Joyce Byers

*But, God help me, I will keep these lights up until the day I die, if I think there’s a chance that Will's still out there!*

**Joyce Byers**, portrayed by the talented and beautiful Winona Ryder, is a main character in *Stranger Things*. She is financially struggling as she is the single mother of Jonathan and Will Byers.

In November, 1983, after Will mysteriously disappeared, Joyce was certain that he was communicating with her through the lights in her house. Despite everyone treating her as if she was having a mental breakdown, Joyce refused to believe that Will was dead, even after his alleged corpse was found. Through cooperation with her friend and local police chief Jim Hopper, Will’s friends, and Jonathan, she eventually uncovered the circumstances of her son’s disappearance and entered the Upside Down to rescue him.

A year later, in 1984, Joyce struggles to live a normal life with her charming boyfriend, Bob Newby, while also growing overprotective of Will, who has been suffering from visions of the Upside Down. As her son's health declines rapidly, she, Bob, Hopper, and Will's friend Mikediscover that Will has become possessed by the Upside Down's most dangerous inhabitant: The Mind Flayer, who summons an army of Demodogs to attack Hawkins. After losing Bob to said creatures, Joyce refuses to lose her son to the monster, burning it out of Will and once again saving him. However, she struggles to recover following the aftermath of Bob's death.

By the summer of 1985, Joyce is extremely lonely and rebuffs Hopper's romantic interest. But everything changes when she discovers her magnets losing their magnetism. Believing it having to with the Upside Down, Joyce convinces a reluctant Hopper to investigate and discover Russians have infiltrated Hawkins to weaponize the Upside Down's inhabitants, and are using the town's power to open the Gate the crew had worked so hard to close. Soon, Joyce, Hopper, a Russian scientist named Alexei, and Hopper's acquaintance Murray Baumanrace back to Hawkins and team up with their children to close the Gate once more, all while being chased by a Russian assassin. Joyce successfully closes the Gate, but at the cost of Hopper's life, as he seemingly disintegrated upon the Gate's explosion. Joyce then adopts Hopper's daughter, Eleven, into her family, and three months later, tearfully moves out of Hawkins.

By the spring of 1986, in order to start a new life after the devastating events at Starcourt Mall, Joyce has moved from Hawkins to California with her two sons and Eleven. While working from home selling encyclopedias by phone, she receives a strange package from Russia and is determined to figure out who's behind it. She opens the box to find a doll with a note hidden inside, which says that Hopper is alive and is a prisoner in Russia. She has to call a number to ransom him. The number connects her to Dmitri Antonov, who demands payment of $40,000 in return for helping Hopper escape, using pilot Yuri Ismaylov as a proxy. Joyce calls Murray, who comes to Lenora Hills. Together, they call Dmitri. Then, they both fly to Alaska and meet with Yuri, who double-crosses both them and Antonov in order to receive a reward for their capture. However, midway through the flight to the USSR, Joyce and Murray manage to subdue Yuri. With no one able to fly the plane, they crash land in the USSR. Murray, Joyce and Yuri survive the plane crash. They force Yuri to tell them where Hopper is, and they go to the isolated gulag to find that Hopper and Antonov, along with other disgraced prisoners, are meant to fight a captive Demogorgon. The Demogorgon kills all prisoners except for the Antonov and Hopper. While Hopper holds off the Demogorgon, Joyce and Murray defeat the guards and manage to open the doors to the arena, allowing Hopper and Antonov to escape the demogorgon. Joyce and Hopper embrace and reunite.