This article, “Who is Peter Ballard,” contains spoilers regarding Netflix’s Stranger Things Season 4.
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Stranger Things season 4 – who is Peter Ballard?
Peter Ballard is a relatively minor character in the Stranger Things universe until suddenly he is not. He is an orderly at the Hawkins laboratory who takes a particular interest in Eleven. He counsels, advises, and helps her escape the clutches of Dr. Martin Brenner. He is not seen until the middle of the season and only in flashbacks as Eleven tries to remember the night she killed everyone at the Hawkins facility. It is later revealed that Peter is Henry, the son of Victor Creel, who Brenner kidnapped from the hospital.
What does Peter Ballard do in season 4?
Peter helps the twelve-year-old Eleven escape. He tells her how Dr. Brenner lied to her about her mother dying during childbirth. He advises her to think about that day to help arouse her powers that have remained dormant up to that point. When Brenner notices the connection between the two, he has Peter’s fellow orderlies electrify him with cattle prods.
Later, he plays chess with Eleven and slips her a key card. Peter tells her that four of the residents, her classmates, will plan on killing her, and Brenner has arranged the whole thing. He takes her to an opening through an air duct, and she wants him to come with her. He tells her that he cannot go because Brenner put a chip in his neck that tracks him. If he goes with her, he will put her in danger. El, though, wants to help him, so she can telepathically take it out of his neck.
That is when the armed guards come and chase them. In a shocking turn, suddenly, Peter has powers like Eleven. He kills all six guards, and they hide in the janitor’s closet. Peter shows her a tattoo on his wrist that says 001. That’s right. Peter was the first child experiment at Hawkins. He tells El to stay there, but she hears screams. When she leaves the closet and finds Peter in the Rainbow room, he has killed everyone. Guards, doctors, orderlies, and even the children.
Peter is Henry and has telepathic powers, and when Brenner took him in, he controlled them with the implant. Peter tricked Eleven into taking them out, which allowed him to unleash his powers. He now wants to take Eleven with him, but she bravely tells him no. They square off, and when it looks like Peter has control over Eleven, she is now floating in the air and about to be disfigured, as well as blood being drained from her eyes (foreshadowing, by the way). She forces herself to be turned around by thinking of the day she was born and met her mother for the first time. This is just what Peter taught her.
Does all of this sound familiar? The way Peter has Eleven in the air and is trying to break her limbs, jaw, and pull out her eyes? All the bodies Eleven came across in the hallway look disfigured, just like Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick, right? Eleven uses the strength of her mother’s memory to send Peter through the two-way glass and hold him against the wall. Eleven then destroys him by almost merging with the wall, but this causes a gate to open. We last see Peter falling through the Upside Down and slowly turning into a dark, slimy, green human-like creature that looks just like Vecna.
The camera slowly moves Vecna into the frame and shows a tattoo on his wrist that reads 001.
