[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to Investigating, a Movie and television Rewatch Podcast, where we're currently analyzing each episode of Stranger Things with no spoilers. We are your hosts, Leah and Sarah,
[00:00:16] Speaker B: and if you love Stranger Things, this is the podcast for you.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hey, guys. Welcome back to Investigating Stranger Things. Today we're talking about season one, chapter five, the Flea and the Acrobat. I realized I was saying episodes this entire time, and the way that they have the titles is it's not Episodes chapter. So my bad, everybody, for not being. What do we call this? Lore? Accurate. I will. I will do better.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: A true fan.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Written by Allison Tatlock, directed by the Duffers, and of course, aired on July 15, 2016.
What do you think of this episode, Leah?
[00:01:15] Speaker B: I thought it was really good. I think this is probably my favorite episode so far of the season.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Really interesting.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I really enjoyed that. We're just, like, getting to know some. So much more about the characters. Like, we're starting to kind of figure out who they are. Like, really who they are.
I really enjoyed the individual character moments in this episode, like, with Steve and Nancy, with Jonathan and Nancy, Lonnie and Joyce. The Hopper scenes were really amazing. I just felt like this was a really, like, character dynamic, heavy episode. And those are the episodes that I usually tend to like. But I also feel like, like, big things happen in this episode. I feel like more so than the other episodes. Like, we see Nancy going into the Upside Down. The boys are figuring out, like, how to get there, and I just feel like the pieces are coming together and, like, things are happening.
And I just really enjoyed it. I thought it was. Every scene was, like, really engaging.
And, yeah, I thought the acting was really good. I feel like this is the first time where I'm kind of seeing, like, the characters have, like, really good chemistry together in their scenes and really play off each other well. And you're starting to, like, see why they're drawn to each other or not drawn and how the dynamics work really well.
And I think that's what makes the show really good. It's the character, like, interrelationships or interpersonal relationships. Sorry.
So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: What did you think?
I thought it was really good. I thought it was a little bit slower than the other episodes, like the previous couple that we've had. And that's intentional. I'll talk about that in a second. But I think like you said, anytime we start to really get into what makes these characters tick, anytime we have new dynamics.
But it also felt like, in a lot of ways, this was a culmination of a lot of the, like, conflicts and stuff that has been brewing for the past couple of episodes, which always makes for a really juicy episode. I also like that we're starting to get to see other characters highlighted a little bit more. Like, for instance, Dustin gets his time to shine this episode. I feel like he's been a character that we really haven't seen very much of so far this season. And then Lucas, of course, has his big moment, which I know is not. Is a little controversial. Like, not everybody loves it, and he's, you know, a little bit more of an inflammatory character, but we're getting to see a little bit more out of them where it's been very Mike focused, I feel like. For good reason, obviously.
And then now we actually have a little bit more of a dynamic between Jonathan and Nancy where we had, like, the setup from the last episode, I don't know. And it just was also very, like, cathartic to see characters starting to figure some stuff out.
Because then we're like, yes, you're finally catching up to what we know now. Can we, like, have some answers now, please?
So, yeah, Very, very interesting. I think that as far as this episode being a little bit mellower than the last two episodes. So, like, what we talked about with them structuring the season like a movie with the three acts, this is in the middle of act two.
And so in act two, in stories, it deals a lot with rising tension, character conflicts, Things start to kind of fall apart a little bit because you can't have everything falling into place too much, or else you're at the finale already. So they have a couple more episodes left. So what they're doing right now is they're creating interpersonal conflicts to kind of stall the story slightly and catch all the characters up developmentally with where the plot needs to go. And I always find those so sometimes hard to watch because you're like, oh, everybody's fighting. But that's same time. It's juicy and it's needed, and it's what gives everybody depth, too. So the previous couple of episodes have been, you know, various characters in what we call the accepting the call section of the story. So Nancy finding the photo and choosing to go to Jonathan and them realizing it's a monster and teaming up, Hopper realizing Joyce isn't crazy, the boys learning Elle isn't crazy. Everyone is fully invested in this now. So now it's time to start dealing with how their different personalities and even their views of the world are going to start rubbing up against each other. So last episode was the midpoint of the season. We learned more fully about the Upside Down. We confirmed Will's alive. We have answers about where he is, but not really how or why. And so this episode and probably the next one are going to have the things fall apart section, which is always my least favorite section. But it's so needed and it's vital. It's very necessary. And a strong second act makes the final act even better. And this is usually where things start to fall apart, storyline wise, too. If you have a show where you're really enjoying it, you get to this part and you can tell if it's a well thought out show on how well the second act does this section, because it literally will make or break the finale in a lot of ways. So every act, obviously is vital to the story. But Act 2 is considered one of the hardest parts to write because we need to have setbacks to move the story forward.
My favorite kind of stories, and I personally think the best kinds of stories, are ones that have both good external and internal conflict.
So it's like, not just the plot, but also the interpersonal, like, dynamics with the characters. And I think this one has such a good mix that it's. It's going to make for a really interesting episode and discussion. I think so. Great episode.
Okay, so the flea and the acrobat obviously refers to the metaphor by Mr. Clark. In this episode, the acrobat actually ends up being Nancy. Like, what a cool character to have, you know, take that first step. Especially after last episode with this idea of, like, the final frontier, the men trying to enter in. I thought it was fitting that it was a woman that entered in. So Nancy represents the acrobat and the flea is the monster able to travel across dimensions. This episode pulls from, like, movies such as Altered State. The sensory deprivation tank Alice placed in is a direct homage to the film Stand By Me. The quartet of friends walking along the train tracks is a direct homage to the boys traveling via train tracks and so on, so forth. So, all right, so we pick up in Hawkins Lab. And these episodes really like to start out facing the sky. They're always, like, starting up and they come back down. It's night. We see a couple of scientists exiting the building, unaware that Jim Hopper has snuck in behind them. He follows the same path he came in earlier until he comes to the restricted biohazard sign and is like, well, if I die, I die and goes in anyway.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: Yeah, he's got a lot of, like, he's just like a brave man just going in. It's like there's, like, a hazard sign. I mean, yeah, it could be both, but, like, there's like, a hazard sign. He sees, like, this weird wall. He, like, approaches it, like. I don't know. He just doesn't really seem to move with caution, which I like. Like, I like that type of character.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: You're like, I like that in a man.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: He's reckless. Yeah, he's kind of reckless. I'm like, that's how you get things done. Sometimes especially, I feel like in this universe, you have to kind of just go with it. Like, Nancy just crawls into that hole. Like, girl, you don't know where that's gonna go.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Yeah, we will talk about that, because that couldn't be me. I would have been like, jonathan, this looks like a man's job.
Yeah, my hair is gonna get gross. No, she's like, all. All about saving Barb at this point.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Yeah, she just goes in.
All right.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: I was like, with this, like, gross, like, spermy looking stuff everywhere. Anyway. All right, we'll talk about it.
Hopper's like, this is not the grossest thing or the worst, most intense thing I've done today. I had to slice into what was possibly the corpse of my friend's son. So you know what's a little biohazard chemical warfare. We're just gonna dive in.
All right, so this leads him to a locked door that leads. Or that needs a key card access. But before he can decide what to do, two men with guns show up. One of them being the guy who gave him the tour prior. The guy's like, did you forget all the camera's, bud? Like, we just looked at all of them together. You're pretty stupid. Hopper tries his third. Or is it the fourth? I can't keep track of it. Bluff of the day and is like, oh, Dr. Brenner asked for me specifically. Okay. How else do you think I got in here?
[00:09:30] Speaker B: He's just so good at it.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah, he is so good at it. This is. And it's worked on nearly every single person he's tried on. At least buys him a second.
So the guy in the suit is like, oh. And grabs his walkie talkie. He's like, what's your name again? And Hopper's like, it's me, Jim Hopper. He's like, how many guests do you get? It's clearly like, me. How did you forget?
I'm so memorable with my pretty face.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: You mean a hot body?
[00:09:56] Speaker A: You don't think he has a pretty face.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: Yeah, his face is pretty. Yeah. I'm just saying, like, the body's also pretty nice.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't think maybe the suit is looking at his body. Who knows? Yeah.
So then Hopper wallops him with his gun that he secretly grabbed from his back pocket when the guy tried to relay the message of the radio. Very smooth, Jim. Very smooth. He then holds the other guard at gunpoint, steals his badge to swipe in the locked door, and then once inside, he shoots out the key card lock on the other end. This guy's.
I wonder if he's going. I'm not coming out of here, but you gotta find Will. I don't know. I'm not sure what he's thinking.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: I think he. Yeah, I think that's what he has on his mind. Just like he knows that something that Will might be in there, and he's gonna do everything possible to do it, which is.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: I'm so curious what his plan is.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: I don't think he has one. I think he's just like. I think something's in there, and I'm just gonna go in and I'm gonna find it.
Who knows what? Who knows what's gonna happen?
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
I like how this episode, Hopper looks as crazy as Joyce, and there's several, like, obviously, characters are like, he's been spending too much time with Joyce. And even Joyce is like, you're acting a little crazy. And you're like, well, that's when you know it's serious.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Right?
[00:11:09] Speaker A: So at the buyer's house, big, macho hero. Lonnie's here, and everything's gonna be okay. Joycey. He pours her a drink to help calm her nerves. I just hear Ted's voice in my head from the episode Ted and Buffy, where he calls her Joycey the entire time. Like, the way Lonnie's, you know, acting this entire time, he's like, Joycey.
He pours her a drink to help calm her nerves and to help her think straight. Because, you know, that's a great, great option. Works excellent thinking. Lon. Lon. He sits next to Joyce on the couch while she talks about not knowing what to do. And she's kind of in disbelief about it all. The fact that Will was right there and their hands were almost touching. We see a shot of the hole, now covered with a tarp, and it moves from the breeze behind it. Very ominous. She talks about how now it's like she can't feel Will anymore, and then snaps at Lonnie, telling him not to look at her like that, like, everyone else is like, she's out of her damn mind. Lonnie's like, yeah, you're not going to like this, but I think you need to consider the possibility that all of this is in your head. He brings up her Aunt D. Darlene, apparently, like, she had another crazy relative or whatever. And she's like, no, this is not that. And he's like, your mind makes up stuff like this.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Buffy's.
Isn't Joyce Summers's sister also called Darlene?
[00:12:21] Speaker A: That would be hilarious. I don't remember. Let me look it up.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Pretty sure.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: Curious now. Bumpy.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Pretty positive. That's where.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Name.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Name.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Arlene. It's Arlene.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: Arlene. Yes. That's funny.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: That's hilarious. Wouldn't it be so funny? They're like, your. Your cousin or your. Your Aunt Buffy.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: She.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: She went to the insane asylum.
Yeah.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: I just.
Every time we watch, like, this show, I'm just like, there's no way they weren't inspired by Buffy in some way, shape or form. Like, it's surprising that they've. They've never talked about Buffy.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: I wonder if they've seen. I'd be so curious if anybody ever interviews the Duffers. If I ever interview the Duffers, they surely have.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: I feel like any writer in Hollywood has probably seen that show. Like, why? No way.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Joyce. It felt so intentional, too, you know, because, like, what. Other iconic. Not even just that.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Just, like. Just, like, certain things. Like, I just feel like there's so many similarities that I find it hard. But, I mean, I guess also, Buffy also takes from a lot of, like, horror genre stuff, too, so it could just be, like, the parallels there. But, yeah, it's just interesting.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: Could you imagine naming your kids Just a side note? Joyce and Darlene.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: That's crazy.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: That is crazy. It's like, you know how all the grandparent names are coming back around again.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: But, yeah, I don't know.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: It's like, I can't imagine, like, a grandma named Brittany or something. Like, names are so synonymous with the time period. So I guess, you know, Darlene seems like a really cute girl's name for back in probably the 60s or whenever they were, you know, the 50s. But yeah.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Like, one day I'm gonna be someone's, like, you know, great Aunt Sarah, which I feel like is on par for all of the. All of.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: There is a pretty, like, intergenerational name. I feel like it is.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: It's been, like, on the top hundred for, like, hundreds of years. Yeah. Yeah. But every time I think about my name, I always, like, think of, like, lady in the Tramp, where it's like, great Aunt Sarah, who's like the villain of the movie. And like, all. All of the villains are always like, aunt Sarah, Great Aunt Sarah, or whatever. I'm like, oh, that's. That's fantastic. So Carter's gonna call me something else. I'm gonna be like, don't call me Aunt Sarah. Like, I refuse anyway. All right, so she's like, I'm not crazy. He's like, you know, you're just maybe trying to cope. Our son's funerals tomorrow, and you're saying the body is a fake and he's in the wall. How do you explain that? He suggests she talks to a shrink or a pastor, and when she starts to protest it, he's like, you just said Will's gone. What else is there to do? And she just cries and then pours herself another drink. And I'm just like, oh, po Choice.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Freaking is so freaking good in this episode because there are parts where you, like, believe what he's saying, but ultimately it just. It's basically just him, like, manipulating the situation for his own gain. Self serving, but, like, he's not wrong in certain things.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Like, he's.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: He's really. He is making sense. He does speak from, like, a place of, like, logic, I think.
But obviously you learn that it's like, self motivated. Like, he knows what to say to manipulate people so that he can get what he wants. But I thought he was, like, a very interesting addition to this episode. And the dynamic between him and Joyce was also very interesting because you almost want to believe him. You almost are on his side at certain points, but then you're like, oh, never mind. He's just a sleazy guy.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and even Joyce is kind of buying into it too, because she's very emotionally vulnerable at this point. Point. But I thought it was so interesting and much needed to have the interaction between Lonnie and Joyce because we've seen both of them talking about each other, but we haven't seen them actually interact. But also, like, his son is dead, so we need to have some sort of, like, resolution to his involvement with it all.
So. Yeah, yeah. And then also Jonathan's interactions with him, too. Lonnie being here in this episode adds, like, a punctuation and an underlying to or an underline to the conversation between Nancy and Jonathan later on. We have to see Lonnie act a specific way in order to kind of understand a Little bit where Jonathan's coming from. Yeah.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: But it's also funny because he's probably the only character so far that has asked Jonathan how he's doing.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, that's so funny.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: No one, no one else has ever asked Jonathan how he's doing except for Lonnie.
Oh, well, well, like daddy's home.
You can stop being the father, John.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: I have it written. I have it written later down for later on, but I can just say it now, like, this is the last episode that Lonnie features in the show ever.
And it's.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. So. And we'll talk more about this when we get to the end of the season. But Lonnie was originally supposed to have a redemption arc.
And so this episode, the layeredness that Lonnie has, they were going to eventually show that he's not all bad and give him, you know, a little bit of, you know, some good at the very end. So this episode, he's not supposed to be 100 a sleazebag. There is. You're supposed to kind of go, oh, there's some things he's saying that make sense. And, oh, maybe he does care about Joyce and Jonathan and. And all this stuff, but he has, like, somewhere he has a road to go down first, you know, but they ended up not giving the redemption arc to Lonnie or the storyline they were going to give to him because they had somebody else that they wanted to have that redemption arc and all that stuff. But we'll talk about that more as time goes on.
Spoilers. All right, so we're in the lab. Hopper's exploring the dark hallways and quarters of the sealed off lab. He enters a room with a camera in the corner. We start to see like, oh, this is the room where Elle was doing all those experiments. We see the room where Elle was saying with her stuffed animal on the bed. We see a drawing on the wall, which we see to be 11 and Papa and has the cat incident. But to Hopper's perspective, he's going, this kid might be Will. So in the Wheeler's basement, the boys are. Are discussing what they heard Will say. Elle is laying on the couch. She just looks absolutely zapped. The boys are confused by what he meant by it being cold and dark, but like home. Elle seems to understand perfectly. As she says, upside down. Mike gets it immediately goes to the game board, still flipped over from when she was talking about Will and the Demogorgon and stuff and REM them all of What Elle had said previously. And then he's like, el took us to Will's house, and maybe he was there just on the other side. He flips the board to the right side and says, what if this is Hawkins? Then flips it around and goes, what if this is the other side and where Will is is the upside down. And Dustin says, like the veil of shadows. So then in the lab, Hopper is still calling for Will and has now journeyed even deeper. And we can now hear the alarms blaring. He gets to the elevator that we know leads down to the rift, gets in, and it closes just as we see a bunch of guards turn the corner yelling at him to stop. We get that really co shot of the trippy four way closing elevator in hopper space, dead center with the flashlight beams on it. So good.
At the Wheelers, Dustin has pulled out Mike's DND manual. But like, everything's starting to ramp up. The music is ramping up. He looks up the section on the veil of shadows and he begins to read. The veil of shadows is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. We flash back to Hopper. This is a brilliant use of show, not tell, like, like they're telling us. But we're also visually seeing it too. And it just creates a delicious sense of anticipation.
So in the lab, the elevator comes to stop. The music swells. We see Hoppers now in the hallway. And we're all thinking, this is the hallway where that scientist got killed. And what it does is it calls us back to that. And it ups the sense of tension too, for Hopper. We get like this cool, far away shot of Hopper coming down the hallway, making him look really small. The spores, the ash, are all around him as we hear Dustin say, it is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase, a place of monsters. We're back on the boys as they pause after this. They all look at each other. Dustin says, it's right next to you and you don't even see it. Back at the lab, the lights are beginning to flicker as Hopper advances, still calling for Will, but he's starting to cough now. Mike is like an alternate dimension. Lucas is like, how do we get there, Dustin? Dustin says, you shadow walk. And Lucas is like, in real life, dummy.
Dustin, our newfound researcher and theorizer, thinks for a minute is like, well, we can't, but maybe she can, and points to Elle and they all look at her. Mike's like, do you know how to get to the upside down? Elle isn't looking at them, but she shakes her head no. Lucas is exasperated back. The lab Hopper makes it to the rift room, still coughing. We see him approached by someone, someone in a white hazmat suit. Hopper starts to yell, but then he's quickly grabbed and sedated by another suit behind him. The script says that Hopper's kind of weakened because of supposedly, what he's breathing through the air. Then back at the Byers, Jonathan comes home in a rush, presumably itching to talk to his mom, only to see his parents looking quite cozy on the couch. And he's confused, maybe a little irritated. Is like, what is going on? Joyce is like, he's gonna stay the night on the couch. And Lonnie's like, yeah, I'm here as long as you need me. How are you holding up? And Jonathan's like, we're not answering that. Goes over to the tarp and the hole in the wall, asks Joyce what happens. Like, you see him, like, pointedly asking Joyce things, and Lonnie stepping in and answering for her, and Jonathan just getting increasingly frustrated, which fair.
Jonathan's like, okay, did the thing come back? And before Joyce can answer, Lonnie's like, jonathan, that's enough. And Jonathan's like, hell, yeah, that's enough. Let's go talk in another room. So in Jonathan's room, Lonnie's like, I know you're upset, but your mom is really sad, sick. Jonathan's like, you being here is making it worse. Lonnie scoffs at that and is like, she took down that wall with an ax. She says, Will's in there and is talking to her. And Jonathan's like, yeah, well, maybe he was.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Now he's like, damn, maybe she was right all along.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Jonathan's starting to like, he has enough information that there's some validity, but he doesn't have enough to fully buy into it at this point.
And Lonnie's like, my whole family's lost it. He's like, you're feeding her hallucinations. You're scaring her, and you're going to push her right over the edge. Lonnie, big man talk. Saying, he's here to help. He's going to make things better for everyone. Jonathan doesn't buy it, who's like, thank God you're here. In a mocking tone, Lonnie's like, do me a favor and behave at the funeral tomorrow. It's not for me, but for your mother. And then, of course, before he leaves, he has to assert his dominance and authority even more. And he, like, looks around the room and sees the, you know, poster on the wall, and it's like. And take that down. It's inappropriate. And then just walks out.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Who are you, sir?
[00:23:05] Speaker A: I would be so mad. I hate. I hate it when parents do that. They're like. And another thing, especially, like, you're grounded.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Like, parents who are just never. Who aren't in your life. And he just walks in and decides that. And it's like. It's so funny because on one hand, you're almost like, okay, somebody's here, and they're gonna. Like, they're pulled together. Yeah, he's parenting. Like, this is what a parent would do. But Lonnie's just. Just not.
Just not.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think it's really, really brilliant that they had Jonathan go to Lonnie's place a couple episodes back because that kind of established the dynamic, like, the norm for the dynamic. And so then now Lonnie is here, inserting himself into Jonathan's business when he seemed to have no care earlier. And we're going, wait, what the heck? Like, that's confusing for Jonathan. It's confusing for us.
And it creates an unstable and an inconsistent environment, you know? So back at the Wheelers, there's a montage of everyone getting ready for the funeral. Ted's doing something for once, helping Mike get his tie tied, while Karen helps Nancy with her dress. I'm like, okay, the dads are doing something. I won't say they're stepping up, but they're doing something this episode. Nancy's just pissed at her mom. Karen's trying. She's like, want to wear my black heels? You can wear anything you want. Nancy's like, I'm fine.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Don't be mean to Karen at the Byers.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Poor Chester. The dog seems to know what's going on. Heads out to Fort Byers and lays on Will's bed. When Will's dog sits on the bed of Castle Byers, apparently you can see the stuffed animal of a lion on there. And earlier, Hopper had found a stuffed lion, that same stuffy on Eleven's bed in her room, which ignited, like, a bajillion fan theories all the way up to season five.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Oh, God, yeah.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: The rabbit hole of fan theories with this show is, like, crazy. You could just spend months going through all the insanity.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Which, to be fair, I do think in a show where you're trying to solve the mystery and stuff, like, it is fun. But I think as showrunners, you have to be mindful of when you're gonna put little extra details like that, that you maybe don't use the same prop if it's not going to go anywhere or if it is going to go somewhere, like expect your fans to start theorizing about some pretty crazy stuff.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: You know, it's just kind of a slippery slope. I feel like a lot of the reason that people get disappointed with shows is because they go off and they start like making up their own theories and trying to guess things. And then when that, when that doesn't, like when that doesn't get fulfilled on screen, they get disappointed. But it's like, but you made like you came up with this. This isn't actually what was happening. Like maybe there was some truth to it, but I just feel like it's fun but at the same time it's a slippery slope because then people get disappointed when that doesn't actually happen and they think that it's like, oh, this was such bad writing because they didn't actually do this. But it's like, but was that the, was that ever the intention from like the beginning, you know, so.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: I think it's just, it's just an interesting way. I feel like people consume media nowadays, especially with like having so, so much free access to online everywhere where you can talk to so many people with so many different ideas. It's, I think it's, it just makes a creator and writer and like everyone that makes the show, it makes their job like a lot harder, I feel, and a lot more susceptible to criticism. Whereas before I don't think it was, it wasn't. You weren't able to connect with so many people who would agree with you so easily. But now it's like, oh, a theory materializes and then there's like a million people that agree with you and you're like, oh, this must be true. But really it's like it's just a theory, guys.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that is 100% valid. I think it's a double edged sword. But I mean we've also had, we're seeing this in like, I'm going to use an extreme example, but the Taylor Swift fandom, I don't know if you've ever been on talk or ever seen. I mean, she started dropping Easter eggs and people are going crazy with the fan theorizing for things to the point where she's had to speak publicly about it and be like, okay, guys, I'm never going to theorize off of like my own personal life. And also her theories are never that hidden. Or like, her Easter eggs are that hidden. And I think it is. I like theorizing as much as the next person. I think it can be a super fun thing. But I think we're seeing kind of the.
The rise of people, like you were saying, being unhappy with the actual shows and music and results of all of these things, because they built it up to be something so much more in their minds. And I think they're also too.
Like, it's becoming kind of an echo chamber in a lot of ways, because people are finding each other on these online spaces, and you can have great community and camaraderie. I mean, like, that's how, you know, you and I met and stuff through the Buffy fandom. And I think you can have a great, healthy and fun dynamic where you theorize and all that stuff. But I think we're all seeing the rise of parasocial relationships, too. Makes us kind of think sometimes that we understand the creator, the artist, the. The content better than the creator themselves.
Yeah. And so, yeah, all that.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: I just feel like that's. That's also why it's really hard to come across, Like, I don't want to be, like, too critical of the shows and movies that are coming out lately. But, I mean, there's a reason that there's been a rise in, like, reboots and create new creative ideas. Like, original ideas are very rare to come upon. And, like, shows get canceled after a season and this and that. I just feel like having so much access to the people that are creating your shows. Like you said, it creates this sort of, like, parasocial thing where you feel like you have access to, like, the table that they're sitting at creating these shows. But, like, I just feel like we need to give creators space to just, like, do their thing. Because when you impose your opinions and thoughts on something that isn't yet fully baked in the hopes of, like, making it turn into something like that. Like, I think when. When somebody's creating something, they're creating it to be like, a story that is cohesive and, like, a story that they have in their heads. And obviously, they have to make sure that it appeals to, like, a wide audience. So it's like that one. One million people that thinks a certain way could be completely different to the other 1 million people that thinks a different way, you know, so there'. Like, there can't be one way of doing things. And that's why you should just give creatives the freedom to just, like, tell us the story that they want to tell. Us. I just think that's. It's just kind of a shame because I feel like back in the day, we used to all enjoy media without feeling the need to criticize it or, like, make up our own.
I don't know, had canons or theories and stuff. And then you would just be satisfied with what you were getting and be able to appreciate the art. But. But it just seems like increasingly it's becoming.
It's becoming very. Like, this needs to appeal to me, and I need to. I need to be happy with this, and it needs to be something that I relate to, and it needs to be how I envision that it's gonna play out.
When it's like, open your mind a little. Be open to, like, something else that maybe you didn't think of. That's how you. I don't know, expand your creativity, too. It's just. Yeah, it's just so weird. Time we're in right now. The Internet was a mistake is what I'm saying.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Reboot. Time to turn the Internet router off and for a minute.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: A bit of a break. And then we can refresh and start back up in, you know, 2030.
Well, and I think just to kind of like, go off of what you're saying, too. I think what feeds into that, not to, like, make this into a huge thing, but I do think this is going to be a conversation we're going to be having more and more and more as we get closer to season five and everything that just happened when it aired earlier, or I was gonna say earlier this year, but I guess late last year.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: Yeah, craziness.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: But I think, too, there is becoming this thing now where there's so much access to the actors themselves.
Not only do we see the actors on social media with their personal platforms, we get windows into their lives. But there are now so many podcast interviews, network TV shows, game shows, etc, that are used to promote the shows, which is really fun. And this is not me trying to bash them, but I think. I think it's really easy to start theorizing, even based off of the appearances of the celebrities themselves in their Instagram posts, in their interviews that they give, even if it's a project that's completely not even related to whatever it is that you're.
Like for instance, with Stranger Things, you're watching Millie Bobby Brown, she's promoting her Netflix movie that has nothing to do with Stranger Things. I've even seen people theorize based off of ship wars and stuff on interviews that have nothing that's related to Stranger Things and stuff. And I think we're in such a time where we have so much access to the. The actors and stuff, and it can be really easy to kind of insert your own narrative of. For a show. Yeah. Based off of what you know of these people. And again, that comes down to the parasocial relationship stuff. But, you know, 15, 20 years ago, we didn't have that to this extent when Buffy and Angel. And even when this show first aired, there wasn't as much of this stuff. And so I think that it's just.
It is for people who are so used to being able to find clues and stuff anywhere and also maybe have a parasocial relationship, it just becomes a lot harder to separate all of that out.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: And then you end up being disappointed.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: It's just. It's an interesting thing and I'm excited to talk about it as we get closer to, like, season five and stuff and all of the stuff that pops up. But anyway, all that to say.
Anyway. Okay, so, fun fact about this moment. The song that is played right here in the funeral is called Elegia by New Order, the band. So, elegy is Latin and Greek for elegy, a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamp lamentation, especially for one is who is dead. It's completely instrumental. There is no vocalization.
It's not to be confused with eulogy, which is a commemorative speech, although both come from the same word. So, fun fact, the band that originally was Joy Division, who we've discussed the last episode and beyond, they did the song that Jonathan was listening to in his headphones when Joyce goes out and grabs the ax. And we talked about that beautiful thing about how Will and Jonathan are connected through their love of music and their shared space and all that stuff. So Joy Division created a new band which became New Order after the Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis passed from suicide. And they wrote this song as a tribute for him. So it's another beautiful nod to Will and also to Will and Jonathan's shared space and their relationship and stuff, which I think is just wonderful. The song is written in G major, which is typically a key that conveys cheerfulness and optimism. And if you listen to the song in its entirety, it originally, I think it was like 13 or 17 minutes long, but they cut it down to four minutes.
It has bits of that towards the end. And I think it makes a great choice for this scene as it's suspenseful and mournful, because it's a funeral, but it's also got undertones. Of hopefulness, because we know Will's alive, and so do Joyce and Jonathan at this point as well. So kind of fun little Easter egg there, she says as she criticizes people for looking up Easter eggs.
So Jonathan struggles to tie his tie, gives up, takes it off. Joyce just sits comatose in Will's room. Lonnie comes in, tells her it's time to go. What did you think about Joyce's demeanor this episode? Like, how she kind of just seems out of it, how she's like. Like just had that experience which you think would be kind of like a. Oh, Will's alive. Like, she would be full on down this road. But she seems to kind of, like, back pedal a little bit. Like, what do you. What is your interpretation of that?
[00:35:23] Speaker B: I don't think she's backpedaling. I think she's just. She's trying to play the role of a grieving mother because she knows that that's what will keep people. Like, she knows she has to go through the motions so that people aren't just constantly thinking that she's crazy.
And I think it's also just. It's interesting because it's like she's a mother having to go and experience the funeral of her child, even though she knows that her child is not. Like, she's convinced that her child is not dead.
And I. I don't think that it's her, like, giving in at all. I think she's just, like, playing the role of, you know, she's. She's just playing the role of the grieving mother to keep people off her back. I think that's what it is. That's how I took it anyway, because I don't. I think we've seen Joyce enough where we know she's, like, very firm in her conviction that Will is still alive. Like, she genuinely believes it, but I think at the same time, like, Lonnie coming in and kind of manipulating her a little bit.
And maybe she, like, wanted to be there for Jonathan. Like, I just think it's a role that she's playing. I just keep repeating myself, but you know what I mean.
[00:36:37] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I know what you mean. I think. I think there might also, from at least my perspective, I think there's also this level of she's just so emotionally exhausted and also, I think, tired of not having people believe her. I kind of got the sense that she's not necessarily second guessing what she saw. I think there's a little bit of a disbelief that, like, something that she theorized is actually Reality. And also, it's wild what she saw. Like, Will was there, but he was not there. And so I think she's sitting there struggling to kind of come to terms with the reality of what she saw. And then, of course, she's emotionally distraught because she's. Her baby's gone. She doesn't feel him anymore. And then Lonnie shows up, and obviously they have a past in a relationship. I wonder if there's a little bit of just like.
She's just like, okay, let me try. Let me try to go along with the flow and do all this stuff. But you could tell that it's not working because she's sitting there going, something's not right. Like, I don't feel okay with this. So I don't know. It just. It was very interesting to watch her be so calm. Not calm, but you know what I mean? Like, you're. You're kind of waiting for the explosion to happen in a way. And it happens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in the cemetery, everyone's listening to the pastor give a message. We see Lucas, his family, the buyers. Dustin notices something, smirks, and then elbows his two friends before nodding at a little girl crying. And he's like, just wait till we tell Will that Jennifer Hayes was crying at his funeral.
And the boys are all, like, giggling. Karen, of course, the ever perfect mom, who's apparently the mom of all the boys at this point, is shushing them. And then we see the Wheelers and others offering condolences to Lonnie while Joyce just kind of stares at the grave, numb. The script says that Lonnie seems extremely gracious, too. Gracious, maybe. Like he's playing the part of grieving dad. And there was a scene cut out where Jonathan was supposed to see Lonnie and Joyce holding hands. And then he gets angry, like he's doing all the work. And then dad comes in and he can't even get a hug from Joyce. And then Lonnie's over there holding hands with Joyce. Like, that would suck.
So then we get a flashback of Joyce making a PB and J while Will sits at his place at the table coloring a picture. She sees that he's coloring a drawing of himself as Will the Wise and the rest of the party. And then he's shooting green fireballs at a foe off paper.
He's like, I couldn't find the red crayon. And then Joyce asks why he can't just outsmart smart the bad guys if he's so smart. And Will is like, well, sometimes the bad guys are smart, too, so he needs fireballs. And Joyce is like, well, I don't know who's been raising you, but I'm gonna get you some new crayons because that looks like he's shooting cabbages. Which I thought was a really sweet moment between the two of them.
And then in Hopper's place, he wakes up suddenly, and he and us are all confused because wasn't he just at the lab? Like, what's going on? His coffee table's littered with beer cans, tons of pills, possibly. And then his handgun is just sitting there and, like, just all staged to make him look as mentally unstable as possible. He immediately sits up, grabs his gun, races outside. No one's there. Back inside, he looks for a mark on his neck from where they trained him, then starts for a bug.
He checks Ev. I mean, this man is Thor. Oh. He checks every single light, picture frame, cupboard, device, table. Ripping into his couch. I mean, he rips this place apart before he looks up to the big light and then finds the bug. And you can kind of see the look in his eyes. It's, like, crazed. He's like, ha. I'm not crazy.
[00:40:08] Speaker B: I knew he knows what he's doing.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: He's, like, pulling out his inner conspiracy theorist. He's like.
Wakes up.
[00:40:17] Speaker B: This just, like, also kind of makes you think, like, where. What has he done in his life? Like, what. Why is he. How is he like this? Where has he been and done. Like, he's very crafty. He's very, like, reckless. Very.
Seems to be very aware of how things work, like, the sketchy things.
So it kind of makes you question, like, what. What has he done?
Who is he?
[00:40:43] Speaker A: There is a novel that is considered canon that talks all about Hopper's life before he came back to Stranger Things and stuff. It's got spoilers in there for the future, but I'm planning on. I'm gonna look at. Into it and stuff. And then probably the finale of this season, I'm going to kind of talk about where he was at and stuff before, because I don't know, and I'm very curious to know. I think he was in New York. He was a city cop, so. Yeah.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Ah, yeah. So he's seen some.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: He's seen some stuff, yes. And I think that's where his ex is probably still living, which is why, like, he talks about Bill. He probably knows the X and everything, but. Yeah. In the comms room, Brenner and a bunch of other people are listening to phone conversations and radio calls now. Too. So apparently the boys radio conversations are not safe. They hear Will talking to Joyce from the previous episode as well as the boys responses. Brenner puts down the headphones and goes, she was there. And we're like, oh, no.
Circling in.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: They're just jacked into the whole city.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: They're just jacked into those. They're jacked in, Leia. They're jacked.
Shout out to Steph. Prophecy, girls.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: Yes. Praise Moloch.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: So in the cemetery, people are leaving, but Jonathan and Nancy are looking at a map, trying to piece together a location to start looking for the monster. They realize that Steve's house, the woods where Will's bike was found, and the buyer's house were all within a mile of each other. Meaning the monster is not traveling far. It's kind of staying in the same place. They decide to go out there and investigate, but Nancy's like, wolf, we find it. Then what? Jonathan's like, we kill it. And then he takes her to his dad's car where he grabs a gun and bullets from the glove compartment, which is nice. Again, later on, we get the story between or about Jonathan and his dad with the gun and the hunting and stuff. So kind of a little. A little nod to Jonathan knowing that his dad carries guns. Nancy's like, this is a terrible idea. You know, I've never touched a gun in my life. I would never.
She doesn't go that far, but it's funnier once you know the future.
So she's look out. And Jonathan's like, well, it's the best we've got. People aren't going to believe us. And Nancy immediately is like, your mom would believe us. And Jonathan's like, she's been through enough.
Oh, so sweet. Jonathan, who takes care of you, man?
[00:43:00] Speaker B: No one.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: Yeah, no one. Oh, my God.
[00:43:07] Speaker B: Well, he's forming an alliance now with Nancy, so I feel like that's really nice. I really liked all the scenes between Nancy and Jonathan. Like, you can really tell that they're.
There's like something. There's some this understanding between them that nobody else really gets.
And I'm looking forward to seeing how that get. That gets explored.
[00:43:27] Speaker A: I think it's nice to see Jonathan hanging out with someone his own age. Like, he's constantly with the adults over the past couple of episodes, and he's always been the outsider for his own group. And so it's nice to see him being able to hang out with someone that he can not only relate with, but that he has understanding with from an experience with by being in the same age bracket, you know. So Jonathan says he's going to tell his mom when the thing is dead once again, you know, trying to take care of everything on his own. And then in the school audio room, the principal brings in a technician to look at the fried radio, saying that Mr. Clark has never seen anything like it. The technician's just fishing around, asking who Mr. Clark is, looking at the absolutely cooked tech equipment. Equipment. And then outside, he goes to one of the white vans that we saw at the buyers earlier in a previous episode, gets in. We see that the driver is one of the agents from the lab. And then they kind of look at each other, and they pull away. And we see that the outside says, hawkins power and light on the side, which is important.
And then back at the reception area, Joyce is still sitting alone, still looking confused. Lonnie's schmoozing away. The boys approach Mr. Clark at the food table, and he's like, how you guys holding up? As Dustin just stuffs his face with finger foods.
Mike's hamming up the grief. And Lucas is basically Dustin's unofficial handler and notices the less than grief, like, behavior that Dustin is exhibiting and is, like, trying to cover it up. Like, we're in mourning. And Dustin, with his mouth full, is like, man, these aren't Ronell wafers.
[00:45:03] Speaker B: I love it. Dustin.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: He's so funny me. Mike asks that they can talk, saying they have a lot of questions at the table. They start questioning about theoretical different dimensions and how to get there. The script says that Dustin's still nibbling on a wafer, and it says clearly he likes them enough.
Yeah, they're not the real thing, but they'll. They'll do. They'll do. So Clark goes into how there's, like, infinite parallel universes and variations of our world, starts trying to tie it into their, you know, supposed grief. Like, you know, that means there's a world out there where none of this tragic stuff happened. Lucas is like, yeah, that's not what we're talking about at all.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: No.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're done mourning.
Yeah, right, Exactly.
Dustin's like, we were thinking more like, you know, an evil dimension, like the veil of shadows. You know, the veil of shadows. And then steps more vanilla wafers in his mouth, still, you know, cool as a cucumber. Clark's like, oh, yes. An echo of the material plane where necrotic and shadow within, necrotic and shadow magic. Dustin nods, like, super emphatically, like, this guy gets it. This Guy plays DND for. For sure.
I'm like, yeah, he does.
Mike interrupts is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, how do we travel there? Lucas again, doing damage control is like, theoretically.
He's about to start doing the whole, like, asking for a friend. Actually, no. Asking for a friend's really weird dream that he had.
Clark pulls out the handy dandy paper plate, draws the illustration of the acrobat and the flea using a line as a tightrope. The tightrope represents our dimension, and our dimension has rules. You can move forwards or backwards. We are the acrobat. But next to the acrobat is the flea, who can also travel forwards and backwards. But the flea can also travel along the side of the rope sideways, which means he can go underneath the rope. And they're like, okay, so how does the acrobat get to the upside down? And Clark says, you have to create a massive amount of energy that humans aren't capable of creating, and you have to open a tear in time and space. And then he folds the paper plate in half and punches a hole through with the pen. And he's like, you create a doorway. And Dustin's like, a gate. And Clark's like, yes, but. But theoretically, Mike's like, well, what if the gate already exists? And Clark's like, well, we would know that because it would disrupt gravity, the environment, the magnetic field, and maybe swallow everyone whole. Okay, so this entire thing is. I asked my very super duper smart husband because I don't understand physics and maths and all that stuff, and he said, this is essentially string theory. I was going to get him to record a little something for us, but it didn't happen. So maybe later he says that this is string theory, and it doesn't quite work scientifically. It isn't quite well what string theory is. And it's actually blending, like, two different analogies together.
But basically. So I looked up.
I looked up String Theory for Dummies because I was like, there ain't no
[00:47:49] Speaker B: way I believed everything. I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds.
[00:47:52] Speaker A: This sounds like. This makes sense. This sounds really intelligent.
I was like, does this make sense? Not quite. But I. At the end of the day, like, it doesn't really matter. It's still very interesting. So. So string theory, one of the main concepts, is that everything in the universe is made up of tiny strings that vibrate in different ways, kind of like a guitar string. So when these strings vibrate, they behave like different particles, just like a guitar string can create different notes depending on how it's plucked, which I think is very fascinating because we already know that there's sound waves travel through the different dimensions, which is why they probably are able to use radio waves waves, and then l is able to enhance all this stuff and why music is so vastly important in this universe as well. Another important idea with string theory is extra dimensions. So while we live in a three dimensional world, length, width, height. String theory suggests that there may be more dimensions hidden from our view. So most physicists believe that there could be six or seven additional dimensions that we cannot see. So they would use the example of folding a piece of paper just like Mr. Clark folds the the plate. When you fold it, its dimensions change, but it's still the same piece of paper. And that's from DIY.org it works a lot with like quantum physics. There's the belief that there are several extra dimensions to the universe that must exist and stuff.
So, yeah, all very interesting stuff. I will say the most important thing that the show seems to be focusing on is what does the flea have to do with all this, AKA the monster? And where is is the flea? Because the flea is the thing that is supposedly taking these people and could take more people and kill them and stuff. So that's like the most important thing with all of this stuff.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: Well, I think. I think their entire goal is how do they get like. They know he's there and they want to know how to get there.
[00:49:43] Speaker A: Right? Right. But I would say, like, they're trying to figure out how to get there. Nancy and Jonathan are figuring how do we get to the monster, how do we lure the monster instead stuff. And then we're back in Hopper's place. But there was actually a scene that was not included in the episode that was in the script that was supposed to happen after the funeral. Joyce is in her room, she's ripping off her funeral clothes. Jonathan comes in and says that he's gonna go stay with a friend, Eric, that night because he needs time away from Lonnie. Joyce is like, oh, Lonnie's just trying to help. And then she tells him it's okay, he can go. Jonathan hugs her. It's always Jonathan hugging her, he says.
Or the script says, holding tight. For all he knows, this is the last time he'll ever see her. He apologizes again to Joyce and she says that he has nothing to be sorry for. And he says that if he could, he'd fix this and that he'd do anything to bring Will back. And then he leaves.
So Jonathan is fully Prepared to sacrifice himself in going after the monster at this point for his brother and his mom, which is just classic Jonathan.
[00:50:48] Speaker B: Classic Jonathan.
[00:50:49] Speaker A: So then at Hopper's place, the deputies show up and they're like peeking in as they go up the stairs, like, judging his, you know, very insanely trashed place. They knock. Hopper comes out looking like he took a page out of Joyce's playbook. He's all sweaty, his hair is askew and unkempt, and he's wielding the gun. He looks like crazy. And they're like, we tried calling. And he's like, yeah, the phone's dead. Dead, idiots is what he didn't have to say. That's basically what his. He's like, yeah, the phone's dead. How did you not know this? They're like, okay, we'll ignore that. And they tell him that a gal called and said that some guys went hunting and didn't come back. And they're not sure what happened to them. Hopper's like, where was this? And Callahan, so funny. He's like, slow as always. He's like, at the station. And Hopper's like, no, where? Where did they go hunting? And they're like, near Curly Hopper's like, mirkwood. He starts pulling out Lord of the Rings references from the boys.
He's like, mirkwood. And they're like, what did you say? Hopper's like, I got this, guys. And they're like, you look like you do not. He's like, you guys go to the station, starts to go inside, and they're like, hey, by the way, we found Barb's car. It was found at the bus station, but the state troopers like, who? By the state?
[00:51:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:00] Speaker A: He was like, wait, who, Who? Whose car? Okay, fine. But the thing that piques his interest is the fact that the state troopers neighbors found it and called it in. And Callahan's like, funny how they're like doing our job for us, you know, guess Barb did run away. And Hopper's like, yeah, that's funny. And then just like goes right back inside and.
And I wrote, he goes inside and make a red string board. Just like connect all his theories and everything.
[00:52:27] Speaker B: He's got a lot of good ones
[00:52:30] Speaker A: back at the buyers. Lonnie's patching up the hole with a bunch of two by fours just hammering away. Joyce comes in, is like, what are you doing? He's like, what does it look like? You want a freeze all winner? She gets pissed when she sees that he's taking most of the lights down. He's like, they were in the way, babe. Don't worry, babe. Man's here, babe. I got it, Hammer. I got this, babe.
[00:52:46] Speaker B: Where's his girlfriend, by the way? He just, like, left his girlfriend.
[00:52:50] Speaker A: She's like, no, I actually do not want to go to your child's funeral. You can grieve on your own girlfriend of the year.
[00:52:57] Speaker B: Weird.
Sketchy.
[00:53:01] Speaker A: I actually would have loved to see the interactions between the girlfriend and Joyce, but that's probably why they didn't have her show up.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like that would have been more comedic than we would have wanted to see.
[00:53:10] Speaker A: It also probably would have taken away from Lonnie and Joyce having conversations, but, yeah, that would have been actually very funny. I. I bet good money that Joyce would have started throwing hands if the girlfriend was there.
So Joyce side eyes macho Lonnie and starts to put the lights back up as she does so Lonnie's like, you know, it's a shame what they've done to this family, the Sattler Company. Joyce is like, hang on. Starts getting suspicious as he talks about going to no warning signs, no fences. And we're like, does this man grieve at all?
Back at the Wheelers, Mike is demonstrating the flee in the acrobat to Ellen is like, it would take a lot of energy for that to happen. Otherwise, how would we get there? Elle's like, right. Lucas asks again where the gate is, and Elle shakes her head. And Lucas is just suspicious. He's like, how do you know where the Upside down is and what it is? And El just pointedly looks away. She looks over at Dustin, who's just been. Been spinning around the room looking at something, and he shouts, I need your compasses right now. And they're all like, okay. They all dump them out onto the table. And he's like, okay, they're all facing north, right? Lucas is like, yeah. So Dustin's like, well, that's not true north. And they just stare at him. And he's like, are you both seriously this dense? Lucas is, like, shrugging, which, thank God someone's putting Lucas in his place for once. Dustin's like, okay, you guys are five, so I'm gonna explain this to you like you're five. The sun rises in the air east, and it sets in the west. And then he points in a direction, says, that's true north. Explains that compasses work because the needle is naturally drawn to the earth's magnetic north pole. And then talks about how they would be drawn to a gate, which means they would point anywhere, any other direction other than true north if there was a really powerful gate. And then he points to the needles and says that they're pointed in a different direction than true north. And as the boys are putting this together, we zoom in on Elle, who just. Just looks terrified and like she's planning something.
So then we're back at the buyers. I just feel so bad for El, this episode. Like, yeah, so bad for her. So back at the Byers, Lonnie is showering. So Joyce decides to do a little sleuthing in his pack. This girl, this girl has done this before.
She clearly is a master at. Well, first of all, she hadn't. She knows this man. And she's like, okay, we're gonna. We're gonna look it up. She finds a piece of paper from lawyers for accidental injury or death. And it's like, oh, so snap. He wants the dough. That's why he's here. So then the Wheeler's garage. Nancy finds a bat. She's practicing swinging it and nearly whacks Steve, who's like, hope that's not for me. And then he apologizes for their last conversation. I have to say, this was the first time that I was like, oh, okay, maybe there's something redeemable in him and something good. He's still very selfish. But the fact that he came in and was like, hey, I was a total dick. I panicked. Like, he named what he was. It wasn't just a half assed apology. Like it was. It was a fairly good one. And she's like, did you get in trouble with your parents? And he says, totally, but who cares? Screw him. And then he asks for news of Barb. And I was like, you know what, you're getting points with me here, Steve. This is really great. So he asks a couple follow up questions. Nancy says they've not heard anything. And then Steve try. I could see what he's trying to do. But it's also still just very self involved. He's like, why don't we just catch a movie tonight? Let's just pretend everything's normal for a few hours. And he's like, all the right moves is still playing. You know your lover boy from Risky Business, which is referring to her Tom Cruise poster on her wall. And you can tell Nancy, I don't know, you have to tell me what you think. But I felt like this was one of the first instances between Nancy and Steve where he's turning on the charm and it's not really working for her.
[00:56:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I thought this was a really great scene for Steve. I think it's, like, showing us a different side to him that he actually. Because I've been very iffy about whether he actually cares about Nancy or if it's just kind of like a fling to him. But I think he does really care about Nancy and he does feel badly about what happened and everything. I think the thing with Steve is that he's so. He is the one character right now that's, like, super detached from everything that's happening.
He has no idea about anything. So I think it's kind of unfair to, like, judge how he would react until we kind of. I don't know, like, who knows if he's gonna get involved in all of this supernatural stuff. Yeah, I think the way that I read this is he's coming to basically make amends. And his offer of, like, oh, let's go to the movies and, like, pretend that things are normal for a little bit. Like, I think Steve is, like, trying to make her feel better by just going back to, like, a normal and also acknowledging that he was an ass. And, like, obviously Barb's disappearance matters and all that stuff. But I think. Because I just think they're not on the same page because they. Their priorities are, like, very different right now for, like, good reason. Because Nancy knows what's going on, and, like, that's consumed her mind right now, which I don't blame her. And I don't really blame him for the way he's acting, because I think he's genuinely just trying to. To make it up to her, to try to make her feel better. So I'd be interested to see if they will ever be on the same page. If Steve ever.
I don't know if something ever happens where Steve gets also pulled into this entire crazy thing.
[00:58:31] Speaker A: Yeah. How he responds to that, I think will make a big difference with how we can view him right now.
[00:58:38] Speaker B: I think the show is trying to push Nancy toward Jonathan more because they have that understanding. They both know kind of what's going on. They're being brought together by this mission to uncover this mystery or whatever. And then with Steve, it almost seems like they kind of have more of, like, a shallow connection because he's not really aware of what's happening. So I don't know. Yeah. I wonder if they'll keep Steve like that and push her further toward Jonathan or if once maybe Steve gets brought into this, if that's going to shake things up. And, like. Because I like his positivity, I think there's a lot of like, good qualities to Steve that maybe Jonathan doesn't have. Like, he seems very outgoing, very much like wants to have fun, very lighthearted, whereas Jonathan has like a lot of responsibility, can't really be a kid, has to take care of a lot of people. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens in once they're.
If I, I should say he gets pulled into the whole thing and if that will bring him and Nancy together again or if that'll just like continue to push her more toward Jonathan. So I don't know.
[00:59:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I think like, it's admirable that Steve is thinking of someone else other than him himself. I think him acknowledging, hey, yeah, that's was really like a jerk move over there. And I was being self centered and all that stuff. And yeah, there's nothing wrong with him being like, hey, let's take our minds off of it and stuff. But I think like the switch, the way that it's framed in the switch, it just happens so fast. Like there isn't a moment where Steve's just like, he doesn't go, man, what do you need right now? How can I help? Like, there's no thought to, maybe we could go look for Barb, maybe we could go do all this stuff. And I. It was just, it immediately went to let's just distract ourselves from what's happening. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but. But that's like you're saying that's not where Nancy's head's at.
[01:00:32] Speaker B: I think he's, he's almost like trying too hard because she's not really giving him the response that he was expecting almost.
[01:00:39] Speaker A: Right.
[01:00:39] Speaker B: So he's just kind of trying to think of anything to.
[01:00:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And I feel for him because he genuinely looks really bummed when like she says that she can't do it.
But again, not to say that there's a love triangle necessarily happening, but like we were talking about with Steph, like, this is Nancy having to choose which path that she's going to go down.
And I personally don't necessarily see her and Steve working out because it feels like if she were to get with Steve, she'd have to be going back to the girl that she was before. And I think Nancy has just changed too much in the like three episodes now.
But to Steve's credit, he acknowledges and says okay and then walks off still singing like, he isn't pouting, he isn't taking it out on her. And I was like, okay, like again, he's growing on me. And I think that there's room there. But I also, like, I don't know. It's a very interesting dynamic and it's going to be fun to watch it as we go on. So at the buyer's house, Joyce confronts Lonnie about how all the nice stuff he's been doing and even his presence, it's all about the money. She's like, you aren't here because of Will. You never cared about him. Lonnie doesn't deny it. He's just like. Like Joyce, it was his funeral today. Do we have to do this right now?
Which he has a point. But at the same time, it's such a jerk move to like deflect from the actual issue.
She's like, I can't believe I fell for this. He's like, I'm here to help. We can use this money for good. Jonathan can go to college. And she's like, where does he want to go? He doesn't know. And she's like, nyu. He's wanted to go there since he was six. And then she kicks him out. And he's like, well, you need me. And she's like, I haven't needed you for a long time. And then he essentially blames Will's death on her. And she' was like, at least I was here. And he calls her crazy with the lights. And then she says maybe she is, but she will keep the lights up until the day that she dies if she thinks there's a chance that Will is still out there. And then she pulls a Dawn Summers and just like, get out. Get out.
[01:02:33] Speaker B: Get out. Good for her.
[01:02:35] Speaker A: Also final appearance in the series by Ross Partridge as Lonnie. As we talked about earlier, I thought that it was so interesting that this scene happens right after Nancy, essentially ridiculous, rejects Steve. Both Nancy and Joyce are doubling down on the decision to pursue this lead and go after the supernatural and all that stuff. So very, very cool.
I thought the dynamic between Joyce and Lonnie, Nancy and Jonathan was very, very fascinating. In the essay the Monstrous Queer Child, the author discusses how in the 80s a non normative or queer child was seen as a result of bad parents parenting or as they say, a lack of commitment of the parents. The overpowering presence of the mother within the home will give as consequence a feminized kid. Will's father has left the home many years ago. So Joyce Byers, the mother must lead the home all by herself. They talk about how she's coded as a bad mother in the sense that she's somewhat neglectful, so they say. Will's vanishing is the perfect illustration of how badly Joyce exercises motherhood after Will's disappearance. It is Jonathan who must take care of keeping things straight as his mother emotionally breaks down her queer little son. Thus is the consequence of deep problems in the family. I mean, I think about, in Buffy, Joyce being like, is it because you didn't have a strong father figure? There is this idea that's prevalent of, if you're not that strong masculine figure or you're not the typical feminine girl, then there's something wrong with the way that you were parented. And it comes down to, you know, the father, the mother. And there are hints that Joyce was having nervous breakdowns some time ago. A deviant. Deviants transmitted to her son. So Will is an emasculated boy due to an absent father and also an irresponsible mother who does not behave as such. Which I just was reading that. I was like, what an exhausting system to live in. Like, Joyce is not perfect for sure, but like, she says, she was there, and yet somehow that's not enough. It's just wild to me. Yep. And we can only speculate why Lonnie left. But given the crumbs that the show is feeding us, it's not hard to be like, maybe Lonnie wasn't happy with the way his BO turning out and how unmasculine they were. I mean, his first words to Jonathan in this show were, wow, look how strong you're getting. Like, everything is a comment on, are you man enough? And if you're not, I don't want to have anything to do with you because I don't want to be blamed. And so I'm going to therefore push it all on to Joyce, the mother. And society is going to give Lonnie a pass and blame Joyce because of patriarchy and male privilege and all. All that. So, yep. So we're now in some random field. Jonathan, Nancy, are shooting some cans, prepping for the monster hunting. Jonathan's missing, like, every shot. Says he hasn't shot a gun since he was 10. Nancy has never shot a gun, apparently. So this is, you know, going great. We're gonna go after that monster. Jonathan then tells a sad story about how his dad took him hunting when he was 10, made him kill a rabbit, saying that he thought it would make me into more of a man or something. I cried for a week. I guess he and my mother loved each other at some point, but I wasn't around for that part. Oh, that's so sad.
[01:05:42] Speaker B: That is very sad.
[01:05:43] Speaker A: And then the. Okay, so this, again, this scene coming right after the Lonnie and Joyce 1. So Good Chef's kiss. Excellent storytelling. Nancy holds her hand out for the gun as he's talking about his father, equating the gun, shooting, hunting, all that stuff with manliness. Great visual storytelling. We get a subversion of gender dynamics while also catching a glimpse of who they are and maybe what they want or don't want out of life. So she takes the gun again.
She starts talking about her experience.
So again, from the essay the Monstrous Queer Child. Queer masculinity does not necessarily invoke homosexuality as we've talked about. Queer theory is identity without essence. If hegemonic masculinity involves essential traits as aggressiveness or competitive attitude, queer points to the fact that masculinity can simply be in another way. A shy boy can be read as queer without any assumption on his sexuality. Queer masculinity revamps cultural discourses to construct alternative to traditional depictions. Jonathan Byers fills the unattended maternal role, taking care of his little brother as a surrogate mother. He is emasculated through, quote, unquote, feminine traits like caregiving. And thus Jonathan is also bullied as deviant. He's another socially defunct boy contrasted with the exuding manliness of Steve. So Nancy, taking the gun from him, she begins to aim. She says she doesn't think her parents ever loved each other. Jonathan's like, they must have married for some reason. And then we probably get the most important and character defining statement yet from Nancy. And the camera pushes in on her the whole time, just kind of underlying this. She says, my mom was young, my dad was older, but he had a cushy job, money came from a good family, so they bought a nice house at the end of the cul de sac and started their nuclear family. Jonathan says, screw that. Nancy says, yeah, screw that. And then nails the can with the gun. Underlying the gender swapping and how she's good with guns, he's not like, it's just really good.
[01:07:41] Speaker B: It is. It's really good. That's what I really liked about this episode. I feel like you just really got to know, like, their true motivations, like, what these characters want ultimately. Because I feel like we've been questioning it, like, her going after Steve and, you know, even the conversation she has with Jonathan later on where they're kind of yelling at each other and arguing. I think it. It really just shows, like, what Nancy thinks. She's doing versus what she really almost wants. Like, it's, it's a nice, it's a nice way for the two characters to kind of tell us who they are through their interactions with each other. And I really like that.
[01:08:20] Speaker A: And I think Nancy's also figuring out what she wants too, because I think the first couple of episodes we saw her, her benefiting from the system. She would use her really sweet, high pitched girl voice with her mom when she's trying to be like, hey, there's a party and I want to go out. Like, she was playing the role and I don't think she ever thought of doing anything different or even, maybe even wanted anything different until after she saw that society's so quick to cast her out and she's not believed when she's not fitting into these very narrow restrictions. And then she's going, hang on. If that means. Means not being real, it means not being a good friend, it means not finding Barb, not being listened to, then I don't want any part of that system. And this is her, like, rejecting that, which is just very, very cool. So in Hopper's trailer, he is on the floor in his kitchen making a phone call. The first shot in the scene is a printed out article of Terry Ives suing Brenner. Presumably Hopper's playing with the little blue bracelet as the woman answers the phone. And we're like, okay, this must be his ex. She isn't happy. He called and he says he just wanted to hear her voice and then says that he doesn't regret any of it and that those seven years were everything to him. She's like, have you been drinking? And he says, no. We're like, yeah, this is the clearest he's been for a while. And then we hear a baby crying over the phone. And then this is just too much for Hopper and he says he actually has been drinking, tells her to take care of herself, and then hangs up. Just trying to like, I think, ease it for her a little bit.
Grabs the papers and his gun starts to leave. The phone rings and he just unplugs it and it's like, that's the end of that part of my life. Then at the train tracks, the boys are hunting for the gate, following the compass.
We have Lucas and Dustin in the front, Mike and Elle taking the rear. They've been clearly doing this for a while. Lucas looks back time after time to see Elle wiping her nose. Then we get another flashback and we're back in the lab. We're in Elle's room. And we can see the picture behind her on the wall that Hopper has had seen in. In the room that he was looking at.
Elle is asking Brenner how far, and he shows her a picture of a man. He says, farther than they've ever been before. And she says, the bath, which he affirms. She looks scared. He's like, is that okay? Asking her a question, almost like giving her this illusion of choice, but it's very much not. She looks uncertain. She says, okay. The way this is shot in this scene, in the. The next one, they do a great job of displaying the power dynamics and the helplessness and fear that Ella's feeling. It's like the shots of Brenner are from a lower angle, making him appear bigger and ominous. And then the shots of Elle are right at her level, but Brenner's shoulder and arm are in the frame. And he often, like, reaches across the camera as she's talking. It's like he's crowding into her space and ours. And it puts us into Elle's shoes and makes us feel intimidated and claustrophobic and like we're not in control. Which is important to convey that fear because Elle is carrying that over into her present day with the boys. We have to understand why Elle's doing what she's doing, because Brenner scares her. And in her mind, he's in control of everything. And she's afraid he's gonna hurt her
[01:11:26] Speaker B: friends, which is interesting when he asks her if that's okay. Like, she doesn't really have a choice. But it's almost like he's giving her the illusion that she has a choice, which is just so evil.
[01:11:38] Speaker A: So we see Elle in a special suit for swimming in what looks like, like, a tank room. She's flanked by scientists as she goes up some metal stairs. At the top, they put the wires on Elle's head. Then they open up this ginormous tank, have her stand on a ramp. Then they slowly lower her into the water, finally putting a huge helmet over her head so she can breathe. And then at the bottom of the tank, there's a large window where she can see Brenner. He raises a hand in greeting, and she puts hers on the glass like she's looking for that connection. It's so sad.
And then we see the ramp go back up. And then the windows just shuts, leaving Elle in the dark water all alone, which wilder and wilder. The situations that you keep putting this poor little girl in. Worlds Turned Upside down says that this scene required Millie Bobby Brown to actually remain underwater. And to underscore her terror in those moments, cinematographer Tim Ives employed theatrical lighting. He says, we used haze and smoke in order to catch light, which is something that was done a lot back in the 1980s. 80s. I wanted the water tank to pop, he says. We had underwater lighting in there. That's the main source of light. Sterile environments tend to sometimes be very bright, but I definitely wanted to keep it mysterious and dark in there, too. The scene in the sensory deprivation tank was particularly challenging for Millie Bobby Brown because once submerged, she couldn't fully communicate with her directors. She had an earpiece on. And then the guys, because there's no dialogue in that moment. The guys were talking to her while she was underwater, directing her and saying, okay, give us a sign if you need to come up or something, says executive producer Dan Cohen. It was a very unique way of capturing that moment. And that set was so cool. That was a moment that I really remember fondly. Because if you step back and look at it, this is a really wild scene that we're shooting. This kid who was born out of a lab, basically is in the water with a helmet on. And yet it was so magical, Insane, insane. I wonder if it was also harder because. Because Millie Bobby Brown is deaf in one ear. I wonder if that made it even harder to shoot.
Probably, yeah. So then we're snapped back out of that memory. In the railroad, L grabs Mike's arm and it's like, hey, let's turn back. He's like, we're almost there. Hold on a little longer. L looks back the way they came, almost like she's anticipating Brenner to just show up. And we see a little trickle of blood coming out of her nose.
In the woods, Nancy and Jonathan are monster hunting. Nancy and asks Jonathan again what she was saying when he took her picture, saying that he never responded before. He doesn't really want to answer, but he says that he saw this girl trying to be someone else. But for that moment, it was like you were alone or you thought you were and you could just be yourself. Nancy gets offended by this, calls it bullshit, and says she's not trying to be someone else just because she's dating Steve. Jonathan's like, fine. I just thought it was a good picture. Continues on. Nancy can't let it go and is like, he's actually a good guy. Jonathan like, okay. And she's like, you know, the camera breaking and all that stuff. Steve's not like that. He was just being protective. Okay. And Jonathan's like, yeah, that's one word for it. And Nancy's like, and I guess whatever you did was okay. And Jonathan's like, I never said that. And Nancy says he had every right to be pissed. Jonathan's like, does that mean I have to like him? Don't take it so personally, okay? I don't like most people. Nancy's pissed. Says that she was actually starting to think that he was okay. That he was not the protector, pretentious creep everyone says he is. Jonathan's pissed now too, and is like, well, I was just starting to think you were okay too. Not just another suburban girl who thinks she's rebelling by doing exactly what every other suburban girl does. Until that phase passes and they marry some boring one time jock who now works sales and they live out a perfectly boring little life at the end of a cul de sac. Exactly like their parents who they thought were so depressing, but now, hey, they get it.
He like read her to filth and then just took off.
Damn.
[01:15:23] Speaker B: It's almost like the two of them, they're almost like good around each other because they're like bringing up these things that like, like I feel like this is what Nancy's thinking, but she's not saying it out loud. And then Jonathan also, obviously, like, he's, he doesn't have, like, they're just, they're kind of like putting bare like each other's biggest like, insecurities, I feel like.
And it's really interesting to see because that pisses them both off. Off.
[01:15:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:15:49] Speaker B: But it's also like how you connect with people. So I think this is like, it seems like it's pushing them further away from each other, but I feel like it's gonna bring them together more.
[01:15:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:15:59] Speaker B: Because they kind of understand each other on some level.
But yeah, it's. It's just interesting because I feel like her and Steve, for example, like, she, they don't really fight like this.
[01:16:10] Speaker A: Yeah, like, I, I don't think you've
[01:16:12] Speaker B: seen them fight like this where it's kind of like raw like this. But with Jonathan, I feel like there's not that, there's not that like expectation or, I don't know, like, Jonathan is an outcast. So I feel like she feels like she can be more honest with him and then Jonathan has nothing to lose, so he's being more honest with her. And anyway, I just, I just thought it was a great scene between the two of them. Yeah.
[01:16:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So for context, obviously divorce is starting to become more Common now in the 80s 80s. It's still very much looked down upon, but it's starting to happen more and more frequently. And what determines and defines the nuclear family is starting to shift a bit. So in the essay Half Lives of the Nuclear Family by Anthony David Franklin, he says the oppressive nature of the nuclear model forces the appearance of quality of life rather than quality relationships between members. And we've seen this with the Wheelers in particular. They discuss how season one one's two defining models of familial representation are the Wheelers and the Byers. The Wheelers are what we would see as the more normative family. The Byers would be the non normative more. And we would say, oh, they're dysfunctional, right? But we're seeing that the Wheelers are also somewhat dysfunctional as well. They continue on and say that. This monologue by Jonathan strikes at the core of the criticism surrounding the nuclear family that has been alluded at throughout the series. We've been talking about this. It directs. Directs attention to the nature of the suburban lifestyle to replicate itself despite rebellion against it. The nuclear family draws in those who have participated in the structure and encapsulates them in the ideologies rejected in youth. As claimed by Jonathan. The suburban nuclear structure is something that even cultivates criticism against itself. There is something about its nature that draws them back into the very things they despised and found depressing in their un youth. Jonathan aims to shatter Nancy's perception of her own role in the nuclear family. In general cultural terms, the modern nuclear family is understood as a pillar of social order and economic stability, vital to the reproduction of the status quo, where gender relations and personal lives become normalized and rather predictable. The family, as seen within this conservative outlook, guarantees a smooth, harmonious evolution from one generation to the next. And I think this is so interesting. And again, can, like we can talk about how this is affecting things today too. There's this idea that there's only one way to have a family. There's only one way to do life.
And it almost becomes cult like sometimes in the ways that conservative ideologies propagate this and make this into a it. Ha. This has to be the only way that you do life. And Nancy, even in her attempts to climb the social ladder and all that stuff, thinking that she's rebelling is actually just kind of doing the same things that her, her parents did, the generations of people have done before her. And they're even saying that that is kind of even part of the cycle, like it's expected that adolescents are going to rebel and there's space for it. But you can only rebel so much, Right. And then at a certain point, you're going to get sucked back in because you're going to realize, oh, if I venture too far out of the normative way of doing life, I'm going to be an outsider, which means I' off from the. The families, the communities, the societies, all that stuff. And you become lonely. And so you go, it's better to just assimilate because then I have friendships, then I have. Then I at least feel like I belong and stuff. So that's kind of a little bit of what they're talking about here. So Nancy believes herself to be rebelling against the pillars of societal order. But Jonathan is in a better position than Nancy to see the flaws again because he's outside of it, but also because he's a complete contrast with his father. So his father is supposedly normative, and Jonathan is fundamentally different from the 80s masculine ideal. And he's comfortable and okay enough with himself to say that there are other ways of living. And he's trying to show Nancy that. So I don't know. I think there's something interesting to be said here that not to say that Nancy isn't attracted to Steve or doesn't like Steve, but it's possible that Steve's being higher up on the social status and the social totem pole is partially what attracted Nancy to him. Like, we have a whole barb conversation where she says, you're going to be so cool now, that it's possible that's part of what attracted Nancy to him. And which case then Nancy is not really rebelling by being with Steve. She's just adhering to more of what society is expecting her to do, which is marry the really popular guy, you know? So I don't know. I think it's very. It's very interesting.
Yeah. All right. So back at the buyers, Joyce is preparing to put the lights back up. She hears banging at the door. She thinks it's Lonnie. We think it's Lonnie, but it's Hopper. He has this picture or this piece of paper that he's written on there saying, don't say anything. He's got his fingers to his lips. He comes in and prepare to debug her house.
[01:21:14] Speaker B: And it's confronted with a bajillion Christmas 1000 lights.
[01:21:19] Speaker A: He's like, oh, Jesus, that poor man is set up so well. I didn't even think about it. I was just like, he's, like, going through his house and then shows up at Joyce's, and it's like, oh, God, no.
So now we're back at the abandoned car graveyard the boys have arrived at, and Dustin really realizes they've looped around. They're now headed back home. Everyone's confused. And then Lucas looks at Ellen, is like, she's been acting weird. Mike defends her, but Lucas calls her a traitor, says she doesn't want them to find the gate or Will, and then grabs her sleeve and there's fresh blood. And Mike looks betrayed, but he continues to, like, try to defend her. Lucas tells him what he saw on the tracks, and Mike's like, tell me that's old blood. It's old blood, right? And then l just begins to cry and says, it's not safe.
Poor baby.
[01:22:08] Speaker B: They're just kids.
[01:22:09] Speaker A: They are just kids. And then she's over here going, I don't want my friends to die. I don't want my friends to have to go through what I did. Or, like, bring the monster, whatever is gonna happen, you know? So then at the Byers, Hopper's out of breath as he's finally finished unscrewing the last of the light bulbs. Joyce is confused. He fills her in on what happened with his place being bugged. Says he's not sure who it is, is, but that he went to the morgue. And he says it wasn't Will, that Will's body was a fake. Joyce is shocked. She sits down as he tells her that she was right. That this whole time she was right and now we're in the same position. They were just, I think, an episode or two prior where she was begging him to believe her. They're in the same room, and now he believes her. And the script says Joyce fights back tears. It doesn't matter that Hop seems a bit crazy. For the first time since this nightmare began, man, someone believes her.
Vindictive.
Yeah.
Back at the truck graveyard, Mike and Lucas are arguing about L. Mike says she's trying to help. Lucas says she's been playing them from the start. Lucas points out how Elle has been withholding information.
Says that she's been using them to get what she wants. Food in a bed. And then calls her a stray dog. Okay. Okay, Lucas. Mike says, screw you. Lucas says that Mike is blind because he likes that a girl is not grossed about him, but that she knows where Will is and she's just letting him die in the Upside Down. For all we know, it's her fault. Fault. We're looking for some stupid monster. But did you ever stop to think that maybe she's the monster?
[01:23:36] Speaker B: Oh, ouch.
[01:23:38] Speaker A: The writers really are not pulling their punches this episode.
[01:23:42] Speaker B: Ouch.
[01:23:44] Speaker A: Like, it kind of like what you were saying about.
Oh, who were you talking about earlier? That had a point. Lonnie. You were saying. Lonnie has some points. Lucas has some points here as well. Like, it is possible that Mike is a bit infatuated with the fact that there's a girl that likes him.
So I kind of like that they're putting a little bit of truth here. And it's not just.
[01:24:05] Speaker B: I mean, I think it's telling that Lucas is, like, he's the most pessimistic, but also he almost is able to see things for what they really are sometimes.
Like, he immediately clocked that it was maybe 11 that was derailing the compass. But that's because he's like. He already has that, like, pessimism towards her. Her, and he ended up being right, you know, and it's like we also don't know. Like, we know some things about El, but we also don't know everything we see. Maybe, like, we're seeing maybe the build up to her becoming a monster in the flashbacks. We don't know how she escaped. We don't know what happened after. So it's like, it almost puts, like, a. A grain of doubt in your mind about Elle and what her intentions really are.
But also there is the part that's like, okay, she's a kid, and obviously she doesn't want to go back there because it's not safe. Like, something bad has happened there. So. So it's a really nice.
It's like a situation where I feel like nobody's really wrong, but also I feel like I feel that way because they're all kids. Like, you can't really blame them for lashing out and saying stuff and whatever, but.
[01:25:09] Speaker A: Right. Right. It's. It's well built up because Lucas is being very harsh, but he doesn't have the information we do because we have insight into El's mind.
[01:25:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Also, Lucas is really concerned about his friend. He cares about William, Will. So this is all coming from a place of fear and also love for the guy that's missing. So it's like, I feel for L, but I also can't really fault Lucas for what he's thinking.
[01:25:36] Speaker B: Him.
[01:25:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yep.
So Mike just tackles Lucas. They start to fight. L begs them to stop. They don't listen. She screams, and her powers rip Lucas off. Mike sends him sailing across the yard and slamming him into a wall, and he becomes unconscious. Mike's like, why would you do that? What's wrong with you? And then Elle just looks on in horror. The script says that she starts to cry, truly feeling like a monster now. And then we hear Mike's voice echo. We're back in the tank with L. In the past, the World Turned Upside down says that McLaughlin, Caleb himself was excited to try the stunt, which basically involved his being yanked briskly into foam padding. Caleb's very athletic. Matt Duffer says it was filmed amidst an actual junkyard to serve as sort of symbolic haven for this group of kids who don't quite fit in with the mainstream. That scene was so dope, says McLaughlin. That was amazing because it was like six different shots where they dragged me. At one point, I was on a harness flying through the air. It was so much fun.
Come on, Kayla. Be our next Miles.
And then again, kind of contrasting Nancy. The essay Half Lives of the Nuclear Family talks about how Elle is as an outsider that is unfamiliar would likely see a family like the Wheelers as ideas ideal and see their structure and behavior as substitute for what would be more of a truly cohesive family. So in her mind, she goes, oh, that's the ideal family. Her seeing the pictures in the living room and Mike questioning her about her family. And they talk about specifically how the perception of a happy family is what drives Eleven's pursuit of familial acceptance, for she is able to recognize the differences between herself and Nancy. So 11 believes Nancy to be pretty. Pretty. And in the moment where they dress her up and everything, we can see the juxtaposition between the two familial models for the children and how, like, one is normal and one is not. So 11 dresses up in order to better assimilate into the school environment. It says, well to the audience, the moment where Elle's looking at herself in the mirror and says pretty, it may seem like comedic relief. Eleven recognizes herself as pretty, and that use of the word draws her closer to her perception of Nancy and consequently closer to the nuclear family structure. And yet, as we see in this episode, she's still an outsider. And I think 11 has this realization as well in this moment, which is partly why this moment is so devastating for her and for us, because she's realizing, oh, I'm not actually, I'm not Nancy, and she's not normal. And so when they're yelling, what is wrong with you? And she's thinking she's feeling like a Monster. She leaves because she goes, I'm not. Not. I'm not a normal girl. I can't ever be a normal girl. Which means I don't belong with a family. I'm a monster. And it's really, really sad.
And then, you know, we have the tank. Elle's walking around. Here's a man.
We're in a man's mind, I think either Elle's mind or the man's mind. And she hears a man speaking Russian and he doesn't know that she's there. And she broadcasts his voice back out to the speakers for Brenner and the others.
She hears a growling, and then her concentration is broken on the man. And then in the lab, they hear the monsters noises over the PA and are like, what is that? Ls terrified. We hear clicking as she just is running around inside of her mind, I believe. And then in the tank, Elle is screaming for help and banging on the glass. So this girl has ptsd. For sure. For sure. For sure?
[01:29:12] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Sure.
[01:29:14] Speaker A: Back in the graveyard, L is full on crying now. Watches the boys trying to wake Lucas and make sure he's okay. He comes to, leaves, angrily refuses help from Mike. And then they realize that L is gone.
In the woods, the sun's going down as Nancy and Jonathan trek through. They find a dying deer that looks like it was hit by a car. And Jonathan pulls out a gun and is going to shoot it when all of a sudden the deer, deer gets pulled into the bushes by something. They follow the blood trail, can't find it, and end up getting split up as they search. Nancy ends up finding a trail that leads to what looks like a hollow tree with SAP and something oozing inside of it.
There's like no music. It's just all sound effects and it's so gross.
[01:29:58] Speaker B: So she decides to crawl right in.
[01:30:00] Speaker A: I don't understand because even the way that it was shot, you couldn't see that there was like a. Anything through there. Like she just heard noises and then just sees a bunch of like, oozing stuff. And it's like, yeah, there. The thing that got the deer is probably in there. Whatever has Barb is probably in there. So we're gonna go in just by
[01:30:18] Speaker B: herself, no weapon, not.
[01:30:20] Speaker A: Not even. Just double checking that Jonathan is there? I don't know.
[01:30:24] Speaker B: She did call him, to be fair, but then she just went ahead.
[01:30:27] Speaker A: Gutsier than me?
[01:30:28] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[01:30:30] Speaker A: So she calls for Jonathan. We'll give her a little bit of credit. He doesn't answer, so she's like, okay. So she takes off her backpack neck, crawls through. It's slimy, it's oozing, it's dripping. Nancy gets to the other side of what we know to be the Upside Down. I'm pretty sure I'll have to look it up, but I think that the oozing stuff that they use is actually lube.
[01:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah, very good.
[01:30:51] Speaker A: So, yeah, there's that.
So she gets to the other side. There's ash, like spores and particles in the air. A blue, like, quality to the space. There's stuff growing on the trees. Her flashlight immediately starts to flicker like the lights did. The buyers have house. She starts to explore, spots the back of the monster eating the deer. She backs away, but then steps on a vine. We see the monster's face for the first time. It opens up like a carnivorous plant with razor sharp teeth. And she drops her flashlight. She's screaming for Jonathan.
So crazy in the regular world. He hears her. He didn't hear her yelling for him initially, but he hears her now. Okay, runs, finds her backpack pack, doesn't see the tree and is like calling for her and then moves away. And then we close on the tree where the bark has slowly begun to close back up, sealing Nancy into the Upside down as the final song. Nocturnal Me by Echo and the Bunnyman play crazy. That's a wild ending.
[01:31:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Now Nancy's there.
[01:31:53] Speaker A: Oh, boy.
Crazily enough, the duffers were originally never going to have us go into the Upside down down and never have it shown in the series. Yeah, that's crazy. They initially planned for the supernatural plane the Nether. Originally called to remain off screen, saying we were never going to go into the Nether. We were only planning to hear this other dimension over radios and walkie talkies. We thought that'd be scarier. What we don't see is often scarier than what we do. And that worked for a while, but once we got five hours in, we felt the show really needed to open up, expand. It just became increasingly obvious we had to go into the Upside Down Down. So, yeah, I can't imagine the show
[01:32:34] Speaker B: having like, not going into the Upside Down.
[01:32:37] Speaker A: Yeah. We'll go into the design of the Upside down and the monster in a later episode because it's pretty interesting and intense. But yeah, fantastic episode.
[01:32:46] Speaker B: Great episode.
[01:32:47] Speaker A: So good. And I am so excited. The next episode is one of my favorites of the season. It's got some of my favorite sequences of the series and. And we're gonna have Tony from All Bronze, no Brains join us, and it's just gonna be. It's gonna be really good. So I'm very excited.
[01:33:03] Speaker B: Very fun.
[01:33:05] Speaker A: Yeah, very excited. But. All right, guys, thanks so much for listening, and we will talk to you next time.
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