Eddie eventually let Steve go and fell to the floor in distress, caught in survivor's guilt as he mourned Chrissy's death.

While ignorant to Chrissy’s trauma and personal struggles during her life, Jason’s love for her, guilt, grief, and anger over her death sent him spiraling - and he believed that Eddie had killed Chrissy in a Satanic sacrifice.He stomps about in beat-up Reeboks and talks about society’s condemnation of kids like himself, nodding to the Satanic Panic crisis of the 1980s and the West Memphis Three’s Damien Echols, whom Eddie is loosely based on. They both were impressed by their respective skills - Chrissy's cheerleading and Eddie's band Corroded Coffin. When Mike and Dustin brought up Lucas's inability to join Hellfire's campaign later that night, Eddie reminded the boys of how he had welcomed them into his group at the beginning of the school year, and told them that they would be the future of Hellfire once Eddie graduated. Grace Van Dien’s now-deleted Tumblr post which addressed the discrepancies surrounding Chrissy’s age.

Her surname might also be a reference to Arnie Cunningham, a character from the 1983 film Christine, another movie that inspired Stranger Things. When the hive mind was injured due to both Murray Bauman torching Demogorgons with a flamethrower as well as Vecna being severely injured, the Demobats died and fell to the ground. In the events following the campaign, Erica fell out of touch with Eddie, but joined him and the others in their mission once she was brought up to date on their situation. Dustin and Eddie then connected the dots, realizing that Vecna was the one responsible for Chrissy's death. Whether or not he was a trailer park guy, who might’ve been an angry, bitter, guy… which I think there is a little bit of angry bitter in Wayne, but still, you know, the concern about his nephew overrides any of that stuff … but he’s [Wayne] also somebody who I think has some anger, you know because of whatever trauma he might’ve had in his life … I probably saw a lot of crap that Eddie had to deal with growing up maybe with whatever parents he had.Quinn himself stated that he was surprised to see how popular Eddie turned out to be, and was moved to tears during a fan convention when he realized the impact Eddie had on the fans.