Sean Astin's Bob Originally Had a Much Darker Story Arc in STRANGER THINGS Season 2

If you haven't finished watching Stranger Things Season 2 yet, you will want to avoid this article until you're done. 

Sean Astin's Bob was one of my favorite characters of Season 2, mostly because he reminded me a lot of myself. It was incredibly sad to see him die, but he heroically sacrificed himself to save the people he loved.

It was previously revealed by the Duffer Bros. that as they fell in love with the character throughout the series, they kept putting off his death to keep the character around a little bit longer. They said:

"He wasn't supposed to be that big of a character, and he was supposed to die a lot earlier. Then we found Sean Astin and met him and fell in love with this guy as a person and as an actor. We really started to fall in love with his character.

"Bob wasn't designed to be the likable character who perishes; he was designed to be kind of just an out-of-it dork. Sean Astin really transformed that role, to the point where we kept kicking his death down the road. We kept pushing it and pushing it until we could push it no further — when we got to episode eight and we realized narratively we still had to do it. It was the hardest scene to write all year, just because it was hard to lose that character and lose Sean. We had such a great time working with him."

We now know how Bob was originally supposed to bite the dust, and I'm really happy they changed it up. He had a much darker fate because he was originally going to be killed off by Will! Yeah! Little possessed Will was going to end his life! While talking to Collider, Producer Shawn Levy said:

“We had talked about the death of some major characters, that may or may not happen in the future near or far. But that was never part of the discussion for Season 2. The death of Bob was initially much earlier. In fact, in an early outline, Evil Will kills him in like Episode 3.”

This means Will would have killed him in the episode titled “The Pollywog,” which is the same episode where Bob gave Will the advice to stand up to his fears. I loved that little scene between these characters. I'm happy it didn't lead to Will murdering Bob after that talk! 

All of the stuff that we love about Bob came to exist after Sean Astin was cast to play him. Had they not cast him, Bob would have been more of a throw away character that no one cared about.