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.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: All right, hey, guys. Welcome back to and I don't know
[00:00:45] Speaker C: why I say all right.
All right, guys.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: All right. Hey, guys.
[00:00:47] Speaker C: Welcome back. This has been the most unhinged season we've done yet. I feel like every season that goes by, we're just getting more even.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Even, like Angel Season 4.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: I don't remember a minute of recording any of angel season four. I think I blocked it all out of season five.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: We were pretty unhinged.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: I feel like. I think I disassociated and then came back to life when we got to season season five.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel you.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: So I couldn't tell you. Someone else can tell us what you guys think. I feel like every time we've been
[00:01:19] Speaker C: starting has been, like, rough.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: I'm like, okay, what podcast am I on? Where are we at? What time is it? What are we doing? But anyway, we are on. Wait. Well, the podcast is investigating Stranger Things.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Welcome, everyone.
[00:01:30] Speaker C: This is great.
I. I feel like I'm getting sick.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: The computer.
[00:01:36] Speaker C: We're on a computer.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: We're in our homes, in our bedrooms. I feel like my brain is fuzzy today. So if I'm, like, a little loopy.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: We also did just spend, like, an hour and a half gossiping.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: We literally got on. I was like, I have gossip to tell you. And then we talked for an hour and a half. We're like, oh, we'd normally be done recording.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: It's almost nine.
[00:01:57] Speaker C: Yeah. My poor children. I said, you guys can stay awake till I'm done recording. I always do this. And then I'm up till 11 o',
[00:02:03] Speaker B: clock, and they're like, oh, they're gonna love it then.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: They're fine.
[00:02:05] Speaker C: They've got the remote. They're. And free reign with the.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Television and.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Or not. Netflix, Disney plus. So they're fine.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: They love it. They're good. Anyway, all right, today. Today's the finale of season one, Season one, Chapter eight, the Upside down, written by the Teleplays by the Duffers. The stories by Paul Dichter directed by the Duffers. And then, of course, aired July 15, 2016. Leia, what did you think of our first finale for the show?
[00:02:35] Speaker B: I thought it was really good.
I will say, though, like, having watched,
[00:02:41] Speaker C: I know what you're gonna say.
Yeah.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: I feel like this didn't really feel like A finale. It felt like just another episode. It felt like it was wrapping the storyline of this season, like, really well.
But it didn't feel like a finale. Like it didn't go out with a bang.
You know what I mean?
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: But maybe that's because I'm comparing it to other finales and maybe I shouldn't be doing that because the other finales, like, they go out with a bang because they've, like, earned that bang, I guess.
But I thought it was a really good episode. I thought it was done really well. How like, they wrapped everything up. Although maybe a little bit, like, fast in some parts.
But I think it left, like, the ending, like, leaving off with, like, the last thing we see of Will and, like, kind of seeing the Eggos in the forest and stuff. Like, I know that's setting up like season two.
So I think that was really interesting because in some ways, this episode feels like final a little bit.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: But then they kind of open the door with those two scenes where you're like, oh, what's happening with Will? Is that going to be the plot of season two? And then obviously, like, 11's not completely gone, like, yeah. Wherever she disappeared to.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: So, yeah, I'm excited. It makes me excited for season two, but as an episode, it just wasn't like a season finale episode for me.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and I wonder how much, because, like, we talked about that they were planning on just doing one season and then about halfway through realized they were going to have a second season and so kind of shifted some things around. I wonder how much they changed going into the second season or like, for this, this episode, going into the second season with knowing that they were gonna continue the show.
Yeah. I don't know, but it seems like a lot of the stuff they just kind of kept and then they allowed it to be even more open ended, knowing that they would be able to explore more of that stuff later on. I actually have a couple quotes here, but yeah, I know what you mean. I think with future finales, without spoiling too much, I always feel like season three, season two and season three feel like they could be the end of the show finales in a lot of ways for me. I know you don't remember them at all, but if anyone else has seen the rest of the show, season two and season three, I always felt like, oh, wow, the show could have ended really nicely in either one of these places. One and four, the ones that I feel like it's very clear, okay, we're moving into something Else something bigger or different or all that stuff. So. I know what you mean for sure.
Yeah. I felt like this episode. I'm very, very curious to hear your thoughts on some things because I. This was the first episode where I was like, oh, I don't know if I agree with all of the decisions they made in the episode. I haven't had that yet for the show. So that was kind of a new experience.
Yeah.
Yes. Hopper also some. Some stuff with Elle and I, again, I'm gonna try. I'm trying really hard not to let future stuff dictate how I watch the show, but it's really hard to. This is my first watch through without with having seen the entirety of the show now. So it's hard not to go back and do some comparisons. Our.
Our season wrap up next week is going to be really interesting, really fun to talk about because there's a lot of parallels with this season in the. The final one.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: So I'm trying not to do that, but at the same time, like there is going to definitely be that bleed over because it's supposed to be one continuous story. So there's just gonna be some of that influence there.
Obviously can't talk about all of it, but I definitely noted some things a little bit more, not just from doing the podcast, but also from having watched season five now. But I'm just curious to know your thoughts because I. I feel conflicted about some things.
There's some things that I'm really hoping they explore and flesh out in season two. I want to see some consequences for some of these things too. I want to see people's reactions to things, and I think it's gonna be juicy. I think this is gonna be one of the juicier episodes that we've talked about because I think there's some decisions that were made that I was like, ooh, we're getting to some interesting territory
[00:06:43] Speaker B: here, but let's get it.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. So this episode won an Emmy award for outstanding sound editing for a series.
The duffers say this was by far the most challenging episode to pull off.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: I think, bro, they say that about every episode.
[00:07:00] Speaker C: Yes, I know everybody.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: They're like, this episode was the most challenging.
Challenging to pull off. Exception.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: I think the last one, they were like, this one was just for funsies, but we just had like a truck that just went over the kids heads.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: No, it was just also we did so many explosives and also we did the so many things.
[00:07:18] Speaker C: But also we just kept it real
[00:07:19] Speaker A: grounded and very little CGI. Only 40 of the. The actual episode was CGI.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Well, I mean, when you're shooting a show like a movie, I feel like every single episode is like a major production almost.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah. I can't even imagine how I kind of get it. Intense. Some of this stuff was. Yeah. And this was only. This was like, I think one of the shorter seasons too, which is crazy.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: But anyway, yes. Most challenging episode to pull off.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: No other episode even comes close is what they said for this season.
[00:07:45] Speaker C: What?
[00:07:45] Speaker B: When did they say that?
[00:07:46] Speaker A: This was in 2017. So they were definitely talking about for the season, not the entire series. Yeah.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: In our original pitch to Netflix.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: No. We envisioned the show as a big summer popcorn movie. As such, we felt it was important that our ending felt like a suitably epic movie climax. We quickly realized that pitching this in a room is one thing. Actually pulling it off on a television schedule is another thing entirely. Kind of what you were saying, like, oh, we have to basically film what feels like four movies in a television,
[00:08:15] Speaker B: like, schedule in a television show.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Which, you know, at this point hadn't really been done. This is the first time.
So. They said. Writing this final script was a painful and confusing experience. As excited as we were about all of the scenes and concepts as writers, the directors, producers in us were beginning to panic because we knew we'd have to actually figure out a way to accomplish it all on screen. But we made a choice to temporarily take off our producer hats and let the story and characters guide us, even if that meant putting our leads in another dimension for most of the episode and writing in not one, not two, but three monster attacks. They really took full advantage of the fact that we can show the Demogorgon now.
[00:08:51] Speaker C: Woo.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Everybody.
[00:08:53] Speaker C: You get a Demogorgon. You get a demogorgon attack. Like, everyone's getting attacked here.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Is it like the same one demogorgon that just keeps popping up everywhere?
[00:09:02] Speaker A: We have not been told if there's any other more demogorgons. We've only been told that there's the one. It's implied.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: The one guy.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: I think it's implied that there's the one because Nancy and. And Jonathan were like, we have to lure it. If there's multiples, then, like, you would think multiple demogorgons will pop up or they would be luring, because then what's the point? There's more in there, you know, so.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: True, true.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: I think we're implied.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Imagine if they lured it and then there's like ten demogorgons came out.
[00:09:30] Speaker C: Steve's we're going to need a bigger bat.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: The show would have ended so quickly.
[00:09:36] Speaker C: It really would have.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: We would have been like, well, they said they wanted more deaths, so they're all dead. Yeah.
[00:09:42] Speaker C: Wasn't that a wonderful show?
[00:09:45] Speaker B: That's how that.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: Eleven lives, Everybody dies. Yeah, literally.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: And then the show would have ended and no, everyone would have forgotten about it and.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's it.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: All right. So they said the scope for this finale really pushed everyone on the show, from actors to the camera crew to our production designer. But at this point in the production, everyone on the crew really believed in this show. And their enthusiasm served as an engine to make the impossible possible. It was a little like cramming for that big final exam. Long days and nights, little sleep and a lot of stress. But you can do it because you see the light at the end of the tunnel. It wasn't just hard on the crew, but on our post production team as well. Our visual effects artists were particularly overwhelmed. In the end, nearly 40% of this episode has some kind of visual effects enhancement. In fact, they were working on shots until the last possible moment. The final visual effects shots were turned in just two weeks before they showed up on Netflix. Most shots weren't even. Weren't ever truly 100% completed. It was more of a pencils down kind of a finish than anything else. But we're very happy with their work on the show.
I think I saw an interview when they were promoing for season five where they talked about how I think they went back to, I think, this episode and altered some of the visual effects after the show had been aired just to kind of tweak it and make it a little bit better and stuff. Which is kind of crazy that they can go and tweak stuff after it's already been submitted.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like that's kind of. I don't know, I feel like once you submit something, like, it should just be it. And that's the beauty of, like airing things on television. They couldn't do that on network tv.
[00:11:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: I mean, true, they maybe could, but also I think it's just.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: They could.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: They do reruns, but it's not like they're airing like a new episode. I don't know. It's like I understand by what you make.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Or budget for the time. Just don't do. Maybe you need to be a little bit better with how you're scheduling stuff and. Yeah. I don't know.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: It's just crazy. It's very much like a Like an Internet problem. Like, you know what I mean? Like, instant gratification. Like, oh, I can just do this quick fix or whatever. I don't know. It's.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. But also too, like, again, people are like, oh, my gosh. They had everything planned from the beginning and they got. It's like, no, they really didn't. There were some things that they had to go back. And, like, when they're like, oh, no, we're not doing. I forget what they think. The Lucasing or whatever. Going back and tweaking things. It's like you kind of are. Even if you. Maybe you are. You aren't changing the story, you're still going back and tweaking things and.
Yeah. Anyway, as far as the story is concerned, it was important to us that the finale resolved the main tension. Will goes missing in the beginning of our story and he's found at the end. But we also wanted to leave some important questions unanswered. What happened to 11? Why the hell is Nancy with Steve instead of Jonathan? Does it have something to do with Steve's beautiful Christmas sweater? Why is Hopper leaving Eggos in the woods? Does he know where 11 is? What kind of effect did living in the Upside down have on Will? What exactly is the Upside Down? Was our monster the only monster that lives in there? What the hell was in those yellow eggs? Which is hilarious, because as we've mentioned
[00:12:44] Speaker C: before, that never really gets answered. And that was one of the big things that people had questions.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: I forgot what the yellow eggs are. What are the yellow eggs?
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Okay, so the script. The script answers it. That's the weird thing. But anyway. Well, I mean, it kind of answers, not fully, but the Demogorgon was eating the yellow eggs when L first found it. When the Demogorgon was living. Right, right, right, yeah.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: So what were the yellow eggs in the script?
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Well, we don't know. It just says that they were eating them. But a lot of people were hypothesizing when we got to season five, they're like, it's gonna be a dragon egg. The Big Bad's gonna be a dragon, and it's gonna be because of those eggs. But it's like, if it was a dragon, I don't think the Demogorgon would be eating. Yeah.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Like, why would it be E.
I would just assume it's eating its young.
The Demogorgon pooped out an egg and it's eating it because it's a mother.
[00:13:37] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Monstrous womb, monstrous mother. Just eating itself, eating its young. Perfect that fits.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: It totally fits. You know, that's our canon. It's. It's young. Because what else. What else is going to do? There's only one demogorgon out there, so it isn't actually a baby. There's nobody to fertilize the egg, so it's just pooping out an egg that can't be fertilized, and then it just eats it.
[00:13:58] Speaker C: It's the circle of life, baby.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Exactly.
It was impregnated by the Upside down, actually.
[00:14:05] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: It's actually a male veins in this. In this universe.
[00:14:09] Speaker C: Yeah, the. The Upside down is the female.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: And the demon is so much sense. Right.
[00:14:14] Speaker C: And that's why it's angry, because it has to give birth.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: Dirty man.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: Yeah, there you go.
This would be what men would be like, crispy looking.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: I'm sorry, Men. I don't hate men.
[00:14:27] Speaker C: Like, we totally, like, made fun of British people, and now we're making.
We're like narrowing it down. We're like British men, actually. Just men.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: It's raining white stuff like dandruff.
[00:14:39] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
The tendrils. I mean, it's like. Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Very, very, very masculine. Coded for things.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Very predatory.
[00:14:51] Speaker C: Yeah, you can take that out.
Why? It's the truth. Why would I take that out?
[00:14:58] Speaker B: No, we love our male listeners.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: No, we do actually love our male listeners. We love men, too.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: You're nothing like the Upside Down.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Yeah, you're.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: You're like Earth or wherever.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Or wherever. I think Earth is technically, like, feminine.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: Is it?
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Isn't it? Like, Gaia is a female and it's supposed to represent Earth. Anyway, whatever. Okay, Interesting, The. The hilarious thing, though. Okay, so what was. What the hell was in those yellow eggs? The duckles continue and say, we know the answer to all these questions.
We promise. But we wanted to keep the mystery alive, to leave the door cracked for potential.
[00:15:31] Speaker C: They don't know. They don't know.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: They don't know anything.
[00:15:36] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: All right, so random trivia. They said to end it. The quote was to create snow for their winter scenes. At the end of this episode, they shipped over 20 tons of ice from Florida.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: From where?
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Florida.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Why would it come from Florida? They got a lot of ice in Florida.
[00:15:57] Speaker C: Apparently they have lots of.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Well, they are next to the water.
[00:15:59] Speaker C: Maybe that's. That's why. I don't know. But they shipped it from Florida.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: They couldn't ship ice from Canada.
You're a good neighbor.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: They're in Georgia. So I imagine that Florida is a
[00:16:11] Speaker C: lot Closer than Canada.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: So maybe that shipping was just.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Isn't Florida swamp?
[00:16:16] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it is.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: It doesn't snow in Florida, so I don't know where they were getting.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: I wonder if there's, like, lore that we're missing about Florida and ice. Like, maybe Florida just is, like, a giant ice factory there.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe there's something about.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe they make evil ice in Florida.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Evil ice? Yeah. That looks specifically like ash. Well, no. Okay. This was actual snow. It wasn't supposed to be the ash stuff, but, yeah. Crazy. Crazy. 20 tons. That's so much. Okay, Eleven's second longest phrase in season one is only seven words long. Just hold on a little longer.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: It's like angel in season one of Buffy.
[00:16:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: No, it literally is the entirety of the season. 11 only has 42 lines.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: Good for her.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Her longest line is mike, I'm sorry, the gate. I opened it. I'm the monster. Which is 11 words, ironically.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: You know what? That just speaks to, like, how good of an actress she is, though. Like, she was able to get you to sympathize with her and, like, be invested in her as a character just based off of her acting, because you're not hearing much from her. When the Buffy cast did. Hush, I remember Sarah Michelle Geller always tells the story of how she thought it would be the best week on set because she didn't have to memorize. But it was hard, but she found it was harder because you have to convey the lines without actually saying them.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And probably all the old tricks that you normally would have are a lot harder. So I was gonna say, well, maybe she had the easiest part. Easiest robot. I really don't think so. I also think this. This role was probably physically taxing for her, too. The amount of just, like, tension she had to hold in her body and.
[00:17:46] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Anyway, this is the final time in the series that Matthew Modine is listed as being part of the main cast. He plays Papa. This is also the final time that Noah Schnapp and Joe Curie are not listed as part of the main cast.
Exciting.
The monster. Okay, so I have some really fun practical effects stuff that I learned about the monster that I think is so flipping fascinating. It's kind of long, but I promise, like, you and I both really eat up practical effects. All right, so the Duffers wanted a design that could have an actor wearing prosthetics and wearing a suit made of foam rubber, saying, we wanted something that if you're a kid and you're in school and you're doodling you could just sort of sketch this monster out. I think there's danger sometimes now because you can do anything you want with computer graphics that you can over complicate things. There's an elegant simplicity to the Xenomorphs design. I think that makes it much more iconic. So the concept artist, Aaron Sims, who works on Maleficent Anne and Wayward Pines, says that he did research on creatures in nature that have weird, bizarre layers of teeth inside their mouths, like snapping turtles, which was kind of the foundation for the design.
Then Spectral Motion, which is a Glendale Co. In LA, made the foam latex suit that was worn by performer and choreographer Mark Steger from I Am Legend and World War Z.
There's a quote in here from Mark Setrakian, I believe is his name. He says the costume covered almost all of Stieger's body. For some sequences, the suit was augmented with stilts on which the performer stood nearly 7ft tall. For the creature's face, Steger wore one of two masks that were designed by Spectral's Mark Citrakian, and like the suit, were made primarily from foam latex. The open version of the demo's face showcased rows of sharp teeth made from rigid silicone that had to be glued on individually.
That is so much teeth, he says. When the face opens, it's like this orchid's flower that opens up with all the teeth and the gullet in the center. But then when it closes, it looks like this meat wad. I had to come up with the mechanism that would take the open version and scrunch it down into the closed version. Setrakian's design consisted of five petals, each of which opened and closed. Additionally, the bases of the two largest petals could move independently. Each petal also has this kind of fleshy thing. I call them drawstrings, Setrakian says. They're basically like mechanical muscles embedded in the foam latex that can expand and contract and cause this very beautiful or creepy organic motion. Then the maw, which looks like a throat, that whole thing, a series of concentric rings which gave it this movement, like an esophagus. He continues. It would undulate. There was lots of detail. There were these big bold moves. The head opened up, but then there was a lot of secondary animation going on. In all, 27 individual motors were required to create the effect of the face opening and closing. The mechanism controlling the face was housed inside a small backpack that was concealed by the suit itself. For the Demogorgon scene, Stieger wore bicycle shorts and tight fitting athletic apparel. He then would have the backpack put into place and the suit glued on over his body up to the neck. Finally, the head, which weighed roughly 8 pounds, would be placed over Stieger's face and glued onto the suit to make the costume look like one complete piece. It's not like you're just zipping up a zipper or snapping some snaps. The Trackian says. There's a bit of commitment when you put him in it, and obviously you have to be careful when you take him back out again. You have to release the glue very carefully. Still, the Demogorgon suit allowed a greater range of motion than most. Since most of the motors are in the backpack. The head wasn't all that heavy, and it was nicely balanced, too. Citrakian says because the face would open up and Mark's actual face was exposed, he had good access to air. It's not unusual for a creature suit performer to have to work in a very claustrophobic environment. In the case of the Demogorgon, it was not too bad.
And then what they did is his own arms were able to be outside of the suit, with the Demogorgon's long limbs hanging down close to the creature's knees.
So what they did is he wore sleeves that would blend into the background of a given shot. And then they would just. What they would do is he would manipulate the monster's arms using carefully concealed handles. They were later erased by the show's visual effects technicians during post production. We always knew his arms were going to be digitally removed, says Spectral Motion projector Mark Viniello. We talked to the Visual effects A team, and they said if his arms could be white, if he's in a kind of white background, that would make things easier. And then they used visual effects to erase his feet because he's in stilts, so his feet kind of show up around the Demogorgon's knees. But then for the sound effects for the Demogorgon, they drew inspiration from some of the films that they took the inspiration for his physiology. So for snarls and stuff like that, they looked at Alien and the Thing and such. They actually ended up using baby seals.
So they combined the baby seal sounds with altered snippets of his own breathing and squeals and roars created by scraping sheet metal with dry ice. He would mix the same sounds together in different ways to convey the actions of the creature. You look for combinations, he says. One of the great tricks of sound design is trying to figure out how to use repetition and sounds. And if you think about music, A verse, chorus. Verse, verse, chorus. There's a lot of repetition out there in audio worlds and in language of music and language of sound. So he says your monster has a voice. You could say the same thing about the Queen Alien with Ripley in Alien films. So essentially based upon what the creature in his mind was thinking or feeling, based on the script, he would have a specific sound for a specific action that the. The creature was supposed to do to make it seem almost like a real animal.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: But very cool, practical effects, man.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: I just love that, and I just wish we did more of that.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: What do you mean, we?
[00:23:29] Speaker A: I just. I just missed in real life, you know, you and I.
I say we to soften it. But what I mean is, Duffers, I just wish we.
I just wish. I just wish we, as a collective, just really use. Yeah.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: As, like, practical human as a human race, every day.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You know, like, I just think the world would be better if we just didn't use CGI to, like, you know, make our food and drive our cars and I agree.
Thank you. More practical effects. Very profound. Right?
[00:24:03] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: No, no more AI Cereal. Okay, now have real food, guys. Eat real food.
Make food. Good, good. Again. Okay.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Just want to see if you're paying attention, that's all.
[00:24:21] Speaker C: I'm just gonna say as many inflammatory things as possible.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: If anything was gonna catch my attention, that was gonna be the one.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: All right?
[00:24:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: We start off in a scene that feels very similar to the opening shot of the season. We have the starry sky, then the lab. We cut to Joyce handcuffed to a chair, yelling to be let out of the interrogation room. Brenner comes in and says, your son, we know you've been in contact with him. When and how did you make contact with him? This whole scene, I thought was so interesting. Did you notice when he first came in, his face was in the shadows? And then for, like, the first half of the scene, his head was cut off, and you just would see his hands and stuff. Stuff. I thought that was such an ominous.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's to signal that, like, this man cannot be trusted. Like, he is faceless. Like the monster. Yeah, totally is a monster.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Well, I think there's almost like an unmasking that's happening right now. Joyce is coming face to face with the true monster, the person that took her son, essentially. Or is, like, responsible for her son, you know, being taken.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Well, he's responsible for her son not getting rescued, viewed sooner. That's true for sure.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, and then she's also met 11 now. And so she's seen the man that's responsible for creating Eleven and making her who she is.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: And Eleven's mom.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Yes, that's right. I forgot about her. Yeah, totally. So she's sitting here going, I know who you are. Like, and I think it's so interesting because I think this scene is supposed to be kind of a contrast to Brenner's interactions with Karen. Karen doesn't trust him either, but she doesn't have all the clues in the context that Joyce does. And so a lot of the way that Brenner is talking to Joyce is very similar to Karen. And Joyce tells him, like, no, I'm not fooled. I. I know who you are and I don't care. Like, you need to just stop.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: Interesting. Because Karen is your like the nuclear family thing again, where her husband's sitting next to her and he's saying, no, they're here to help us and don't worry. And she kind of like falls in line and plays her role.
And Joyce is the complete opposite of that as she's been portrayed all season. She's like the pariah, the single mom doesn't have a lot of money. And I think that is also evident here. She rebels against authority figure, whereas Karen wants to rebel, but she doesn't know how or doesn't feel like she can because she's a housewife or whatever.
[00:26:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: Or maybe she thinks that her voice isn't as important as his because that's what she's been told her entire life. Yeah. 100. That's a good point. I just love that we're forced to pay more attention to Brenner's body language and his hands. Like he takes off his jacket. We don't know what his intentions are yet. And so it's like he could just be getting comfy so that he can sit down or he could be getting ready to like, pummel Joyce. We just don't know. Like, it's very threatening.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: I'd like to see him try.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Literally, the story says that she was supposed to, like, spit in his face too, and should have.
Yeah. Crazy.
[00:27:21] Speaker B: I hate that man.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: Yes. He's horrible. And I just like, I think too like his presentation. It's so cool how you see his face in the viewing window behind him before you actually see it, like on the camera screen in front of you. And it's almost like we're getting a view of who he. Like he's two sided. They're saying he's two faced, so it's very interesting. Anyway, cut to Hopper just getting tased like, like crazy. They're like, this is your second time here. You weren't getting special treatment. They keep asking him what he knows. He's like, I'm sorry, did I stutter? I told you, I know everything.
[00:27:57] Speaker C: I was like, oh's so hot and bothered right now. She's like, great.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: She's like, oh, he's so. He's in pain. He's so sexy.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: He's so sexy in this episode. Oh my God.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Yeah, he is. He's really traumatized this episode.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: So. Traumatized. Flashbacks. Traumatized.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: The flashbacks were brutal. Did you remember them?
[00:28:16] Speaker B: I did, I remember the flashbacks. I just didn't remember that they were in this episode.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Yeah, you're like, when do we get that? Season four?
[00:28:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: I'm like, yeah, yeah, but it made sense.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Anyway, they tase him again. They're like, what do you know? He's like, I know you do experiments on kidnapped little kids whose parents brains you've turned to mushrooms, yada, yada. He just like tells them everything. The agents get uncomfortable as he continues. He's like, you killed Benny Hammond, his friend. You faked Will Byers death and you made it look like that little girl just ran away. Okay, question. Is he referring to Barb or is he referring to Elle? Because I don't even like, I think
[00:28:56] Speaker C: it's funny he can't even remember Barb's name. He's just like, you made that little girl run away. We're like, put some respect on Barb's name here.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Nobody cares about Barb. Literally. Nobody mentioned Barb. We literally see crutches in this episode. We see her corpse in this episode and they're just like, oh, that random
[00:29:15] Speaker C: person, they just walk right past her. They're like, I don't recognize her without her glasses.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: Hopper's like, what?
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Like, yeah, awesome random person.
The agents move him to a chair where the head of security is like, all right, you're just a junkie. A small town cop who had a really bad week, just took too many pills. This time we see them prepping some needles with something. We're like, great, so they're gonna kill him now. We're like, what are you doing, Hopper? Like, play dumb. Play dumb. The scary blonde lady, which I found out her name is Connie, is like, you made a mistake coming back here. Hop's like, no, I didn't. And he's like, here's what's going to happen. Just in control the entire time. And it's hot.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: It's very hot.
[00:29:54] Speaker A: He's like, you're gonna let me enjoy Spires.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: Go.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: You're gonna give us anything we need and we're gonna find her son and then we're gonna forget that any of this ever happened.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: That's a good deal to me.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, great. Just throw L to the wolves, cut to the gym, and I repeat, sounds like a good deal to me.
So cut to the gym. The kids now completely left alone. All the adults and the teenagers have left them and nobody told them that they were leaving.
Mike storms out, finds out that Nancy and Jonathan aren't gone. Dustin's like, they're probably just sucking face somewhere. Mike's like, like, gross.
[00:30:29] Speaker C: No way. He continues to just be in complete denial.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: He says he isn't sure where they are. And El says that they went to find the Demogorgon or just went to the Demogorgon, which I don't know how she knows that unless she heard something. But she's supernatural, so we're gonna believe whatever the show throws at us.
The Byers's house. Nancy and Jonathan arrive and pull out all their weapons, put in the light bulbs, back in the Christmas lights, which, you know, that would take four flipping ever. They nail the bear trap into the floor of the hallway. We see Nancy arming the handgun, then dousing the carpet in the hallway with gasoline. Jonathan hammers nails into the bat. They arm the trap, set a string attached to a Yo yo as kind of an alarm system in Jonathan's room.
Then back at the lab, Hopper's now visited by Papa, who interestingly locks the door with where Hopper's at, but doesn't lock the door when he comes into where Joyce is at. He offers Hopper a smoke. Hopper's lighten up. Cool as a cucumber. Brenner's like, okay, where's the girl? Hopper takes a big whiff and it's like, that's good. You got to give me your word. Nobody's ever gonna find out about this. And those other three kids, those boys, you're gonna leave them alone. Then I'll tell you. Tell you where your little science experiment is. Okay, Leia, thoughts on this because I know a lot of people really wrestle with this and it's pretty controversial.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that's tough. I feel like.
I feel like we're not really supposed to think that Hopper is like necessarily a good guy, to be honest. Like, I think we're meant to think that he's very self centered and he thinks of, like, the big picture, not really the little people, almost.
So I could see how this would be a choice that he would make, because 1.
He just met Elle. He doesn't know anything about her other than she comes from this lab. She has superpowers, and there's a child that he's looking for in the Upside down that's in immediate danger, that doesn't have superpowers and needs to be protected. Like, he. I think he's thinking of the fact that, like, so many other people will die if he doesn't give her up, and he's thinking of saving them because he knows them and he knows those kids. And to him, like, it's almost like he doesn't view El as a kid because she's whatever she is, what she is.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: It's definitely not a good look for him. But I don't think it's supposed to be, like, I. I think it's supposed to just kind of tell us what kind of person he is. Like, he's more of a big picture kind of guy. He's not the guy. He's not like, Mike, who's like, no, I'm gonna do everything I can to save this one person. No matter what happens, I'm gonna jump off a cliff because my. My. A bully has a knife to my friend's throat, and if I don't do that, then my friend's gonna die, you know?
So, yeah, I don't know. It's Hopper.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and it's interesting, too, because then it calls into question his whole plan to get here, because it's like, he's done this before. He knew that they have the cameras like, that that's been referenced. Like, even when he was caught the first time, they're like, did you forget we have cameras and stuff? It's. It's like, okay, did you know that this was going to happen? Was l your bargaining chip this whole time? Which is interesting.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: It could have been. It could also be, I think the thing with Hopper, too, and I didn't really remember what happens at the end of the episode. I think the end of the episode is supposed to kind of tell you that he does care.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: And he just maybe felt like he didn't have a choice. But I also think with Hopper, a lot of the time, it seems like he's got another plan in the works. Like, there's always maybe something else going on. And that's why when I first watched this, I'm like, oh, he's giving her up. But he has Something that's, like, already planned in advance that. That if this were to happen, she's going to come out of it safe. Yeah. You know what I mean?
[00:34:24] Speaker A: So I think there is an argument to be made that he's going, she's superpowered. She could probably take care of herself. I mean, I do think that kind of falls apart. You're like, why wouldn't she? Like, she could have maybe taken her care of herself while she was in the lab, but she couldn't. Like, I still think it's not a great decision, but I think, like, you're saying Hopper's weighing this, his two options, which is he and Joyce die, Will doesn't get rescued, and they probably still find 11 anyway.
Or, like, he's just kind of too. Right. Exactly.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: He's.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: He's. He's helping the people that are under his specific jurisdiction, you know? Yeah.
[00:35:03] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And when I say, like, in my head, I'm like, maybe he has something in the works. Like, you know how in shows or movies, it's like they dupe the bad guy by giving them what they want, but really they have. It's like they have a plan in the background of, like, that they. They've, like, devised with other people that, you know, kind of. It's like you're giving the villain what he wants, but really you're taking it away, like, secretly.
Yeah, that's kind of the vibe that I got at first, and I feel like there's more to it. I don't really remember what happens at the beginning of season two. I feel like there's more to it because that's the vibe that I get because the end of the episode as well, like, he obviously knows, like. Like, 11's not, quote, unquote, gone. Yeah.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: I think the show pretty heavily implies that, but also too, like. And we'll talk more about it later, too. Like, the show's been out for 10 years and everybody. I think most people have seen the promos and other things like that. I think most people know Eleven's still here, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: So that's why I kind of. I don't feel as, like, angry about it, I think, as maybe some people do, because I feel like they. There is more to it than meets the eye. And I. I can understand why he would make a decision like this.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I think my thing is I want to see.
I want to see the next season, unpack the ramifications of this, because I think that's interesting because, I mean, the boys even discuss it later on where they're like, how did he know we were here? And then Dustin says Lando. And he had specifically pointed out saying Lando. And in the last episode, I think, where he was. Or not the last episode, but the episode before that where he was saying that he thinks the chief or Nancy gave them up. Someone. Lando Calrissian. And so they. They know. They know somebody gave them up. But also to Joyce. He tells the plan to Joyce in this next scene here. And Joyce just held and comforted Elle and saw her mom and all that stuff. And I know Joyce is thinking, I gotta go save my kid right now, but I want to see. I'd like to see. See this play out between all these characters and eleven and the boys, because they're gonna feel betrayed.
So. Yeah.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you think Joyce would have given her up?
[00:37:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I think Joyce would have given her up for her kid. I mean, it's a. It's a stupid decision to have to make to choose between two kids. But if it's your kid and somebody else's kid, as a mom, like, there's no way you're not going to try and do everything you can for your own child.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: Damn.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: I know.
[00:37:32] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:37:33] Speaker A: Super sucky.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: I think.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't know. I just feel like Joyce is so feisty. Like, I. I don't especially because, like you said, she just held her. She met her mother. Like. Like, to her, 11 is like, will.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Maybe she just would have fought.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: So I don't know if she would have felt like, that same sense of protectiveness over her, even though she's. She. She's just met her, but she already knows so much about her trauma. Right.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: I mean, but she doesn't say anything. Hopper explains it to her. She doesn't protest.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: Yeah. But.
[00:38:04] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe she's thinking, we're on our way to go help Will right now. I'll deal with that when I get.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: But does he tell her everything?
Does he tell her that?
[00:38:12] Speaker A: That's how he says if she wants Will back, she doesn't talk about anything that has happened here. And then he explained that they gave the agreement. I guess he didn't explicitly say, but.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: But we don't see him say that he gave up 11.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: It's just interesting to think about.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. It's messy. But I. I like things like this because I'm like, yes, give me some moral ambiguity. Give me some characters. That are doing things that are not super great. Because I think that's realistic. That's real life. But it also gives us something to chew on too.
All right, so back with Joyce, we have Hopper coming in with a few guards. He explains everything to her as they walk down the hallway. They take them to some astronaut like, suits that we've seen before with shepherd, and then tells them that they need prot. That the atmosphere is toxic. Joyce is like, are you kidding me? My son's in there. He's been there for, like, days. Hopper's like, put it on. We see the elevator open, and there's Joyce and Hopper all suited up. As they head towards the rift. Outside the lab, we see Brenner, Connie, and a dozen guards, all armed, heading to their cars to go get 11. Connie tells Brenner that she thinks that this is a mistake. She doesn't like the fact that they're just letting Hopper go. And Brenner's like, he's gone. Like, that's what she wanted. She's like, well, what if they find the boy? Brenner's like, that's not gonna happen. I think in Brenner's mind, he's like, they're gonna die in this there. Like, there's no way.
[00:39:23] Speaker B: Like, it's a men to die. Like that guy that they pulled out his, like, innards.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: Yeah, Shepherd. Yeah, exactly.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: Shepherd. Yeah. The iud, they were never expecting them to come out of there.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: No, not at all. Yeah, it's really. It's like a perfect scenario for them. So they load into their tanks and fancy cars head out. And then at the Rift, Joyce and Hopper stare at it and then head in. We hear all that oozing and growling. And then in the. Upside down, we. In case we didn't know, we get that really cool, like, turn the cameras right, right or upside down? Then goes right side up from the treetops to Joyce and Hopper. Joyce is just breathing hard, hyperventilating. Hopper's like, you're all right. I need you to relax. Take deep breaths in and out. And then we get our first flashback. He's chasing his young daughter in the park. He looks happy, well adjusted. His wife is there. They're playing. Suddenly, his daughter struggles to breathe. He starts telling her to breathe in and out. And then we're back to the present with Hopper and Joyce continuing on.
We find out that Hopper, he's wearing that blue bracelet that we've seen throughout this season.
The materials for the bracelet are actually his daughter's hair bands that she's wearing the day that she got sick, those, like, little blue pigtail things, which is just realize that.
So then back at the buyers now armed with a couple of butter knives, because that's the best way to slice open your palm. Come on, guys, grab a fork. At this point, Jonathan, Nancy, go over to the. Go over the plan. It's like, that would hurt. Hurts.
[00:40:45] Speaker C: You have to saw at your hand to get anything.
[00:40:48] Speaker A: And even then, like, surely there was
[00:40:51] Speaker B: a sharper knife in the kitchen.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: A box cutter, like something like cut it on the glass.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: Cut up mirror and do that.
[00:41:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: Grab one of those light bulbs and just like crack it or something.
[00:41:04] Speaker C: Come on.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: You have step. Yeah. Around here.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: 30 million light bulbs.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: And I'm like, guys, slice a part of your body that you won't need to use. You're going to need to grab rip guns and hold bats and stuff. I like, pet peeve. Whenever people do that in movies.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: Freaking bats.
[00:41:18] Speaker A: The freaking bat. So then in the gym, Mike's still antsy. He's like, we can't just wait around. Ever Practical. Lucas is like, and we're still fugitives. The bad men are looking for us. Dustin hopefully points out or helpfully points out that they don't even know where Nancy is. Mike's like, elle can find them. Dustin's like, mike, look at her. We stick to the chief's plan, and Lucas agrees and is like, we stay here. We keep l out of sight and safe. That's the most important thing. Besides, she's safe. She's with Jonathan. Dustin's like, yeah, she's kind of a badass now, so. And I'm like, that crush is still going strong. I see Dustin and then he leaves
[00:41:51] Speaker C: to go get some chocolate pudding. His priorities.
He's like, mike, we found the chocolate pudding. And Black's like, okay, Scream back and forth to each other.
[00:42:04] Speaker B: Talk like that.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: We should.
[00:42:07] Speaker C: You know what we should do, actually? A table read. And you. I'll be Mike, you be Dustin. We'll just scream at each other.
We'll just scream at each other. We should. We should plan that.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: Oh, I actually know the perfect episode to do a table read. It's in season two. It's like my favorite episode. Season two is in season three. Will be really fun for, like, table read.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: Okay, let's do it.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: We should plan some. That'd be so fun.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: We can. We can have, like a bunch of people on.
[00:42:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:42:32] Speaker A: We can do, like, different podcast. Wouldn't that be so fun with all the different podcasters that let's do it.
[00:42:36] Speaker C: Oh, let's do it.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: That'll be so fun.
[00:42:38] Speaker C: And we're just gonna sign souls.
[00:42:40] Speaker B: We should also do, like.
Like, video.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll video it. Yes. Oh, that would be so fun. Okay, let's do it. Yeah, let's plan it.
Oh, I'm excited. That's fun. Okay, so Dustin's like, I'm gonna go get some chocolate pudding. And he's like, lunch Lady Phillis hoards that. Mike's like, are you serious?
[00:43:00] Speaker C: And he's like, elle needs to be recharged.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: So now at the buyers, there's lots of blood. Like, so much blood dripped on Joyce's rug. I was like, poor Joyce. Gasoline, fire, holes in her wall.
[00:43:11] Speaker B: Now, how much, like, how deep did they cut?
[00:43:13] Speaker C: Like, I don't think you need that much blood.
[00:43:17] Speaker B: That's crazy.
[00:43:18] Speaker A: They were like, gotta make sure the Demogorgon smells us. I was like. Barb was like a tiny little cut. It wasn't like, that much blood.
[00:43:26] Speaker C: Meanwhile, Steve's over there roving around town with a whole bloody face. And the Demogorgon's like, I don't like.
[00:43:33] Speaker A: Like, Steve.
[00:43:34] Speaker C: I don't know.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: He's too pretty. I don't like pretty boys.
[00:43:38] Speaker C: Like, oh, you're too pretty to die. Yeah.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
So Nancy's all jumpy. Jonathan's like, don't worry. My mom says the lights blink when the monster comes. Think of it as alarms. She finishes bandaging Jonathan's hand and then lets her hand linger. And Jonathan, like, grabs her hand. We have, like, this moment, and then bang, bang, bang, bang.
[00:43:57] Speaker C: Someone pounds in the front door.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: And here begins, like, my favorite, favorite sequence. It's just funny.
[00:44:03] Speaker B: I know this. It's so good. I love these three together.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: Good.
[00:44:07] Speaker C: Steve is like, jonathan, are you there, man? It's Steve. His voice, like, cracks on the Steve. He's like, it's Steve.
I just want to talk.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: It's like. It's like Romeo and Juliet.
[00:44:17] Speaker C: Juliet, Juliet.
Rapunzel, let your hair down.
Nancy and Jonathan are like, what in the world?
[00:44:25] Speaker A: They're like, we need to get him out of here before the monster comes. Nancy opens the door like, a crack. And Joe Keery has such an expressive face because he goes through, like, 15 different emotions. He's like, relief, confusion. And then he's, like, talking to her, and she has her. She's, like, bracing with her injured hand on the door. She tells him he needs to leave. He's like. And I'm like, no, no, no. He needs to stay with the bloody face. Like, that he might have the demo follow him home, maybe. And maybe that's why he doesn't get eaten, because he. His bloody face also helped attract the Demogorgon. Oh, the Demogorgon was following him there.
[00:44:56] Speaker C: Imagine it just, like, chasing the car.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: It's like, you're too pretty to let go. Yum, yum, yum.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: Steve's like, no, I'm not trying to start anything, okay? Nancy's like, I don't care about that. You need to leave. And Steve's like, no, no, listen. I messed up, okay? I messed up. And he looks at her pleadingly like, please, I just want to make things right. And it takes a breath. And then he looks at her and sees her hand and instantly gets concerned and goes, hey, what happened to your hand? Is it bleeding? And she's like, oh, no, it's nothing. It was an accident. He goes, did. Wait, what's going on? Did he do this to you? And then he, like, pushes in to,
[00:45:30] Speaker C: like, go pummel Jonathan.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: Well, get pummeled again by Jonathan, more like it.
And then he sees Jonathan's bandaged hand, the blood on the floor, the. Lots of blood on the floor, the knife, the bat, the weapons. He's like, what is happening? Jonathan pushes him and is like, you need to get out of here. I'm not asking you. Steve's just confused. He's like, what is that?
[00:45:49] Speaker C: Smells that gasoline. And Nancy grabs the gun and pulls it on him and is like, steve, get out. He's like, whoa, whoa. Even Jonathan, crazy pulls away.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: He's giving, like, Fred Winifred Burkle right now.
[00:46:01] Speaker C: She really is, actually. She's so unhinged this episode.
[00:46:05] Speaker A: Like, but she's also laser focused. Like, you can tell. She's like, my friend's dead. I'm going to kill this demogorgon. Even Jonathan's a little scared. And Steve freaks out.
[00:46:14] Speaker C: He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. What's going on? What's going on? He, like, puts his hands in the air. Nancy's still pointing the gun at him.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: Is like, you have five seconds to
[00:46:20] Speaker C: get out of here. Steve's like, is this.
[00:46:22] Speaker A: This a.
[00:46:22] Speaker C: Is this a joke? Put the gun down. Nancy's like, I'm doing this for you, for our love. And then the lights just start blinking.
[00:46:29] Speaker A: Steve's still protesting. Nancy begins to count down.
[00:46:32] Speaker C: Steve starts hyperventilating. Jonathan starts yelling at Nancy about the lights.
[00:46:36] Speaker A: And then he. He's like, it's here. He grabs the bat. He and Nancy start standing back to back. Steve's just Freaking out, like, what's going on?
[00:46:44] Speaker C: I love how they're like, where is it? Where is it? Steve's like, hello, Will someone please explain to me what the hell is on? Going. Going on? Then the ceiling caves in. Nancy just starts taking shots.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: She doesn't even wait to see what it is. I mean, obviously it's the Demogorgon, but
[00:46:59] Speaker C: she just takes shots.
Jonathan grabs her and is like, run.
[00:47:03] Speaker A: And I believe this is. Yeah, this is also a shot. Obviously, that cgi. When the monster comes in, Jonathan grabs.
[00:47:10] Speaker B: I just feel like they needed a bigger gun. Like, come on, guys.
[00:47:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: I think they severely underestimated how massive this thing was. Was.
[00:47:18] Speaker B: Those are tiny ass bullets. And that skin looks like it's made out of, like, concrete.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, like, bouncing off of him. Probably gonna hit poor Steve in his pretty face, so be careful.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: Scaly, thick, like, hard skin.
[00:47:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: We needed, like, a bazooka. We needed, like, a becoming. Not a becoming. Part two. A freaking innocence. Yes, Buffy. Innocence, Bazooka. Like a. Like a rocket launcher.
[00:47:40] Speaker A: Okay, but remember, that was then. This is now Nancy or Nancy. Buffy's in the 90s. They have invented bazookas, yet
[00:47:49] Speaker B: there's no way they have a freaking bomb.
[00:47:52] Speaker C: Yeah, no, like, I think.
[00:47:54] Speaker A: I think this is the only gun they had access to. So let's hope that Nancy upgrades for the next time.
[00:47:59] Speaker B: You know, she should shoot it right in its face. I feel like that's how you get it.
[00:48:04] Speaker A: Then you have to get close enough because I don't think it.
[00:48:06] Speaker B: When it opens its mouth, like, yeah, you probably could.
[00:48:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: And then you just shoot it right in there.
[00:48:11] Speaker A: Do that again. I'll take a picture and that'll be our problem shot. All right, here we go. Ready?
[00:48:16] Speaker C: Perfect.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:48:17] Speaker C: Beautiful.
[00:48:18] Speaker A: Beautiful. You have wonderful teeth. All right, everyone look for that picture on our Instagram. I will be posting that.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: So how many chins do I have in the picture?
[00:48:29] Speaker A: I don't know. I was counting your teeth, actually.
[00:48:32] Speaker C: Yes, Very goodness.
[00:48:33] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: Just like the Demogorgons.
All right, so then Jonathan just grabs Nancy and, like, takes off. And then he also grabs Steve on
[00:48:41] Speaker C: his way down the hall. Steve's just staring in shock.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: Juliet.
[00:48:44] Speaker C: Thank God Jonathan has enough wits to warn Steve about the bear trap. Thank God Steve has enough wits to be able to jump over. And he's screaming, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. Could you imagine? Steve gets in the bear trap. They're like, well, Steve's prey now he's bait.
But, like, they were like, oh, Watch
[00:49:01] Speaker A: out for the bear trap. If that were me, I would not be watching where I'm going. I'm too worried about what's going on behind me. Like, there's no way I would fall
[00:49:08] Speaker B: into it face first. It would literally snap my face in half. Yeah, probably, yeah.
[00:49:13] Speaker C: They're like, well, we have enough blood now. Inside Jonathan's room, Nancy and Jonathan, they stand and wait while Steve's, like, hiding behind them. Completely lost his behind them. He's like, jesus, what the hell was that? Jonathan, Nancy, are like, shut up.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: Then turn around, they aim their guns and they're lighter at the door. We hear a monster outside. And then silence. And we're like, wait, what in the world? And we see that the trap is still armed, hasn't activated yet.
So then in the Upside Down, Joyce and Hopper find a giant hatched egg, the one we were talking about. Out they had to castle Byers. Joyce sees that it's completely destroyed, just starts yelling for Will. Hopper sees the little stuffed animal in the wreckage. We get another flashback to the hospital where we see Sarah hugging the same stuffed tiger in her hospital bed while Hopper reads Anne of Green Gables to her. So I guess that Will, L and Sarah all had the same stuffed tiger then. That's crazy.
Sarah's head is shaved. She's hooked up to some monitors. We hear beeping. Clearly fighting off cancer. Hopper's wife is there listening.
And then we get this just gut wrenching scene of Hopper in a stairwell just sobbing his heart out. And honestly, this scene is burnt in my mind because there's something about seeing a character we've seen all season that almost is emotionally constipated in a lot of ways, but also very stoic.
Just in such a raw and vulnerable horrible state. And it's just really sad. And then we have Hopper, like, snapped out of it. He hears Joyce and he too starts calling in for Will. We get the sense that the flashback started as soon as Hopper entered the Upside down again, going with the monstrous womb thing. This idea of fatherhood and motherhood and having a child and stuff. I also do get this sense that this moment is kind of Hopper.
He is. He's doing some inner work here. Like, I think that saving Will is a little healing for him in this. Yeah.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: Save his daughter, but he's trying his best to save this child.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. So Jonathan and Nancy back at the buyers, are carefully creeping back up the living room with their kid behind them looking petrified. The demo is long gone. Steve just has a complete mental break.
[00:51:21] Speaker C: He's like, this is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: And then he runs to the phone trying to call 91 1. Nancy grabs the phone from him him, smashes it to the floor and is like, oh, no. Before she says anything, he's like, what are you doing?
[00:51:33] Speaker C: Are you insane? He's, like, about to cry.
[00:51:35] Speaker A: Nancy's like, it's going to come back, so you need to leave right now. Steve just, like, stares at her, and then just.
[00:51:41] Speaker B: He's like, bye.
[00:51:42] Speaker C: Yeah. He's like, bye. Takes off. We see him going out the front
[00:51:45] Speaker A: door, booking it to his car, dropping his keys in the process as he starts to get in. Then he sees all the lights in the house blinking like crazy. And I like this moment because what is it that Tommy said to Steve in the last episode was run away, Steve. Or two episodes ago, Run away, Steve. Run away. That's all you ever do. And I think this is, this is that moment where just like, with him deciding to go back and to scrub off the stuff off the sign, this moment right here, I think is a defining moment for Steve where he's like, I'm gonna go and actually face something. And this has me. This is hot.
[00:52:21] Speaker B: I love it. I love this development for Steve.
[00:52:23] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes.
[00:52:24] Speaker B: He's just a decent, like, he, he is a decent guy.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:29] Speaker B: At the end of the day.
[00:52:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Well. And I think him looking at Nancy's hand and things like that, I, I, I do believe Steve likes Nancy and really cares about her. I think this episode is the one that solidifies to us. Oh, he actually, deep down, cares about her. But he also came to talk to Jonathan, not necessarily to win Nancy back. Like, he didn't know if Nancy was going to be there or not. And I think that says a lot. Like, he goes and he scrubs the sign, and then he goes. Goes to talk to Jonathan. It wasn't even, like, he was probably at some point gonna go talk to Nancy.
[00:52:59] Speaker B: He was making amendments.
[00:53:00] Speaker A: But, like, yeah, it's so good. And it speaks a lot to his character. And yeah. Just. I mean, Steven, I think people can
[00:53:06] Speaker B: make mistakes, and I think we also need to remember that, like, these are all teenagers.
[00:53:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:12] Speaker B: And they don't have the life experience to kind of know.
I mean, not to say that adults don't act badly, because they do, but I think think we can give teenagers a little bit more grace. And I think it's like, he was hanging out. He was.
Steve is a product of, like, his environment and his social status. A lot of it. A lot of that is. But that I don't think that defines him as a person.
[00:53:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:39] Speaker B: I think what defines him as a person is, like, these things that he's doing right now. Yeah.
And I don't think somebody's like. Like, social status or behavior in high school necessarily defines them for the rest of their life either. So it's like, you can give him a little bit of grace for being an sometimes or being, like, a jerk about things, But I think what he's doing now it, like, more than proves that he is actually a decent guy. Totally underneath all of that.
[00:54:08] Speaker A: Yeah. I think obviously what we do is important and what we do matters, like whether we're hurting people and stuff. But I think what matters more sometimes than a lot of that stuff or what matters also is what I should probably say is our response and reaction to when we're faced with the bad behavior that we've done. If you go, wow, yeah, that was bad. I'm owning up to that, and I'm gonna do what I can to make it right, which is what Steve is doing, I can forgive a lot of stuff. It's not to say that everything is forgivable, but it means a lot. And I think it says a lot about someone if they're like, wow, no, okay, I was going down a wrong path, and now I want to do something different. I think that with characters in particular, I'm willing to forgive a lot if I see that they're willing to make a change. But for sure, obviously there's a line there, but for Steve, he's a teenager, and it wasn't. We didn't cross that line, obviously. So sorry. In the house, admits all the blinking lights. The camera pans around Jonathan, Nancy looking frantically for the Demogorgon. The tension ramps up, and then all the lights just turn off.
[00:55:10] Speaker C: Off.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: We get this creepy moment where the Demogorgon, like, rises up from the ground and then knocks Jonathan over, who drops his bat. It's got him pinned down, drooling in his mouth, as Nancy fires several shots at it, yelling for it to go to hell. The Demogorgon rises up to its full height, advancing on Nancy, who continues to shoot, but it's clear, like, none of these bullets are doing anything. Jonathan's still recovering on the floor. Whether it's from being choked out or drowned in spit, I don't know.
[00:55:36] Speaker C: Nancy runs out of bullets, and all
[00:55:38] Speaker A: hope is gone as the Demogorgon moves in. When we hear a yellow Steve steps between Nancy. We're like, oh, he's dead. The Demogorgon. And the Demogorgon wielding the nail bat. He hits the Demogorgon right in the side with the bat. It looks like it impales him. And the Demogorgon swings at Steve. He dodges it. Steve moves the Demogorgon basically away from Nancy and Jonathan, hitting it three more times while dodging shots, absolutely killing it. And then he, like, he's doing damage. And we get one of the coolest shots of him twirling the bat as
[00:56:08] Speaker C: he goes in for another sick kill.
[00:56:11] Speaker A: Like, I was like, steve knows ball, guys.
[00:56:12] Speaker B: These characters are all so badass, honestly. Yeah, like, they're all so brave.
[00:56:17] Speaker A: Yeah, literally. Because the thing with the bat is it does damage, especially with the nails. But you have to be close range. Like, I bet you the Demogorgon can reach pretty far, like he's have. And it's also hard to see, like, yeah, like. And then we're also just like, oh, Steve's an athlete, so this makes sense why he would be doing really well right here.
And then we realized that not only is he dodging it and actually causing damage, but he's actually driven the Demogorgon back down the hallway and into the trap single handedly.
I was like, oh, yeah, redemption arc. I was like, main character energy for sure.
[00:56:53] Speaker B: Get it, Steve.
[00:56:54] Speaker A: We see the yo yo move. Jonathan yells that he's in the trap. Nancy's like, jonathan. Now we have the epic shot of the three teen Steve with his bat, Jonathan with the lighter, Nancy with the gun all lined up at the end of the hallway. Jonathan throws the lighter into the gasoline. The demo goes up and starts. Starts screeching.
And I think I have talked to you about this before. Probably not on here, but Steve was supposed to die this season.
I'm going to assume it was in this episode. I don't know when it was gonna be, but Joe Curie was so freaking charming, and the Duffers loved him so much that he got to live with Ross Duffer saying, we fell in love with Joe. He began to feel like an essential part of the Stranger Things ensemble, which meant that killing him off was no longer a viable option.
Originally, this scene was supposed to be Lonnie showing up here and helping Nancy and Steve or Nancy and Jonathan fight off the Demogorgon. But they decided to give that redemption arc to Steve, and we are all so glad that they did.
[00:57:48] Speaker B: My goodness, it just makes so much more sense that it would be Steve.
[00:57:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the. The actor Lonnie talked about how originally there was a lot more for the adults to do in the script. But as they were working it through, they realized they wanted to focus more on the teenagers and the kids. And they also found that like. Like Hopper and Joyce, inevitably their stories were so intertwined with the kids that they got a lot more screen time. And so it just made more sense to have Steve and, yeah, everybody else, but, man, best decision they ever made. Because Steve adds so much to the show. He's truly a very. A great character and a really fun one to watch.
The Demogorgon that's played by Mark Steger, he says, I love the showdown inside Joyce's house with the teenagers. We spent some time with the stunt coordinator. There are certain things you have to determine, like, how do you sell me hitting one of the kids, for instance? It has to be done a certain way from certain angles. When Steve hits me with the baseball bat, with the spikes, it was a heavy rubber bat. It was solid. I told Joe just to hit me as hard as he could because I had so much padding from the suit that he couldn't really do much damage. Joe Curie says there were definitely a couple times when I gave him a good hit in the stomach because you want to sell it, but you don't want to hurt the guy. He's neck deep in rubber, breathing through a hose, sweating his brains out. So you have to give him some serious credit.
[00:59:02] Speaker B: Oh, and that was so cute.
[00:59:05] Speaker A: He is like, every quote of his, he's like, I just want to be positive. Just want to maintain, like, a positive atmosphere. And, like. And then I know that there's a lot. I mean, spoilers. There's a lot more of him in season two, and he has a lot more interactions with the younger group of kids. And I think it's the.
[00:59:20] Speaker B: That's him at his best.
[00:59:21] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh, I can't wait. But I think Gaten talks about how him and all the other boys would just follow Jim Joe Curie around the set all the time.
[00:59:31] Speaker B: And I would, too. Honestly, I think it was 33 years old. I would do that.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: Gaten's parents had to be like, hey, Gaten, I think you need to leave him alone.
[00:59:40] Speaker B: Leave him alone.
[00:59:41] Speaker C: He needs. He needs some alone time and stuff.
[00:59:43] Speaker A: But before I. Even before I even found out about Joe Kerry's, like, his family origin and stuff, he has, I think, like, four or five sisters. He's an only boy. And I was like, you can tell boys that have a lot of sisters. And I'm speaking for my own brother, they are just better men. Men. They're kind of more empathetic.
[01:00:01] Speaker B: So funny, I saw a tick tock about this. You know those, like, confession tick tocks in, like, the subway in New York.
[01:00:08] Speaker C: Yes, I love those.
[01:00:09] Speaker B: I saw one today where it was two guys talking about how, like, having sisters just makes you a better person
[01:00:15] Speaker A: as a man because they bully you and. Yeah.
[01:00:18] Speaker B: They humble you. Yeah, they like, it's like. It's like free therapy. They put you on to skin care. Like you have better skin, better. Like emotional regulation.
[01:00:27] Speaker A: Usually aware of periods way before everyone else's. You're not icked out. But yeah, they're just usually better.
[01:00:32] Speaker B: More humble. Yeah, Period women.
[01:00:36] Speaker A: Exactly. And so when I heard he had all the sisters, like, you can tell. You can just tell he's a good guy because he has a bunch of sisters. Like, obviously, you know, there's probably other things too. But anyway, it's just the sisters. Yeah, it's just the sisters. Let's give credit where credit's due.
We all know, you know, sisters unite. As someone who, like, also raised a brother, I get it. Solidarity.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: There you go.
[01:00:59] Speaker A: So to avoid damaging the set, a replica of the hallway in the buyer's house was constructed at the studio and then set on fire. For that scene, the duffers opted for a computer graphics version of the creature. So it was an actual fire. And then they just digitally enhanced the Demogorgon and stuff. And once they burned the Demogorgon, that was when they really had to commit to a full computer graphics character because they try to do a practical thing, effects one with it semi burned. And it looked just kind of janky. So they just decided to do CGI after that.
So the upside down Joyce here's like, the faint screeching of the Demogorgon is like, do you hear that? Back at the buyers, the Demogorgon screeching and screeching. And for some reason, Jonathan decides to use the fire extinguisher. I'm like, no, let it burn. Just. Just let it burn. If the house goes, the house goes, so be it.
[01:01:45] Speaker B: Just run out of it.
[01:01:47] Speaker A: You know, you can get another mixtape.
And so then they stop the fire. Sure enough, the Demogorgon is gone. We just have the sizzling trap covered in blood, like, left. Jonathan's like, I don't know where it is. It has to be dead. It has to be in the upside down. Joyce and Hopper head to the buyer's house. They go inside and then they see the blood on the floor, which I saw someone's confusion. They were like, why does the blood Translate to both sides. I'm pretty sure the Demogorgon escaped into the Upside Down. Yeah. And that's why they end up. I don't. Yeah, that's why they end up following the blood trails. I don't know why. I thought it was, like, a pretty simple thing to. Yeah, I don't know what they were thinking sometimes.
Also, I'm like, did you watch the episode? Because they make some of these, like, questionable guesses and stuff.
[01:02:27] Speaker B: It's like they're trying to find something to nitpick at.
[01:02:30] Speaker A: Yes, it does feel like that. And I'm like, no, just. Just watch it normally. Anyway, so Joyce and Hopper are looking around, and as they're walking around, the teens see the Christmas lights lighting up one by one. And then in the right side up, we hear Hopper's voice echo as the teens watch the lights. And the teens are thinking, oh, my gosh, that's the Demogorgon coming back.
[01:02:52] Speaker C: Steve's in front now with Jonathan and Nancy behind him, which is a fun contrast. They're like, okay, clearly you're the more qualified and capable person here. We'll follow you.
Steve's locked in now. He's like, this is my fight, too, Joss. Or Joyce and Hopper follow the.
[01:03:07] Speaker B: No.
[01:03:08] Speaker A: Trigger.
[01:03:09] Speaker C: Trigger alert.
[01:03:09] Speaker B: Joss Whedon.
[01:03:11] Speaker C: Joss Whedon's here in the Upside Down. Guys, he's the Demogorgon all along.
[01:03:19] Speaker B: Makes sense. I always knew it.
[01:03:22] Speaker C: Joyce and Hopper follow the blood trails down the hallway.
[01:03:25] Speaker A: Teens follow the lights, and they're like, is it the Demogorgon? Jonathan figures out that it's Joyce, and he's like, mom, is that you? In the Upside Down, Joyce hears Jonathan's voice. She's like, jonathan.
[01:03:36] Speaker C: And I was like, she recognized she's voice.
I was like, she's a parental connection to Jonathan. This is news, too, to me.
[01:03:44] Speaker B: No, this is not. That's not Joyce. That's Upside Down Joyce.
[01:03:47] Speaker C: Upside Down, Joyce.
[01:03:48] Speaker A: Completely different things.
[01:03:49] Speaker B: Wrong.
[01:03:50] Speaker C: But it's so funny, because it's supposed
[01:03:52] Speaker A: to be this moment of connection. The script even says that Jonathan feels a connection to Joyce, but it doesn't
[01:03:56] Speaker C: say that Joyce feels the connection to Jonathan. And he's staring at the lights with
[01:04:00] Speaker A: tears in his eyes, and Joyce is just, like, puzzled.
[01:04:03] Speaker C: And then we hear Hopper be like, joyce. And she just kind of turns and, like, walks away.
[01:04:07] Speaker B: Hopper's always like, joyce, hurry up.
[01:04:12] Speaker C: He's always in a hurry. It's like, man, slow down. You're fine. Will's been here four days. He'll be fine for another 30 minutes. Literally he's okay.
He's literally not, but it's okay.
[01:04:22] Speaker B: He'll be fine.
[01:04:25] Speaker A: So then the teens head outside, they see the street lights flickering. Nancy's like, where is it going? And Jonathan says he doesn't think that's the monster. I always felt like this moment was really bizarre because I was like, jonathan, you just saw your mom like two hours ago. Like, it's, it's always made to be like this big moment of like, he
[01:04:40] Speaker C: hasn't seen her in days or something.
[01:04:42] Speaker A: And I was like, it was literally
[01:04:43] Speaker C: like an hour ago. And you knew where she was going, like, fine.
[01:04:48] Speaker A: Back at the school, Dustin and Lucas have found the stockpile of chocolate pudding. Dustin's like, I knew she was hoarding it. Always lying and saying, she's out. Bald faced liar.
[01:05:04] Speaker C: Still with 11 is like, okay.
[01:05:09] Speaker A: And then he's like, he's like, how are you feeling?
[01:05:11] Speaker C: You feeling any better? To Elle right after that. And she's like looking at him like, okay.
[01:05:18] Speaker B: I just know she's so annoyed because they're always just screaming at each other.
[01:05:22] Speaker C: It's like, guys, you can go walk and talk to each other.
[01:05:25] Speaker B: Meanwhile, 11, like, can hardly, like, get a word out that's above a whisper.
[01:05:30] Speaker C: Literally. Seriously, she's just like watching them all scream at each other.
[01:05:34] Speaker A: She's like, okay.
So then he is explaining what pudding is to her, and Elle thinks it sounds gross. And he tells her when all this is over, she won't have to keep eating junk food, that his mom will make whatever she wants. Elle looks all hopeful. She's like, eggos. And he's like, well, you know, anything. He's like, my parents will be like, your parents? They'll take care of you. Nancy will be like your sister. Elle's like, and you'll be my brother. And he's like, ew. What? No.
[01:05:59] Speaker C: And she's like, well, why not?
[01:06:00] Speaker A: He's like, because it's different. I can guess. It's, it's, it's stupid. And she's like, mike, friends don't lie. And he's like, well, I was hoping that we can go to the Snowball together. It's a school dance. He's like, I've never been, but I
[01:06:11] Speaker C: know you're not supposed to go with your sister.
[01:06:13] Speaker A: She's still confused. He's like, trying to explain it to her, and she's like, like a friend. And he's like. And he's like, oh, screw it. Can't explain his feelings. And then just leans in and Kisses Elle. And you see her being like, oh.
So after Mike and eleven kissed, apparently the directors yelled cut, Cut. And then Millie got up and shouted, that's kissing. That's it.
[01:06:35] Speaker C: That sucked.
Right in front of Finn's face. Poor guy. He's like over there like, dang. Sorry.
[01:06:44] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure she answered. Somebody asked her when season five came out, like, was like who was the best kisser or something? Or was Finn a good kisser? And she was just like, no.
[01:06:55] Speaker C: Yeah. And she's maintained that all 10 years that she's done this.
[01:06:59] Speaker A: Apparently both Millie and Finn reported that
[01:07:03] Speaker C: before their kissing scene, they each ate an entire container of Tic Tacs.
[01:07:07] Speaker B: Oh my God.
Their mouths are on fire.
[01:07:10] Speaker C: Yeah. Could they feel anything? No wonder. Kissing sucks.
[01:07:13] Speaker B: Literally. Seriously.
[01:07:14] Speaker A: Or didn't suck. I guess you could say no. Okay. This is just a pet peeve. This is not a huge, huge deal or thing. I personally am not a fan of kids. Kids having romantic scenes at all. Yeah, I. I think this was unnecessary. I think it would have been so cute if he conveyed that he liked her.
I think that especially too. As actors, I think we have a responsibility with what we put our children actors into. And this was both of their first kiss. Like in. In on camera. Not on camera. Like. I just think that this script didn't need to call for that. I also think there's something really precious and cute about having a crush and not having to act on it physically.
Like it feels very 11 year. I don't find most 11 year olds. I know that there's outliers somehow.
[01:08:01] Speaker C: There's like I was 10 years old
[01:08:03] Speaker A: and I was kissing. I find most 11 year olds wouldn't be brave enough nor even really want to do this.
[01:08:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:08:09] Speaker A: At this point, you know, I thought that too.
[01:08:11] Speaker B: I agree. It just doesn't feel like the right move at this point, especially to do that.
[01:08:17] Speaker A: Does Elle even know? Elle doesn't know what friendship is.
You know what I mean? It's like she's discovering all that for the first time. I.
[01:08:24] Speaker C: It.
[01:08:25] Speaker A: I don't want to make it a thing that it's not. But there is this sense that like this girl doesn't know what friend is. This girl doesn't know what most things. She had to explain pudding to her. I don't know that it's. And he's a kid too, so I'm not saying that Mike is doing anything untoward, but I think it's a little weird to have him kissing her. But maybe she doesn't even know What? Her own feelings are either too. So. Yeah, I just didn't think it was necessary, that's all.
[01:08:47] Speaker B: I agree. I thought the scene itself was really cute.
[01:08:49] Speaker A: Totally.
[01:08:50] Speaker B: Like, like you said, it's very, like endearing. It's very adorable. But then.
[01:08:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I just.
[01:08:54] Speaker B: It didn't feel natural for him to kiss her at this point.
[01:09:00] Speaker A: It also is really funny. Once you've seen like the rest of the series. Mike just can't say his feelings. He never has been able to. Yeah, and it starts here, I guess so it's consistent. But I don't know. I think it would have been really wonderful if he even just said, hey, I really like you. L. Or even if, like there was no. He didn't even have to express those kinds of feelings. Just keep it friendship for the this season with maybe a hint of more later on, you know. But that's just my own personal preference. I just don't think it was needed. But anyway, whatever. Moving on.
All right. So they see the car lights. Mike thinks it's Nancy. Heads outside only to see all the cops surrounding the gym. And they're. They're in a separate school building. He sees them all going into the other one. He races into the cafeteria where Lucas and Dustin have stockpiled all the pudding. Is like, guys, they found us. We see the agents storming the hallways with flashlight flights. They know that they're there. They converge in the gym, around the pool, including Connie and Brenner with them telling Brenner that they've searched everywhere, that there's no sign of them. But then we see them checking the classrooms. And then they find the pile of pudding. We see the kids racing through the halls, just barely ahead of the agents. Lucas is like, how do they find us? Dustin's like, Lando.
And then they come to an exit, only for the agents to come through and spot them. The kids turn and run in the other direction, but there are agents surrounding them on all sides. Sides, we have this incredible sequence where the boys are facing agents in one direction. Elle is facing another. We see Connie standing with a gun aimed at her. And then everything just slows down. We get that beautiful like Spielberg esque light flare, lens flare as Elle. Just like.
I don't. I don't know what she does. Like she just. She brains, right, but like she like tilts her chin down and it's almost animalistic the way that she. She stares at Connie. And then we see blood coming out of their eyes and their ears.
And then they just all collapse dead. They're all dead. Yeah, they're just. They're oozing everywhere from every orifice.
Apologies.
[01:10:54] Speaker C: Someone out there is going, yeah.
[01:10:59] Speaker A: So then Elle collapses. The boys rush to her side. Dustin's like, she's just drained. But Mike's like, no, something's wrong. She won't wake up. The script says she looks like she's dying in the Upside Down. Hopper and Joyce have followed the bloodstains to the middle of the town, all the way to the library. The script says that it's the heart of the town, the heart of everything. They enter with much trepidation. Back at the school. Mike's like, she's barely breathing. Then Brenner and a few agents show up and are like, leave her. Step away from the child. Mike stands in front of Ellen, is like, no, you want her? You'll have to kill us first. Dustin also steps up and is like, that's right, Lucas.
[01:11:34] Speaker C: Just screaming dreams. Eat.
I'm loving him more and more. He's just so funny.
[01:11:40] Speaker A: Like, he's all in. You can tell. Like, he was hesitant, but now that he. He knows. L. Now that she's part of their group, he will defend her with his life.
[01:11:47] Speaker B: It's interesting watching, like, these scenes where, like, Elle is killing people, like, all these people and stuff. It's just comparing it to Buffy just because that's, you know, what we were talking about for so long. But it's interesting how this show doesn't really take a strong position about humans killing other humans or, like, human death. Whereas I feel like when you watch Buffy, like, I thought of the scene where angel locks the lawyers in the cellar and how that's, like, a hot. Like a very hot topic and very, like, heavily debated and very controversial. And it's like something that even in the show, like, you know, it's. It's a big thing to kill a human being.
[01:12:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:12:30] Speaker B: But I feel like in this show, it's not, like. It's not something that is really brought up or like.
Like, considered, like, a bad thing that will change a person.
But, yeah, I just. I just thought that was interesting. But it is. Like, they're different shows. It's not. They're not. They're not going by the same, like, moral code, I would say.
[01:12:52] Speaker A: But, yeah, that's. I don't know. That's really interesting because I have a thing that kind of goes into what I'm going to talk about later with Elle's act options. I think that is a weak spot of the show where we need to have a Little bit of a firmer stance on what the show is saying, specifically about Elle's powers. Because I think there's some mixed signals in this episode, which I'll talk about. But also something that I think is a weakness of Stranger Things is they don't always do the best when it comes to having repercussions for people's actions and consequences for things. And I think it is a huge weakness of the show. I think when people are like, oh, we need to see more people dying and more deaths, what they're saying is that we don't feel like the stakes are high enough because you're not actually showing us consequences for people's actions or because of world events and things like that. And I think. Yeah, that is.
And that starts right here, right now.
Seeing Elle do all this stuff, you're like, that's horrifying. That's terrifying. Understandable. Esque in this moment. But also maybe a bit extreme.
But, yeah, like, just killed.
[01:13:54] Speaker B: Like.
[01:13:55] Speaker A: Like. Right. The show doesn't seem to fall on any sort of moral ground.
Right. And we're left. Which. Which makes things really blurry for the next sequence with Elle going after the Demogorgon, which I'll talk about in a second.
[01:14:09] Speaker B: But it's funny because it does take a stance on Papa. Like, it takes a stance on what the government's doing.
[01:14:15] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[01:14:16] Speaker B: And how that's wrong.
[01:14:17] Speaker A: Right.
[01:14:19] Speaker B: But, yeah, it's. It's just bizarre.
[01:14:21] Speaker A: But that's inc. But it's inconsistent because it's equating in the next sequence l. With the monster. So you're going, is what she doing bad or is what she's doing justifiable? Like, or. Or is it something in between? Like, what is your. The show doesn't really do that. Doesn't give a stance. And I think that's a weakness because we're sitting there going, what are the parameters? What are you trying to tell us? And they don't.
[01:14:45] Speaker B: Is everything allowed?
[01:14:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Is everything allowed? But there's also no chance to really explore that, at least right now. They might later on to really explore the ramifications morally for Elle.
Yeah. And the other characters.
[01:14:59] Speaker B: I just think it makes for some really, like, great character work to kind of point out things that maybe character. Like for characters to cross a line.
[01:15:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:15:10] Speaker B: And then have to, like, deal with, like, grapple with that. Like, deal with that is really interesting to watch. Watch. But on the other hand, like, I. I understand why they wouldn't. In a show about kids.
[01:15:20] Speaker A: Sure.
[01:15:21] Speaker B: They don't understand the concept of. Of that. I don't think. Like, it's not.
It's not like they have life experience to realize that this is what they have to do. You know what I mean? So maybe. Maybe that's why. Maybe that's why they don't really talk about the moral aspects of it that much, because it's from the perspective of kids that we're seeing all of this.
[01:15:41] Speaker A: But it's so interesting because. Because Elle.
[01:15:44] Speaker B: So to them, Elle is a superhero. So she has a carte blanche. Like, she has immunity.
[01:15:50] Speaker C: Like she.
[01:15:51] Speaker B: She can do whatever. A comic book hero.
[01:15:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:15:53] Speaker B: You know, goes out and, like, fights evil and there's like a million casualties. They, like, flatten cities and destroy everything. But, like, that's not something that anybody thinks about because they're the superhero and they're saving people.
[01:16:05] Speaker A: Right.
[01:16:06] Speaker B: So.
[01:16:07] Speaker A: But then it's weird because they had the whole ex. Like the first example we had with the cat, El says she will not kill the cat. That's her.
And obviously killing the men after was accidental, was out of fear and all that stuff. But it's clear that L has a moral line.
So it's like, are we going to see L grapple with the lives that she's taken?
Because obviously she has a line. She has a conscience. And conscience. And she's crossing that. So.
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. But the show up until now hasn't really dealt with that.
[01:16:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:16:41] Speaker A: All right, so Papa is, like, holding L, and he's like, 11, can you hear me? She's groggy. He asked Papa. The script says that he's really emotional at seeing her.
[01:16:52] Speaker B: Shut up.
[01:16:52] Speaker C: I know.
[01:16:53] Speaker A: I was like, okay. She looks over, sees her friend struggling. She's kind of groggy. We hear the. Her theme play as she whimpers and looks around her. Brenner shushes her, says that she's sick, but he's going to make her better, that he's going to take her back home where he can make her well again, where they can make all this better so no one else gets hurt. Which is interesting because it ties into what she says on. In the next scene about this is the end, or I forget the exact worded she uses. And the thing is, I believe that Brenner believes this. I think he is in earnest here, but I think he's just so blinded to the absolute horrors he's created. I think that he thinks everything can just go back to normal. Meanwhile, people and families have been irreparably harmed by his actions. And I Think he's just the.
[01:17:37] Speaker B: The.
[01:17:37] Speaker A: The. The softest thing I can say is he's out of touched. But I think the. The real answer is he's just so evil that he's completely lost his moral compass at this point, too.
Yeah. So 11's not looking great. Her face hardens as she finally looks into his eyes. She says, bad. Brenner's face just falls, and she repeats it again, and you could tell he's like, I've lost control of my creation. Elle reaches for the boys, says Mike, tries to push Brenner's hands off. Off. And I love this moment. I like that Elle's not buying into Brenner's lies anymore, and she's seen what goodness and friendship and love can look like from a healthy standpoint, and she can distinguish it from the bad. All right. The lights start to flicker. Brenner and the boys look scared, with Mike going, blood. And we see a shot panning over all the dead agents lying in pools of blood. The lights begin to flicker at the end of the hall, right in the middle of the cub's paw print. We see the Demogorgon burst through the wall. That is such a great shot. The agents instantly let go of the kids, start shooting. The boys GR. Grab L. Actually, no, scratch that. Did you see who picks her up?
[01:18:41] Speaker B: Dusty Buns.
[01:18:42] Speaker A: Freaking Dustin picks her up, hauls off with her. They take off another direction.
[01:18:47] Speaker B: What a hero.
[01:18:48] Speaker A: I know, right?
So apparently Gaten picked her up instead of Finn because Finn couldn't carry her. And Gate Matarazo had an injured ankle and knee on the same leg on
[01:19:01] Speaker C: the day of shooting, but still was able to go and carry her.
[01:19:04] Speaker A: I was like, what an absolute king.
So then we see Papa coming face to face with his creation, the Demogorgon. We have this look of fear on his face that we've never seen before as the Demogorgon jumps him. Such a contrast to the calm, cool, and collected man from the beginning of the episode.
[01:19:20] Speaker B: How the turntables.
[01:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Hallelujah. Ross Duffer cautions, however, that the character might not necessarily have met his demise. He says, what we always say about this is that if we wanted to really kill Brenner, we would have shown it on screen. Screen. Based on what he's done, the audience deserves to actually see it. That's where I want to leave it for now. I was like, all right, then. Back in the Upside Down. Joyce and Hopper continue to wander through the library, following the blood droplets. They see skeletons and bodies wrapped in the pus and Vines. The script says that it's the first scientist that we saw. It's Shepherd. It's like all of the people that the Demogorgon has grabbed over the past week. Hopper continues on. Finds the body of Barb also wrapped in and vines. The Joyce's flashlight finds Will wrapped in the vines, unconscious and with a vine covering his mouth. She screams his name. And then Hopper suddenly is in another flashback. His daughter being intubated. As we hear beeping. He snaps back, pulls the vine out of Will's mouth. And it was down there. That was like, to his toes. For real.
[01:20:20] Speaker C: We hear it.
[01:20:21] Speaker A: It's squealing like it's sentient. The script says it's like a snake. It's flopping around hard. Hopper's absolutely disgusted. Shoots at it, leading to an excellent transition of the school with the boys racing through. They go to their safe space.
Mr. Clark Science Lab. The lights continue to flicker around them as they place L on one of the tables. Mike holds L's hand and is like, just hold on a little longer.
The bad man is gone and will be home soon. And my mom shall get you your own bed and you can eat as many Eggos as you. I just love that he is. He knows his mom will take care of them.
[01:20:51] Speaker C: Like, it's just so stupid.
[01:20:54] Speaker B: Karen's a G. Like, she would absolutely take her in.
[01:20:57] Speaker A: It's just so freaking sweet. He's like, we can eat as many Eggos as you want. We can go to the snowball. El's crying and gripping his hand. She's like, promise. And he's like, promise.
[01:21:07] Speaker C: Then we hear the monster roar.
[01:21:08] Speaker A: What sounds like right outside the door. Men screaming. And then just silence. Dustin's like, is it dead? And I'm like, I also have escape plan. Go out a window. Like, come on, guys.
[01:21:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Why are you guys standing there?
[01:21:21] Speaker C: Just move.
[01:21:22] Speaker A: Literally so stressed with their children. So, you know, it's okay. We'll forgive them.
[01:21:25] Speaker B: It's okay. It's fine.
[01:21:27] Speaker A: Apparently this whole classroom sequence was shot in a single day. And they were saying that the most of the Demogorgon scenes obviously were shot with the guy in the Demogorgon costume. But this sequence, they couldn't because, again, it was burned. So a lot of the cast had to work purely from imagination with the monster digitally added in post production. And Matt Duffer says that Millie was really acting against not nothing at that point. And then he says, I remembered those takes when the boys are slingshotting and screaming. We would just run it again and again. Keep Shouting. And a lot of that was improv from the boys. It's not scripted. Kayla McLaughlin has a quote where he talks about the duffers would use the demos voices or, like, demo voices, or they would, like, do the screams, or they would just make cheesy sounds when they're acting just to kind of give the boys something to act against. But one time, they pranked the boys. There was a. A big speaker behind them, and they used the actual Demogorgon sound effects through the speakers. And it scared Millie Bobby Brown so badly that she was supposed to be unconscious. And they couldn't use the take because
[01:22:28] Speaker C: she was not supposed to be awake.
[01:22:33] Speaker B: That's funny.
[01:22:33] Speaker A: I would totally do something like that if I was a director. I'd be like, how many. How much ambiance can we give these people ambiance?
[01:22:40] Speaker C: Literally, I'd be like, all right, we're
[01:22:42] Speaker A: gonna play some creepy music now. Let's see. Can we flicker the lights a little bit?
Method acting, like, let's let people actually know what they're up against. Just like with Nancy in the woods with all the set design and everything, I would find that so much easier to act against. But anyway, the door bursts open. There's the Demogorgon. The boys panic.
[01:23:00] Speaker C: They're like, get the wrist rocket clearance. That's gonna work.
[01:23:03] Speaker A: The Demogorgon advances. The boys scramble.
[01:23:05] Speaker C: They're like handing Lucas rocks.
[01:23:07] Speaker A: And it's literal David versus Goliath situation right now.
[01:23:09] Speaker B: Pebbles.
[01:23:10] Speaker A: They're literally bouncing. It's like Nancy's bullets didn't do anything thing.
[01:23:15] Speaker C: They're like, do it again. Do it again. Keep going, Keep going.
[01:23:18] Speaker A: I was like, someone open a window and get us out of here. Okay.
[01:23:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:23:21] Speaker A: We have this really cool shot where Lucas pulls back the slingshot. The demo opens its mouth, and then just as Lucas fires, the demo slammed back into the chalkboard. And we're like, whoa.
[01:23:30] Speaker B: And you think, whoa.
[01:23:31] Speaker C: You're like, wow.
[01:23:32] Speaker B: Slingshot just did that.
[01:23:33] Speaker C: I guess his weapon. My apologies. Apparently you had a plan from the beginning.
[01:23:38] Speaker B: Realize you had that kind of game.
[01:23:40] Speaker C: Literally.
[01:23:41] Speaker A: He's been screaming about weapons. Weapons this entire season. And, you know, fair play.
But of course, it's Elle looking absolutely horrendous. Her ears and nose just bleeding. Her eyes all black and blue. Her eyes, like the pupils, did you notice they glowed kind of red?
[01:23:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it was kind of cool. I was like, oh, my God, she's so scary.
[01:23:58] Speaker A: She is scary. The script says that she's. Doesn't look quite human.
Walks towards the Demogorgon. Mike's like, 11, stop. She uses her power to shove him away. 11 stops, stops in front of the pin. Demogorgon looks back at the boys. Mike has just tears running down his face. She says, goodbye, Mike. And then she turns and faces the Demogorgon. Says no more, reaching out a hand as it screams. The demo also screams, reaches out a hand, and we have that cool shot of the small girl and the huge claw reaching out towards her. Her hand, the way that she did her hand. It looks like the Demogorgon's claw as well.
She lets out this primal screen scream. Millie Bobby Brown has the best scream. It's really. It's just so fierce. I love it when girls do that guttural scream. It's very masculine. It's the masculine shout versus the female scream. I think I talked about that in Hush.
And then we see the Demogorgon just begin to disappear into ash. The boys cover their ears. The ash covers L. And when it dissipates, both she and the monsters are gone.
[01:24:57] Speaker B: Where did she go?
[01:24:59] Speaker A: So this. This is what. And I know I told you about this earlier on the season, but originally the Duffer Brothers hadn't planned for 11 to survive the confrontation. But long before it came time to shoot the final scenes, the writer directors underwent a change of heart. They said 11 was going to sacrifice herself to save the day. That was always the end game. But once we realized that the show was potentially going to go on longer than one season, we needed to leave it more up in the air because deep down we knew the show just wouldn't work without 11. And at that point, we knew about how special Millie was. If there was going to be more stranger things, 11 had to come back.
[01:25:34] Speaker B: She's literally the main character.
[01:25:36] Speaker A: What do you think about the choice to have. Because here's the thing. If the show ended here, 11 was gonna die. And as this season as a cohesive thing, as far as we know, 11 is dead. There are possible hints it's left slightly open ended, but as far, for all intents and purposes for the season, 11 is deep dead. What are your thoughts about that? With everything we've discussed this season, if
[01:25:59] Speaker B: this was gonna be the final season
[01:26:01] Speaker A: or even just what it works, how it works with this season, do you think that it it like it was a natural conclusion?
Obviously there's more ll development to happen and to come.
[01:26:12] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't think it's a natural conclusion. To be honest, I don't think the stakes were high enough this season for her to for her sacrifice to be worth it at the very end. End. It would have been more satisfying for her to kind of, like, for the day to.
For her to, like, save the day and go on to kind of actually have a childhood.
Like, I just don't think a sacrifice makes sense.
[01:26:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:26:41] Speaker B: In this season. You know what I mean?
[01:26:43] Speaker A: Yeah. No. 100%.
So I wrote this whole long thing because I was trying to figure out my. My thoughts. Interrupt me at some point because I really want to know your thoughts. But I was wrestling with this a lot. I was wrestling with this a lot because I was like, something feels off. I think what the show is trying to do is I think the Duffers wanted to show Elle choosing Mike and her chosen family over Brenner. This is her using her powers freely and not because she's being controlled. I think they see this as an empowering moment for Elle, like, foundationally. I think they mean it as the. That I'm trying really hard not to view this through the lens of everything that I know of what is to come, but that's just unfortunately, like, the case. And I think that is partially why I'm viewing this a little bit more critically, knowing some things. So first point is, visually, this moment has the monster and El mirror each other, showing their connection, which is a really odd choice. This isn't just like, a hero defeats the monster kind of point. And, like, the way that they shot this and framed it, which I would have had less of a problem with with. It's more of equating l. With the monster and saying that she needs to disappear or that there needs to be a mutual destruction kind of thing that happens. So you kind of have her and the Demogorgon mirroring each other in their screams, the arm raised to each other. In the past, Eleven's referred to herself as the monster. The music that's playing right here is called 11 is gone, and it was played in three parts in this season. The first part was when Elle thought that she killed Lucas after Mike tells her, what's wrong with you? When she thought she was a monster. And then. Then again when she admitted to Mike that she opened the rift. And then she says, I'm the monster. So it's like they're playing that same music right here, which tells me that Eleven is thinking, I'm the monster, therefore, and I'm also responsible for the Demogorgon. So therefore, I need to be the one that kills it, and possibly I need to die, so all the bad things go away. Like the fact that she says, no more. More. To me, it feels like she feels responsible. She's also talking about herself. She's saying, no more. We can't exist in this world. I think I just. I think I will never have a normal life. I think I don't deserve a normal life. I think I'm too monstrous, really. And I think that's an interesting choice, especially because the reveal that L is the bridge between dimensions and the connection with the Demogorgon. I've seen a lot of people talk about and say, oh, Elle's just embracing her shadow side, like, the Jungian philosophy and stuff. Stuff. Some people made a connection with what Hopper's going through this episode and also with the next season. But that doesn't make sense because the idea of it is, it's supposed to be.
You're assimilating and you're accepting your shadow self. It's not. Your shadow self completely devours you and takes over you and you disappear. Like, it's not a. My shadow self is too monstrous, so therefore I cease to exist completely.
I think we don't see enough of L. And this is what you and I were talking about earlier. We don't see enough of L as a monster this season. The show hasn't done a good enough job of even trying to convince us that Elle is a monster. She keeps saying that, and we're like, we get why you would think that, but I don't. I'm not convinced.
[01:29:52] Speaker B: I was gonna say, I feel like maybe, like, going back to the conversation about, like, how the show doesn't take a stance on morality, on what's right and wrong.
[01:30:00] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:30:00] Speaker B: I think that plays into this because if. If it was like, the show and everybody in the show taking a stance on, like. Like, yes, 11 is monstrous because she's killed people because she has these powers and blah, blah, blah. Like, I feel like it would feel like a more natural conclusion for her to sacrifice herself as a way to, like, make up for all the harm that she's caused.
But it's kind of framed as.
It's not kind of. It is framed as, like, a victim.
[01:30:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Which she's been a victim this entire. She is. And she is absolutely so happy. Her suddenly be framed with this monster and then her going, okay, I need to die because I'm responsible. And the show almost encouraging that through the framing of her in the Demogorgon. You're going, wait, so is she too. Is it. Is it possible that your otherness reaches a point where you just cannot exist? Like, that gets That's a weird thematic thing. And again, I don't think the Duffers are thinking this through at all. I think it's more like the Duffers are like, this is a cool moment. Oh, that would be a cool shot of this tiny girl in the Demogorgon. And I think there's just a lack of care with how they're dealing with Eleven and her storyline. And it's especially hard, too, because she's a little girl. And I think there's, like, that. That layer. That layer there, too. The closest we got was that episode in the Monster when she still stole Eggos. That was supposed to be her kind of going dark, but at the end of the day, it's like she was hungry and she's a child, you know,
[01:31:27] Speaker B: like, she can have the Eggos.
[01:31:29] Speaker A: Right. I think if the show wanted to make a better parallel between her and the Demogorgon and to make a. In this moment about El, like, needing to work on something and maybe to, like, conquer the monstrous side of her, whatever they wanted to say, we needed more gray from El, but that's just not here. Yeah, I think all of that to say it's like, in El's mind, she thinks that she's the problem. She thinks that she's the monster. But then there's also this, like, level of she used her powers as a way to get affection from Brenner. And so it just. It feels like there's a lot of things that El herself needs to unpack. And so it felt like El dying in this season. Season was just really tragic on many levels, and there wasn't enough time of Elle really doing the soul searching needed for this to be a truly, like, noble sacrifice. Instead, it just feels like a little girl that's being buried with shame and guilt and thinks that this is her responsibility because she's the one that unleashed the Demogorgon, and the show is not doing the work to unpack that. So, yeah, I will say I hope that this is addressed some parts of this in season two. I hope we get to see Elle unpack her own identity and not use her powers for other people. Because at the end of the day, like, she's using her powers to protect Mike because she loves and cares for him, but she also used her powers because she loved and cared for Papa, too. So I want to see Elle really step into her own. And I also want to see Elle get rid of all this shame that she seems to be carrying. And I want other people to take responsibility for their actions, you know, so.
[01:32:59] Speaker B: Well, I don't know about that.
[01:33:01] Speaker A: I might be asking too much, guys, but that's what I want to see.
[01:33:04] Speaker B: Too much.
[01:33:05] Speaker A: That's what I want to see, so.
Which I'm like, thank God they didn't just end after this season. You know, that would have been a horrible way to end the show.
[01:33:14] Speaker B: I agree, anyway.
[01:33:18] Speaker A: Just absolutely horrible.
All right. Back in the Upside Down, Joyce has Will Free takes off her movie mask, freaking out that he's not breathing. We have when it's Cold, I Like to Die by Moby playing Absolutely beautiful. And just like heartbreaking. Hopper starts compressions, begins walking her through cpr. Joyce starts. She's begging Will the entire time.
[01:33:37] Speaker C: She goes, did you hear what she said? Will, I love you more than anything in the world. I was like, yes, we know.
[01:33:44] Speaker B: Yeah, we know.
[01:33:45] Speaker C: Jonathan who Hopper's like, come on, kid. He get.
[01:33:50] Speaker A: He gets flashbacks of his own dog daughter flatlining. As doctors do compressions. We go back and forth. Finally, Will comes to with a gasp, and then they give him.
[01:33:58] Speaker C: At one point.
[01:33:59] Speaker B: Sorry, you skipped the part where Hopper at one point is just hitting him with one.
[01:34:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, with his fist.
[01:34:03] Speaker C: He's just like, come on, kid, come on.
Yeah, right.
[01:34:08] Speaker A: And like, with the flashbacks were like. You could see there's very much like, I'm not gonna let another kid die on my watch and stuff.
[01:34:15] Speaker C: But, yeah, I know.
[01:34:16] Speaker A: He was. He was pounding on Will. I was like, oh, my gosh, he's gonna come up with a couple of broken roses ribs.
[01:34:22] Speaker C: He comes to with a gas. It's like, why am I in pain? Why does everything hurt?
He actually came to a lot longer on, but, you know, he couldn't breathe
[01:34:32] Speaker A: because he had a. A lung that was punctured.
[01:34:36] Speaker B: Yeah, well, he also had that, like, slimy thing down to his.
[01:34:42] Speaker A: All.
[01:34:42] Speaker B: All down his body.
[01:34:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:34:44] Speaker B: Imagine roast.
[01:34:46] Speaker A: The script says that it was feeding him.
[01:34:49] Speaker B: That's nasty.
[01:34:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Disgusting.
[01:34:52] Speaker B: Like an umbilical cord.
[01:34:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Monstrous, monstrous womb. Once again.
[01:34:56] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. Once again.
[01:34:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
Real, real fast. We had talked about Hopper being a big city cop in a small town. Back in the episode the Body with Steph and I talked about how the big city cop is usually seen as the lone hero that uses his cunning and disregard for authority to battle various hurdles on the way to victim victory. So in covering Stranger Things, they describe the city cop as anti heroes. We talked about how, like, you know, they're usually alcohol abusers, has suicidal ideation, broken homes, hard nosed by the book commanders. Like, this seems to be kind of what they live for once they've given up on a home life, or at least while they are waiting for their problems to take care of themselves, Cops make jobs, their lives and diminishment of their work can destroy their reason for living. So picking up with that quote quote, they continue and say Hopper is self destructive. Similarly, because he has no permanent relationships in Hawkins, he has lost his wife in part because of his job, but not directly. Rather, as a city cop, Hopper's job was to protect those that can't protect themselves. Unfortunately, he was unable to save his daughter who has passed from a terminal disease. While the job itself can't be blamed for her illness, the supposed requirements of the job, protect the weak, save the innocent, etc are ripped from his control when she died, dies. This can be devastating to someone whose occupation is to pursue the bad guys for intensely personal reasons. Without anyone to pursue, the next step is self destruction, which is how Hopper ends up in the small town of Hawkins. No matter the reasons that Hopper is in Hawkins, his existence as a city cop in a small town is significant in that it places him in the Upside down, an uncanny version of a small town within the small town.
Hopper doesn't vanquish the Demogorgon. 11 does that that rather, in season one, he saves the missing child, which was the original crime within the series. However, he does this in the show's Upside Down. So it could be said that he does this within a realm that could have the rules of the city cop drama. While the bumbling officers exist in the small town genre, the one where the young boys in 11 are victorious in their world, Hopper is still mostly impotent. However, in the Upside down, he is able to save the child, something he was unable to do in the right side the of Up. Therefore, the Upside down reaffirms his paternal abilities and provides a vicarious way of rescuing his daughter. So they're basically saying the Upside down is as a not necessarily shadow realm, but like kind of a world where you get to face your demons. A world where he kind of gets to come out of it as a new man to try a turn over a new leaf, to work through his, his issues and stuff.
And they, they had a whole thing where they talked about how, how oftentimes Hopper is what we would call impotent. In Stranger Things, the adults typically are. It's the kids who saved the day. So it's not Hopper who vanquishes the Demogorgon, it's the kids. It's 11, it's Nancy, it's Steve Hopper doesn't really get to do all that much, but he does get to save the kid.
And in doing so, it allows him to kind of come to some sort of healing on his own, which I just thought was really beautiful.
[01:37:52] Speaker B: So agreed.
[01:37:53] Speaker A: All right. Back at the school, emergency vehicles have swarmed the school. The Wheelers pull up. Karen's frantically searching for Mike. She finds him, and then he just cries into her shoulder.
[01:38:03] Speaker B: Ted, don't give a. Ted's like, all right.
[01:38:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:38:09] Speaker C: He's like, karen's got it. It'll be fine.
[01:38:13] Speaker A: Poor Mike. Those are poor kids. That's a lot to have to deal with, to be honest. Not on top of your friend dying, but, like, seeing the Demogorgon, going after all those people and then being in mortal danger yourself. Like, that would be a lot too much.
So then later, we're. And the hospital. Will's laying in a hospital bed, and he comes to with Jonathan and Joyce greeting him. He asks where he is. They're like, you're home. You're safe. Everyone's in tears. Jonathan tells Will that he missed him. And Will notices his bandaged hand is like, are you okay? And Jonathan's like, this is nothing.
[01:38:44] Speaker C: You're worried about my hand.
[01:38:46] Speaker A: He shows him a new mixtape that he made for him. Says there's stuff on there that he might really like. I love that. In the waiting room, we have Hopper and asleep. Ted messed up. Steve, an anxious Karen, worried. Nancy, Lucas, and Dustin are asleep on one another. Mike, so cute, just sitting there. Jonathan comes in, motions for the guys to go in. They basically tackle Will, and Choice is like, careful. They tell him all about what happened while he was gone. Troy peed himself.
[01:39:11] Speaker C: Then Will starts coughing, and they get
[01:39:13] Speaker A: all serious and are like, are you okay? Was like, it got me the demo organ. Mike's like, it's okay. It's dead. We made a new friend. She stopped it. She saved us. But she's gone now. Dustin's like, her name is eleven, which I love that. They're like, no, we're like, we're gonna say her name. She has superpowers. They tell them all about what she did. And then we pan over to Nancy, who just. I mean, she's happy for them, but you can tell she's just so sad that she's not going to get that reunion.
[01:39:36] Speaker B: Literally, the only person thinking about Barb
[01:39:39] Speaker C: is Nancy Hopper's like, what's that girl's name again?
[01:39:45] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, I think I saw her down there briefly.
[01:39:49] Speaker C: Third skeleton on the right, third body. On the right. Oh, no.
[01:39:56] Speaker A: And then outside the hospital, Hopper goes out for a smoke. And then an agent vehicle pulls up.
And almost like, you didn't think we were going to forget about this, did you? Hopper gets in and they drive off. And I'm like, I again hope that we deal with. With that next season, because that's so interesting. And then one month later, we see what we think is ash, but nope, it's the snow from Florida. Florida snow. It's Christmas time with the Wheelers.
[01:40:21] Speaker B: Evil snow from Florida.
[01:40:22] Speaker A: It's probably got sand in it.
Mike's hosting another DND night. It's the Sol Hydra all over again. The boys are left with the same conundrum. Willow Will fireballs him, and it's a direct hit. The monster's defeated. Everybody's rejoicing.
We have the kids theme again. We have a little fourth wall break of the boys being like, wait, that's it. That was only 10 hours. They're like, that doesn't make sense. What about the lost night? The proud princess and those weird flowers in the cave? Jonathan comes in, is like, wow, what smells in here? They make fun of Dustin farting. You know, they added that in after the bus thing where someone kept farting the entire time.
Will takes off with Jonathan. I love how Joyce is like, okay, no more going home by yourself anymore.
And Dustin Lucas tussle. Mike looks over to where else fort used to be. We hear her theme. Upstairs, Karen says hi to the boys. Nancy intercepts them, handing Jonathan a gift, telling him Merry Christmas. She tells him that it's not really a present that he'll see when he opens it and then kisses him on the cheek. And we're like, girl, you have a boyfriend.
What is this?
[01:41:24] Speaker B: But we didn't know that until after. Yeah, because here you're like, oh, are they, like, together?
[01:41:30] Speaker A: Are they?
[01:41:30] Speaker C: Not yet.
[01:41:31] Speaker A: Will's over there, there going, what happened while I was in the Upside Down?
[01:41:34] Speaker C: Jonathan has a whole girlfriend.
[01:41:36] Speaker B: Yeah, Literally, it's Nancy. And then she goes and snuggles right up to Mr. Steve.
[01:41:42] Speaker A: And I love that he's like, did you give it to him? Implying almost like he bought her. They bought it together. And he, like, didn't want to know that it was him.
[01:41:49] Speaker B: But the vibes are off with Nancy and him.
[01:41:51] Speaker A: She's like, her body's turned away. She's looking out towards Jonathan.
[01:41:55] Speaker C: And Steve looks like he's gonna get his art, right.
He looks so happy right there. And I'm like, yeah, he does.
[01:42:02] Speaker B: Yikes.
[01:42:04] Speaker C: Hopefully they deal with that in season two. Yay.
So excited for that.
[01:42:10] Speaker A: Interestingly, the music that plays in this scene, starting from when Nancy comes down the stairs and then ending in the scene with Steve and Nancy, is entitled this isn't you. And it was the same music that was played when Barb tries to convince Nancy not to go upstairs at Steve's house. House and says, this isn't you. And I like that. I have a few theories on why they use this music. I think the biggest one is it's supposed to contrast Nancy, Steven, Jonathan's less than ideal, like, behavior in that scene, especially because it's all centered around the camera. Jonathan's taking pictures at that time. Steve's still very self centered. Nancy leaves her friend. I think this moment with Steve and Nancy giving the camera to Jonathan and. And like there's kind of this sense of, of like everything's good, everyone's at their best. And I think this moment is supposed to show that, like, this is who the characters are really deep down. Like they're this. Like that wasn't them, but maybe this is them, you know?
But I thought that was very interesting. Andrew's over there. Like, I don't think they're that intentional with picking the music. I was like, I don't know.
[01:43:14] Speaker B: I don't know.
[01:43:15] Speaker C: That's my theory.
[01:43:16] Speaker B: It's nice that you can come to that conclusion.
[01:43:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's at least a nice moment. And everybody's happy and it's Christmas, so it's great.
[01:43:23] Speaker B: Are they happy?
[01:43:24] Speaker A: I don't think we're gonna pretend they are because it's the end of the season and we need joy and it's Christmas.
[01:43:29] Speaker B: So, yeah, Merry Christmas.
[01:43:32] Speaker A: And speaking of Christmas, there's a Christmas party at the station. We get kind of a reverse of what the first scene we saw with Hopper. And like entering into the station, he's getting his jacket on. He packs up a Tupperware dish with food. The deputies are like, you're leaving already, Chief? He's like, oh, come on. You think I actually wanted to come to this thing? Thing? I was like, that's Leia for sure. Yeah. He's like, I was just hungry. They're like, oh, yeah, that's the spirit. He's like, well, your wife doesn't have time to cook for me. You know what I'm saying?
[01:43:58] Speaker C: Again, a reversal from the first scene because he made a joke about one of the guy's wife. It's funny. And then as he leaves, we have the secretary.
[01:44:08] Speaker A: I forget her name.
[01:44:08] Speaker C: She rips hop Cigarette out of his mouth with a disapproving look, and then pats him.
[01:44:12] Speaker A: And she says, merry Christmas, Hop. But what she's really saying, saying is,
[01:44:15] Speaker C: take care of yourself. I'm worried about you.
[01:44:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's cute, though.
[01:44:22] Speaker A: He leaves with a big smile. We see his truck and he drives and then stops at a random place, like, on the side of the road and finds this, like, little box and he puts the Tupperware inside of it, and then on top of it is a pack of Eggos.
[01:44:36] Speaker B: Oh, I wonder who that's for.
[01:44:38] Speaker A: Yeah, interesting.
[01:44:40] Speaker C: Who do we know that hits the Demogorgon? The Demogorgon.
[01:44:43] Speaker B: The Demogorgon likes Eggos.
[01:44:44] Speaker A: Joss Whedon, He's.
[01:44:49] Speaker B: I'm dead.
[01:44:50] Speaker A: And then at the Wheelers, their dog is counter surfing, eating all the ham as Jonathan and Will look at the gifts under the tree. Jonathan's taking pictures with his new camera. Joyce brings, like, horribly runny mashed potatoes to the table. Will's guessing at his presence before he goes to the bathroom to wash his hands. And then in the bathroom, he looks like he's just gonna throw up. And then he hacks up a slug.
[01:45:11] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[01:45:12] Speaker A: If I'm hacking up a slug, you best believe I'm like, Christmas is canceled.
[01:45:16] Speaker C: Canceled. We're going to the hospital and we're doing a full body scan.
I fruit up. I fruit up. You come out with this full on slug.
[01:45:27] Speaker A: Well, I guess we know what this.
[01:45:28] Speaker B: Something's clearly not right with. With Will.
[01:45:33] Speaker C: Well, yeah. You think so? No, that's normal. Completely normal.
[01:45:37] Speaker A: I don't know if you noticed, but when they found Barb's body, there's a slug that was coming out of her mouth, like when Elle found it. And I think it's like the same. The same kind of thing.
Oh, so wonderful.
[01:45:49] Speaker B: I really like in this scene how you can't tell if he's just having, like a PTSD flashback to being in the Upside down or actually, like, going there.
[01:46:01] Speaker A: Yep, yep.
The music that's playing right here is Making Contact. It's the same music that played when Elle was having her flashbacks of being in the sensory tank and making contact with the Demogorgor kids. So there's lots of parallels between Will and Elle.
And it's interesting because the duffer said about this. They said you don't want everything tied in up into need of a little bow. The idea was if there was going to be a season two, it would focus on Will, specifically on the effects that being in the Upside down had on him. We wanted to introduce that idea. There being something wrong with Will. We thought that would be a haunting end to this first chapter. And, I mean, that's what they pitched to Netflix when Netflix was like, well, if you kill L, what are you going to do for the second season? They're like, well, we'll focus on Will. Will. So the idea was, if Elle's gone, Will becomes kind of the new link to the Upside down and stuff. So.
[01:46:52] Speaker B: Interesting.
[01:46:52] Speaker A: Very. Let's give this boy more screen time. He's barely been here.
[01:46:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
But he, like, haunts the narrative so hard.
[01:46:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm very curious to see how it's going to be with him actually around because we didn't really get to see a lot of his dynamic with the other boys. Very much true. So. But yeah, that's the end of our first season of Stranger Things. Can you believe it?
[01:47:14] Speaker B: Wow. I can't believe it.
That's crazy.
[01:47:17] Speaker A: We hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I'm very excited for our season recap because we're going to do a little spoiler section at the end where we can kind of talk about how this ties into the rest of the series, but then also just kind of talk about, like, Leia's predictions for season two, because she literally remembers nothing for the next season. So that'll be really fun. We'll talk about what we want to see and then just how we felt about the first season overall. And, yeah, it'll be really good. I'm also planning on. I'm going to look up and do a little bit of reading with that book, all about Hopper's prequel, like, the life before he came to Hawkins.
[01:47:52] Speaker B: And I love that. So you'll have to let me know what it says.
[01:47:55] Speaker A: Oh, I'm sure I will. I'm sure I will.
[01:47:58] Speaker C: You know I will. You don't even need to ask, of course, no.
[01:48:02] Speaker A: But hope you guys enjoyed this. Thank you so much for listening and we will see you guys next time.
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.
[01:48:28] Speaker C: Sam.
