Episode Transcript
[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 are talking about season one, chapter six, the Monster, written by Jesse Nixon Lopez, who is a staff writer and executive story editor, directed by the Duffers. And before I forget, we have a guest, Tony from All Bronze no Brains, with us. Hello, Tony. Welcome.
[00:01:03] Speaker C: Well, thank you very much for having me back in your life.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Yeah, completely out of my life up until this moment. I only slide into your DMs when I need you to come on the podcast.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: We don't have a group chat with the three of us where we talk about things and stuff.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: That's for our eyes only.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: With some really nice art for our profile picture.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: Yeah, we definitely should get T shirts that say, like, cc's Pizza Club on it. Like, I. I just think that's so good.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: I'm dead.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: But this is so fun. We have been talking about having you on the pod since, I think back before everybody else knew that we were doing Stranger Things, Tony and I actually watched season five, the finale. Did we watch all of it or just the finale?
[00:01:57] Speaker C: We watched all of it. Everything.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: I can't remember how much we watched together.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: We spent Christmas and. And New Year's that, like, on Thanksgiving, pretty much together.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. For every single holiday. So long ago. But yeah, Tabby came and was staying with Andrew and I for the holidays for Christmas. And so she got to join in for one of those sessions. And that was so much fun. We, like, created a bingo.
Like, she. And then we had another game that
[00:02:24] Speaker B: we played as hell. Where the hell was my invite?
[00:02:26] Speaker A: I know. I'm sorry. I should have invited you.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: To be fair, I. I forced. It wasn't.
Let's do this thing. I was more like, I, like, I'm by myself and I have, like, new friends or family. Like, it was.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: It was really a pity. It was a pity party. A literal pity party. I was like.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Tony was like, pity parties.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Tony was like, I haven't spent Christmas with anybody for the past five years. And I was like, oh, my gosh, you want to watch Stranger Things
[00:02:53] Speaker B: next time?
[00:02:54] Speaker C: And it really was so good. I had, like. I had the best.
The best time. It was brilliant.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: It was so fun.
[00:02:59] Speaker C: We got on after every episode and. And kind of had a little debrief.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: And then after yeah. And then after each episode, we would FaceTime in between, and we would talk about what we thought, and then we'd go back and watch the episode. Yeah, it was really, really fun. It's a pretty special memory. So I think you even sent me, after season five aired, you sent me a whole list of all the episodes you want to be on for all of the series, which we'll see if you make it on for it.
But either way, we're gonna try and have you on as much as possible, so.
[00:03:27] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, thank you.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Did you specifically pick this episode?
[00:03:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I did. I pick. I think I did pick this one, but I think I picked it.
I think I picked it thinking it was the next episode because it was like the van sequence.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I did not look at full. Full disclosure. I didn't look at your list when I assigned the.
When I assigned the episode.
[00:03:52] Speaker C: I just at least request.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: I just was like, you know, this will work. This will be great. And, like, transitioning into it, just like with Steph, I kind of was like, okay, what works for our schedule works for your schedule. We're gonna just kind of assign you an episode, and then that'll be it. But it's actually worked out so well. The episode Steph was on was a great one for her to come on for, and then this one is such a good one for you. And I'm like, I'm so excited. So.
[00:04:17] Speaker C: Yeah, me too. Like, I've just found myself, like, deeper in thought than I ever have been about Stranger Things. And, Yeah, I really, really kind of enjoyed the process of doing it. So I hope you guys are having as much fun as what. What I. I'm having. I'm jealous. I wish I was in this podcast.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: I always want to watch ahead because the episodes are so good. I just feel like it's. I have more fun watching the episodes than talking about them sometimes because they're just so fun to watch, and I feel like it's hard to do them justice in a podcast sometimes.
But it's definitely a show where you want to, like, keep going. Like, I want to watch the next episode, but I know if I watch it now, I'm going to forget by the time we record, so I can't.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I've been. And, like, Tony and I were talking about it beforehand. I've been having such a great time with season one in particular, and I'm kind of approaching it the same way I did with Buffy and Angel, where obviously, I know what's going to happen in the future. But I'm trying to just take it from an episode by episode episode basis and a really a season by season basis. I feel like Stranger Things is not quite like the Buffy verse in that everything thematically always fits together in every, every single season. I think that you kind of have to look at it from a season by season basis.
So I have been. I mean, I've always known season one was great and I've really enjoyed it in the past, but going through it this past rewatch, I've just been like, wow, there's some real cool intentionality and cohesion here. But yeah. So. All right, so let's talk about it.
The monster. I'm starting out with a quote by the Ab Club. They actually had a really great article on this episode, had some great points, and they're talking about the monster, essentially. So they said she is no more a monster than a kid in an iron lung.
And I think this episode is so fascinating from an L standpoint. We finally, I feel like, get the last piece of the L puzzle for this season.
The big secret that she's kind of been hiding from everybody. And they've kind of been inferring that Elle is not necessarily the monster, but Elle is so different and so non normative that there's almost this appearance of something that's scary, something that is terrifying and different. And yeah. So I think the title of the episode is just really brilliant. When talking about Elle, Ab Club continues and says El's powers opened a portal between universes for a creature to slither through. But she's not the monster. Even that creature, horrifying as it is, isn't the worst monster of Stranger Things. The monster didn't have to cross over from some dark dimension. The monster was here all along. The monster is Brenner, persuading college kids to trade a couple of hundred bucks for the risks of his mind bending experiments. In Terry I's case, a lifetime of near catatonia. The monster is Steve's jealousy entitlement, blotting out his affection for Nancy and his vacillating sense of decency. The monster is the vindictive rage of a bully who forces a classmate to jump from the quarry's cliffs by holding his friend at knifepoint. The monsters the blank resolve of a government bureau eager to exploit a gifted child, pushing her to make solitary contact with something unknown, unknowable. As Stranger Things already hinted in the title of chapter two, the Weirdo on Maple street, with its nod to classic Twilight Zone Episode the monster isn't the thing from another world. It's a us. And I thought that was so brilliant and really just encapsulates this episode and kind of what we've been talking about, Leia, for this entire season about how there's a classification of if you're non normative and you're classified as other, then you are monstrous. And Stranger Things is going to kind of take that and turn it on its head and go, okay, well, what is actual monstrosity? And they're gonna. They're highlighting that and they're contrasting that this episode, which I think is just fantastic. So, so what do you guys think of the episode?
[00:08:11] Speaker C: I mean, I, I loved it to like, to piggyback, even off just what you were saying, sir. Like, I. The. The twist being, you know, Elle viewing herself as like, the monster and the Demogorgon almost being like the least of the monsters in this episode.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: It's barely in this episode.
[00:08:27] Speaker C: It was just fascinating as well. I just love, like, that it's such a strong statement as well for the show to make that, you know, like, that the monsters are in the real world and that especially in the case of the bullies, that they're chill, that they're children.
I just thought it was like, yeah, I thought it was just a lot smarter than I remembered it being. And I think it's because I also, like, haven't seen it in so long as well that it just kind of like, hit me more. I was like, yeah, it's just forget how good it. How good season one is.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: The thing that stood out to me was, like, how the Demogorgon was being presented as like, a predator where. Oh, like, it's almost like he. It hunts because of. It's a baser, like, survival instinct. And that's why it's a monster. Like, it's drawn to blood. It's like a shark, it's like a bear. It doesn't really have malicious intent. It's just doing it because that's how it survives. And it's like, there's that type of monster and then like you said earlier, there's all the other types of monsters and like, especially Elle. And I just. I just love the relationships that are, like, forming between, like, there's. I think this episode was really good for Mike too. I think it really just shows how, like, loyal he is and how.
How much he believes in, like, the goodness of people and how far he's willing to go for the people that he loves. And I think that's Like a core trait of Mike's that we see across the entire series. And I'd like, I love that we're starting to see it here. And then even Dustin, like, I just feel like they're all starting to develop their personalities for how I like remember them from having watched season five recently. Because I don't really remember season one that well. But it's really interesting to go back and see how they're already like, this is them, you know?
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Yeah. So even Lucas too, Like, he's a hard watch sometimes in season one, but I've really developed a soft spot for him in going through this watch because I'm going, he's doing all of this because he cares so much for his friends. Friends. Like, this isn't him just being malicious. Like he, he disagrees with Mike and Dustin, but he doesn't just sit and say, well, you guys do what you're gonna do. He goes, well, I believe strongly that Will is here and that Ella's stopping us from finding him. So I'm gonna go find him on myself, knowing there's a monster out there. Like, I think that that's pretty admirable too. So all of them, like you said, they're, they're showing their distinct personalities, but they're all just so brave, is the biggest takeaway with each of them.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: So.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: So I'm going to talk a little bit about bullying like here and now, so we don't have to like interrupt the pace as we go along. But I again, reading the essay the Monstrous Queer Child, I thought this was super fascinating. I'd never realized that there was a difference in bullying in the 80s versus now in the terminology and how we thought about it. So in the essay they talk about how our definition has changed and how it's depicted in movies and film as well. They said the reason for the presence of bullying within popular culture in the 1980s answers fact that this phenomenon was analyzed for the first time ever in 1980s America. Global wide research attention in Norway and Sweden in the 80s led to the first national intervention campaign against bullying. Bullying, however, was known in the late 70s and 80s not as bullying but as mobbing. A social phenomenon slightly different with the current conception of bullying. Mobbing was connected with family issues. So the bullied kid and the bully were offspring of bad parenting. The bullied child was passive, queer in his lack of masculinity. They actually, when they did all of this, the studies and the investigation, they only based it solely on boys. They did not study girls at all in this which is so interesting.
So while the bully was aggressive, also a consequence of weak parenting, they, they were basically like, if you're mobbed, then both the bully and the victim are, are essentially a product of poor parenting. Both the bully and the victim were somehow quote unquote, deviant from status of normalcy. Their deviance nurtured parenting. The term mobbing was first introduced in 1969 and it referred at the time to group violence against deviant individual, which occurs and stops suddenly. Not what we think of today with bullying, which is that it's a continuous thing that happens over time. It was pretty much just like a one time thing and then it was done. Further, the act of bullying is exerted by an individual with marked personality issues such as aggressiveness and impulsivity. His victim is usually an insecure, passive kid who mostly leaves things to happen to him without giving any fight back, thus becoming a perfect abuse. So mobbing is understood as a phenomenon that depends on the personality issues of the involved participants. The aggressor has an abusive family history, which in this episode we're going, okay, possibly Steve being afraid of his father calling him an.
While the passive victim are born into homes with overprotective parents. So we look at Joyce, for instance, in the definition of mobbing, the victim's lack of manliness calls the attention of aggressive males. This diminishing of the natural, quote unquote trait in boys, which is aggressiveness. So they deemed aggressiveness is a natural TR of boys, depicts the victim as queer, somehow defective in manliness. So again, we're remembering that this is the 80s and this is a time when Ronald Reagan, you know, he has campaigned on this idea of masculinity, which is the all American cowboy, good guys versus bad guys. Strength is a huge thing. And so men need to look strong. And that gets translated. And so we have these young boys that are seeing this and they go, strength equals aggression. And being kids, they aren't sure how to regulate that. And then that's how you get mobbing. And instead of, instead of the society looking at that and going, maybe we have a cultural problem, which is what we would do today.
They're going, oh, it's the parents. They didn't parent. They didn't parent, right? And the interesting thing is is that implicitly and even sometimes explicitly, even though they're all like, okay, mobbing is not great. The victim always somehow got disparaged more than the perpetrator because the victim seemed to deserve it because they were guilty of not being normative.
Which is just crazy because that's so different from how we view it today. As a side note, they also talked about how in the 80s, slasher films rose to popularity and they often depicted macho, aggressive guys picking on the non normative or queer boy. But then that disappeared in the 90s. Like, slasher films basically stopped in the 90s when studies started decontextualizing mobbing and they realized that it was a societal and a cultural problem, not a parenting problem. And we're like, hello? Yeah, we're forcing everyone into these narrow gender stereotypes. And then it got renamed into bowling. And so that's what we know of as today is okay. It's not always a parenting thing. So Stranger Things is referencing the mobbing mentality of the 80s, but because it's done in 2016, it's subverting it by marking an important difference, which is while the queer teenager was punished in the 80s, the figure is now renowned in this TV series.
So they're. They're turning it on its head by showing all of these queer characters, non normative characters, and how they're not the ones that are the monsters, essentially, which I think is pretty, pretty great. So I thought that was pretty interesting, and I think that makes a lot of sense for this episode.
[00:15:51] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely. I also think too, like, contextually at the time, like the bully trope was really brought into media in terms of films. When you look at like Back to the Future and like Karate Kid, they, you know, we've. They kind of established the nerd versus jock, you know, kind of system in the media, like you were saying about mobbing. And it's kind of reclassification as bullying. There were no legal safeguards or anything back then. And like you said, the blame is often kind of placed on the victim. You know, the. It's always. It's always the victim being told that you need to toughen up, you know.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:24] Speaker C: Like you. It's almost like they deserve it. And like the, like you said, like, the identifying as othered or otherness is just like, just really punishable or something back then. It's just like that's just the way they presented it, you know, And I think that's what is so brilliant about Stranger Things in general. Because then it like makes the relationships that we see between all these other kids like an act of rebellion. And I just think it. It just makes it feel. It makes it feel so much more special.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. When it kind of makes sense of what we've been saying, Leia, about like the justice for Barb movement. And the essay talks about how, like, that's kind of a real world example of how our perception of bullying has shifted since the 80s. Because if this had come out in the 80s, we would have gone, well, I mean, Barb was always like the weird kid shy, so maybe she did something and deserved to die.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: But like now in this, in the show, I mean, everybody assumes that she just, like, ran away. Nobody cares to even, like, look for her. They just assume, oh, like, you know, she's not one of the popular kids, so who cares to look for her? We found her car, therefore she just ran away because she's a deviant, you know?
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, because she's a teenager. That's what teenagers are supposed to do. Yeah, you know, yeah, totally. But I think, like now in. In 2026 and even back in 2016, she's mourned and beloved. And I think that's because, again, so many people look at the shy, non normative character and relate with them. But yeah. So, all right, jumping into the episode. We are back in the woods and Jonathan's on the right side up, Nancy's on the upside down. They're just calling for each other back and forth. Nancy running around wildly looking for a way to get out. Jon yells for Nancy to follow his voice, and then Nancy spots the monster. The script says the monster was stalking her, so she's trying to hide, and because she's not bleeding, it can't find her. So thank God she's not on her period. Jonathan finds the rapidly shrinking hole's face.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: You weren't here when Sarah started telling us about the.
It's the uterus and the. What was it? The.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Oh, the monstrous womb.
So good, Tony.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Yeah, the womb of.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: And let me just say. Let me just say this episode. This episode vas and stuff. And yeah, IUDs everything that Steph came on for that one, so it was absolutely perfect. You can imagine how that went. But it was so. It's. It's so good because now that we found out where Elle came from and stuff, it all ties in so well. Can't wait to get to that part. Anyway, but we're here, so. Speaking of whole,
[00:19:05] Speaker C: have you turned into me?
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Yes.
So Jonathan spots the rapidly shrieking hole in the tree. Nancy's hiding from the monster. Now every time I say hole. Dang it, Leia. Jonathan's yelling through the hole for her to follow his voice. We get a jump scare of Nancy's arm poking through this disgusting membrane vagina like Stuff the hole. Yes. Jonathan pulls her out.
Apparently the script says that the whole had closed. Apparently the whole head closed up so much that it was essentially squeezing Nancy, which is why she needs Jonathan to pull her out.
I didn't quite get that from watching.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: It didn't look like that. Yeah.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: Yeah. No, it didn't. Yeah. We can pretend she'd help being birthed.
I like how she, like, sticks her arm out. She's like, jonathan. And I'm like, girl, he's right there. The monster is behind you. Shh.
[00:19:58] Speaker C: Yeah, shut up.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Can these monsters here, or are they just, like, smelling? Do we know yet that?
[00:20:04] Speaker A: I don't know, but it does seem deaf.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: They have, like. Yeah, I think it's. It probably just, like, hunts based on scent.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: Maybe she knows that the monster's there. She saw it. She starts running around just screaming for Jonathan. I was like, girl, you're gonna get killed.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Surely it's death. Surely the monster's death. Like, it has to be
[00:20:22] Speaker A: talking about the Upside down, just really briefly. So the.
The fun fact that we had learned last episode, Tony, was that originally the Duffers were not going to have the Upside down be shown at all. They weren't gonna have anybody go into the Upside down other than, you know, obviously Will and Barb. But they weren't gonna show that they were there.
They were planning on never going into it. So they decided, I think they said, like, five hours in, that they were like, we need to go into the Upside Down.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Yeah, stupid idea.
[00:20:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: So the inspiration for the look of the Upside down came from the survival game. Silent Hill came from the movie Soccer, the Road, Ridley Scott's Alien. And they talk about how they wanted to do minimal visual effects, which I really appreciate for this season.
Matt Duffer says it couldn't become a CGI fest. We wanted to do in a very simple, effective way. And it did lead us, of course, to talking about the approach used in Silent Hill, which is basically color correction, ash and deteriorating buildings.
So they said we were also inspired by the planet in Alien, where he's got these particles always dancing about in the air. So we added what we called spores, most of which were achieved practically, and all these vines and weird organic growths, and it was all based in real locations.
They wanted the Upside down to be as practical as possible. So they always shot actors in actual locations, which were then enhanced with set dressings and just a little bit of visual effects. Production designer Chris Trujillo says the idea is it's a shadow world, this murky, dark reflection I can hear box.
Is that Arya or Abe?
[00:22:02] Speaker C: It's ar. She's trying to get. She's trying to get up in.
In my name. I'm trying to push.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: She's our monster sound effect person right now.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: Sorry.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: It's so cute. It's fun.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: AR is our little Demogorgon.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Yeah. She's like.
Chris Trilo says that they ended up using a lot of. Of natural effects to create the vines and such, and that they wanted to create the feel of a reality that feels infected in a way. They said there's something infiltrating it and sucking the life from it. That's what we came up with. This idea of having the vines as if there's this spreading disease that's overtaking everything.
The floating dustiness is in. The air is meant to feel like spores. So to fabricate vines and tendrils, the art department and the special effects team experimented with bubble wrap and sheet plastics that were heated until they melted and then painted clear. Latex was also stretched and treated to craft netting and webbing. Special effects coordinator KS Mann says, we spent three months closer to floor four probably fooling around with every chemical and flexible, stretchy thing and multiple thing we could possibly lay our hands on. Everything from laying out latexes and using chemicals to rapidly hardening them and drizzling latex into trays of chemicals to make webs. And then sound designer said that they created the sonic environment, making it very wet, lots of dripping trees creaking.
He used his own breathing and then layered it and added delay, and then that's how great.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: I love that. I love practical effects so much. It's such a, like, impressive art form, how they can just make it look like. I know it's. It also goes into, like, you know, the filming and the direction and, like, how people. How it's edited after and all that. But just the fact that you can create such, like, amazing things out of
[00:23:47] Speaker A: just things like color correction and then that stuff. Yeah.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Like bubble wrap or whatever. Even, like, is a Demogorgon a practical.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: Yes, it's an actual person. There's only one scene in the entire show. Or. Sorry, not the entire show, obviously. The entire season. That is. See the monster cgi. It's all practical effects in every other.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is so, so cool.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: And I think cool.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: It's. It's. From a visual standpoint, it helps me. I can always spot when something cgi, especially a monster or whatever.
But also, I bet the actors to be in that environment.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: And it Feels so much more real. I bet you get it. A more authentic performance.
[00:24:25] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. To be able to. Be able to actually act against something. I think, like, the upside. The upside down is so sensory as well. Like, it's so. Yeah, it feels like the. The. No, the wetness, especially of, like, the Demogorgon when he's eating and stuff. There's. It's really quite vividly clear.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Where's Arya?
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Where's Arya?
[00:24:43] Speaker C: Yeah. It really is like ar. And the way it's, like, so slippy and slimy. Like, I feel like. I don't know if they did that on purpose for it to be, like, overly heightened, especially, I think because the Demogorgon doesn't have eyes.
It feels like every other sense that it has feels very, like.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Enhanced.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: The effects of Nancy crawling through the tree and coming back out and stuff, too. Like, they really went overboard with the lube and everything else.
It's just crazy.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: It's birth.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Yeah, the birth canal.
[00:25:17] Speaker C: I've used that. That type of lube in photo shoots before because it goes very like Spider man web.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, yeah. It looks like slime.
[00:25:25] Speaker C: It's. It's fisting. Fisting lube.
It's just a powder that you mix with water, and it goes very, like, very straight.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: Like slime. It's like slime. Then it's.
[00:25:36] Speaker C: It's a bit like slime, but you can reconstitute it continually. Like, with what? Like, just adding more water to it.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: Damn, that's so cool.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: So you can kind of make it whatever consistency you want it to be, then.
[00:25:48] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: That's so cool.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: I love that.
Yeah. Well, sponsors hit up Tony.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: He.
[00:25:54] Speaker C: Just to clarify, I only used it in a
[00:25:58] Speaker A: sen. Tony. Some L.
Sponsorship.
[00:26:02] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: Could you imagine someone's like, hey, so do you guys have any sponsors for your podcast? Yeah. Lube.
What show are you doing? Stranger Things, obviously.
[00:26:15] Speaker C: Another word from our sponsors. Is your pussy feeling overly dry?
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Are you feeling a little monstrous? Womy.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Take some lube.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: That's too hilarious.
[00:26:30] Speaker C: Friction in the bedroom.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: Oh, no.
And in your relationship. Oh, that's so funny.
Oh, that's hilarious.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: Let's go.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: Of course we have Tony on for the episode. We're talking about lube. That's hilarious.
[00:26:48] Speaker C: I did bring the lube up. Just to clarify.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: It's okay.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Yes. Sarah, you. You brought it up.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: I know.
[00:26:55] Speaker C: Sarah's out here saying whole, whole lube every five seconds.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: Whole, whole.
[00:27:03] Speaker C: This is what it must be like to be David on our podcast.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: You hold a lot of power over here. All right.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: David just sits there and he's like,
[00:27:14] Speaker A: and then I come onto your podcast. And then Dave's like, doesn't wanna say certain things, like, there's a lady present. I'm like, dave, you need to come onto my podcast. Apparently.
[00:27:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I know. When Dave called you a lady, I
[00:27:27] Speaker B: was like, okay, Sarah is a lady.
[00:27:30] Speaker C: Yeah, genetically.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: But genetically, spiritually. She's lube.
[00:27:37] Speaker C: She's a whore.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: She's a whore with lube in.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. It's so funny. Well, we can only go up from here. All right, so we are now in the car. It's Steve's car. Oh, yes. Guys, we have so much more Steve this episode. And I'm loving that because he's been outside of the. The cast, the main cast for so long. Outside of the story, I think is what Leia said last episode. And now he's a little bit more integrated. I'm like, good, here we go.
[00:28:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I. I love that we're getting to see Steve drive around with his 40 year old friends.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: Yeah, seriously. The one guy who breathes life into. What's his name again? I always forget his name. Tommy, this.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: It's our favorite couple, Carol and Tommy driving with Steve on their way to Nancy's house. Carol's like, I just like, don't understand why we're coming out here. She obviously doesn't want to talk to you. Steve's like, that's not it. Carol's like, oh, really? Because no girl would ever blow off King Steve. Tommy's like, he. He his horrible laugh. And Steve's like, no, she was acting weird. Something's wrong. And I'm like, steve, you're just now figuring out that she's acting weird like two, three episodes ago. She's talking about how her friend is missing and she's concerned and she was very obviously not okay. And.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: But he's a boy. It takes him a while.
[00:29:00] Speaker C: Yeah, he's just straight to God.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:03] Speaker C: What, you're expecting him to see things beyond himself?
[00:29:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I am, actually. I have high standards for my men.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: No, not Steve. Not yet, I guess.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Oh, God. All right. Carol's like, oh, my gosh. Carol is annoying. She's like, oh, my God.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: Carol needs to shut the hell up. Honestly. Carl's like, I would blow off Steve.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: She pops her gum for the bajillionth time. Steve's reaction is like. He gets, like, genuinely angry at them. And I was like, like, oh, my gosh. I was like, Leia's like, thank God. As Steve's yelling at them to shut up, she's like, yes.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: But it's interesting. I feel like this episode did, like, a good job of making me once again question his motivations. Because you could on one hand be like, he actually cares about Nancy and his feelings are actually hurt. Or you could say that his ego's bruised because this girl that he thinks should be coming after him and, like, at his beck and call, is now blowing him off.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: Off.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: So I still can't put my finger on what Steve's motivations are. And I like, I like that. I'm not saying it's a bad thing.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: I'm interested to see, like, what will happen, but to date, like, he is just not a very trustworthy guy, I think.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: And that makes him interesting, I think. And it's the fact that we keep seeing him again and again, like, I think is a signal that he's gonna have a bigger role somehow.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: So we'll see what happens.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:32] Speaker C: Yeah. I feel like you don't be that big of a dick unless you actually, like, feel hurt or care about it. So it does kind of add that secondary layer to him because when I was watching, I was like, oh, I just forgot how much of an arsehole he was.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: Mm, me too.
This is actually. Yeah, I'm like, my memory is so fresh of, like, other versions of Steve. I know this is like a slightly spoilery. Whatever. Who fucking cares?
Steve doesn't die right now. Okay.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Right now.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Right now. Whatever. Anyway, I feel like in my memory of recent memory, I remember like an evolved, I guess, or a different version of Steve. So going back and watching this, not having remembered season one that well, I'm just like, wow, how do I ever end up rooting for him? I don't understand.
But, but that's what's so nice about, like, long running shows, I guess. So. So many spoilers. But whatever. Who cares, guys? We've already spoiled 10 years.
Barb is dead. Who cares?
[00:31:35] Speaker C: Barb's dead.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: What? Who's Barb? What are you talking about?
Sorry, Tony, what were you saying? I cut you off.
[00:31:43] Speaker C: What was I saying? Oh, just that he was such. He was such a. An. And I, I think if I, I. It's similar to what you were saying. I.
It's hard to imagine how to bridge the gap between the, the two versions of him, but I think that just goes, that does go to show. I think the, the standout thing of, of the series is really about its ability to write people with heart that.
Because even Hopper, I think at certain times I'm just, like, not likable. Like, I. I love Hopper.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: That's my husband.
Six episodes in.
[00:32:18] Speaker C: I was a husband in real life.
[00:32:20] Speaker B: You know, we're hitched.
I mean, you don't know that.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: Let me mansplain having a husband so invalid.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: You don't know that.
[00:32:30] Speaker C: Oh, I just meant. I meant David Harper.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. I thought you meant Hopper in real life. Like, I'll take Hopper in real life.
[00:32:37] Speaker C: Oh, no, Harper in real life.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I take him in.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: Not David Harbor.
[00:32:42] Speaker C: We're not talking about.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Yeah, any place.
Yeah, any day.
[00:32:47] Speaker C: Just on the front of his police car.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: That with Lou.
[00:32:51] Speaker A: Yeah, we know. Tony has the lube.
[00:32:54] Speaker C: I'm like, I knew this great hole in a tree nearby.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: Oh, dear.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: Five seasons of holes.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: This is great.
[00:33:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: All right. Okay. So they pull up to the Wheelers. Steve gets out, pops his collar before sneak running to the drain pipe leading up to Nancy's room. We have Sunglasses at Night by Corey Hart, which is fantastic right here.
[00:33:17] Speaker C: Loved a great choice.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, it's about a guy who's being cheated on and is essentially, like, putting blinders on, which is a great choice for this song. So that he climbs up, peeks through the window, only to see the backs of Nancy and Jonathan sitting on the bed with Jonathan putting a blanket or an arm around Nancy's shoulders and comforting her. And we close in on a hurt and angry Steve.
So good. Well, okay. So my thoughts about this moment was Steve's probably never felt like this before, being rejected and left out. But also he's now on the outside looking in at Jonathan and Nancy. And I love the symmetry there. The AV Club, like, they just summed it up perfectly. They said when Steve peeks in on Nancy and Jonathan, we don't see from his perspective. We see him watching them. The shadow of his head against the window occupies about half of the screen, emphasizing his position outside the window. The panels bar him from them in a shot from inside the curtains, shut him out on either. Either side. He's switched places with Jonathan the creep. Now Steve is the voyeur, the outsider looking in. And I was like, oh, that's so good.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that is very good.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: I had talked about this, I think, back in season or episode one and two about this quick throwaway line that Steve says when he's inviting Nancy to his house for that party. He talked about how his dad was on a business trip and his mom went with the dad because she doesn't trust him to remain faithful. And I, I didn't clock that until my last rewatch and I was like, oh, shoot. And I think that that subtle line is meant to kind of put a little bit of context behind this whole episode with Steve and show that it's possible all of this triggered something in Steve.
And like we. What we talked about with like Jonathan and Nancy's conversation last episode about how Nancy thinks she's rebelling against the system, but really she's actually following the blueprint and will end up just like the parents that she thinks are so depressing and sad. I think this moment is supposed of be a gut punch for Steve for many ways, but one of them is that this probably triggers some childhood issues from seeing the dysfunction in his own family due to infidelity. And again, we don't know enough about Steve, but maybe, maybe he's acting out, he has the parties, he has all this stuff because he's trying to break out of the normative family structure just like Nancy is. And yet maybe this moment is kind of holding up a mirror to him that he's maybe just becoming just like his dad and his mom, which the next scene kind of implies that maybe he does look like his, more like his dad than he thinks by him talking about his dad's an implying maybe some sort of, you know, not necessarily physical abuse, but maybe there's some more aggression there. And then he starts attacking Jonathan. And so I think there's some really interesting stuff there with Steve that I want to explore.
[00:36:08] Speaker C: I also love like even just visually that I don't know if you've talked about this yet in your previous episodes, but like Steve kind of climbing up the drain pipe in the trellis like like to Nancy's room is really reminiscent of me of like Nightmare on Elm street, when Johnny Depp's character would climb up into Nancy's. Into Nancy's in that room as well. So I just thought. Cuz I know that, I know that the Duffer brothers have cited kind of like Nightmare on Elm street movies as a huge inspiration on them. So I, I quite enjoyed that little nod.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: Love that.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: So at the Byers, Joyce and Hopper are just kind of, they're sitting and having a smoke and they're finishing going over everything Hopper saw. He reiterates it again, says that he saw the lab where they do experiments. He saw a kids room which looked like a prison. Joyce asks how he knew it was a kid's room. And he's like I saw a drawing of an adult and a child and it said 11 on it. Joyce is like, was it a Picasso?
Literally me for. For reals, if my son ever got taken, I was like, was it good? And Hopper's like, it was a kid's drawing choice. It was stick figures. And she's like, no. She grabs the cabbage drawing off the fridge. She like, slams it down. She. He's like, it wasn't well. And like, Will's obviously much more of a sophisticated drawer. And then this clicks something in Hopper's brain. He goes to the papers on the coffee table of Terry Ives lawsuit and starts going through all the info he's been gathering on this kid that he thought was Will. And he's like, hang on. This woman claims to have lost her daughter. And she sued Brenner, sued the government, came to nothing. But what if I've been chasing that kill, thinking I was chasing Will?
And I love how we have like, the camera zooms in. It's supposed to be like this big moment. And again, if you know the history of the series, I think it makes it even more impactful, this moment now, knowing like the future stuff.
And then also too, like, we know Hoppers lost a daughter, so there's something there about like, him actually chasing after 11, not knowing it's 11 too. I think there's something kind of poetically beautiful there.
So then at the Wheelers, Nancy's showering all the gunk off, having flashbacks of the dead deer, of the Upside down coming close to death. Death. We cut to Jonathan laying out a sleeping bag on her floor. This felt very Buffy and Angel.
Although, you know, Buffy should have just had angel come up and sleep in
[00:38:29] Speaker B: the bed with her, like she should have. But he was gentlemanly and she asked him if he snored. And he's like, I don't know. I haven't been in position for anybody to let me know.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Yeah, lately. And then she's like, oh, so you your single?
So Jonathan asks Nancy if she feels better and she's like, yeah, she does not look it. They're both kind of awkward. You can tell they just went through something intense and life threatening, but they just had a fight. And they're like, not quite at a relationship level where they could really be vulnerable or fully vulnerable with each other.
And like, they're both trying to process everything.
So then Jonathan offers to leave. Nancy's like, no, I want you to stay. And she's like, like, I don't want to be alone. Do you want to be Alone. He's like, no, I don't want to be alone.
And we talked about it in the last episode, Leia. But there was apparently a cut scene in the previous episode where Jonathan tells Joyce that he's going to spend the night at his friend Eric's house because he doesn't want to be at the house longer with Lonnie. And it's interesting that they didn't keep that in, or at least some sort of, like, line, because I saw a lot of people online that were saying it felt kind of heartless of Jonathan to not tell Joyce that he was going to be out all night, given that girl.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: Joyce don't care.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: And I thought, too. I was like, it's Jonathan. She doesn't care. She doesn't.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Literally, it's Jonathan. She does not give a.
[00:39:47] Speaker C: Where that gets a phone call from Jonathan. And she's like.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: She's like, who is this?
[00:39:53] Speaker A: She's like, stop your heavy breathing. This is annoying. Who is this?
[00:39:58] Speaker B: Literally, it's me. With his, like, American accent, his British accent, trying to be American.
[00:40:04] Speaker A: She's like, who?
Well, it's so funny because there's actually an interview with.
I forget that Charlie Heaton, who talks about how he couldn't say the one American word that he could not say without his accent slipping through is Nancy. And Nancy. That scene in the. In the woods when he's yelling for her, he says they were in the middle of the woods and he couldn't say Nancy. And so the entire cast and crew had to pause and they were all yelling Nancy at him as he's trying to say it. So if you guys go back and watch the. The. The scene with him, it's so ob. Is he's going Nancy. And you could tell he's just forcing it out, and it's so funny.
Nancy.
[00:40:52] Speaker B: Yeah, he could have just gone full, like, Texan and just been like, nancy, Nancy.
Or like, Minnesotan. How does. How would somebody from Minnesota say Nancy?
[00:41:04] Speaker A: Aren't they, like, semi Canadians?
[00:41:08] Speaker B: Like, wait, that's Michigan. Bad Nancy.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: That's Boston.
That's Boston. Nah, it's like, if you're from la, it'd be like, like. Like Nancy.
Like, Nancy, Nancy.
[00:41:23] Speaker B: Nancy. A Nancy.
Nancy. How would an Irish person say it?
[00:41:29] Speaker C: Nancy.
[00:41:31] Speaker B: Nancy.
[00:41:32] Speaker C: Nancy. I'd be like, nancy, Nancy.
Like, where the fuck are you, Nancy?
[00:41:41] Speaker A: Hurry up.
[00:41:45] Speaker B: You know what we were talking about today in the Discord, whether Irish people say the word lass or not. And I think the consensus was that that's not a thing that people.
[00:41:55] Speaker C: It's more Scottish?
[00:41:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: Okay. Cause we're like. But maybe, like, a grandpa would say it, but I think it's, like, more of a Scottish thing for us.
[00:42:03] Speaker C: It's more of a Scottish thing. Yeah.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:05] Speaker B: You guys say lad more.
[00:42:06] Speaker C: That's more of a Scottish thing as well.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: Oh, isn't like, the lad Bible or whatever? Isn't that, like, an Irish.
[00:42:12] Speaker C: That's English.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: Is it? Well, sorry. I'm so, so embarrassed.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: Leia's just conflating all of the UK over there.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: No, I don't like that. Don't say that. Yeah,
[00:42:27] Speaker C: that's okay. I know what you Americans are like.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: I'm not American.
How dare you? No offense. Sarah seems to.
Okay.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: It's all right.
[00:42:38] Speaker C: I. One of the things I do love about this we've seen with Jonathan and Nancy, I think it's one of the, like. It's, like, kind of a positive representation of, like, trauma bonding in a way, because I feel like, yeah, they've went through this thing together, and they actually use it in a way that.
Well, initially feels quite healthy because they're there to support each other through it, you know, rather than getting, like, completely consumed, I guess, in terms of. Even if the episode. They decide to do something about it, you know, rather than just.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:11] Speaker C: Kind of wallow in it. So I thought that was quite.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: You know, what I actually learned recently.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: Yes. About the trauma bond. You and I learned it.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: Yeah. The trauma bonding.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, the definition of trauma bonding is actually not what you described just now. It's actually, like. It's actually when an abuser and, like, somebody they abused and the abused, like, forms a bond with their abuser. It's basically like a form of Stockholm syndrome. Yeah, almost.
But I get what you mean. I think it's like they.
They're both.
Yeah. They're bonding through trauma, I think is like, a better way to say it, maybe.
[00:43:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: But I agree. This is like.
Again, I don't want to. I. I feel like this is so hard not to spoil Leia struggling over here. I feel like Nancy and Jonathan are clearly getting closer to each other, and I think it's. I feel like there's a stronger connection right now between Nancy and Jonathan because of the things that they're both going through. And I think that that's, like. It's a positive thing. Obviously, like, their connection is based off of trauma at this point and, like, basically being in a situation of distress, stress.
But I really. I really enjoy how they're, like, finding comfort in each other, and I feel like you know, Nancy and Steve are, like, so far apart from each other.
[00:44:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:32] Speaker B: And I think I said in the last episode, like, I don't think it's fair to judge Steve until he's been kind of sucked into this whole situation. If he will get sucked into it and how he's gonna react to the craziness that's happening.
[00:44:44] Speaker C: If he will get sucked into.
[00:44:46] Speaker B: If. If. And how. And I'm so bad at this. This.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: No, but that's.
[00:44:51] Speaker C: You're, like, Nancy's whole worldview, like, is shifting. And I think she. She's essentially starting to experience otherness, and I think that's. That's what's pulling her kind of more into that group. So you're entirely right in saying, like, Steve isn't.
Hasn't experienced that otherness yet. And I think that's. I. I love seeing kind of Nancy struggle with, like, wanting to be naive and ignorant, but. But having the real, like, the kind of social justice in her to be like. But I need to. I need to do the right thing.
[00:45:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Yeah. She has this, like, inner. Like, this inner drive. Like, it's almost like she can't help it. Like, she needs to do something about this. And I think it says a lot about her, and I think it says a lot about, you know, because when we first met her, she was, you know, really enamored with Steve and, like, wanting to do all of these, like, girly things. And, like, she went like. And, like, she lost her virginity and, like, she wasn't really sure how to feel about that. And it just feels like Nancy's coming into her own and that being, like, into the otherness as well is really interesting. And I think that's the block right now between her and Steve.
And that's what's bringing her, like you said, that's what. Bringing her closer to Jonathan. So it's really interesting, I think, to watch.
[00:46:09] Speaker C: She even references that later in the episode when they're kind of shopping for, like, the weapons and the traps. And she talks about the weekend before. She spent the entire weekend.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: I was going to say that.
And then the very. Then she sucked right back into it. All right. She turns the corner, and all of a sudden there's the teenage stuff again. There's the social stuff, the norm. Normative stuff. But then she goes and. And slaps Steve. And it's kind of like that, to me, felt like I don't know how the relationship's going to come back from that with Steve and Nancy, and I don't know how, like, they're going to overcome that because our. Her world has gotten so much bigger and now and she's got so many other things going on that it's like, obviously the whole Steve thing and him calling her A and all that stuff is a massive deal, but it's like she's got bigger things going on, you know? But, yeah, yeah, agreed. I liked this scene so much. It's so funny. A lot of people were like, oh, my gosh, like, there's like, sexual tension and stuff, and I didn't get that. I feel like the. The actors conveyed an awkwardness due to.
We're in shared proximity. We don't really know each other very much, and we both went through some. And, like, almost like Jonathan, he's trying so hard to be so gentle with her and not scare her more.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: There's a lot of care in this scene, I think. I didn't pick up sexual tension either.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't either.
And I just thought it was very beautiful. The script actually even says that Jonathan has the revolver tucked under his pillow, like he's prepared and ready. And Nancy's just absolutely scared. And the way that they did the overhead shot, I. I thought was very unique and beautiful because it made them see, seem small and alone.
And again, it's also amazing, like, how they have brought together these two characters because the two people missing are the two people that are the closest to Jonathan and to Nancy. And so, again, like, we've talked about Barb haunting the narrative and how we talked a lot about how we got to know Nancy through her conversations with Barb. Barb's missing. So it's like, now it's Jonathan who's filling up that space a little bit for Nancy.
[00:48:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: So the next morning in the basement, Mike's sitting on the couch and he. It's implied he's staring over at the door, has waited up all night for El to come back, and she's not. And so then he goes in an anger, tears up the fort.
Then we have Hopper at a phone booth calling someone, presumably an old buddy on the force, I think when he was back in New York trying to get info on Terry Ives. Joyce is waiting for him in the car. He gets the info and they take off. Off. Back in Nancy's room, Jonathan wakes up to Nancy going through a book on animals. And she says she can't sleep.
She says that whatever it was, that place was its home and it was feeding on the deer. And she's scared for Will and Barb knowing that the deer was dragged off, just like Barb. Jonathan reassures her that there's still hope since Joyce talked to Will. And Nancy's like, well, that means they're trapped in that place. And she's like, we need to go back. And then she suggests they lure the monster out, saying that it seems to hunt at night like a predator, that it seems drawn to blood. And then Jonathan says they contest the theory. And if it works, Nancy finishes and says at least they'd know it was coming. They have a tense moment. It's broken up by Karen trying the doorknob and attempting to get in and asking if Nancy's up. And Jonathan. Nancy, like. Like, they jump and grab each other hands, like, this is where the sexual tension comes in right here.
They're still on edge. Nancy calls back, says she'll be down for breakfast in a moment. And then they both kind of like. Like, realize they're still holding hands. And then there's, like, tense. And then Jonathan breaks the tension, and it was like, so your mom doesn't knock, okay? Karen has to have one flaw, okay?
[00:49:39] Speaker B: Karen does not need to knock. She is a queen. She is the goddess of Hawkins.
She is sexy and hot.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: Karen needs to. Needs to break up with Ted and get to it. Hopper.
[00:49:54] Speaker B: Date me.
[00:49:55] Speaker C: I mean, Ted. Ted must have a. A big piece.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: They have to use a lot of lube.
[00:50:06] Speaker C: Well, Nancy's like, your luck. I've just got an armful back from the Upside Down.
[00:50:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:50:11] Speaker B: All right.
[00:50:11] Speaker A: So now we're at Mr. Clark's house. We see the same lady who shot Benny knocking on the door. We're like, no, stay away from Mr. Clark.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: He's so sweetie piece.
[00:50:21] Speaker A: Literally.
And then she is. He invites her in. She's clearly using the info from the repair man from the last episode. Cut to them sitting in his living room where she's handing him a pamphlet about the Indiana Ab Club, essentially trying to figure out who the kids were that used the radio by making it seem as though they're promoting a program for kids interested in technology.
She asks him if he knows of any kids that they might want to participate. And he's like, oh, I have a few in mind.
And we're like, no. The script says. Says if one of our boys had a salary and owned a house, it looked like this. Movie posters and science books and miniatures and models and all the latest toys and total nerd heaven in here.
[00:50:59] Speaker B: I love it.
You stay away from him, Hawkins. Whatever you are. Lab thing.
[00:51:05] Speaker A: Yeah, stay away from Mr. Clark. We love him.
All Right. Back at the Wheelers, we have an excellent transition to Dustin riding his bike to the Wheelers, in case we didn't know which kid they were referring to in the basement. Mike says he can't believe Elle didn't come back, that she was just trying to protect them and that he shouldn't have yelled at her. Dustin watches him pace and tells him to calm down, that it isn't his fault. We talked about how last episode really caused Dust to shine. This episode. I was like, oh, my gosh, who's this emotionally mature child? Like, he's holding the entire friend group together.
[00:51:38] Speaker B: So perceptive, so self aware.
Just like he is holding this together.
[00:51:45] Speaker C: Her.
[00:51:45] Speaker B: Yeah, they love him.
[00:51:47] Speaker C: It was just like watching, like, watching these kids navigate their friendships and what they should do in order to fix them just makes you realize that you do not do enough as an adult.
[00:51:57] Speaker B: Yeah, we're so immature. What the are we doing?
[00:52:01] Speaker A: His, like, his willingness to call it his friends and just be brutally honest with them. I was like, I don't think I'm that honest with my friends, and I really, honestly aspire to be, because. Yeah.
[00:52:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I think they have the benefit of, like, there's this thing in childhood where you have, like. You have no concept of, like, boundaries or, like, what you can and can't say, and you just kind of blurt whatever is on your mind. But it's just. Yeah, like, it's. There was just, like. There's such an honesty to, like, children.
And these are children at the end of the day. And that's why they react in such, like, explosive ways sometimes, or they feel so strongly or have big emotions or whatever.
But you can tell, like, Dustin just has this ability to read people really well and to kind of look at a situation and realize what's happening before other people do. And I think that's awesome.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
[00:52:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: So he says that it wasn't Mike's fault, and it. And it wasn't Lucas's and it wasn't Dustin. And he was like, you know, but you all were out of line in some way. And this enrages Mike even more. And he's like, oh, give me a break. Dustin's like, no, Mike, you give me a break. All three of you were being a bunch of little.
I was the only reasonable one. And then he says, but the bottom line is you pushed first. You know the rule. You draw for a split. And I think, again, that you draw for a split is also a key thing because we're talking about the demogorgon following blood. And we're talking about monsters following blood. At the end of the episode, we have the monsters from the lab following.
There's a metaphor here. I think what Dustin. I mean, he's not actually saying, but I think what the show is trying to say through Dustin is you're acting like monsters by betraying the friend group and by not apologizing, by not owning up to all of this stuff.
[00:53:50] Speaker C: And that also makes them vulnerable to the bully attacks.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: Yes. And that's what separates them, right? Yeah. And I. I will say, like, he's like, you drew first blood. You pushed first. Technically, Lucas shoved Mike. Mike, like, a couple times. And Lucas was very intimidating with his body. So I do. I understand what Dustin's saying, but I felt like Lucas needs a little bit more responsibility in this. And I think he should have apologized to Mike as well, because I felt like he was very intimidating verbally and then also with his body and.
And he was baiting Mike, essentially. Same as Steve kind of does with Jonathan. But, yeah, it is. What is it? It is. So Mike protests and says, no way. He's not shaking his hand. Dustin insists, telling him it is in a discussion. It's the rule of law. Obey or be banished from the party. Do you want to be banished? Mike says, no. So Dustin grabs his stuff and tells him they're going to get Lucas and then to fight 11. And I love this because I think in Dustin's mind, Elle's already part of the party, and we're gonna go get her because she's a part of the party. And he talks about this later on, too. He's like, we can't separate the party. And. And Luke is. Lucas still hasn't embraced Elle. He's like, no, the party's right here. And Dustin's kind of like, no, our party's out in the woods. We need to go find her. And I. I think that's really cool. So then we have a flashback in the lab where El is in her room, snuggling her stuffy. She's awakened by the sound of the door opening. Brenner enters, surprising her with a potted plant and telling her that today's a special day, that they're going to make history today. They're going to make contact.
So then in the woods, we see present day Elle waking up from sleeping all night in the woods. She walks to the water, looks at a reflection with the wig on. Then with tears in her eyes, angrily takes it off and glares at her reflection without it. Before Screaming in rage that ripples the water and disturbs the birds.
And I thought, again, this is a big episode for Elle. Like, you know, she's been the outsider looking in, and she's looked at the nuclear family and try to be a part of it. And she thought, like, specifically with. With Nancy. We've had lots of parallels with her. Looking at Nancy, looking at Nancy's dress, and she's realizing now that she can't just put on a wig and a pretty dress and assimilate. And that's really sad.
The script says she places the wig on her head, adjusts it, but it doesn't look right. Crumped, uneven. She doesn't look pretty, quote, unquote, anymore. She looks like a monster, which is really sad.
I know.
Sorry, guys. If there was an awkward cut right there, it's because Leia keeps spoiling things.
[00:56:27] Speaker B: Oops.
[00:56:30] Speaker A: Can't bring you anywhere. All right. At the Wheeler's house, Karen, Holly, and Ted are eating breakfast. Ted's like, something's off about my day, my routine. What's going on? I. I can't. He's like. And then he's like, oh, where's Nancy? I thought she was coming down. And Karen's like, had it. She's like, I don't know. So she just gets up, goes upstairs, hears music playing in Nancy's room, is knocking. Nancy's not listening. And then Karen, you know, ex delinquent. We see you, girl. Girl takes out, like, the pin in her hair and just picks the lock.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: Love it.
My little rebellious girl.
[00:57:03] Speaker A: All right, Karen. We see where Nancy gets it from. But of course, Jonathan and Nancy aren't inside there. And of course, her eyes go straight to the sleeping bag on the floor. And you see her going, what kind of child am I raised?
[00:57:15] Speaker B: I'll be like, oh, this guy. Steve, when I catch you, Steve, when I. I catch you, Steve the hair Harrington.
[00:57:23] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:57:24] Speaker C: It's funny that they wouldn't just call him Steve Harrington.
[00:57:28] Speaker B: Yeah, Harrington.
[00:57:30] Speaker C: Instead of Steve the Hare. Harrington. Steve Harrington.
[00:57:33] Speaker B: I feel like it's pretty epic, though. Like, you gotta, like, acknowledge the hair twice.
[00:57:40] Speaker C: All right.
[00:57:41] Speaker B: Steve the wig Harrington the wig. Wig snatched, apparently.
[00:57:46] Speaker A: That's all his real hair. That's all his real hair. Hair.
[00:57:49] Speaker B: That's crazy.
[00:57:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:50] Speaker B: That's a thick head of hair.
[00:57:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:52] Speaker C: I hate him.
[00:57:56] Speaker A: It's okay.
All right, so we're at the Sinclair house. I think this is the first time we've seen their house.
The script, I think, implies that they live next door to Mike's house. Although I don't think we've ever seen that.
So, Dustin, Mike knocking on the door. Lucas answers. He's like, what do you want? He's not happy.
And Mike doesn't respond. And then Dustin smacks him. And Mike's like.
He's like, I drew first blood. And then offers his hand. And Lucas refuses to shake it, as he should, honestly. And then inside the house, Dustin. Mike watches Lucas is deliberating before agreeing to shake on the condition that they forget the weirdo and go straight to the gate. Mike shouts, absolutely not. And then immediately escalates into another fight with Dustin being like, no, nope. And he's like, guys, seriously. He reminds them what happened on one of their campaigns, the Blundstone Pass, where they all got split up and then got taken out one by one. He's like, we stick together no matter what. Lucas points out that the whole party is together in the room. Like I said before, Mike's like, elle is one of us. Lucas is like, she's not. She never will be. She's a liar and a traitor. Mike says that she was just trying to protect them and that her hurting Lucas was an accident. Dustin steps in again and is like, okay, accident or not. Not. Admit it, it was a little awesome. Luke's like, you have a point. But he's like, you know what? I could have died. Mike's like, we need her. She's a weapon. Which finally starts to kind of speak to Lucas's language, right? He's like, oh. He sits there.
[00:59:20] Speaker B: He's like.
[00:59:21] Speaker A: He actually starts to consider it, and then eventually, he's just like, I'm. I'm not gonna do this. You guys go do your thing. I'm gonna go find Will and find the gate.
[00:59:30] Speaker B: So bad idea. Bad idea.
[00:59:32] Speaker A: Yeah. They're splitting up.
[00:59:33] Speaker B: Don't split up at the local store.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: Elle's in her. Want me to be the bad guy? Fine. I'm the bad guy. Era she heads to the local supermarket in need of food, looking all grubby and odd with her shaved hair. People are staring. And then we get a flashback, kind of like superimposed, of Brenner telling her not to be frightened.
And she heads to the tank as we see a bunch of suits and agents and scientists all watching her.
And Brenner's like, it's okay. Like, you don't need to be frightened of the monster or the thing inside your head. It's reaching out to you because it wants you. It's calling you. So don't turn away from it this time. I want you to find it, understand? Which I feel like is again the show using the embrace, the monster inside of you. Embrace who you really are. Find that, all that stuff.
So then she ends up getting lowered into the tank, gets shut in and then we are now in. The script calls it the void of darkness and the blank space that I think is her mind. We get a really cool Zoom out of 11 looking small and alone. And then we hear a voice asking if she's lost. She's now in the present with the grocery clerk asking her if she's lost and where her mom is. She looks him up and down, is like mouth breather and then just grabs a couple boxes of Eggos. The clerk's like, what should we do when 11 year old is stealing Eggos? Should we call the police? He's like, yeah, call the police. I'm like, she's a child, child.
[01:00:57] Speaker B: Like let her have it. When people used to steal stuff at mild work, I would just be like, I don't care, just take it.
[01:01:04] Speaker A: Especially an 11 year old child who comes in looking like they're maybe homeless and don't have parents. Like give them take it.
[01:01:10] Speaker B: They got insurance, just take it.
[01:01:13] Speaker A: So she walks out, we hear him calling to her, she ignores him and then goes out the motion sensor doors and we get that cool sequence where he's trying to come out. She slams him with her mind so hard they shattered. He's just like, he stays like not knowing what to do. And then now we're at Terry Ives's place. Hopper and Joyce show up and they meet Terry's sister and she's like, you can come in but you're not going to get anything out of Terry. And we find her seated in a rocking chair watching tv. And it quickly becomes clear that Terry is non responsive.
Okay, so fun fact. The actress who plays Terry is named Amy Mullins. And she's a pretty incredible woman in her own or woman in her own right. She first brought international attention as an athlet elite. She is the first person in history to compete in the NCAA as an amputee. She was born without fibula bones resulting in the amputation of both legs below her knee when she was an infant.
Yeah, she scared me, Terry. Yeah, Terry. She sprinted as part of Georgetown University's nationally ranked team against other Division 1 track athletes, making her woven carbon fiber legs world famous famous. She's a gold medalist Paralympic athlete and set several world records for the 100 meter dash and the long jump.
She's also a dean's List student on scholarship from the Defense Department. She graduated in 1998 from Georgetown School of Foreign Service with a double major in History and diplomacy.
[01:02:39] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the scene.
And probably like the. And right now she's a renowned public speaker, notably delivering influential TED talks regarding prosthetic innovation and the human spirit. She competed in other Paralympics and stuff. Probably the most, least, the least interesting thing about her, but still interesting nonetheless. She's married to Rupert friend, who played Mr. Wickham in Pride and Prejudice, Lt. Kurt Coulter or Cutler in the Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Albert Prince Consort and young Victoria Grand Inquisitor in Obi Wan Kenobi, and yeah, other stuff like that.
So pretty. Pretty neat, lady.
[01:03:16] Speaker B: Love it.
[01:03:17] Speaker A: All right, so meanwhile, Lucas is gearing up for battle. He's arming himself, himself with all the gear to go find Will. This man loves his weapons. There's a Reddit thread that was hilarious. Someone commented and said there was always that one kid in middle school ready to go back and fight the Vietnam War. At Hawkins Middle School, that kid was Lucas. And someone commented and said, I love that cynical little.
[01:03:38] Speaker B: Seriously, he's ready.
[01:03:41] Speaker A: Oh, so funny. But as he's leaving, he sees the repairman that we've seen giving him a wave. And then Lucas notes him, waves back, and then takes the off. Now we're on Dustin and Mike on bikes of their own. And I love this conversation again, Dustin with his emotional maturity.
It is so rare for adults even to have a conversation where you're acknowledging that this person might be closer with another friend in your friend group and not as close with you.
And I just thought it was so good. He's like, you know, Lucas is jealous because he used to be your best friend, and now he thinks, L's coming in. And Dustin recognizes again that Mike and Dustin, or Mike and Lucas are closer, saying that he didn't get there till the fourth grade. And Lucas and Mike apparently lived next door to each other. And then he says, but none of that matters. What matters is that he's your best friend. And then this girl shows up and is living in your basement, and all you ever want to do is pay attention to her. He's like, you guys, we all know it, but none of you is really talking about it until you just start hitting each other. He's like. Like goblins with intelligence, scores of zero. Now everything's weird.
Mike's like, he's not my best friend. I mean, he is, but so are you, and so is Will. And Dustin's like, you can't have more than one best friend. And Mike's, no, sure you can. Yes, you can. You absolutely can. And the script says that Dustin shakes his head, but this clearly means the world to him, that Mike considers him one of his best friends, which I thought was so cute.
So they pass by the grocery store, they see the chaos. They're like, yeah, we're gonna go in that direction. Elle's there. And then as they go on, we see that they're being watched. And AV Club. Actually, I did not catch this. They drew a parallel between the bullies slash the monster of this episode stalking Mike and Dustin on their bikes the same way the monster from episode one stalked Will on his bike, again making a visual comparison with the monsters.
So at the Ives house, we have this. It's long sequence where Becky tells Hopper and Joyce all about MK Ultra, about the past with Terry, how she got paid to take drugs and basically go into sensory tanks and all this stuff kind of giving us a clue for Elle's situation. She says, it deprives your senses, expands the boundaries of the mind. We find out that Terry was pregnant when all that was going on. Joyce is like, oh, my gosh, that must be Jane. Asks for pictures of Jane, but Becky's like, no, Terry miscarried in the third trimester. And then she takes them to the nursery. And Becky has talking about how Terry has kept that up for 12 years. Hopper looks around, probably getting flashbacks to his own daughter. He plays with the mobile and it plays Brahms Lullaby, which is the same lullaby guy that played in the music box in Nancy's room that Elle opened. So we now have an audio clue. Yes, they make it pretty obvious that Jane and Elle are the same person. But we have that clue first and foremost to kind of visually remind us. But I also think it makes that other. That scene put into an even better context because Elle's looking at the life that she could have had.
And now we have. We actually get to see the room that is still set up for her. And so it's almost like there's a connection between. Between Jane and her mom. Like they're both still thinking about each other. And. Yeah, I thought that was really cool.
[01:06:55] Speaker B: So sad.
[01:06:55] Speaker A: It's so sad. Yeah. So then Brahms Lullaby continues to play as we hear even more about what happened. Again, this is where the monstrous womb metaphor comes into play. El was ripped from her mother's womb. And in her fear and rage, as we find out, created the rip in the dimensions, possibly even creating the dimension itself. We don't Know, know.
Which I think makes, like, a really cool bookend. So Becky doesn't believe that Jane is actually alive, doesn't believe in all the conspiracy theory stuff. Hopper and Joyce look a bit scared because, like, at this point they're like, we fully believe it.
Becky says that Jane has telekinesis and that's why the men stole Jane away. Then is like, you know, the doctors think it's a coping mechanism. And Joyce is sympathetic, obviously, relating her situation to Terry's and is like, are you sure? She. She could. She could be telling the truth.
Becky says there's no birth certificate. And the doctors and nurses all say it was a miscarriage. And Hopper's like, could have been a cover up. We don't know.
[01:07:54] Speaker C: I was just gonna say, I love that Becky says that line about, like, oh, not believing the conspiracy, you know, that she's alive and that her baby is some sort of weapon.
And I thought that was really interesting because the surname Ives actually comes from, like, the norm. Horse, meaning like a bow made from the yew tree, which was a weapon. And the yew tree is, like a symbol of, like, resurrection and the boundary between, like, life and death. So I just thought. I just thought that was really interested. Probably not really cool purposeful side.
[01:08:24] Speaker B: Damn thing.
[01:08:25] Speaker C: But I thought it was interesting.
[01:08:26] Speaker A: Well, I don't think it was purposeful, but it's interesting that it works out that way because the. I think the cinematographer is named. His first name starts with a T. It's T, I Ives. So I think they named her after him. But that's so funny that that name even has, like a symbolic. Yeah, that's so cool.
So now we're in the woods outside the lab. Lucas follows the compass and it, of course, leads them to the gate. But, you know, Lucas has no clue. Or it leads him to the lab and the gate around the lab, and he just begins to follow it, thinking that the gate is going to be on the other side of the lab. And then at the supply store, Nancy and Jonathan are buying bear traps. I love. We have Dolly Parton in the background. They're just like, gasoline, massive nails, bullets. The clerk's like, what are you kids doing with all this?
[01:09:15] Speaker B: Nancy's like, monster hunting.
[01:09:16] Speaker A: Monster hunting. And he's like, oh, that's a good one. That's hilarious. I'll. I'll allow it. Yes. You can totally buy all these. This weaponry.
[01:09:23] Speaker B: This is why people can do crimes in America so easily.
You just go into the store and just buy all these weapons and they'll just be like, okay, yeah, just a general. Like. Like the convenience store around the corner.
[01:09:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's.
[01:09:41] Speaker B: Y' all are crazy.
[01:09:42] Speaker A: We are crazy.
[01:09:43] Speaker B: Country. Yeah, crazy.
[01:09:47] Speaker A: That's a story for another day. Anyway, yeah, Nancy's like, in the parking lot. Nancy's like, oh, this is so crazy how different my life is. Last week I was shopping for a new top, and today I'm getting bear traps. Isn't it crazy how life works? They're sharing a moment. And then a guy races by on his car and tells Nancy he can't wait to see her movie. And she's like, hang on. Races down the street to where she sees the movie theater. And there is the movie, all the Right Moves that Steve wanted to take her to. And there's the word spray painted, starring Nancy the wheeler. Nancy's horrified, and everyone's staring at her and talking. And then she hears Lee. Laughter coming from the alley. Lar going to love this. The script says, we hear laughter. We know this laughter. It's Tommy H. His awful, mean, spirited cackle.
[01:10:37] Speaker B: Nasty Tommy.
[01:10:40] Speaker A: Okay, so Steve, Nicole. They added Nicole there because, you know, remind us what Jonathan did.
Tommy and Carol are all in the alley. They're graffiti the side of the building, talking about Jonathan. Now Tommy and Carol mock her, calling her princess and being like, oh, she's looks upset. The script says that they seem delighted that she's there. But Steve looks away, angry, ashamed. Nancy slaps him, asking what's wrong with him? He's like, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with you? I was worried about you. And then Jonathan, Sidewinder buyers. Did you see him walk sideways? Leia, did you see a walk sideways?
[01:11:14] Speaker B: Why is he walking like that?
[01:11:17] Speaker A: Because he's like. It's not enough to convey that he's weird with my voice and my manner.
He has to walk sideways, guys.
Charlie Heaton intentionally walks sideways and runs sideways because he felt like he needed to convey how socially awkward Jonathan is. So you'll watch Jonathan. He's always, like, walking with, like, sideways. Sideways, yeah, with his shoulders, like, cocked. It's so funny.
So then Jonathan pulls up, and we see that they've spray painted Byers as a perv on the side of the building. And then Nancy realizes, realizes, oh, Steve saw Jonathan with me. He came by last night.
You can still see the red mark on Steve's face. I really love. They kept, like, the handprint there in a couple of the shots afterwards. And then she's like, it wasn't like that. And Steve's like, okay, well, what did you just do? Let him in your room to study, which is such a low blow. Oh, my gosh. And then Tommy makes a joke about it being for another pervy photo session. Nancy can't explain. What's she gonna say? Yeah, we're off fighting monsters.
[01:12:20] Speaker B: And then I would have just told them at that point, been like, you know what, motherfuckers?
[01:12:24] Speaker A: Come with us.
[01:12:25] Speaker B: There's a monster out there. Come, come, let me show you. And then I would have fed them to the monster.
[01:12:30] Speaker A: You're like, tommy, you can go first. Bait.
Bait.
[01:12:33] Speaker B: Just cut, Steve, cut. Tommy, cut. Whatever her fucking name is. What's her name? Carol. Throw them to the Demogorgon and let the Demogorgon get them.
[01:12:44] Speaker A: But Nancy's. Nancy's a better person than you are, Leia. So she doesn't do that.
[01:12:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I would have sacrificed them. Immediately,
[01:12:52] Speaker A: Steve tells her to go to hell. Jonathan tells her that they should just leave. This sets Steve off. He says, you know, buyers, I am kind of impressed. I always took you for a queer, but I guess you're just a little screw up like your father.
[01:13:02] Speaker B: Steve got a big mouth. He does got a big mouth.
[01:13:05] Speaker A: Again, this is like, this is exactly what we were talking about. Like, this is. This is mogging. So he shoves him while he says this. And then the whole, like he says, the whole house is full of screw ups. He shouldn't be surprised. Surprised. He's like, dishonor on you. Dishonor on your family. Dishonor.
Dishonor on your cow.
Starts to name his mom. Says he's not surprised what happened to his brother. Says their family is disgrace.
Jonathan slugs him. He had it coming.
Steve immediately dives into him. They go tumbling. Nancy's just begging them to scrappy.
[01:13:39] Speaker B: Jonathan's like, kind of scary. He was really going for it. Like, he was loved it.
[01:13:44] Speaker C: I'd love to, Steve.
[01:13:47] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And you notice that Tommy tries to intervene and Steve, like, hits him, is
[01:13:51] Speaker B: like, go away, literally. What is Tommy gonna do?
[01:13:55] Speaker A: Yeah, he's gonna go, hue, hue, hue.
The script says that Steve is stronger, but Jonathan has a rage that's been building inside him a while now.
[01:14:05] Speaker C: A sideways rage.
[01:14:06] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Coming in like a sidewinder.
Both boys get some blows in, but Jonathan gets the upper hand. And the cops roll up as Jonathan is just beating the absolute daylights out of Steve. The cops try to intervene, but Jonathan just ends up hitting Callahan, giving him a bloody nose. He's like, my nose pal cuffs Jonathan while Callahan chases Steve and the others down the alley.
And somebody on that Reddit thread that I saw said so. Blood attracts monsters. Fast forward Steve running to who knows where with a face full of blood. I don't see positive things in the future for Steve.
[01:14:40] Speaker B: No.
I can't believe you went on Reddit. That's. That's crazy. How was. How is the Stranger Things subreddit? Is it like the wild, Wild West? Is it like the Buffy subreddit?
[01:14:50] Speaker A: I'm picking Horrible. What I do. Always. Stranger Things has been a toxic fandom for a while.
[01:14:54] Speaker B: But is it more toxic than Buffy, though?
[01:14:57] Speaker A: It's. It's just as bad. I would say. It's just as bad. I mean, okay, like, conformity, gay.
[01:15:03] Speaker B: Oh, my God. That was crazy.
[01:15:05] Speaker C: Because the thing is, now it's like, it's not the fandom that's toxic. It's the people that are. There's just so many overwhelmingly toxic people that if they like anything, it just automatically makes.
[01:15:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:15:18] Speaker C: Like that fandom toxic. And they're always the ones with the loudest voices, usually.
[01:15:25] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[01:15:27] Speaker C: Have you seen what the. Was announced today about Scream 8?
[01:15:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:15:31] Speaker B: No. What?
[01:15:31] Speaker A: The Zuckermans, right?
[01:15:33] Speaker C: The Zuckermans are. Are writing Scream 8. 8.
[01:15:35] Speaker B: Are they really?
[01:15:36] Speaker C: And loads of people are being like, well, they were just in charge of, like, the rejected Buffy thing, so this is probably not great. Whereas it's so annoying because I'm like, they're. But they write really good mysteries because they. They did Poker Face with Natasha, and I felt like that I would be fine with that.
[01:15:53] Speaker B: But I've heard, like, I've been seeing around the Internet, a lot of people, like, kind of criticizing their writing in general, but I, like, I can't make an opinion because I've never seen anything that they've done done. But I've heard good things about Poker Face.
[01:16:07] Speaker C: If you're only basing it on the Buffy reboot, you would think that they don't know how to write young people.
[01:16:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it could be.
[01:16:13] Speaker B: It could be that they're not comfortable with that.
[01:16:16] Speaker A: I heard a lot of people saying that they really wanted. For the next Scream movie. They wanted more of a mystery because they felt like Scream 7 there wasn't enough. And so I think that the Zuckermans are a great addition to that.
[01:16:27] Speaker B: Interesting.
[01:16:28] Speaker C: The mystery was that the reveal was that you didn't know who the people were.
[01:16:31] Speaker B: That was.
I'm surprised that they're already, like, doing Scream 8.
[01:16:38] Speaker A: Like, that's.
[01:16:39] Speaker B: I mean, I guess. Why wouldn't they? After the box office Success they had for Scream 7, like, over 200.
[01:16:44] Speaker C: Over 200 million.
[01:16:46] Speaker B: That's crazy.
[01:16:47] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[01:16:48] Speaker B: Crazy.
[01:16:49] Speaker A: Good for them. Still alive and kicking franchise. Where am I? I don't know where I am.
[01:16:55] Speaker C: The police officer chasing the people down the alleyway was so funny because the. This in the subtitles as well, he says, come here, little guys.
[01:17:06] Speaker A: These are almost full grown men here.
[01:17:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:17:09] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
Callahan is such a weirdo. You could tell he's almost socially awkward himself. He's so funny.
[01:17:17] Speaker C: I love him.
[01:17:18] Speaker A: He cracks me up in every scene. He kind of like, if I held my nose, he'd be like, oh, well, Chief, we don't really know where. We're like, that's how he kind of
[01:17:26] Speaker C: talks because he feels very much like a parody of the character that he. He's meant to be. And I. But I just, like. I just like that they let him just be.
[01:17:34] Speaker A: I just want to know if the actor actually talks like that or.
Or if he's like, you know, acting like the character.
Okay. Yeah. So now we're back at the Ives house. This.
There was originally a bigger part of this scene where Joyce and Hopper look at articles and clippings about Terry and are like, we need to find Jane because she'll know what happened to Will. Which I think they're thinking there's a connection with Brenner and Will. I don't know quite how they would have gotten there, but I. I'm kind of glad they cut it out. But Hopper and Joyce are leaving Joyce watching Terry again, feeling so sad for her and that deep connection as a mother who's lost her child in the car. Hopper reassures Joyce that they'll find Will. They're close. Joyce is like, 12 years she's been looking for her. And Hopper's like, but, hey. And she showed up at Benny's, like, three nights ago. We've got a chance. And he's like, you know what I would give for a chance in, you know, talking about his daughter? I know.
[01:18:28] Speaker B: Sad. I love a sad man's, like, let me comfort you.
Oh, he's so miserable and so sexy.
[01:18:37] Speaker A: He is. And he's just so sensitive. We love a sensitive, miserable man. Not like a, you know, super toxic, aggressive, miserable man.
[01:18:44] Speaker B: He does have exterior, shell.
[01:18:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:18:47] Speaker B: I don't want. I don't want. I don't want a Pisces. Let's be honest. Oh, no offense. If anybody hears a Pisces.
Pisces man.
[01:18:57] Speaker A: No offense here. No, he's a Pisces. Pisces. Knowing full well we've had this conversation before.
[01:19:02] Speaker B: I'm a Cancer, and I would never date a Cancer man.
The men of the men's side of the horoscope is, like, tragic.
[01:19:10] Speaker A: Okay, who are the good.
Like, what's the good man size of the horoscope?
[01:19:17] Speaker B: Well, you see, the thing is, none of them Scorpio. Maybe they're kind of evil a little bit.
[01:19:23] Speaker C: Scorpios are evil. I'm a Levi. Libra.
[01:19:26] Speaker B: Libra. Okay. Libras are very, like, organized. Right.
[01:19:30] Speaker C: Or is that Virgo Peacemakers And.
[01:19:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:19:34] Speaker C: And kind of like social. Just like you always have a sense of social justice, but can be very unorganized and indecisive.
[01:19:41] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:19:41] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:19:42] Speaker A: See it. Okay.
[01:19:44] Speaker B: Interesting.
[01:19:45] Speaker A: What is otherwise, Andrew's May. So is that Taurus?
[01:19:49] Speaker B: That's Taurus.
[01:19:50] Speaker C: Is.
[01:19:51] Speaker B: I like Taurus.
[01:19:52] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:19:52] Speaker B: And it's like.
[01:19:53] Speaker A: Yeah, okay, cool.
Made it. Made the right choice. I just needed.
[01:19:57] Speaker B: But like a Pisces or a Cancer man is just like.
Why would a man even be here?
[01:20:04] Speaker A: Yeah. All my closest friends are Cancers, which is so funny.
[01:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:20:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Like Tabby and Leah.
Anyway, anyways, What's Hopper.
Taurus. We'll say Taurus.
[01:20:16] Speaker B: Scorpio.
[01:20:16] Speaker A: He's a Scorpio.
[01:20:17] Speaker B: Definitely a Scorpio.
[01:20:18] Speaker A: Okay, so not. Not a great pick, but you're still gonna go for him anyway.
[01:20:23] Speaker B: Or Taurus. He could be a Taurus. Taurus are very, like.
[01:20:25] Speaker C: Seriously, I could see him being like a Gemini.
[01:20:29] Speaker B: A Gemini? Really?
[01:20:31] Speaker C: Yeah, because he's got his two faces. He's got his, you know, his. He's got his real.
[01:20:35] Speaker B: Steve is a Gemini.
[01:20:36] Speaker C: I think Steve is a Sag.
[01:20:39] Speaker B: Oh, damn. Okay. Okay. I can see that. Very, like, adventurous and very, like, you know.
[01:20:46] Speaker C: But the hint.
[01:20:47] Speaker B: He's probably doesn't want to be like.
[01:20:48] Speaker C: He's a star with a Scorpio moon.
Oh, but he was born November 29, probably. I bet on the cusp.
[01:20:57] Speaker A: When is Steve Harrington's birthday?
[01:21:00] Speaker B: Jonathan is 1 million percent a cancer. Or a Scorpio, I would say. Or an Aquarius. He's an Aquarius, which is completely different. Different. Anyway, we can make a horoscope for them later. All of them. Like Cat did with the. The cast of Buffy and Angel.
[01:21:19] Speaker A: Yes. That'd be so fun to do with stranger things. Cat, if you're listening, we've got a job for you.
[01:21:22] Speaker B: Yeah, Cat, let's go.
[01:21:24] Speaker A: You've been summoned. We've got the Cat signal.
Very pleased with that.
All right, so then we have Callahan radioing chief a Fight broke out. Hopper's like, I don't have time to do my job, Callahan, go do it. Callahan's like, it was Jonathan Byers.
Do you know where Joyce is?
[01:21:44] Speaker B: Joyce is like, who?
[01:21:47] Speaker A: The child I never have to worry about what?
[01:21:50] Speaker C: It's like someone else in Hawkins has the same last name as me.
[01:21:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:21:56] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[01:21:57] Speaker A: Poor Jonathan. We're never.
She's never.
[01:22:02] Speaker B: When I was like. When I was like, hey, remember when Lonnie was the only person in the last five episodes that has asked Jonathan how he's doing?
[01:22:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. She was like, he's the only person that's actually checked in on Jonathan. Lonnie, of all people.
[01:22:16] Speaker B: And he's, like, manipulating everybody, like, as he's asking about Jonathan.
[01:22:21] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:22:22] Speaker B: You know?
[01:22:24] Speaker A: All right, so at the station, Flo is pulling out some ice in the freezer, talking to Nancy, who's like, how long is this gonna be? Is this gonna take. How long is Jonathan gonna be in custody? And she's like, you got big plans with your boyfriend? And she's like, oh, he's not my boyfriend. Flo's like, I think you better tell him that only love makes you that crazy, crazy sweetheart and that damn stupid. In the words of Spike, you know, you only hurt the ones you love.
[01:22:48] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no.
This is reminiscent of love makes you do the wacky. This is reminiscent of love makes you do the wacky. As said by Buffy Summers herself.
[01:23:00] Speaker A: Whenever I need to wait, I just say something super inflammatory and watch Leia just explore, explode. It's great. It's glorious.
[01:23:09] Speaker B: I didn't even explode, okay?
[01:23:11] Speaker A: I brought my marshmallows and everything.
So then she hands the ice pack to Nancy. And Nancy heads over to Jonathan, who's handcuffed to the desk. He's like, is everything okay? And she's over there, like, beaming, like, yeah, everything's fine.
And then we're in the woods now. Elle's eating her Eggos when she hears Dustin and Mike calling for her. And then we see the boys walking their bikes. And then they hear a noise and boom. Troy and James show up, up with a switchblade. The boys drop their bikes and take off with the bullies behind them. Again, AV Club just nailing it, they said. One simple image drives home the parallel between the alien thing preying on Will Byers and more mundane evil. As Mike and Dustin search for L, we have the bullies loom into sight. And then they flick open the switchblade. As Dustin and Mike run, their bikes, fill the foreground that recalls Hopper's words from the premiere, the insight that told him that Will's peril was real. A bike like this is like a Cadillac to these kids. Will left his bike behind as he fled a monster. Dustin and Mike, none of them quite escape. But I thought that was so good.
So at the lab, Lucas is still circling with the compass and then realizes, oh, my gosh, the compass is pointing at the lab. That means the gate is inside the lab. So he climbs a tree to get a better look around, pulls out his binoculars, and that's when he sees a bunch of white vans leaving. The same white van that was outside his house that morning. Observant kid, man.
Now at the quarry, Troy has chased Dustin and Mike to the chest top. Dustin gets cramps. I was like a.
He's so cute.
[01:24:40] Speaker B: Same boat. I will also get cramps. He's like, take me cramp.
[01:24:44] Speaker A: Mike's like, keep going. You got this.
And then we see that James has appeared from the opposite direction. They've hemmed the boys in. Dustin, brave little sweetheart, grabs a stick, attempts to launch himself at Troy. Mike gets a rock. Do you guys see him throw the rock? And it just, like, Mrs. C.H. by, like, five feet. Feet, opposite direction.
And then Troy dodges the stick, grabs Dustin, holds the knife to his neck, threatens Mike, telling him that he wants to know how he made him pee his pants.
[01:25:12] Speaker B: Crazy.
[01:25:13] Speaker A: Dustin's scared to death. He's like, still brave. Our friend had superpowers, and she squeezed your tiny bladder with her mind. Troy threatens to cut out Dustin's baby teeth.
[01:25:25] Speaker B: He's like, I don't need them. Take my teeth.
[01:25:29] Speaker A: So stinking cuties. Like, we're best friends now. Mike. He can have my teeth.
And so then Troy's like, tell Mike. Or he says he tells Mike. He says that he'll let Dustin go if Mike jumps off of the quarry. This is. This is insane work. Even James was like, this is attempted murder. I don't think this is a good idea. Troy's like, no, this is great. Starts a countdown, and then Mike jumps. And then Troy immediately lets go of Dustin. They all race to the edge, only to see Mike suspended in the air halfway down the quarry. And then he starts to levitate, comes back up floating through the air, and then lands safely on the ground. And I love how he. Mike knows instantly. And, like, looks around for Elle. And then we get one of the best sequences of season five right here with Elle.
[01:26:17] Speaker B: Season one.
[01:26:18] Speaker A: Or, Sorry, season one with season. What season are we in, guys?
[01:26:21] Speaker B: Season one.
[01:26:22] Speaker A: No not season five of season one. And the epic score is called She'll Kill youl. And it's so good.
[01:26:29] Speaker B: Yes, she's our friend and she's crazy.
[01:26:32] Speaker A: Yes. And I love that it's not derogatory. It's the first time that he's used it in a positive, like, she's ours kind of way. We see Elle, she's got her power pose, and she just, like, snaps her neck a little bit and.
[01:26:45] Speaker B: And boom. Wow.
[01:26:46] Speaker A: Snaps Troy's arm so good. And then she goes, go. And then the bullies take off. Dustin yells, and I love that shot of Dustin yelling, she's our friend and she's crazy. And you have Elle behind him in her power pose. And I love it because El was trying to fit into that status quo, thinking, if I look normative, then I'll have a family. And here she is showing up as the little girl without having to have the wig on and everything. And she's embraced because of who she is. And I think that's just wonderful.
[01:27:19] Speaker C: Yeah. Because that's when she first, like, joins the boys. We see her, like, she's very, like, like, studying them, you know, like, she's, like, seeing how they speak and how they interact with each other. And it's like she's kind of learning in real time, you know?
[01:27:32] Speaker A: Well, yeah.
[01:27:33] Speaker C: What makes. Like, she's kind of reverse engineering, like, her own family.
[01:27:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:27:38] Speaker C: Like, it's so cute.
[01:27:39] Speaker A: And I love how, like, kind of what you said at the beginning of the episode, Tony, about how they're all finding each other and they're creating this new found family. And I love that is kind of one of the core things of Stranger Things is found family and friends never lie and loyalty and trust, because these are all outcasts. And it's this idea of abolishing the nuclear family structure and creating your own family. And that's the tenant of the show. And a lot of voice.
[01:28:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:28:05] Speaker A: Ab Club again. In the Best of Us. In the worst of times, something triumphs over the monsters inside. The monsters of fear, anger, panic, selfishness. Held at knife point by his longtime tormentor. Dustin urges Mike not to jump. Don't do it. He yells over and over. He doesn't doubt Troy will make good on his threat. He's willing to sacrifice himself to save his friend. So is Mike. And El saves them both. I can't get enough of L's Old West Gunslingers battle scene stance. Millie. Bobby Brown has managed to portray a host of intangible actions without resorting to the Usual stock gestures for psychic abilities. That heroic stance suits her because L isn't a monster. She's a little girl brutally fashioned into a deadly instrument, trying to escape the powers that would use her. At the end of Chapter six, the monster, the real monsters are coming for her and their white vans. I just love that. But this scene, this cliff scene was partially filmed at a real location, a real cliff. Bellwood Quarry, which has been used in a ton of TV shows and movies like the Hunger Games, the Vampire Diaries, the Walking Dead.
The cast could only stand about 30ft from the actual edge. They weren't allowed to get close to it. So production built a fake cliff with a mat underneath it. And they shot from below. And this was used like when Mike is looking down off the clip and when he jumps. Matt Duffer says this was probably the hardest sequence for them to shoot for the entirety of the first season. Reason, he says it was really hard to get the equipment up there. And then he says by the time they got all set up, they only had five hours to shoot this with the kids.
Because they're young actors, they can't go over time. He says, we didn't really know what we were doing as far as digital effects were concerned. I remember feeling very lost when we were shooting this. We had to make it look like Mike was really teetering on the edge there. And then we had him falling as well. The crew had been striving to reveal elements of the story with extensive camera work in earlier scenes, such as the 360 degree inside Hopper's trailer. But the quarry offered a chance to go even further. Technically, a 50 foot techno crane was set up to capture the most arresting angles. And they used a green screen for Finn. He was, you know, in a harness and everything. But I like the. What Matt Duffer says at the end. He says they weren't quite happy with how the shot turned out. But he says ultimately though, the camaraderie among the cast is what everyone remembers. He says that group has hug. That's what people remember. Not the shaky looking green screen. And I agree, man, so good.
[01:30:26] Speaker B: I couldn't even tell. I didn't even like, pay attention to the green screen.
[01:30:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
So Dustin continues to shout. We see Elle's nose bleeding. She passes out and now we're back into the water tank. And in her mind we see L seeing the monster from far away and approaching it as it seems to be feeding. This is what I was telling you earlier, Tony, how there are elements inside, inside the script that I think people should have maybe read before some of the theories in season five. So the, the monster is actually feeding on some kind of fleshy alien egg sac, which solves a big mystery for this season. The end of the season. A lot of people were hypothesizing about this egg.
It's just something. It's the Demogorgon's food.
So it, it whirls around and sees her. L starts screaming in terror.
And then in the lab room, all the lights begin to flicker. The brainwave chart goes off. Brenner and the scientists watch in horror as the wall begins to crumble. We see the beginnings of the rift forming as Al just screams and screams and we're like, oh, this is where it all began. And I, I, I never noticed it too. But watching the rift go up the wall. That wall is the same material as the wall outside the isolation cell that L was thrown into. And this moment was foreshadowed when she thr wall and we saw the crack on the wall. They were foreshadowing that El is the one that has opened up this gate. It's just on a bigger scale, which I thought was so cool, but yeah. And again, the monstrous room. Womb full circle. It's L that created it out of fear and rage, and she was ripped out of her mother's womb to do it.
So then we have that adorable scene at the quarry. The boys rush to Elle. She's laying on the floor crying, weakened from saving Mike. She tells Mike that she's so sorry. And then. And then she tells him that she opened the gate and that she's the monster. And he's like, noel, you're not the monster. You saved us. And then he helps her up and hugs her. And then Dustin gets on his knees and hugs.
[01:32:26] Speaker B: Dustin's so cute. He's like, all right.
[01:32:29] Speaker A: He's got the cutest smile on his face. And we just have that sweet shot.
[01:32:33] Speaker B: I'm like, I love it.
[01:32:36] Speaker A: I love it.
[01:32:37] Speaker B: Nobody tell Lucas. For sake, don't tell Lucas is.
[01:32:42] Speaker A: And then the last thing I'll say is, like, this all brings us again back to 11, who. This is from the essay, who could be seen as a product of bad parenting with Dr. Brenner. If we're going back to the whole definition of bullying. And they said that the essay, or the essay says that he's the father of two queer kids, essentially. Eleven and the Demogorgon. The creature is not only linked via monstrosity to 11, but to others as well. Its first two victims. Victims are queer, Will and Shy Barb. This implies a link between queer deviant characters who reject normalcy. What unites them all is their inherent monstrosity of refusing to fit into normalcy. It is 11 who opens the portal which fractures the space temporal continuum, thus freeing the Demogorgon. Stranger Things recuperates, maybe inadvertently, the figure of the deviant monstrous queer child that mobbing established as the main receptor of aggression. In this scenario, the queer kid, rather than being a member monstrous creature, is an object of empathy. And I really love that.
So then at the Wheeler house, Dustin, Ellen, Mike are crossing the yard to get back in. We see that the maintenance guy is outside in the truck. He's watching them. As soon as he spots them, he radios in that he has eyes on them and they're heading home. Back the lab, we see men including Brenner, suiting up. They've grabbing weapons, getting into the truck. And Lucas is watching them through the binoculars as they race down the road to the Wheeler's house. And we close with the music ramping up as the kids leave their bikes on the lawn and enter back into the basement, just sitting ducks for Brenner and the agents to come nab them.
[01:34:10] Speaker B: No.
[01:34:11] Speaker A: Oh, what a cliffhanger.
[01:34:15] Speaker B: I love how, like, the next episode probably picks up right where this episode ends. Like, I just love that it's just a continuous story. We don't have to sit here and be like, how much time has passed? Like we were in Buffy, like in angel, where it was like a week after he lost Connor, and we're like, wow. Wow, it's been a whole week. That's crazy.
[01:34:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:34:35] Speaker C: Also really smart to be able to, like, create knowing if you're dropping it all in once you can create these big moments of tension because, you know you can keep watching right away. And that's what I. That's what I think ultimately didn't work for the format of season five because there was too much breathing time in between.
I think if we had got it all just like season one, we'd probably be a bit more like.
[01:34:59] Speaker B: Oh, like one continuous story.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:35:03] Speaker A: But what a good episode. My gosh.
[01:35:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:35:06] Speaker B: Great episode.
[01:35:07] Speaker A: So juicy. But thank you for joining us, Tony.
[01:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:35:11] Speaker C: Thank you so much for. For having me. It was. That was fun.
We talk about holes and lube.
[01:35:17] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, my gosh.
[01:35:18] Speaker B: There's gonna be sponsorship.
[01:35:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:35:23] Speaker A: Alcohol and lube.
[01:35:25] Speaker C: I'll let you know if Ky. Get. Reach out to me.
[01:35:27] Speaker B: Yeah, you better. I get 5%, by the way.
[01:35:30] Speaker C: 2%.
[01:35:31] Speaker B: Sarah gets 5% too.
[01:35:34] Speaker A: I'm good, thanks. I'm all right.
[01:35:37] Speaker B: Come on, Sarah.
[01:35:39] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Send me the loop. Yes, absolutely. Totally.
Yeah, I'll find a space for it.
[01:35:49] Speaker B: A hole? Do you mean a hole?
[01:35:52] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. Well, Tony Cody, let us know what episode you would like to come back to for season two. And I can't guarantee you'll get it, but we'll squeeze you in somewhere.
We'll give you the. We'll give you the standalone episode. I keep threatening everybody with that one.
[01:36:06] Speaker C: Oh, I don't mind. I like that episode.
[01:36:07] Speaker A: Really? Okay, perfect. There you go. That's your episode.
[01:36:10] Speaker C: No, thank you so much for having me. It was really nice to just kind of revisit the show and especially after season five being so fresh in my mind, and it's just nice to kind of go back and remember the quality. Just the quality of the way TV used to be.
[01:36:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
Have you watched season one since it's come out? Like, did you go back and re. Watch it at all?
[01:36:35] Speaker C: I re watched it before season four came out.
[01:36:39] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:36:39] Speaker C: But I didn't do a rewatch, so.
[01:36:41] Speaker B: Several years ago.
[01:36:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:36:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:36:44] Speaker C: So it was.
[01:36:45] Speaker B: How many years ago did season four come out?
[01:36:47] Speaker C: I think three or four. Three or four?
[01:36:49] Speaker B: Four.
[01:36:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:36:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. It was like 20. 21. 2022 because it.
Or maybe it was 23 because it was made. It was filmed during COVID Because I remember season four had a lot of COVID restrictions with the filming process.
[01:37:01] Speaker B: Right, right. So interesting.
[01:37:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:37:04] Speaker C: Yeah. I just. I. Elle's not really a character I would have ever, like, I felt like I related to, which is kind of funny considering I am, like. I grew up. I am queer and I grew up. You're like, I grew up othered.
Yeah.
But I just. I really. It was really kind of nice. It's definitely making me be like, I can't wait to listen to, like, the rest of, like, what you talk about. And I definitely am gonna, I think, rewatch the show while you're doing it as well.
[01:37:29] Speaker A: Yeah, do it.
[01:37:31] Speaker C: I just thought it was. Yeah. The.
I really, really enjoyed Elle this time. I just really felt. Really felt more for it. Maybe it's because I've watched everything and also because I'm a different person. What I was probably four years ago. I'm just like. There's some. The thing of hers I really related to is, like, the idea of that if you're not usable, then you're disposable.
You know that. And I think Brenner kind of instills that obviously into her. But that's what. Then what I love so much about the gang, like, because they're just like, she just protects. She protects them. And at first I think, like, she does it because it's like she's doing that to be useful because that's what she's been shown. I can be useful to you. I can earn my place. And then this kind of episode really goes to show that, no, we, like, we love you.
[01:38:18] Speaker B: They care about her.
[01:38:19] Speaker C: Yeah. So, yeah, it was quite. It was quite a good, strong, like, emotional ending, I think. I loved it.
[01:38:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:38:26] Speaker C: Thanks for having me so much to. On to talk about.
[01:38:29] Speaker A: Thanks for coming. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for, yeah, staying up late and coming and hanging out with us. But, yeah, we'll figure out when we're doing season two. We'll have you on for that. And, yeah, it'll be great. We'll continue our lube discord discussion. Be great.
[01:38:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:38:43] Speaker A: All right.
I was just gonna let that slide.
Oh, my gosh, it's late. All right, guys.
Hope you enjoyed. Shut up. Hope you enjoyed this episode.
We know Tony and Leia did. I did, too, actually. That sounds like I didn't. Yeah, we. It was great. Anyway, we're going to go to bed now. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you later. Bye.
Thanks so much for listening to Investigating. If you enjoyed this podcast, feel free to follow, subscribe and review us on all platforms. You can also find us on Instagram at Investigating Podcast and you can continue to email us at investigating angel podcastmail.com.
Sam.
