All-American Boy to Corpse: Stranger Things’ Jason Carver
How Stranger Things’ All-American Boy Jason Carver went from superhero jock to a dead body swallowed up by a hole in the ground.
Jason Carver was an interesting addition to the Stanger Things extensive character lineup. A complex character with good reasons for going bad, this Indiana basketball jock is to be pitied more than hated.
E1: Jason Carver Loses Chrissy Cunningham
In Stranger Things S4 E1, Jason Carver started out as a “good guy.” With his darling blue eyes, peanut butter glob hair, and halfwit sheep’s face, Jason is a poster child of those “simpler times” of American days gone by.
Right off the bat in Stranger Things S4 E1, Jason loses his girlfriend, Chrissy Cunningham. He sees her brutally murdered, her eyes squished out like grapes, her body snapped and contorted like toothpicks; and soon after, Jason loses his mind, too.
Hawkins High Basketball Team wins the big game, but Jason Carver loses something bigger that night.
E2: Vecna’s Curse
At first, I think we are meant to like Jason’s character — or at least pity him — but by the end of episode 2, we already dislike and fear him.
It starts off with Jason talking Lucas through a major hangover. This is where we like Jason. He is charismatic, empathetic, and kind.
But as time goes on, Chrissy’s death worms its way deeper into his brain. This is where Jason Carver starts saying some goofy stuff, like comparing the Hellfire Club to a Satanic murder cult.
D&D ‘Evil’ in Stranger Things: is it so Ridiculous?
I have seen criticism of this plot point online. Some say Jason’s line of thinking is ridiculous. In a way, they are right. How can Jason Carver and all the townspeople be taking this Satanic cult stuff seriously?
Well let me tell you, the Satanism and D&D plot point is more than just realistic; it is actually based on true events.
I am currently typing up a follow-up article about that. It should be up within a week.
E3: The Monster and the Superhero
At the beginning of Stranger Things 4 Episode 3, Jason Carver is acting like a good guy again.
The jocks are going after Munson, but Lucas clearly has reservations, and Jason is sensitive enough to notice and empathize.
“If you’re not up to this, you can go home,” he says. “There’s no judgment. You’ll still be one of us.”
You’ve got to give it to him. The boy is being reasonable. Maybe that’s why Lucas agrees to come along.
Unfortunately, about 20 minutes later, the Hawkins basketball team storms into Munson’s friend’s garage, where they are playing rock music, and starts beating everyone up.
Carver stomps down on the drummer’s hand until he tips off “Dustin Henderson.” That’s when Lucas finally realizes that he’s fallen in with the wrong crowd.
E5: The Nina Project
In episode 5, we finally see Chrissy’s mom giving a eulogy for her dead daughter. During the eulogy, she breaks down and starts repeating, “I see no reason,” as in a reason for her daughter Chrissy’s death. Meanwhile, Jason Carver is moved to tears. He thinks he knows the reason.
Episode 5 is where Jason Carver finally decides the basketball team needs to hunt down the member of the Hellfire Club.
E6: The Dive
Episode 6 is where Jason Carver, practically frothing at the mouth, riles up the whole town into a witch-hunt frenzy. Apparently, you don’t have to believe in “supernatural crap” to quote the bible and use god as an excuse to hunt down the local D&D nerd squad.
But I mean hey, everyone believes him.
Personally, I love this scene. All the people in the room are so annoying. Yet that whole “mob mentality” is something I’m happy to see in a series like Stranger Things. It’s a classic horror trope, perhaps most famously portrayed in one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.
Jason Carver’s Descent into Total Antagonism
It all goes downhill fast from there.
Soon, Carver has organized his basketball boys into a gang to hunt down Eddie Munson. In E8: Papa, Nancy Wheeler runs into Jason as he is buying a revolver. It’s the scene where she’s holding the shotgun and he grabs it by the barrel to show that it’s better to have a pistol.
This unhinged, demented maniac is definitely not the same golden boy he was at the start of the series. Actually, you could probably say that Carver’s paranoia has turned him into the very creature he feared and hated: that of a monster and a killer. An antagonist.
Everyone is arming themselves to the teeth. This is not going to end well!
Jason Carver Got What He Deserved
E9: The Piggyback
Sure, you may want to feel bad for Jason Carver. After all, his girlfriend got murdered in a brutal incident that he can’t begin to understand. And bunch of his jock friends died, too. But in the end, the boy got what he deserved.
In the final episode (S4 E9: The Piggyback), Jason breaks into the room with Max and Lucas in it, stomps on Max’s headphones (UNFORGIVEABLE!), and has a fist fight with Lucas.
How did Jason Carver Die?
It ain’t pretty.
Jason beats Lucas up pretty bad, but in the end, Lucas knocks him out. Then when the red line breaks through the house, Jason falls through it and dies.
Honestly, I’m glad he goes out that way. Lucas is a softie. I wouldn’t want so see that blood on his hands. I don’t think he could handle it. But the fact is, Jason had to die.
Actor Mason Dye: Fun Facts
Actor Mason Dye played Jason Carver in Stranger Things Season 4. Here are some fun facts about the actor.
Actor Mason Dye Reveals…
At a convention, actor Mason Dye revealed his interpretation of Jason Carver’s character. I consider it canon because he embodies the character once he’s out of the writer’s hands.
Anyway, Mason Dye reveals that Jason Carver would have still been convinced that Eddie Munson was innocent if not for the fact that he was there when Patrick Mckinney (another one of the basketball players on the Hawkins team) died, too. According to Dye, it was Munson’s presence at Mckinney’s murder that put him over the edge. From then on, he believed that Eddie Munson was the murderer.
Mason Dye in Teen Wolf
Let’s see, what else? Actor Mason Dye was in this MTV movie called Teen Wolf. I once saw a meme that basically said if MTV still played music videos, there would be world peace today. While that may be a stretch, Teen Wolf looks like hot trash.
It would seem that Mason Dye has been kind of typecast as a high school jock in horror movies. In Teen Wolf, he played a lacrosse player.
Want More Stranger Things? We’ve Got You Covered.
Want More Horror?
Check out these bad boys!