Netflix Retrospective: Stranger Things Season 1 episodes 1-2 (A Strange Halloween)

Evil lurks in a realm unseen

In Stranger Things on a Strange Halloween

Stranger things is a series on Netflix, and has run for 2 seasons and 17 episodes, we’ll be looking at all of them over the months of October and November, but where better to start, than the beginning. Just a head’s up. I have only skimmed through this series before so there may be some errors in the descriptions. With that said...

The Vanishing of Will Byers

It’s the 1980's, because everything is right now, and we’re in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana. We open on bad looking CGI of the Hawkins Science research centre, a man runs through some samey looking corridors, as the lights flash and an alarm blares. He enters an elevator but there are monstrous sounds inside, the man is killed.

We’re introduced to our kid characters playing Dungeons and Dragons. The highest stat monster in it is the Demigorgan, the name they’re going to give to the main monster of the series. They’ve been playing it for 10 hours now, jeez, and the parents of Mike decide it’s time for him to head to bed. He has a sister named Nancy, who one of the other kids has a crush on, not that that’s gonna go anywhere.

The others head home, in the dark, on their bikes, all alone, never would happen today and we’re about to see why. See one of the kids is Will Byers and as you can guess by the title, he sees something in the road and veers into the woods, falling off his bike. We hear the sound of the monster as he runs into the woods. He makes it home but finds the house empty and the figure he saw is approaching. He tries to call for help but gets nowhere. He runs out of the house, into a shed and finds a gun which he begins loading. His family keeps a gun, and bullets, free for anyone to use completely unlocked and no-one took it to commit mass murder. I wish I lived in the 80s.

Will is shaking, he waits for the monster to burst through the door but it’s already inside and soon everything is gone, including Will. Roll credits.

This is an interesting setup but what could inevitably drag it down, and this is my problem with a lot of serialised mysteries is giving lot of attention to the aftermath, the cause and effect of everything that’s happened, and very little attention is given to the mystery itself. It’s a reason I don’t get into a lot of shows like this. 8 hours is a lot to binge-watch to get the answers. Broadchurch and Riverdale both suffered from this and Torchwood: Miracle Day killed itself because of this.

Turns out that night there was a series of power surges over the night and we are now at morning with some guy without a shirt. He lives in the country, and steps outside with the button on his jeans undone so we can see his underwear. He drinks, he smokes and he takes pills (painkillers or something) and looks at a photo of some kid. This ladies and gentlemen is our resident cop, Chief Jim Hopper

We’re introduced to (and I’ll be saying that a lot) Will’s mother Joyce and brother Jonathan. Both of them were working last night, John shouldn’t have been, but thought they needed extra cash. They phone Mike’s house, but Mike’s mother, Karen, reveals that Will had not stayed over that night.

School time, and there are 2 stock bullies who are so memorable, I can’t even remember them from my initial watch. But to the kids themselves. I’ve already mentioned Mike, but we also have Dustin, who has a lisp and Lucas, who is black, they’re concerned about Will but class…

Nancy has a friend named Barb, who asks about her relationship with a guy named Steve, who leaves her a message in her locker, somehow. They make out in the girl’s bathroom and Steve invites himself round even though Nancy has a test to study for the next morning. Hopper makes it into work, but doesn’t seem interested in doing any. That is until he finds Joyce waiting in his office. Erm, she seems to be under the impression even his friends bully him which… Nope, I didn’t see that.

She’s out of her mind with worry, Hopper seems to think he’s run away to dad, who’s in Indianapolis, Joyce is not convinced but agrees to call him, he wouldn’t be happy talking to a cop. Meanwhile at the secret base of potential evil aka the science centre, an area has had to be quarantined following last night people are all getting in Hazmat suits, and duck-taping their gloves on so it’s air tight.

The enter and see a black, breathing, vine like structure. Time to meet yet another new character, Eleven. She watches as a man puts out the trash then sneaks into the house behind him. Turns out it’s a diner. She enters the kitchen and finds some convenient unattended food which she begins to eat but is soon caught.

The chemistry teacher, Mr Clarke is also I guess the guy running the AV Club, which Dustin, Mike, Lucas and Will are a part of, they have a new set of equipment but are interrupted by the arrival of Hopper. He tells all of them to get home and stay there once school ends. Joyce checks out a little hideout in the woods with John but finds nothing. Meanwhile the diner owner cooks some food for Eleven, she’s not the talkative sort. He calls social services, thinking that she could’ve been abused, but we see a glimpse of her potential as she stops a fan that was annoying her with her mind.

Hopper finds Will’s bike in the woods. Joyce tries to contact her ex-husband but finds her new girlfriend, Cynthia on the phone. She couldn’t be less interested. Hopper arrives with the bike and searches the house, finding a dent in the wall that Joyce can’t explain. He enters the shed and finds the box with the bullets in it. He also discovers the chest the monster jumped out of and this sets off alarm bells.

Because of Will’s disappearance, Karen forbids both Nancy and Mike to leave the house overnight, which rather puts the kibosh on Nancy’s date plans, and is also going to be barely ever enforced. Mike tells his parents about Nancy’s relationship with Steve and causes her to storm off. Can I talk about Ted, he’s extremely irritating in this scene, and the last one, and most of the future ones. Moving on.

Hopper has assembled a search party, encompassing volunteers from most of the city, with Hopper talking with the science teacher, it’s revealed here that Hopper had a daughter but she died a few years ago. Mike and Lucas talk via walkie talkie and Mike somehow sneaks out of the house, observing Steve trying to sneak in.

Back at the café, Eleven is eating ice cream and it gets a smile out her. A smile that’s set not to last, there’s a knock at the door and it’s apparently ‘Nancy’ from social services. It blatantly isn’t through as ‘Nancy’ shoots him in the back when his back’s turned. Eleven notices as guards storm her from behind, when we next see the kitchen, she’s taken them down and is back in the wind. You idiots played your hand too quickly.

After a sexy scene between Nancy and Steve, we cut back to the Byers household, Joyce is concerned he hasn’t even been there for Jonathan let alone Will, Jonathan feels guilty over not being there for Will, Joyce tries to convince him he’s still close and the thing is, she truly believes that. Something which will get focused on later down the line. The phone rings and Joyce answers, she’s convinced it’s Will on the other side, despite the audience hearing little more than noises, an electric shock knocks the phone out of her hand and Jonathan can here nothing when he picks it up.

Back with the boys, they hear some rustling in the woods and bump into Eleven.

It’s good set up episode, but it does exactly what I’m not a huge fan of in a lot of shows, it will have to sell me on these characters to work.

Rating 8/10

The Weirdo on Maple Street

It’s a stormy night and the boys are questioning Eleven and getting about as far as the Diner owner did. They’ve taken her to Mike’s place and give her some new clothes, which she’s more than happy to change into, despite the boys being around. The boys are a bit young so Mike tells her to go to the bathroom and do it.

This prompts a discussion among the boys, who aren’t sure that she’s mentally sound, but if they inform the parents about their shenanigans, it also means revealing they were out, and that could seriously hurt their chances of finding Will. She sleeps in the house overnight, then can ring the bell in the morning, so Karen can act from there. Given what we’ve seen so far, that can only end badly but we’ll get to that.

Eleven seems capable of understanding the spoken word, but has issues speaking. She’s not talkative in any of the episodes I’ve seen. Roll credits.

Jonathan and Joyce have breakfast together, but it’s becoming clearer how freaked out Joyce is becoming, especially after the telephone call. Hopkins arrives and we see that the telephone was badly damaged, Hopkins says it’s the storm but does think it’s weird. He can’t trace the call and asks if they’re sure it was Will, Joyce seems to be but the surer she sounds about it, especially in her current state of anxious worry, the more she sounds crazy.

Jonathan tries to convince Hopkins to let him come to the ex-husband’s house but Hopkins says his mother needs him and heads off on his own. Mike rushes through breakfast to take down a waffle to Eleven, it becomes her new favourite foodstuff. Mike tries to convince her to go through with his plan but Eleven refuses, Mike realises she’s in trouble, and she says it’s with bad people, she imitates a gun and points it at her own head, then Mike’s.

Back at the science lab of maybe evil, they’ve managed to overhear Joyce’s call. The search party continues as the kids head to school and *sigh* we hear Steve suggest that Jonathan killed his own brother. That might be one of the most despicable lines I’ve heard yet. And this from a character that does have an arc, I’m absolutely rooting for him… Nancy tries to console him but it’s not enough.

Apparently there’s going to be a gathering at the school to see what they can do. Mike isn’t at school, so Lance and Dustin theorise about the kind of trouble he could be in. Mike skipped school, hiding behind a tree until his mum left for work and then riding back. Eleven and him explore the living room, with Eleven fascinated by the sleeper chair.

Jonathan too seems to be skipping school, he flashes back to him and Will talking about their relationship with their father. Essentially, I hate him so much I won’t dignify him with a name. The two enjoy music together. Joyce arrives at the store she works at, needing to replace her phone, but she doesn’t have any money. She asks for advance of 2 weeks, which the store owner begrudgingly agrees to. She was a hard worker.

Meanwhile, the lab boys arrive at the Byers house and begin scanning it, finding whatever it is they’re looking for in the shed where Will was taken. Star Wars reference! Eleven eyes a photo of them and Will in particular, making Mike think she might know him. Mike sees Karen return, but he doesn’t manage to hide Eleven in time, she needs to hide in the closet, which she’s extremely uncomfortable about.

She flashes back to being dragged away from her ‘dad’ and locked in a small room, I’m not sure if this was really necessary to show, it was pretty well implied from her actions. Mike tells Karen that he didn’t feel well and it’s not really convincing. She thinks it’s more because of the stress related to Will, and encourages him to open up. Keeping Eleven a secret is actually kind of wise under the circumstances. Mike goes up and finds Eleven, crying, presumably from the flashback.

Joyce sets up the phone and has it near her chair in case it rings for her. Hopkins has to call off his investigation after hearing the report of the murder at the diner. Those scientists made it look like a suicide and that’s not a great way to cover their tracks. Jonathan arrives at his father’s house and Cynthia unintentionally lets him in. It’s quickly revealed that he’s not there, in case that wasn’t already kind of obvious.

Lance and Dustin head over to Mike’s and find out what actually happened. Lance is angry and tries to gain information about Will from her by force, to an extent anyway, when Eleven refuses to answer, Lance has had enough and tries to storm out and tell Karen. Eleven telekinetically shuts the door before he can exit and locks it, her nose bleeds from the act.

One of the diner’s patrons mentions a kid to the police, saying that his suicide doesn’t make a lot of sense. They think that the kid might be Will, something the patron can’t argue against. Nancy invites Barb to the pool party at Steve’s. Nancy uses the special assembly as an excuse to get out of the house, Karen agrees and says she should take the boys. The search party now spreads out from the Diner, they find a pipe and think Will may have crawled through it, the pipe leads to the evil lab.

Barb and Nancy arrive at Steve’s house. Eleven eyes their game board and calls one of the pieces Will, she turns the board upside down and places the piece down, saying Will is hiding there, when they ask from what, she places down the demigorgan, hence the name. John arrives in the woods and enters with his camera, taking pictures of the surrounding woodland. He hears a scream and follows it, but it’s just Nancy and Steve having fun by the pool, incidentally within walking distance of where they disappeared. Barb ends up injured and bleeding and Jonathan ends up taking pictures of them for no f*cking reason.

Joyce waits by the phone, hoping for it to ring and it does, and it’s Will again, we even hear him but the phone burns out again, which sends her into hysteria until she can see the lights flickering, she follows them, until it stops, she sees something out of the wall and panics, only coming back in when she sees the lights flickering again.

Barb sees Nancy, wet from their dip in the pool, and is worried about her, thinking this isn’t her. She and Steve go at it again, whilst Johnathan continues his photography for some reason. I’m really not sure what he’s doing or why at the moment. Barb dips her feet into the water and soon we hear her scream.

There’s not a lot of plot progression, standard course for a show like this but we do get enough because the Eleven plot-line is equally engaging. The other one is just boring but something you’d come to expect in a drama and that ending will bring the plot into it.

Rating 7/10