Stranger Things: Every Main Character Ranked Worst To Best

Netflix already had quite a few hits under their belt by 2016. Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, Daredevil, Jessica Jones. But when Stranger Things first premiered that year, it was nothing like the streaming service had ever seen before.

This wasn't just a popular show in online circles. The story of the vanishing of Will Byers took the entire world by storm with its masterful blend of eighties nostalgia and otherworldly horror. Seasons two and three have also been major smash hits, both pulling in Netflix's highest audience figures in their respective release years.

But while you may come for the aesthetic qualities of the show, you stick around for the characters. From the tortured psychic Eleven to the gruff chief of police Jim Hopper, Hawkins is a town full of a wide array of people to meet, both good and bad.

So who's the favourite? Who's the least favourite? And who's just sort of...okay?

Nobody likes a bully and as much as Billy Hargrove may have garnered our sympathies in season three by sacrificing his life to save his stepsister Max, that doesn’t change the fact that he was still a deeply awful person for much of his runtime.

His character in season two is pretty much exclusively defined by his cruelty, from brutally assaulting Steve Harrington to the point of unconsciousness to his racist attacks on Lucas Sinclair, a literal child.

There are reasons given for his mean streak throughout the show, in an attempt to garner our sympathies. The main one is his father, Neil, who is shown emotionally and physically abusing his son. This abuse is what prompted Billy's mother to abandon the family when he was about ten years old, leaving him with only fond holiday memories of her.

But this is not an excuse for his bad behaviour and while, again, his last stand against the Mind Flayer does not go unappreciated, he is simply the member of the main cast who has done the worst things on screen.