Netflix Month - Stranger Things Season 2 - The Lost Sister/The Mind Flayer/The Gate

We’re gonna look at the last 3 episodes of Stranger Things. Since the first episode of the 3 is the controversial standalone episode, I’ll just recap that El found her mother and saw in her memories that there may be someone else like her, someone like 8, who we saw aiding a gang of thieves in the first episode.

Chapter 7: The Lost Sister

We open back where we left off, with El seeing flashes of her mother’s memories. She thinks Terry is telling her to find the other girl. Terry kept newspaper clippings of other missing people, El picks out the one she things is the girl, of a girl who went missing in London. She has trouble finding her but eventually does but finds that Terry’s sister has called the Hawkins police, El realises she may never find answers and runs, taking some of her money. Roll credits

El sleeps on the bus to Pittsburgh, seeing only the underside of a bridge. She wlks down the street and sees happy in a big city. She finds herself walking through the shelter and is perturbed by what she hears, she finds a building and eventually is face to face with Kali aka 8 aka El’s ‘sister.’ The other guys there are a bunch of jackasses

Kali is a bit of an interesting one. Her powers are more refined than El’s, she’s able to manipulate people’s vision, make the hallucinate or make herself and others invisible to them. El is considerably more powerful than that. Kali is happy to see her but her worldview is considerably less rosy that El’s has been manipulated to be. Kali happily invites El to spend her nights as a homeless bum and call it home.

But it’s partly manipulation I think, as she quickly tells the others they plan to use her to make a move tomorrow. El hears Hopper’s words over the radio before Kali wakes her up. Kali introduces her band of misfits and I don’t give a f*ck who they are, so moving on, they’re killing ‘the bad men.’ Kali takes El to the trainyard and tries to get her to move something big and heavy but she can’t seem to do it. Kali tells her to focus her anger, the same way she used it to flip the van, and it seems to work.

From a stash of photos, El recognises one of the scientists, the one that sent her mother into her delirium. El tries to use the photo to track him down then gets a bit of a makeover and honestly looks more like a boy now than when she had a buzz cut. They head out to a gas station and after tricking the one and only member of staff in the store, they begin looting the place, El going straight for the Eggos because of course she would.

They’re caught out, but El knocks the guy out and they make their escape as the police arrive. One scream later and they arrive in the right place. They break in and have the guy dead to rights. The guy seems to think that Brenner is still alive, which is confusing as hell to me, I’m pretty sure I saw him die in the battle at the school but whatever… El is about to unleash her anger when she sees a picture of his wife and child, something which the gang soon discover as well, worse for then they’ve called the police.

El drops her grip, but Kali is more stubborn, drawing a gun, but El knocks it out of her hand with relative ease. They escape out the back as the cops arrive and Kali is not happy with El. Back at their clubhouse, Kali tells her story to El, but then makes the interesting choice to project Brenner into El’s mind. Kali tells her she’s free to return to Hopper, or she can stay and avenge her mother.

As the others aren’t looking, police begin to storm the hideout and El begins to focus on her happier memories in Hawkins. She sees Hopper in the lab, around when the soldiers were entering Will’s trap. She hears a loud banging as the police storm the place. Kali and El run to the others as Kali hides them all from their sight. Long enough to get an opportunity to run. Kali projects a barrier to keep the police at bay but El decides she needs to leave and help her friends.

El runs as Kali and the others drive off. El gets on the bus back to Hawkins and we can’t end this without another musical number, there have been quite a few of them this episode.

Well that was… I’m sure it was something. Badly timed, certainly but far from a bad episode. Kali is relatable and likeable, whilst I mentioned her using El’s gift, she wasn’t using her as much as hoping she would help them, she was upfront and honest about her intentions. And in terms of timing, it was necessary to have this episode now, as it runs parallel with the last one. Maybe it could’ve been intercut with the previous episode but I don’t think that would’ve made it better.

Rating 7/10

Chapter 8: The Mind Flayer

We’re back at Hawkins Lab, with the demo-dogs crawling in. There’s glass protecting the humans but it won’t last against all of them. The scientists head into an elevator so we of course know they’re puppy chow and the demo-dogs head to an upper level. Owens and Hopper took the stairs because they’re smarter. Mike convinces Joyce to sedate Will, if he’s the Mind Flayer’s spy he can’t help it if he’s unconscious.

The demo-dogs soon have almost complete run of the place, killing off almost everyone. Then just to make things creepier the power goes down. Roll credits.

Max’s parents arrive home to find her missing, so we find Billy admiring himself in the mirror. And we find out the Neil, his father, has a bit of a violent temper, and Billy is terrified of him, so he’s forced to go out and find Max. With Max, things come to blows about Dart, and Dustin tries to blow it off, saying that telling Max amounts to the same thing. I’d agree with Lucas, not even close.

So, whilst the babies are screaming, Steve has the guy’s trail, they quickly realise that they were heading for Hawkins Lab. The doors are on a failsafe system and go automatically on lockdown if there’s a power outage. That seems incredibly stupid, but let’s not get to that. To open the doors, they need to reset the circuit breakers and perform a manual override, and the only person with a chance of doing that is also one of the two expendable characters left on the show.

Hopper gives Bob a radio and a loaded gun, not that it’ll do much against the demo-dogs. Jonathan and Nancy arrive outside the lab and soon meet up with Steve and his crew. Jonathan manages to put the power back on, but it’s not helping those outside get in. He begins opening the locks, and really rather easily does so. But one of the demo-dogs is blocking their escape, Bob activates sprinklers to get it to move but as he prepares to move out, he leaves his gun behind.

Owens offers to stay behind in the security room and monitor the cameras for any surprises. Bob is in a bit of a pickle, with demo-dogs near his position. Owens gets him to hide in a closet until it passes by. And he’s so f*cking dead, I can practically taste the blood. As he leaves the closet, a broom makes a noise, and one of the demo-dogs catches sight of him. Bob runs, eventually managing to lock it back, he has Joyce in sight but just as he’s about to reunite another demo-dog tackles him and yeah, he’s very dead. We’re less than half way through this episode btw.

Hopper comes in but with more demo-dogs approaching, they have to go, thankfully Jonathan arrives with a ride for them. Hopper uses his car to pick up the kids at the entrance as the demo-dogs feast on Bob. Poor Bob, he never really stood a chance. They reunite at Joyce’s house. Hopper tries to call in the national guard but it doesn’t look likely they’re coming. Mike remembers that Bob was the one who petitioned the school to set up the AV club

He has an idea, if the virus is truly like a hive mind, hurting any part of it, would hurt all of it. Will would feel the pain, but so would the demo-dogs. So, guess what the name Mind Flayer come from. Dungeons and Dragon’s again, it’s a species that has highly developed psychic powers and envelops inhabitants of other dimensions into it’s hive mind, believing itself a master race. But in the game the solution is to use zombies and that’s not really possible in real life.

Mike suggests they use Will to work out its weakness, but to that they can’t have him spy, so he can’t know where they are. Dustin and Lucas are rooting through the trash for… I’m sure very rational reasons as Dustin apologises over Dart and everything. But Max and Mike still haven’t really had the pleasure of knowing each other.

So with whatever raw materials they have, they convert the back shed to an interrogation room, and make it look unrecognisable. Hopper wakes him up, leaving Lucas, Max, Steve and Nancy in the house. Will struggles for a while, but eventually sedates. Joyce tells him a story about his 8^th birthday, trying to jog some memories. Jonathan tries too, with a different memory about them building ‘Castle Byers’ together. Mike tries, the day that they first met and interestingly Will was the first of the group Mike met, or at least the first he befriended, which explains why Mike was the first of his friends he trusted with these visions.

Hopper notices him tapping on the chair in morse code. So they keep trying, and begin translating it, they get ‘close gate’. The phone rings, and that’s enough for Will to work out where they are. They sedate Will again and take up arms, preparing, but the screeching of the demo-dogs stops abruptly, and one of the demo-dogs is dead, which can only really mean one thing. El is back!

It’s very unusual that there’s a focus on mostly a singular plot-line for as long as there was in this episode, but they made it work, allowing for great character interaction and development, even if Bob’s death was unfortunately handled as a shock death rather than a sacrifice.

Rating 9/10

Chapter 9: The Gate

Netflix series have an advantage of syndicated television, they don’t have fill an allotted slot with room for ad breaks, so aside from budgetary there’s no restrictions on the length of an episode. This episode is over an hour long.

Mike and El hug and aww, isn’t that precious. Next thing we know, Mike is the angriest I’ve ever seen him. Stark contrast there. He doesn’t understand something and ffs, kid, you’re a lot smarter than this! Max doesn’t get the great first impression of El, and Joyce brings her to see Will. Joyce asks if El could, in theory, close the gate, and we see the number of demo-dogs is massive. Holy sh*t, where’d the rest of you all come from. Did Will puke up one of them every day for a month? Roll credits.

The doorbell rings but Karen is unable to answer and Ted is being useless. Karen puts on her dressing gown and finds that it’s Billy, being a sweet talker and gets the address for the Byers household. Look, I find Billy about as interesting as wallpaper paste, what do you want from me?

Mike points out a problem with their close the gate plan, if the gate is closed, the Mind Flayer’s army dies for some reason, but that includes Will. Joyce points out something that I swear she should’ve thought of a while back. It doesn’t like it hot, so make it hot. They need somewhere Will doesn’t know, so Hopper gives them directions to the house El was living in, the same house El burst all the windows of, great plan. Meanwhile Hopper and El are to head to the lab and shut the gate, with them using radios to signal when Will is cleared.

Steve tells Nancy to go with Jonathan whilst he babysits the kids, he may not be the best boyfriend, but he’s not a bad babysitter. Or ice cream salesman as it turns out, but that’s for another time. Mike and El say their goodbyes again and are cut short of kissing by Hopper. They talk on the ride there, and they both make their apologies, although El stops short of telling him everything she knows. And the story finally circles back to Hopper’s dead child. Hopper might be one of favourite cop characters in media and scenes like this exemplify his best qualities, he’s a hardass, stern when he needs to be, but he’s also kind and compassionate.

But back to the opposite of this, they stash the demo-dog in the fridge for some reason and begin cleaning up the mess. Mike is impatient, claiming there are f*cking hundreds of demo-dogs at the lab? He never saw more than 5 of them at once! Mike comes up with a plan to use Hopper’s hole to infiltrate the vines and start a fire, drawing the demo-dogs away. Steve isn’t having any of it, but before we get to that, time to have Billy ‘be part of the plot.’ Steve comes out to try and draw them away but like idiots, they’re looking out of the window. No sh*t, he saw you, he was looking right at you the entire time!

He sucker-punches Steve and heads right inside, his anger comes directed at Lucas, but Lucas manages to rescue himself before Steve resumes the fight. Unfortunately, Billy is considerably tougher and has him in the ground before Max injects him with the sedative. Max picks up Billy’s bat and nearly hits him in the junk with it.

They take Billy’s keys and head out. And that, ladies and gentleman is Billy’s contribution to season 2. I’m pretty sure the entire season could’ve been done without him in it with only minor changes to the plot. Jonathan and co arrive at the house, which has a log-burning stove, in a house made of wood, sounds safe. A fire, a heater and a fan get lit up, as Will is tied to a bed and directly in front of it.

Hopper and El arrive at the lab and El gets flashes of everything she’s experienced there. Hopper has his trusty boom-stick to do absolutely nothing. Steve is taken with the boys and Max for some reason and freaks out when he comes to, it doesn’t help that whilst Max has driven, she’s still a sh*t driver. Lucky it’s at night.

Will wakes up and begins screaming. Joyce remembers what the demo-dogs did to Bob and turns up the heaters... Back with the boys, thanks to Dustin’s inspiring words, Steve takes command of their operation. Hopper and El discover Dr Owen wounded, Hopper patches him up and asks that he help El out as she’s about to save them. Hopper gives him a pistol of zero protection and moves on. The boys and Max find their hub and begin spraying it with oil.

Will’s getting desperate, and breaks one of his arms free, Joyce tries to pin him down but he grabs her by the neck. El and Hopper’s journey has been surprisingly demo-dog free since the distraction hasn’t been sent yet, it seems like all of them are guarding the gate. Nancy, kind of desperate, hits Will with a red hot poker. Damn, he will not be recovering from that for a while, that’s gonna leave a scar.

Steve lights the fire and the demo-dogs begin feeling it. Steve and co make a run for it as the vines burn and the demo-dogs head into the tunnels. Will screams as it seems the essence of the Mind Flayer is expelled from him and heads into the forest.

Will seems to be fine, no lasting effects aside from whatever that goddamn poker did to him. They send a message to the chief that the deed is done, giving El the cue to close it. Steve and the boys are making a run for it, but Mike is tripped up by the vines. El begins trying to close the portal in the lab and can see the Mind Flayer on the other side of it. It’s a big portal. The nail bat finally proves useful as Steve saves Mike from the vines. But next up, they’re confronted by Dart… Yeah, they might want to look up the term 'hive mind,' because this is not how a hive mind works. Dustin feeds him some nougat and they’re allowed to pass.

And not a moment too soon as El is struggling to close the portal, she remembers Kali’s words about channelling her anger. The demo-dogs approach, but they’re not attacking, they’re running as El is closing the portal. Dustin and Steve are still in the upside down. Demo-dogs begin attacking and suddenly the gun is useful. The Mind Flayer tries to consume El, but her growing anger overwhelms it, every light seems to glow a lot brighter as she channels everything she has and closes the portal. The demo-dogs all fall dead and El and Hopper embrace.

One month later, Hawkins lab is shut down thanks to the exposé, and it’s become a busier town. Barb’s parents are finally allowed to grieve their dead daughter. Hopper heads into a bar and meets with Dr Owens. Owens gives him a birth certificate for El, now Jane Hopper. Why the didn’t think to call her Elle or something along that line I’ll never know. He says it’s best to let things cool down for a while, give it a year to be safe. But Hopper asks how safe a single night out would be.

It’s the winter ball, Lucas’ sister is still a sassy b*tch, Billy is still relatively pointless, Dustin’s mom has a new cat whilst Dustin is trying out Steve’s hair advice. Steve for some reason is the one dropping Dustin off… I don’t care, I just love it. Jonathan is the photographer and Nancy is serving punch.

A semi-romantic song plays and it’s time for Lucas to ask Max to dance. Thankfully Max is far less awkward than him. Random girl asks ‘zombie boy’ if he wants to dance. Dustin tries his luck but it doesn’t help that his curly hair doesn’t really work with Steve’s hairstyle. It barely works for Steve. Nancy is also sporting curly hair for the night, sees how upset he is about it and offers to dance with him, and offers him some more practical advice (as well as some compliments he sorely needed). Joyce and Hopper are both outside and share a cigarette again. Joyce is still not a smoker, they find comfort in each other. Mike meanwhile is still waiting on his dance and sees El come through the door, Mike asks her to dance and neither of them know how to so... match made in heaven!

Max kisses Lance, and Mike and El finally do too. But as the camera rotates we see in the Upside Down the Mind Flayer is hovering over the school. What that means now the portal’s closed? F*ck if I know.

Stranger Things season 2 is a fantastic follow up to season 1 and more or less ties up the ongoing story arcs from that season. There’s still plenty of ground for season 3 to cover when it comes out next summer. The only weak link is Billy who’s ultimately kinda pointless, and doesn’t add much to Max’s character.

We will look at season 3, but it’ll be in 2020 given my 1 year cut off date. In the mean time, we’ll finish the Defenders and had back to Voltron

Rating 9/10