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May 27, 2022 · After the events of Stranger Things season 1, the CIA set Dr. Brenner up at a secret lab in the New Mexico desert, in a repurposed storage silo that used to contain ICBMs. There, Brenner continued his research, presumably now focused on trying to figure out how the Hawkins Gate had been created.
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Dr. Martin Brenner, portrayed by Matthew Modine, was a main character in Stranger Things, appearing in the first and fourth seasons. Brenner starts out as one of the show's main antagonists, but returns in a more morally ambiguous role in the fourth season. Brenner also makes a guest appearance in the show's second season, and is the main antagonist of the novel Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds and the comic Stranger Things: SIX. Brenner also appears in Stranger Things: The First Shadow and Stranger Things VR.
Brenner, who allegedly worked for the US Department of Energy, was a government figure steeped in mystery and controversy. He was a research scientist, and the Director of Operations at Hawkins National Laboratory until November 1983. He had a major role in various controversial experiments and programs, including Project MKUltra.
In 1959, Brenner was contacted by a fearful woman whose son, Henry, displayed unusual behavior. Shortly after, Brenner discovered that Henry possessed dangerous psychokinetic abilities, and had killed his mother and sister. After convincing the government to let him take Henry into his custody, Brenner disabled the boy’s abilities via an implanted chip, while also reproducing his abilities in several child test subjects at Hawkins Lab, including Eleven. On September 8, 1979, Henry, who Brenner forced to work as a lab orderly, convinced Eleven to remove his suppressant chip. His abilities restored, Henry committed a massacre, killing all of Brenner's colleagues and "children". However, Brenner survived; he learned Eleven had somehow defeated Henry, causing him to vanish.
In the years that followed, Brenner tested the limits of Eleven's abilities through various experiments. In November 1983, Brenner's experiments indirectly unleashed a monster from another dimension into Hawkins, allowing Eleven to escape the lab. In the following week, Brenner and his team searched for Eleven while investigating the newly opened gateway to the other dimension (informally known as the Upside Down). This culminated in an unsuccessful attempt to capture Eleven at Hawkins Middle School, which drew the attention of the monster. Brenner survived the monster's attack and sustained only minor injuries, but was unable to return Eleven to the lab. Following the events of November 1983, Brenner was ousted as the lab’s director, and replaced by Dr. Sam Owens. The lab was shut down in 1984, and Brenner was falsely presumed deceased.
As a researcher and director of Hawkins National Laboratory, Dr. Brenner was highly manipulative, calculative, ruthless and ambitious. He was solely responsible for the abduction of Terry Ives's daughter, Eleven, to experiment on the child's dormant psychokinetic abilities. His atrocious nature was evident when he forced Eleven's mother to undergo electroshock therapy after she attempted to retrieve her daughter, frying Terry's brain and permanently damaging her mental state.
He was shown to be vicious when Eleven disobeyed him as he used to put her through cruel psychological torture and forcefully kept her in solitary confinement, even though she was just a child. He would also encourage her to push the limits of her psychic abilities, caring little about the toil she had to suffer. However, if she performed well, Brenner would "reward" her with affection and endearment.
Brenner would also adopt extreme measures to cover up the events of the Upside Down, for instance, manufacturing the fake body of Will even though Will was actually kidnapped, sending military agents and helicopters to take Eleven back as well as imprisoning Joyce and Hopper to compel them to reveal her location in exchange for saving Will. He has little concern for the lives of his men although he did appear genuinely distraught over Shepard’s death.
Despite how manipulating and deceiving Brenner is consistently shown to be, he appears to truly care for Eleven, seen when he risked his life carrying her to safety from the underground facility in the Nevada desert and died protecting her, unlocking her collar in his final moments and affirming his love for her. He seemed to care especially for One, going as far as cruelly putting Eleven through physical and mental torture to find him in the Upside Down, believing he was "always alive in the darkness" and shedding a tear in sadness when Eleven called him out for it. Another instance where Brenner showed protectiveness and care for his adopted children is when he grieved Ten's body, and was horrified upon discovering One having murdered all of his test subjects as well as when he punished Two for harming Eleven, however inhuman the punishment was.
•Authority: Being the Director of Hawkins National Laboratory until 1983, Dr. Martin Brenner had complete control over the test subjects, orderlies and other doctors at the lab, having a schedule for the test subjects and frequent lessons.
•High Intelligence: Dr. Brenner was a high-ranking member of the Department of Energy, and a member of Project MKUltra's faculty, so he had high intelligence, especially about neurology and objects such as sensory deprivation tanks.
Non-Familial
Eleven Eleven's history with Brenner runs deep: not only did he define her childhood, but he was potentially responsible for her very existence. Brenner had experimented on her mother Terry, who had volunteered to become a MKUltra test subject. While undergoing these tests, Terry mysteriously became pregnant. After discovering the pregnancy, Brenner took the child away directly from birth, raising her at Hawkins Lab. Brenner encouraged Eleven to do well and didn’t let the other kids bully her. He quickly punished Two for harming Eleven. After discovering how she banished Henry to the Upside Down, Brenner took an interest in Eleven. Throughout childhood, Eleven was treated harshly and severely. Brenner appeared to be Eleven's only source of social engagement, and thus she grew to be dependent on his attention. Brenner built himself up as a father figure, establishing a somewhat tender demeanor when in her presence. However, an unstated threat was present in even the most affectionate words he uttered, lurking just beneath the surface. When Eleven performed well, Brenner would "reward" her with affection. When Eleven disobeyed him, she would instead be subjected to cruel psychological torture. Even when Eleven was on her best behavior, she spent much of her time in solitary confinement, locked in a "bedroom" cell. Brenner's only true interest in the girl was her extraordinary power; her physical or mental health was merely of tangential importance to his goal. When Eleven performed extraordinary feats, Brenner appeared proud of her accomplishments. After Eleven, escaping from the lab, met Mike and his friends and experienced genuinely loving relationships for the first time, she could finally see through Brenner's facade. When he eventually found her and promised to take her home, she rejected his offer, instead crying and reaching out to her new friends. Brenner helped Eleven get her powers back to fight Henry. He refused to let her leave due to fearing she wouldn’t beat Henry and was shown to be affected when she called him out as the monster. Once the military came, Brenner protected Eleven until the very end and unlocked her collar, suggesting he did care for Eleven's future beyond his involvement in it. Terry Ives Terry was one of Brenner's MKUltra test subjects. After Brenner took her daughter from her, Terry grew to loathe him, filing a lawsuit against him. When Terry could produce no evidence against Brenner that he kidnapped her daughter, Terry decided to rescue her daughter instead. Carrying a gun, Terry barged her way into Hawkins Lab, knowing Brenner would attempt to stop her no matter what. When Terry managed to find her daughter, Brenner's men managed to kidnap her before she could escape with her daughter. Knowing Terry would stop at nothing until she got her daughter back, Brenner had Terry undergo electroconvulsive therapy. Once Terry's brain was damaged and no longer posed a threat, Brenner continued to use Terry's daughter for his own benefits. Kali Prasad Brenner was responsible for Kali's abduction and imprisonment in the lab at an early age and also adopted the same manipulation tactics on her as he did with Eleven, attempting to condition her into viewing him as a father figure. Vecna In 1959, Brenner was contacted by a woman named Virginia Creel and was intrigued when she informed him her son Henry was responsible for a number of inexplicable happenings at her household. After Virginia and her daughter Alice were killed by Henry, framing his father for their deaths, Brenner took Henry into his custody and discovering the boy to possess remarkable psychokinetic abilities, he decided to study him under the proposal to the government that the boy's abilities could be deployed against the Soviets. As a result, Brenner made Henry his first test subject, labeling him "One" and tattooing the number on his wrist. However, due to One being murderous and sadistic, Brenner had a chip called "Soteria" implanted his neck to sustain his powers and prevent him escaping his lab. Though overtime Brenner understood the nature of One's powers, he deeply mistrusted Henry for his sadism and would occasionally order the other orderlies to torture him as a means of intimidation. In addition, Brenner decided to recreate Henry's powers in newborn children through Project MKUltra by having pregnant volunteer test subjects take experimental drugs and stand in sensory deprivation tanks. After gaining enough children with psychokinetic abilities, Brenner had One who was the eldest of all the test subjects to work as an orderly in his lab and help train the children with their powers. Brenner kept One's existence a secret from the children, due to his violent nature. However, on September 8, 1979, One tricked Eleven into removing the Soteria chip out of his neck where he proceeded to massacre everyone in the lab, except for Brenner and Eleven. After One was banished into the Upside Down by Eleven, Brenner discovered through security footage that One was responsible for killing everyone in his lab, including his test subjects. Though angry and resentful at One for murdering all of his test subjects, Brenner believed One was still alive and trapped in the Upside Down, but despite not knowing for sure, he had Eleven unknowingly look for One through mental remote traveling while spying on the Soviet Union for the America government. However, in 1986, Brenner discovered One was indeed alive when he began murdering people in Hawkins. As a result, Brenner teamed up with Dr. Sam Owens to help Eleven restore her powers so she can defeat One, who was now going by the name "Vecna." After Eleven's powers had been restored, she called out Brenner for having her look for Vecna which resulted in the Mothergate opening and the deaths of many innocent lives, causing Brenner to shed tears of remorse. Ten Ten was one of Brenner's many test subjects. Brenner seemed to have a positive relationship with Ten.
*Appears via flashback in "Dig Dug", "The Gate", "The Hellfire Club", "Vecna's Curse", and "The Monster and the Superhero".
*Appears in a photograph in "Will the Wise".
•"Will you trust me?"
•"It's reaching out to you because it wants you - it's calling you, so don't turn away from it this time..."
•"She can't have got far..."
•"You have a wound, Eleven. A terrible wound... And it's festering."
•"Eleven came to us very young. Tragic circumstances, really. When she's older, she'll have a better understanding of what were trying to do here. The importance of it."
•"Eleven, are you listening?"
Originally, Brenner was supposed to resemble a lumberjack, with a beard, flannel shirt, jeans, and boots. Matthew Modine, who portrays Brenner, believed a more clean-shaven look would be more compelling and collaborated with the show's costume team to redesign the character. When restyling Brenner, Modine was inspired by several sources; his white hair was inspired by Robert Shaw's character in Battle of the Bulge (1965), his suit by Cary Grant in North by Northwest (1959), and his cap-toe shoes were influenced by John Kennedy.
After the premiere of the first season, the Duffer Brothers explained the difficulty in developing Brenner's role since the character had less screen-time and limited interactions with the other characters. However, they were charmed with Matthew Modine and decided to write the character based on him. Matthew's acting skills helped the Duffers to represent Brenner as someone who was "mysterious and dark and could manipulate things".
Jun 30, 2022 · Stranger Things Theories: Dr. Brenner Was In Russia Or The Upside Down In Seasons 2 And 3. The fact that the Dr. Brenner Stranger Things season 4 reappearance happens without an explanation is frustrating. However, there are a few viable theories about where he could've been.
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Jul 16, 2022 · Matthew Modine spoke to Vulture about portraying Dr. Brenner in ‘Stranger Things 4’ and whether he thinks Brenner actually died.
May 7, 2021 · Dr. Brenner Is A Demogorgan. If so, Brenner may be the Demogorgon seen during Stranger Things season 3’s post-credits scene at the Russian prison. This theory would reflect Alien, which Stranger Things does tend to draw inspiration from for the Demogorgon character.
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Jul 2, 2022 · Dr. Brenner, at the end of “Stranger Things,” Season 4, Chapter 8, gives his defense and tells Eleven what he actually wanted to do. It was a battle of narratives for Brenner, but for Eleven, the facts spoke for themselves.
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Jul 8, 2022 · Dr. Brenner maintained a critical role in the fourth season of Stranger Things as he helped Eleven to regain her powers. To do so, however, he had to subject her to a source of great trauma...
