of the tribute. “In that moment, if he’s able to avenge her, this is his way. So, I imagine there’s a catharsis there. And it’s just fucking badass, isn’t it?”

“Grace Van Dien is a brilliant actress and lovely person,” Quinn says. “It's such a tragedy when she leaves us and she makes that happen in a very short amount of time.”

Tina Rowden/Netflix

“Master of Puppets” was originally released on March 3, 1986, around the same time Season 4 of Stranger Things is set. “I think we figured that out pretty close to shoot day, if not on the shoot day, which was hilarious,” says Quinn. To him, the song feels like a “smack in the face,” building as the “perfect engine through that whole sequence.” Lyrically, the track can take on a handful of meanings, from confronting Vecna, the puppet master, to Eddie making the bats obey him, luring them with his music. 

Quinn was also pulling those strings for real — even if his guitar strumming isn’t exactly what you’re hearing on screen. “There was a backing track when we were playing on the day, but I was playing along to it,” Quinn says, before bashfully adding, “I don’t know if anyone would want to hear it.” Millions of devoted fans on social media beg to differ. 

“I think it’s about Vecna being the master of puppets and us trying to confront that,” Quinn says of the use of the song “Master of Puppets.”

Though the actor’s been playing music since primary school, the Duffers weren’t aware of his talents when they cast him. It was only during the pandemic that they happened to email Quinn to ask if he played. “I was like, ‘I mean, I can play guitar. I’m no virtuoso, but I’ll be able to get away with looking like I play guitar.’ I hope,” recalls Quinn. “They said, ‘OK, good to know.’” Quinn didn’t hear anything else on the matter from the brothers until he received the script for Episode 9, then he immediately “went and bought a guitar and manically started practicing.” When he initially learned of Eddie’s death, while poring over the script at 3 a.m., he wondered, “How the hell have they come up with that?”

As masterful a solo as it is, though, Eddie’s rendition of “Master of Puppets” ultimately isn’t enough to distract the Upside Down’s puppet master, and the metalhead ends up taking on hundreds of the monsters all by himself in a bid to buy his friends — and the world — more time. His loyal pal, Dustin, goes after him, but it’s too late for Eddie, who’s been mauled to death by Demobats. “It’s just so heartbreaking, isn’t it?” Quinn says. “I think it would’ve meant the world to him in those moments [that Dustin came back for him]. Before we pass on, God willing, you don’t want to be alone, do you? You want someone to get you there.”

Filming that big death scene came at the end of a long night shoot, where things were a bit hectic. “I went into this prosthetics surgery table where Amy [L. Forsythe, head makeup artist] and the rest of the team were dressing me and getting me ready while they were shooting some other stuff and putting various kinds of contact lenses in, and then the camera was on,” recalls Quinn. “I was freezing.”

“As always, I just run up to the [Duffer] brothers and go, ‘Use that one. Don't use that one.’ They both go, ‘Fuck off,’” Quinn jokingly shares of his reaction to filming multiple takes of his death scene with Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo).

But despite the on-set chill and chaos, Quinn and Matarazzo (whom Quinn calls “a darling”) found time for a “little bit” of a hug when they called cut. “It was a wonderful privilege to be able to do that scene with Gaten.”

While the Duffers have since been bracing themselves for the outcries over Eddie’s fate, Quinn is simply “so touched that people have been so welcoming and have responded in such a way to Eddie,” he says. “I definitely remember having those characters that I loved when I was younger and that feeling of ownership and protectiveness towards them. And to feel that, in any small way, there are some people out there that have felt like that about a character that I’ve played is truly a mind-bending thing. I feel very, very lucky.” 

Some of those characters Quinn loved when he was younger even shaped parts of Eddie. “I loved Lord of the Rings, all of the characters in those,” he says. “I loved Captain Jack Sparrow [in Pirates of the Caribbean]. I thought that that character was just such a brilliant performance from Johnny Depp. And I have stolen little bits from him that I think I’ve put a little bit in Eddie.”

As for Eddie’s legacy, even thinking that one might exist is a strange thing for Quinn. “It’s just such an extraordinary question to try and answer,” he says. “There seems to be something in his story that is touching people — being falsely accused, redemption, I guess, is a motif in his story, self-sacrifice, friendship, camaraderie.”

And, yes, he’s heard the “Chrissy, Wake Up” song doing the rounds on social media that people are turning into their alarm ringtones. “It’s hilarious,” he says, but he won’t be letting his No. 1 fan in real life (and on Twitter), his dad, make it his own alarm anytime soon. “No, he doesn’t need any more encouragement,” he adds, laughing. 

Neither do Eddie’s fans, who will undoubtedly continue to rage against the injustice done to Eddie. Most in Hawkins still believe Eddie killed Chrissy, Fred (Logan Riley Bruner) and Patrick (Myles Truitt) as part of a satanic ritual, labeling the string of deaths as the Munson Murders. But Quinn has some perspective on the matter. 

“Well, that’s the nature of sacrifice, isn’t it? You know, sometimes, it’s unfair,” he says about Hawkins never learning the truth of Eddie’s innocence. “But we know. That’s all that matters.”

We also know that Quinn would jump at the chance to return in Season 5 for a vision or dream sequence, if asked: “Oh, come on! Obviously, yeah,” he says. So, maybe we can take heart in the fact that Eddie the Banished isn’t necessarily banished... for good.