Netflix Retrospective: Stranger Things Season 1 episodes 3-4 (A Strange Halloween)

In the Town of Hawkins there's plenty to see

But at the centre lies a dark mystery

A boy has gone, into the unknown valley

And a girl is pursued without mercy

The mother, distraught, she can barely cope

His brother, a photographer, holds onto hope

His friends hold too, and begin their search

But for a girl named Barb, things have got worse

Love, at the centre, Nancy and Steve

A dope, a bully, his nature deceives

But the scariest things are as yet unseen

We'll see Stranger things on a Strange Halloween

Holly, Jolly

We open with Barb waking up in a snowy universe and being confronted by a monster, whilst Nancy and Steve continue to have sex. Barb tries to escape, screaming for help but she’s soon dragged back into the pool. So now she’s even deader than she was last time, roll credits

We return to Nancy and Steve after their sexy time and with Steve asleep, Nancy decides to leave, and despite it blatantly being daylight in the previous shot, it’s dark as she walks home. Not sure which would’ve gotten her in less trouble, but she’s in trouble. Karen asks if Steve’s her boyfriend which she denies for some reason, Karen assures Nancy that she can talk to her.

The next morning, Jonathan is woken up hearing Joyce talking to ‘Will’ he sees her and she believes Will is communicating through the lights. Jonathan doesn’t believe her and when she tries to explain about the wall incident from last night she sounds even more erratic. Jonathan tries to assure her that they will find her, and makes her promise to get some sleep.

Lance, Dustin and Mike meet up, they’re going to pretend they have AV Club after school to buy some time to look for Will. Lance has brought some gear in case things get hectic: binoculars, an army knife, some camouflage and a slingshot. Dustin has brought some snacks, thinking they don’t need weapons since they have Eleven, she’s busy playing with a radio. They leave her, with Mike telling her to eat the snacks if she gets hungry but not to leave.

He gives her his watch, and asks her to meet them at 3.15, after they’ve finished school. Back to Nancy we see her putting books in her locker when she’s confronted by Steve, she feels a little uncomfortable, like everyone around her knows about her escapades last night. Steve assures her that he didn’t snitch and his friends wouldn’t either. She sits down in class and notices the chair where Barb normally would be is empty.

To Hopkins, heading to the lab, he’s stopped by a security guard who says they need clearance to search the lab. Hopkins says he’s sure the kid isn’t in there, but just needs to check this off the list, and asks to see if the guard can pull some strings to make it happen. Eleven’s eaten her way through Dustin’s snacks and continues to fiddle with the radio. Bored, she heads upstairs, sneaking about, playing in the chair, listening to a dial tone and working the tower. He-man reference, don’t forget this is the 80's, also a Coca Cola ad that is so 80's

She flashes back to being asked to crush a can of coke with her mind, which she does, but her nose starts bleeding. Joyce gets out a box of Christmas decorations and begins hanging them up, stretching them around the room. She begins buying boxes and boxes of them from the hardware store she worked out, really stretching those 2 weeks advance.

One of the scientist talks to Hopkins saying that there’s no way any kid could crawl through the pipe without being caught on security camera or by one of his guards. Hopkins asks if they have the tapes from the security cameras. But the security cameras come up empty. However, Hopkins notices that there’s no rain on the tape and it was very rainy the night of the search. Worth bearing in mind, though, that was the night after he disappeared. Hopkins suspects they’re lying.

Back in the lab, we see a bunch of those haz-mat scientists begin installing something. Eleven heads upstairs, entering Nancy’s room. She sees a photo-wall, reminding her of a childhood she never had. Back to Nancy, she asks Steve’s friends about Barb but they’re assholes and don’t really contribute much. Nancy eyes Jonathan, who’s sneaking off to develop his photos.

Back to Mike, they’re collecting rocks for the slingshot and Lance remarks how Mike is lovey-duvey with Eleven, suddenly the generic bullies interrupt and skip. To Jonathan, in the dark room developing his photos, including a f*ckton with Nancy because he’s a bit of a creep. Joyce has finished her home decorating programme, when Karen comes over offering her a casserole.

Back to Hopkins, who’s come to the Library to look up anything he can find about that lab, and none of it’s good. Alleged abuse stories, cults, lawsuits, and blocking inquiries. Joyce provides an at least semi-convincing explanation for the lights, trying to appeal to Will’s love of Christmas. Karen’s youngest, Holly, follows the flickering lights, thinking it’s all entertainment, when it stops, she heads to the wall and sees hands come out.

Nancy calls Barb’s mother, who seems aloof to the situation, god knows how long that’ll last, and Nancy tries to keep her that way, again, don’t know how long that’ll last. The bells ring and as Jonathan heads to his car, he finds Steve waiting for him. You see one of Steve’s friends had gone into the dark room whilst Jonathan was there and got a glimpse of the photos. They demand they see them and then tear them up and break his camera. Nancy comes in at the last minute and helps, picking up a piece of photo with Barb in it.

Eleven waits at the power lines as 3.15, she sees an angry cat, which makes her flash back to be confronted by one in the labs. She was clearly asked to harm it, but refuses and is about to get locked up but ends up killing her guards instead. Dr Brenner, the head of the lab and a figurehead named in the various lawsuits is impressed and carries a distraught Eleven. The boys arrive and they ride into the woods.

Nancy, feeling uncomfortable with Steve’s treatment of Jonathan, leaves. Eleven notices immediately that Mike was hurt by the generic bully squad. I know they have names but I don’t f*cking care! Beyond that their talking more or less reaffirms Lance’s suspicion that they’re in love. I swear Eleven says more in this scene than she has in most of the last 2 episodes. Nancy finds Barb’s car, still parked where it was last night.

She sneaks into the house, and hears someone sneaking around, she doesn’t find Barb, but does hear something pass by her that causes her to fall. Joyce sees the lights turn on, leading her into a cupboard, she finds some more lights. She manages to communicate via the lights, Will is alive but not safe, but before he can reveal more the lights stop. Trying a new approach, she begins painting letters to correspond with the lights on the wall.

Nancy returns home, and admits to her mother that she thinks something bad has happened to Barb. Hopper gets a call from one of his staff, they’ve found a body, he immediately heads off to inspect. It’s getting dark and the boys have been taken to Will’s house by Eleven, and they’re not happy about it. They hear the cops.

Joyce has completed her light alphabet and begins to talk again. Will says he’s ‘right here’ which he is, but we’ll get to that in a minute. He also tells her to run as we see the wall morph again, a monster begins crawling out of the wall.  The cops arrive at a quarry where the body was supposedly found. The boys follow and seeing the body they believe it’s Will. This upsets Mike enough to at least verbally lash out at Eleven, before rushing off back home on his own. Joyce runs out the house and almost gets run over by Jonathan.

Mike returns home and is distraught to say the least. Karen provides him a hug, as Jonathan does the same with his mother. A police car heads their way to tell them about the body.

Things begin falling into place here and I like most of it. I don’t know how I feel about Jonathan at this stage

Rating 7.5/10

The Body

We open where we left off, as Hopper discovers the lights and investigates the wall the monster jumped out of, which looks completely normal to him. They have a theory that Will crashed his bike, and for some reason decided to go to quarry where they earth gave way and he fell. As working theories go it’s actually a pretty cr*p one.

Joyce denies that the body could be him, and said he was talking with the lights and naturally she come off as a distraught, going on manic depressive mother completely in denial. But as the audience, we know she’s right and there’s only so long I can personally put up with this kind of plot-line, so I hope this is all dealt with quickly. Hopper relates it to his experiences with his dead child, the difference is he wasn’t communicating with the f*cking lights.

Hopper tells Joyce to join him at the morgue, that might put her mind at rest but begs her to get some sleep and do it in the morning. Hopper decides to sleep in the car, as John sleeps listening to music. Joyce heads to the garage and arms herself with an axe, ready to confront her attacker. Eleven somehow made it back unseen and is still fiddling with the radio, Mike is still chewing her out but eventually Eleven manages to tune the frequency of the radio so Mike can hear Will’s voice.

Well, at least some of the bullsh*t is dealt with. Roll credits. Joyce did manage to get some sleep, but Jonathan wakes her, they’re going to see ‘Will.’ Mike manages to skip school again, with Karen thinking it’s grief-related and allowing it. When she leaves, Mike calls Lucas and doesn’t explain sh*t and just expects him to go along with it. Mike, you getting seriously close to me using the Drek meme.

Hopkins finds out that rather than the usual person who does autopsy here, someone from State arranged for it. If that doesn’t scream suspicious, you’re clearly watching the wrong show. Joyce sees the body, and asks for a birthmark on his right arm to be shown. Jonathan nearly throws up upon seeing the body and ends up with Hopper. Just as things calm down, Joyce storms out saying the body isn’t Will’s.

Nancy for reasons I don’t understand confesses all to Steve rather than punching the bullying prat. And with Nancy last being seen at the party, Steve is concerned about this all becoming public when Nancy brings this to the police. Nancy can’t believe what she’s hearing, Joyce tries to walk home to clear her head but Jonathan wants to confront her. She’s well aware what she says sounds crazy but believes it anyway. It’s a pretty public confrontation and could be easily avoided if Joyce just said what was up with the body, presumably the lack of birthmark is a dead giveaway that I don’t think the lab guys would’ve accounted for.

Lucas is less than convinced about the whole affair, especially since Eleven’s tuning hasn’t given them they exposure to Will that Mike got. Lucas asks about the body and there’s no easy answer to that. Deciding that they want to get Eleven to radio shack, a stronger radio that might make it easier, they decide to cover Eleven in makeup and a wig to make her look ‘normal’

Back at the lab, we see more scientists in Hazmat suits enter, the device they were setting up before is a tether, and a guy in a yellow suit is attached to the tether and heads the black vines that had been growing in the lab, he squeezes his way through the vines. Nancy is still concerned about Barb, but is called away in the middle of class.

Nancy explains her side of the story to Hawkins’ lower officers, they tell her they checked behind Steve’s house but found nothing, and Barb’s car has gone missing, making the officers believe she found it and headed off elsewhere. The usual Coroner speaks to Hawkins and he remarks that it all seemed a bit OTT from his perspective.

Nancy neglected to mention that the two were sleeping together, with her mother finally confronting her about it. She admits it but it doesn’t really matter. She storms into her room and begins piecing together the photograph, after taping it together she notices something in the corner. The scientists lose contact with the scientist at the under end of the void and they order him reeled in, unfortunately as is traditional with everything involving one of these tethers, he doesn’t make it out in time and is killed.

Oh, one other thing, the boys and Eleven are caught by their teacher sneaking in and taken to a service for Will, I groan so much! The generic bullies laugh during this and really? Really? That’s deplorable, beneath contempt! And beneath the writing talents of a show like this. One-dimensional bullies are a pinnacle of lazy writing. IT has this problem too but at least they didn’t laugh at a memorial. Mike get annoyed enough to push one of them over, *gasp*, the bully tries to attack but Eleven holds him back, making him p*ss himself, somehow. The whole school gets to laugh, I wish I was but I don’t care what happens to him. He’s too badly written for that.

Jonathan is examining coffins when Nancy arrives, showing him the photo. He admits he saw no-one else. Nancy gives her side of the story to Jonathan, about the monster she met. Jonathan asks for more details, thinking she might be corroborating Joyce’s story.

Hopper is at the bar with another patron, and begins talking about his daughter, clearly making the other patron uncomfortable. The patron in question is the guy who called in the body, Hopper’s been digging and has realised something is up, that person didn’t just stumble across it, he was there deliberately. When he refuses to answer, Hopper stops being nice and roughs him up outside, where he admits he was told to be at the quarry and not let anyone get too close to the body.

Joyce is screaming, trying to get Will to talk to her again, but to no avail. The boys finally get into the AV club and get to the radio. Eleven finds herself flashing back to being told by Dr Brenner to find a guy in a photograph and repeat his words. The man is in a booth saying a set list of words, instead of repeating the words herself, she gets the PA speaker to project his voice. Eleven makes the radio play a clanking sound and soon Joyce is hearing it too.

Joyce rips the wallpaper, which reveals a membrane which she can talk directly to Will. He says it’s like home but it’s dark, cold and something’s coming. The membrane begins to close as Joyce begs her son to run. The AV equipment blows up and sets the fire alarm off. Dustin manages to put the fire out as Joyce frantically smashes the wall with her axe.

Eleven is still dazed so the boys help her. Joyce smashes through the wall and finds nothing, she’s in tears. Nancy and Jonathan are in the dark room, hoping to brighten and enlarge the creature in the photo. Nancy asks about his photography and he’s been doing it a while, he says he prefers observing people from a distance than interacting with them.

The picture comes out and Nancy confirms that’s what she saw, and verifying Joyce’s story. They both have some hope that Will’s alive and if he is then maybe Barbara is too. Hopper heads back to the morgue and gets a good look at the body. He gets out his knife, piercing the skin and finds cotton wool. Seriously? That’s the best cadaver they could do? Lonnie returns for reasons as yet unknown as Hopkins heads to the lab and begins cutting through the fence.

At the half way mark we’re still not very far into the mystery, we’re getting a lot of questions but very few answers and we’re still waiting for characters to catch up with details we’ve known from the beginning. That’s not necessarily a problem with this episode in particular, which does have some really good stuff in it, but it is something that bugs me. Excuse me if I don’t really care about the one-dimensional bullies.

Rating 7/10