Netflix Retrospective: Stranger Things Season 1 Episodes 7-8 (A Strange Halloween)

A missing child is a thing of dread
As the night went on, another was dead
What they seek is beyond the void
A thing that wants them all destroyed

Police and Mothers cry in vein
A child of power feels their pain
Friends and danger, she stands between
Stranger Things happen on a Strange Halloween

Chapter 7: The Bathtub

Mike wipes the blood off El’s face, she asks if she’s still pretty and we can tell that Mike is still smitten. But Lucas is quickly on the radio telling them the ‘bad men’ are coming, they spot the van and Mike asks his mother frantically if she’s scheduled anyone to do repairs, she misinterprets thinking there’s something wrong but Dustin sees a full fleet of vans soon arrive. Brenner and his men leave theirs vans and El sees them as they make a run for it.

It’s actually a fairly tense chase scene, with the sheer number of vans and their relative speed matched against the off-road capabilities of the bikes. El makes one of the vans flip over them with her powers, in one of the dodgier looking special effects. It manages to stop the rest of the vans, for now.

Now it’s time to El and Lucas to reconcile, even admitting that her flipping the van was awesome, Mike and Lucas also reconcile just in time for the credits to roll.

We cut to the police station, where Hopper confronts Jonathan about the gear in his car. Karen walks into the basement and notices the bedding and some hairs from the wigs. The guys from the electric company search the house, and ask if they’ve seen Eleven, which they both strongly deny.

Ted goes to full on irony, Dr Brenner tells her that by hiding El, Mike is in real danger, which is not making Karen happy as he won’t go into details. The boys and El hide their bikes and hide in an old junkyard bus when they hear a helicopter overhead

Jonathan shows Hopper the photo and Joyce finally gets to confront him about all this. Given everything that’s happened with Lonnie and her hysteria, I don’t think Jonathan’s actions aren’t justified, but she’s not wrong that he risked both his own and Nancy’s life on this. Oh goody, we’re not done with the Bullies as the mother of the bully with the broken arm is making a statement to the police. This scene exists so Hopper realises Mike’s part in the game.

Speaking of losers, Steve and his posse of losers is back and the losers are getting more aggravating by the moment. Thankfully Steve decides to ditch the lame duo and heads off on his car. The police arrive outside Mike’s house and see the commotion. Hopper holds Nancy back, it’s not safe if they know she’s mixed up in it too. They ask Nancy where they might’ve gone but she doesn’t know. Thankfully Jonathan remembers their Walky talkies.

Unfortunately, Mike is not happy to answer just in case it’s a trap. Hopper takes the radio and tells them that he knows, Mike is hesitant but eventually answers. Steve heads back to the movie theatre and offers to help clear up the spray paint from earlier. After a scene with Ted that’s pointless, we cut back to the boys, getting antsy about sticking around and thinking it might be a trap. Ooo, Star Wars reference. 2 cars arrive, and the agents inside spot the bikes under the bus. Before they can confront the kids they’re knocked out by Hopper.

They head back to… are you kidding me? Joyce’s house. You’d think they’d try to look there. And it’s time for the 3 groups to compare notes. Of course, the boys have the larger pieces of the puzzle because they’ve had Eleven but Hopper has seen the lab and where the portal is. They ask if she can make contact with Will and Barb and she tries but is too weak after everything they’ve gone through and can’t find them, after seeing the bathtub she admits she might be able to find them if she’s submerged.

Dustin asks Mr Clarke about a sensory deprivation tank. They’ll need salt, 1500lbs of it, and that seems like a lot to me.

Jonathan and Hopper get the salt, Nancy and Mike get hoses to fill it whilst Lance and Dustin set up the pool. Nancy and Mike promise to be honest with each other, knowing they failed to act sooner knowing the other was acting weird. It lasts all of 5 minutes. Joyce and Eleven are in a lab, Joyce tapes up a pair of goggles to keep it dark for her and remarks how brave she is. So they manage to set up the pool.

El floats in it, not submerged as she was before as she has no breathing equipment. Her mind enters the upside down. She finds Barb’s body and begins screaming ‘gone’ in her mind, she’s only saying it normally. Joyce manages to calm her down and she begins to track down Will, who’s hiding in his little hideaway in the woods aka Castle Byers. She tells him to hold on a little longer but soon the vision dissipates and she hears a growling.

Joyce and Hopper head out to the lab, trusting Jonathan to look after the kids. Jonathan heads back inside to find a grieving Nancy. Nancy tells Jonathan they need to get the hunting stuff back and finish off that monster, it’s the only chance Hopper has to finish the job. They sneak back in and do so, with Nancy bringing a fire extinguisher. Joyce and Hopper are quickly caught by security guards. Will is hiding and hears the monster nearby, and in a jump scare breaks down the door.

Episodes like this are my favourite in a mystery story like this, things begin to come together and it has solid action. And helping it is that it’s one of the shorter episodes, can’t say the same about the next and the last one.

Rating 8.5/10

Chapter 8: The Upside Down

Joyce is chained up and is confronted by Dr Brenner. He tells her that her son is one of 6 people who’s gone missing this week and they need her help to make contact and find them and hopefully prevent more people going missing but after finding out what they did to Terry Ives, Joyce is not fooled by this and tells him to go to hell. Hopper is being tortured, but he’s been open, he says he knows everything and lies that he’s told his friend at a local paper to blow it all open. The lab guys are gonna drug him and destroy his reputation

Mike realises that Nancy and Jonathan are gone, and Eleven can tell they’re off to face the ‘demigorgan.’ They set up the traps in the house like it’s a home alone movie and f*ck me, they’re gonna destroy this house with all this shit. Nancy is literally pouring gasoline on the floor and Jonathan’s playing with a lighter. So, Hopper makes an arrangement with Brenner, giving El up and promising not to reveal the lab’s involvement in exchange for protection for the boys and them taking a go at finding Will.

They get into the hazmat suits, as apparently the atmosphere is toxic. Brenner doesn’t think they have a hope of finding Will, as they load up quite heavily to charge the school. Hopper and Joyce head through the portal in what might be the longest time yet till the credits roll.

As Hopper tries to calm Joyce down, Hopper gets flashbacks about his own daughter, who began to have a panic attack or something, I’m sure we’ll find out more later. Nancy and Jonathan both cut their hands, hoping the blood will attract the attention of the demigorgan. Unfortunately, Steve is the one who comes knocking on the door, at this point, it’ll be difficult to leave him out of this.

He says he just wants to talk, Nancy answers the door and sees the bloody hand, assuming Jonathan did this he storms in but immediately can see trouble, Nancy uses a gun to try and force him to leave but the lights soon start flickering and the monster attacks. They get to Will’s room but their plan doesn’t go to plan and soon they hear nothing, the demigorgan has purportedly gone.

They get to Castle Byers but find it destroyed. Hopper finds the bear and flashes back to his daughter, who had cancer and the treatments failed to save her. Back at the Byers’ house, Steve is getting hysterical, Nancy tells him to leave but just as he’s out the front door he sees the lights flickering again. The monster jumps Jonathan, knocking the bat out his hand, Nancy unloads bullets into it but that ultimately does nothing. So, Steve comes in, grabbing the bat and unloading his fury onto the demigorgan. He beats it into the trap and Jonathan lights the gasoline, burning it so even Joyce and Hopper can hear it screaming. The quickly put out the fire and damn this place is well protected against the fire, but the monster has purportedly gone.

Mike fills El with blatantly false hope about everything going back to normal. Dude, she’s got superpowers and your parents are convinced she’s dangerous, it’s really unhealthy to install all this false hope. But around this time Mike sees the scientists/agents storming the place and quickly warns the others. They’re soon surrounded but El knocks out/kills everyone, but the process drains her completely.

Hopper and Joyce follow a trail into the public library. Brenner and more guards arrive and without Eleven to help them, the boys are quickly restrained. Brenner tries to wake El up and does so but El’s earlier attack left a lot of them bleeding and the Demogorgon is coming right too them. They unload bullets onto thing but as before it does nothing. Mike grabs El and they fall back as the Demogorgon attacks Brenner. Will is hooked up to something with a lot of dead bodies around it, he has a vine thing in his mouth which Hopper manages to remove.

The boys take El into a classroom as the soldiers all fall to the Demogorgon. Who’d’ve thought some Home Alone style traps would be more effective than bullets. Mike continues to lay on the false hope, as soon the Demigorgan has stormed through the soldiers and bursts down the door, the boys, backed into a corner try using their slingshot and rocks. But it’s ultimately El recovering and ‘sacrificing herself.’ She destroys the monster but disappears in the process.

They perform CPR to wake Will up, both taking off their helmets and exposing themselves to the ‘toxic atmosphere.’ Hopper flashes back to losing his own daughter but hard enough compressions eventually does wake Will up. They give him an oxygen mask. Karen and Ted finally arrive at the school, Lance and Dustin’s parents I presume not caring because they haven’t shown up in the entire story yet.

Will comes to in the hospital with Joyce and Jonathan standing over him, filled with joy about the whole thing. Classic Ted, the only one of the adults asleep at the hospital. Jonathan gives the boys the all-clear to see Will. Hopper reluctantly heads into a Black Car and we cut to a month later. Christmas is falling and the boys are back to playing their game, with Will winning against a Thessalhydra. I feel like maybe they should lay off this game for a while.

Jonathan arrives to take Will home, a wise precaution all things considered and Mike is still missing El. And if you think El is really dead… I have a really sad ending of Avengers: Infinity War to show you. Nancy gives Jonathan a present and kisses him on the cheek, she’s still totally with Steve though. It’s a camera to replace the one Steve broke. Steve’s OK with it, and I have a feeling he was responsible.

Hopper grabs some goodies from his work’s Christmas do, heads out to a box in the woods and leaves the food and a couple of Eggo’s waffles. Back at the Byer’s house, it seems all is not as it seemed with Will, as he chokes up a 'slug' and briefly flashes back into the Upside Down. Poor kid

It’s an intriguing ending that does tie up most of the loose plot threads of this season and sets up for what’s to come.

Rating 8/10

But we’re done yet, join us on all Hallows eve as we dive into the second season.