Benny Hammond

Benny talking to Eleven.

**Benny Hammond**, portrayed by Chris Sullivan, is a recurring character in the first season of Stranger Things. He was the owner and chef at Benny's Burgers, a diner located on 4819 Randolph Lane in Hawkins, Indiana. After coming across a strange and disheveled little girl, Benny decided to cater for her, providing her with food and getting in touch with Social Services. However, this good deed would lead to his death at the hands of DOE agent Connie Frazier.

## Biography

### Background

Benny Hammond was born in the 1940s in Hawkins, Indiana. His father, John, bought a burger restaurant when Benny was in High School, and Benny worked at McColl Farm nearby. When Benny was 16, he began to work at the restaurant as a waiter. A few years later he would work as a chef, and, once his father died, would own the restaurant. When he was 27 he had a son named Aaron. Around this time he would marry and divorce several wives. He was a friend of Hopper, Earl, and Henry. According to Earl, Benny's ex-wives "didn't like him much", but otherwise he had few enemies.

Benny and Earl had planned to go fishing down the Etowah River on November 13, 1983, a trip Benny was looking forward to.

### 1983

On November 7, 1983, Benny was at the diner, talking with Earl and Henry. While he wasn't looking, a kid with a shaved head, wearing a hospital gown, entered the diner through the backdoor. The kid entered the kitchen, finding a portion of fries and began to feverishly eat. Benny turned around, noticing them, and shouted "Hey!". The child took the fries and started to run, but Benny caught them and was shocked to realize it was a female child with a shaved head.

Benny clothed, cooked, and cared for the girl. Benny somewhat unsuccessfully tried communicating with her; this was difficult as she was very shy and afraid to speak. However, he noticed the digits "011" tattooed on her left forearm and inquired her its meaning. After some attempts, the girl pointed to herself, implying that it was her name.

Shortly after Benny had found Eleven in his restaurant, Benny called social services, thinking she was a victim of serious abuse, due to her inability to respond properly and peculiar behavior.

## Death

He gets a knock on the door and he meets Connie Frazier, who is G-Woman, who poses as child services. When he gets suspicious of her, she calmly takes out her pistol and shoots Benny in the head. Later, Connie and the other G-Men arranged Benny's corpse to make it look like a suicide. His body was later found by the police. Hawkins National Laboratory had manipulated the scene to make it look like a suicide, but Chief of Police Jim Hopper later pieced together that Benny's demise was not his own doing. His death was avenged when El killed Connie.

## Trivia

* James uses the famous meme, "Oh my god! They killed Kenny! You bastards!" line from South Park, except with 'Benny' instead of 'Kenny'
* He is played by Chris Sullivan, who was Taserface in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
* In the original pilot script for the first episode, Benny was originally Harry, and his last name was Henderson, making him related to Dustin some way.
* Also in the original script, he had a Rottweiler dog which protects Eleven from the G-Men.