Stranger Things Star Sadie Sink's First Regular Role Was On This Forgotten NBC Drama

Sadie Sink has returned to Netflix's "Stranger Things" as Max Mayfield in the hit series' fifth and final season. The first four episodes of Season 5 arrived in late November, with the series set to conclude at the end of 2025. Sink first appeared in Season 2, which introduced Max as the stepsister of Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), a secondary antagonist in Seasons 2 and 3. Despite her stepbrother menacing the series' central characters, Max became firm friends with the likes of Mike Wheeler, Eleven, Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, and Will Byers. Alongside them, she joined the fight to protect Hawkins from the creatures of the Upside Down.

"Stranger Things" turned Sadie Sink into a household name and introduced her to a global audience. However, it wasn't her first major television role. Before taking on the role of Max Mayfield, Sink appeared on NBC's "American Odyssey" as Suzanne Ballard. Suzanne was the daughter of the series' main character, Odelle Ballard (Anna Friel), a sergeant in the U.S. Army who discovered that a major American corporation had been secretly funding terrorist groups. After the rest of her team was killed in a cover-up attempt, Odelle was forced to make a perilous journey home alone in a modern retelling of Homer's "Odyssey." Prior to "American Odyssey," Sink had appeared in single-episode roles on "The Americans" and "Blue Bloods," but the NBC drama marked her first series-regular role.

Sadie Sink's role in "American Odyssey" — originally titled "Odyssey" internationally — was relatively minor compared to her work on "Stranger Things." Suzanne lived in the United States with her father, Ron (Jim True-Frost), while her mother spent the series trying to evade capture and return home.

While the series took loose inspiration from the classic Greek poem from which it takes its name, the narrative was not only modernized but set in a grounded world informed by political realities, rather than taking place against the mythological backdrop of the original. Instead of gods and monsters, Odelle faced real-world terror groups, including Al-Qaeda and Ansar Dine. Suzanne filled a role similar to Telemachus, Odysseus's son, serving as the more active half of the show's parallel storyline. Suzanne, her father, and various other US-based characters became embroiled in efforts to uncover the conspiracy that had led to falsified reports of Odelle's death.

Homer's "Odyssey" has long been fertile ground for film and television adaptations. Since first being adapted for the screen in 1911's silent Italian movie "L'Odissea," it has been adapted as various movies, an animated series set in the future, and a segment on "The Simpsons." Most recently, the poem's final books were adapted in the Ralph Fiennes film "The Return." Next year will see the poem adapted for the big screen by Christopher Nolan in "The Odyssey." While "American Odyssey" has largely faded from view, it marked a formative chapter in a career that would eventually lead Sink to the world of "Stranger Things."