S04.E07: Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab

[ichbin]

14 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

Its not Angela's fault that El had built a weird fantasy in her mind on how they were besties.

I didn't get that at all. To me it seemed like El just wanted Mike to believe that she had been successful in integrating into her new school and community and not that she believed some fantasy version of her life there.  Perhaps because it goes back to her days in the lab when she thought Papa had looked at HER as being some kind of monster when she thought she had attacked her bullies in that situation. It seemed she just wants Mike to look at her as being normal.  

[tennisgurl]

Holy crap, is it July yet? How am I supposed to just sit here and wait a whole month? I'm impressed, I guessed that the orderly was One and was also the Vecna, but I was totally take off guard by him also being the Creel boy, who was the real murderer all along. This actually does add up quite well and answers a lot of questions that have always bugged me. Why does El have this connection to the Upside Down? Why Hawkins? Why do so many of the monsters have similar powers to El? All of this was pretty properly foreshadowed and lines up with what has been previously established. This explains a lot, but leaving some questions open for later, especially to the nature of the Upside Down. 

I really liked this half season, even if I thought that some of the extra long episodes could have been trimmed. The Russia story felt like a waste a lot of the time but I think it paid off at the ends, so I am hoping that the California story will end up paying off as well. Hop and Joyce finally finding each other was really sweet and I am glad that Enzo made it, I was worried that he was going to end up as cannon fodder. He and Hop ended up having a really fun dynamic, the Russia stuff really picked up when they became Gulag pals. I know that this show always has its characters all in different plots and then brings them all together at the end, but I hope we come together soon, everyone is way too separate now and this shows greatest strength is its great cast and how well they play off each other.

Of course there was no way the show could have their Freddy Krueger villain without giving him a one on one confrontation with a teenage girl named Nancy. I knew that the teens getting out like that was too easy, nice to bring back Nancy's feelings about Barb, it makes sense that, even now, she would still be traumatized over that. If the Venca wants to eat trauma, he certainly has a lot to choose from considering how much the Hawkins crew have been through while only in middle/high school. 

Eddie telling Steve how much Dustin looks up to him and that he was a bit jealous of him was really nice. Steve Harrington, a good guy all around! They definitely seem to be heading more towards Nancy and Steve, and I can see why they would be drawn back to each other. Steve has always been holding a torch for Nancy even after they split, and with Nancy's relationship with Jonathan on the rocks, I can see why she is going back to someone she knows. I will have to see how it plays out in the second half of the season to be sure if I am into it or not, I wouldn't want them to get back together if Nancy is mainly looking for someone on the rebound. I think she likes Steve a lot, but I never thought she loved him as much as he loved her. I am not liking that nasty sounding cough from Steve, if anything (permanent) happens to him I am going to be VERY pissed... 

I thought this half was really strong, even with some issues surrounding pacing and finding things for its large cast to do, but I enjoyed it a lot and cant wait to see what the second half brings.

[DoctorAtomic]

On 5/31/2022 at 10:28 AM, BlackberryJam said:

2. Satanic Panic in my small town was stuff like, “Did you hear Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat on stage?” And “I heard if you play this Beatles album backwards, it talks about Satan!” By 1986 when I was 15/16, we’d gotten rid of our VC Andrews books and moved fully into Stephen King.

I totally forgot about playing the Beatles backwards. I remember thinking that was a lot of work to put into a record. 

On 5/31/2022 at 10:28 AM, SnapHappy said:

And I'll gatekeep the 80's a bit.  I know 2 guys and a girl I graduated High School with and NONE were out or came out in High School.  ZERO.  

Same. And it wasn't obvious, open secret. No one knew.

[Taryn74]

On 5/27/2022 at 10:51 PM, bettername2come said:

Ok, I knew the orderly was 1/Vecna, but I didn't call him also being the Creel boy.

I started getting suspicious (about him being the Creel son) right before it was revealed, but couldn't remember if the son actually died or not, so I wasn't sure. I knew it would be easy enough for Brenner to fake his death, though, if he didn't die at the same time as the mother and sister. But the son acted creepy AF even during the initial scenes from Victor's memories so I wasn't surprised. I did figure out pretty quickly that the orderly was 001 and wondered briefly if he was Papa's biological son. I think he fixated on El because her powers seemed to mirror his.

I KNEW El didn't kill all those kids, no matter how badly she was bullied by some of the older ones. By this episode they were signaling pretty hard that the orderly/001 had actually killed them after tricking El into removing the chip that was suppressing his powers, so by the time the show confirmed it all I had left to do was tell hubby 'I told you so' LOL.

I wish they had gone the route of having current El "watching" her younger self interacting with 001 instead of actually being in place of her younger self. It got confusing even though I knew what was going on, and I think it would have made a much more powerful visual to see this tiny little child throwing a grown man around, etc.

So, tying in what we now know with past scenes from S1, etc -- Papa knew (or at least suspected) that El had thrown 001 into another dimension, and so his experiments with her shifted to putting HER into that dimension so she could move around spying on people and such. Since she had repressed the memory of that massacre she didn't see the Upside Down as being populated by anything or anyone, just empty space until she came across the demogorgon for the first time. (And I can't help but remember she saw it feeding on something - or someone - so it's entirely possible Vecna figured out how to kill things and drag them into that dimension before El inadvertently opened the Gate after touching the demogorgon in S1, but it was limited.) Maybe the more she moved in and out of the Upside Down, the more Vecna was able to read her mind and populate his world with mirror images of the real world she had encountered as well as his own memories.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Taryn74
Because 'repressing' and 'suppressing' are two different things.

[moonshine71]

On 5/28/2022 at 11:22 PM, Demian said:

I know it's a TV show and everything, but there is no way in hell Nancy has the upper-body strength to climb that bedsheet.

Lol, I'd question if any if them did. The units make if a little easier, giving a foothold(a pretty tenuous one), but a bed sheet like that is very hard go grip.

[LavenderSunset]

I knew it!!  I guessed that Victor's son grew up to be Vecna. I also thought the orderly was probably One.  The surprise was that they were all the same person.  I did notice that the Hawkins Lab victims looked the same as Vecna's victims.  I should have put two and two together.  I'm waiting for them to toss Max's headphones through the gate so Steve can blast some of Nancy's favorite music! Was anyone else yelling at the teens to hurry up and go through the gate?!  They were just standing around, gazing up at their friends in a slow, casual way.  

[libgirl2]

On 5/31/2022 at 3:35 PM, Redrum said:

Honestly TV tends to overplay high school dating a lot. I mean, I knew people who were "going steady" etc but it was more casual than any tv show ever depicts. Most people sorta knew you weren't dating your future husband in eighth grade. I knew maybe one or two couple from high school who ended up married after seriously dating in high school but honestly it wasn't that important. 

My best friend from those days did end up "dating" her future husband when she was in 8th grade. Married at 19, divorced years later. More than likely because he came out of the closet. I was best friends with him too and I never suspected a thing. 

[Redrum]

I have a friend who did that too. They are the only couple out of a class of one hundred who did actually marry who they fell in love with in eighth grade. Now out of that one hundred kids in eighth grade, that was about it... unless we count the one other couple who got divorced. I'm not saying it doesn't happen at all, just that its more of an exception than a rule.

I'd also say, in context of this show, that Mike and El's relationship is genuinely odd and often has the appearence of Mike taking advantage of El's lack of experience. Mike often acts like El is sort of his possession and El doesn't seem to know any better, or that she can have relationships with people outside the friend circle. 

[SnapHappy]

29 minutes ago, Redrum said:

I'd also say, in context of this show, that Mike and El's relationship is genuinely odd and often has the appearence of Mike taking advantage of El's lack of experience. Mike often acts like El is sort of his possession and El doesn't seem to know any better, or that she can have relationships with people outside the friend circle. 

This is a crucial point for me.  El never had normal relationships modeled for her when growing up, so she has NO idea what a boyfriend is supposed to be, at her age.  She's had TV and a little input from Max, but nothing in her earlier years.

Does she even like Mike?  It reminds me of her picking out clothes with Max.  She had no idea what to do.  Is she even attracted to him NOW, that she has so many other options in California? 

Mike has been the default since day one, since HE decided that she was HIS girlfriend.  He laid claim to her & nobody challenged him.  

I don't think she's ever realized SHE actually has a choice. 

[eleanorofaquitaine]

3 hours ago, SnapHappy said:

I don't think she's ever realized SHE actually has a choice. 

Well, she did explicitly dump Mike, so intellectually, I think she does understand she has a choice not to be his girlfriend. But emotionally, she is obviously incredibly attached to him, and she has lost a lot over the last several years. It is no surprise that she remains emotionally attached to hi..

[Redrum]

When she "dumped" Mike, it was kind of like watching a six year old where Max was treating breaking up like a relationship tactic and encouraging El to break up not to break up really but to express her displeasure over his lying.

[NDW5332]

On 5/29/2022 at 8:36 PM, ch1 said:

Noah Schnapp has repeatedly asked the Duffers to change Will’s hair and they refuse.  A part of me thinks they think it’s funny at this point.  They probably get a kick from the response. 

Instead of the mushroom cap it’s beyond me why they they just didn’t part Will’s hair and feather the sides.  That is a style boys his age would have had then - they did not have perpetual bowl cuts.

I had a friend in jr high and high school that had the bowl cut until we graduated high school in 1994.  He was somewhat mocked for it, because his hair seemed stuck in 1979, I always thought it was because they didn't have any money.  That's kind of the Byers family vibe I get.

[bosawks]

I confess to being really curious about what is going on with Chekhov’s painting. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by bosawks

[tennisgurl]

The whole monster squad is going to have a lot to catch up on when they finally all get together, they all have little bits of the bigger picture. Only the adults know that Hoppers alive, only the California crew knows that El is getting her powers back, and only the Hawkins crew knows about Vecna. 

[Sarah 103]

3 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

The whole monster squad is going to have a lot to catch up on when they finally all get together, they all have little bits of the bigger picture. Only the adults know that Hoppers alive, only the California crew knows that El is getting her powers back, and only the Hawkins crew knows about Vecna. 

I feel like this is what happens every season. The different groups are investigating different aspects of the same thing without realizing it. All of the different storylines eventually tie together and there's a few scenes where they pool information and once they have all the peices, try to figure out what to do and how to defeat the seaon's big bad. It's fun watching and wondering how it will all fit together in the end.  

[Athena]

This season has been harder to watch because it feels there has been more emphasis on bullying, body horror, prison, and torture. While the last couple seasons had elements of these, it seems even more amped up including the return to the Hawkins Lab. It's why I really find the Hopper storyline both a drag and hard to watch. I am also disturbed by the torture of the agent who was captured after protecting the boys in California. With another season left on this show, I am wondering how much the Duffers will push it further. I am not into horror, but I continue to watch for the cast. I think they do a great job of casting on this show every year.

[Capricasix]

Does anyone else notice how green it is in Indiana, in March? The grass is green and the trees are in full spring foliage. I live in southern Ontario 🇨🇦, which is not all that far away from Indiana and I’m sure quite similar in terms of climate, and it’s still pretty friggin cold here at that time of year - and there’s no leaves on the trees either 🥶And never mind just casually going out in a boat to the middle of a lake and diving in - you’d succumb to hypothermia with a quickness!

[SoWindsor]

I found myself confused with the El scenes. Were the ones with her head shaved all in the past? I thought she was kidnapped in present day and brought back to the lab and they shaved her head again and that all was happening in present day.

Jamie Campbell bower always plays a bad guy so I knew there was something up with. I think a different actor would’ve made the reveal more surprising.

Why was mike barely featured this season? Was the actor working on another project?

This season lacked the magic or earlier seasons perhaps with the exception of max and Kate bush.

[Taryn74]

6 minutes ago, SoWindsor said:

I found myself confused with the El scenes. Were the ones with her head shaved all in the past? I thought she was kidnapped in present day and brought back to the lab and they shaved her head again and that all was happening in present day.

Brenner shaved her head when Owens brought her to the lab, so yes those scenes were present day. Basically the scenes with the orderly (which took place in 1979) and the times surrounding that were her memories of that incident being brought out while she was in the sensory deprivation tank, but instead of "watching" her younger self in her memories (which would have made it more clear what was going on) she was "in" most of them at her present age. So yeah, it was confusing LOL.

[Kel Varnsen]

Does it seem weird to anyone else that all of Papa's other kids developed telekinetic powers but 008 somehow developed mess with your mind/vision powers?

I liked this episode. The only thing that bugged me was the army dude torturing the guy from Will's house. Mostly because torture scenes in movies and shows are stupid because the only options are always keep quiet and be tough or break and tell the truth. Like no one every thinks to lie and say that El is in Honolulu, you should go there.

On 5/31/2022 at 11:57 AM, eleanorofaquitaine said:

Re Steve - yes, I think that having seen the world be infiltrated by demons from another dimension three times, he's adopted a live-and-let-live attitude that helps him to be accepting of Robin. But I doubt season one Steve, prior to being beaten up by Jonathan, would have been so accepting.

As cool as Steve has been about Robin coming out to him, I do kind of wonder if his reaction would have been the same if it had been a co-worker named Robert who came out to him?

On 6/1/2022 at 12:44 AM, QuantumMechanic said:

• I come down on the side that the Upside Down as a dimension was always there and El "merely" threw One into it.  And while I bet One formed a bunch of stuff on it (like his Hawkins house and probably other Hawkins stuff) it wasn't a completely formless void when he was thrown in.  I'm pretty sure I saw land and mountains and stuff in the lightning flashes as he was falling.
• I think (but am far less sure than of other things) that One created the Mindflayer.  That he loves spiders and the MF is very spider-adjacent seems a little too much to be a mere coincidence.  Unless...hmmm...the MF somehow was able to make a low-level connection to Henry Creel and influence him.

I hope we get some kind of history of the upside down info dump in the next set of episodes because there is some weird stuff. Like El created a gate in the Rainbow room in 1979, but nothing really happened until 1983 when she created another gate in the sensory deprivation lab and a demigorgon came out right away. How come nothing came out that other gate? Although I did like that it was One who showed El the way to escape the lab through the pipe.

Also I just realized that if you need mental powers to create gates how was (or was) the Demigorgon creating them in season 1. Because Nancy went through a gate that was a hole in a tree near where Barb was killed. Who made that gate? 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Kel Varnsen

[Dev F]

2 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Does it seem weird to anyone else that all of Papa's other kids developed telekinetic powers but 008 somehow developed mess with your mind/vision powers?

It's possible that it just looks that way because of selection bias: in most of the scenes with the kids, they were preparing for or participating in telekinesis training, so we only see them attempting telekinesis. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's what all of them are best at, or even if some of them can do it at all. Most of them don't do anything in the training but stand around and get knocked down, after all.

Looking back over the flashback scenes, I could find the following examples of the sixteen remaining child subjects possibly using telekinesis:

• Two: The TK champ
• Three, Four, Five: Good enough to help Two smack Eleven around
• Seven: Can move the little ball around the maze
• Eleven: Duh
• Thirteen: Can keep a few tops spinning
• Fourteen: Possibly uses TK on the plinko board, but might just be playing around with it
• Sixteen, Seventeen: Can push around little toy cars
• Eighteen: Possibly helping to spin the tops, but might just be watching Thirteen do it

So that's about half to two-thirds of the subjects who demonstrate some telekinetic ability, But it's possible there are subjects who have other abilities in addition to or instead of TK. Ten, for instance, shows a gift for remote viewing, but I don't think we ever see him do TK.

(I mean, I suppose it's possible that he's telekinetically manipulating the magic eight ball while also using remote viewing to determine which answer to move into the window, but that seems at odds with the amount of effort it takes him to RV in the next scene.)

Edited June 4, 2022 by Dev F

[Anela]

I waited until it was dark, and I was relaxed, before watching this last episode, but now I'm really sleepy. Before reading here:

That sheet thrown into an alternate dimension, was straight out of Poltergeist. I loved that movie, and it's still one of my favourites.

Loved Hopper and Joyce's reunion. 

So, they had something in that guy's neck, to keep him from using his powers. 

Wow, that was excellent. Now they're saving the rest for the next holiday weekend. 

[Anela]

7 hours ago, SoWindsor said:

I found myself confused with the El scenes. Were the ones with her head shaved all in the past? I thought she was kidnapped in present day and brought back to the lab and they shaved her head again and that all was happening in present day.

Jamie Campbell bower always plays a bad guy so I knew there was something up with. I think a different actor would’ve made the reveal more surprising.

Why was mike barely featured this season? Was the actor working on another project?

This season lacked the magic or earlier seasons perhaps with the exception of max and Kate bush.

It feels very different from the other seasons. I was also confused as to what was in the past, or the present. 

[Dev F]

10 hours ago, Dev F said:

Looking back over the flashback scenes, I could find the following examples of the sixteen remaining child subjects possibly using telekinesis:

• Two: The TK champ
• Three, Four, Five: Good enough to help Two smack Eleven around
• Seven: Can move the little ball around the maze
• Eleven: Duh
• Thirteen: Can keep a few tops spinning
• Fourteen: Possibly uses TK on the plinko board, but might just be playing around with it
• Sixteen, Seventeen: Can push around little toy cars
• Eighteen: Possibly helping to spin the tops, but might just be watching Thirteen do it

Quoting myself here to point out something else I found interesting:  Eight, Nine, Ten, and Twelve are never shown successfully using telekinetic powers, and Ten is shown being trained on remote viewing. And Eleven's mother was mostly skilled at psychic projection, so that may have been the power El was originally expected to manifest.

So you could imagine a backstory where Two through Seven were trained on telekinesis, and then with Eight through Twelve they started training on psychic projection and remote viewing, but when Eleven started displaying a special gift for telekinesis as well, Brenner started to focus on TK again, so that most of the later subjects are shown to be telekinetic as well.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Dev F

[Sarah 103]

15 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Although I did like that it was One who showed El the way to escape the lab through the pipe.

This brings up so many questions for me. If she knew how to escape in 1979, why did it take until 1983 for El to sucessfully escape? Was she waiting for just the right moment? Did something happen that caused her to want to escape? I am hoping these questions are answered this season or next season. 

[Athena]

34 minutes ago, Sarah 103 said:

This brings up so many questions for me. If she knew how to escape in 1979, why did it take until 1983 for El to sucessfully escape? Was she waiting for just the right moment? Did something happen that caused her to want to escape? I am hoping these questions are answered this season or next season. 

El mentions to Brenner in the a previous episode that she doesn't remember the massacre. She blocked most of it out. I'm wondering if Brenner had a hand in forcing her to forget this and/or she was rightfully traumatized by the whole experience and all the power she used to take out One.

[Vella]

I have honestly found this season to be the weakest of all 4.  Supersizing the episodes has not paid off in the way one would hope. There's been no character growth of any real kind for any of the characters. Max, a bit, and Lucas a bit.  Most others just seem to be spinning their wheels and El just seems to be perennially stuck being infantile and victimized by the writers. I am so tired of Eleven crying or whimpering or cowering or having everything about her revolve almost exclusively around her powers.

Moving to California for a fresh start and losing her powers could have been a real opportunity for El to grow and start to really find herself. Who is she without her powers? Who is she without living in fear or isolation? Instead, the writers seem to see her only for her powers and little else. Oh, Mike's clingy girlfriend too. Driving her back to Brenner and spending so many episodes reliving her blocked past so she can unlock her powers again was tedious.

A lot of the plotting was just tedious and repetitive. Again with the spinning wheels. It's obvious they focused more on the plotting than the characters, but even the plotting was watered down and mostly dull. Nothing very creative or interesting going on, so stories would go off on a tangent to deliberately delay a resolution simply because it was clear that THIS was all the writers planned. Hopper in Russia is a clear example. What should have taken, at best, 3 episodes to resolve instead took 7 supersized episodes to resolve. This was excruciating to watch.

The California stuff, oy, was bad. El getting bullied, Jonathan and Will being characters of no real weight again. Joyce disconnected from the kids again before she runs off. Boring. Argyle who seems to only exist to shout incoherently, say dude and drive.

The only story of any real interest is the one the writers were obviously the most invested in, the Vecna/Hawkins story. Even though I found the writing for the characters disappointing, the story itself was strong and deepened the lore of Hawkins being a cursed town. Episode 7 connecting One, Vecna, the lab and Eleven was great. It was tight, tension filled and interesting so I have to wonder, why were none of the other stories even remotely as intriguing?

Overall, supersizing the episodes was a massive mistake and drawback. Had the episodes been forced to keep to a tight 45-60 minutes, I have a feeling it would have been much stronger. Eddie and the Satanic panic of the 80s was a nice idea, but it really went nowhere. We spend time in a town hall where Jason makes and speech and then...nothing.  So many scenes ran too long or should have been cut completely. It took far too long for things to happen.

Less would have surely been more. I anticipate episodes 8&9 will be jammed with everything being brought back together, but whatever the result, I hope Season 5 goes back to being lean. The Duffers cannot handle supersizing.

[Kel Varnsen]

So I have been thinking of the Russian Demigorgon and I am really curious how they were able to keep it. Like how did they get it back into its own cell after feeding time. Plus the season 1 Demigorgon was able to open gates to the upside down I think (like the one in the woods and in Will's house when it fought Steve, Nancy and Jonathan) so how come it can't here. Plus the season 1 DG had telekinetic powers as well (it opened the lock when chasing Will) so does this one have those also?

[janie jones]

On 6/2/2022 at 5:26 PM, tennisgurl said:

The whole monster squad is going to have a lot to catch up on when they finally all get together, they all have little bits of the bigger picture. Only the adults know that Hoppers alive, only the California crew knows that El is getting her powers back, and only the Hawkins crew knows about Vecna. 

Sort of like Max's picture of the house. (Or Will's map from season 2.)

20 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I hope we get some kind of history of the upside down info dump in the next set of episodes because there is some weird stuff. Like El created a gate in the Rainbow room in 1979, but nothing really happened until 1983 when she created another gate in the sensory deprivation lab and a demigorgon came out right away. How come nothing came out that other gate? Although I did like that it was One who showed El the way to escape the lab through the pipe.

I want to know what he was eating from 1979-1983. And what he was doing from 1983-1986, for that matter.

17 hours ago, Anela said:

That sheet thrown into an alternate dimension, was straight out of Poltergeist. I loved that movie, and it's still one of my favourites.

That sheet irritated me. They should have been able to pull it through. Because if the sheet can't be pulled through, then neither could a person.

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, janie jones said:

That sheet irritated me. They should have been able to pull it through. Because if the sheet can't be pulled through, then neither could a person.

I think you just have to accept that physics in the upsidedown doesn't really make sense, especially in relation to our world. Like how in the trailer regular Hawkins and the upside down are above each other, but in the lake they are below each other.

The light bright thing also shouldn't have worked, since the pegs aren't individual lights, there was one big light at the back of the box. So if Nancy was using Will's light trick it should have just turned one light on and off and lit up the whole screen.

[Emily Thrace]

On 5/30/2022 at 10:23 PM, HelloooKitty said:

This is kind of explained in the 1st companion novel. He was conducting experiments on persons of all ages originally. One of them was El’s mom. He gave them drug concoctions to try and help elevate their seemingly dormant psychic abilities. He discovered that young children responded best and were most mailable. So, when it was is discovered  that El’s mom was pregnant and had been while the experiments were going on, “papa” made plans to take the baby at birth as he felt her potential would be tremendous. 

He was looking for people with powers back in 1959 though and he seemed to zero in on Vincent Creel for one reason or another. I have always theorized Brenner is a former Nazi who was involved in with something like D-IX experiments or possibly the Lebensborn program and saw someone who had or developed powers as part of that. Assuming Brenner is roughly the same age as the actor he would have been around 18 in 1945. So not old enough to be leading a project at that time but old enough to have been an orderly or lab assistant or a guard. Which actually makes more sense since its unlikely Brenner would have been put in charge of MKULTRA if he was a high ranking Nazi. In any case he came across someone with powers who didn't survive the war for whatever reason but gave him a clue as to how to create someone like El. I suspect it involves drugs and that those drugs are what made him interested in the Creel's. Either Victor Creel took something during the war or afterwards for PTSD treatment or even Mrs Creel was went a little Divine Secrets of the Yaya sisterhood with some diet pills. In any case something in the Creel family history tipped off Brenner that One was what he was looking for.

As for why One picked El, based on age at the time she would have one of the youngest kids there. I think he probably thought she would be more malleable because of it.

On 5/31/2022 at 10:08 AM, ch1 said:

Jonathan or Joyce are the only answers.  They need to remember that this family actually exists and give them some scenes again.  The writers are so about Steve being surrogate big brother that they forgot that Jonathan actually is a big brother.  They forgot that Joyce went through hell to get Will back because Winona’s sole purpose is to be a prop in Hopper’s story apparently.   If Will where to come out to anyone it should be to one of the people who have proven how much they love him.  

Based on her conversation with Hop in the pilot I think Joyce knows Will is gay. She might not have fully admitted to herself yet but on some level she knows. I do wonder if that might be why they included Jonathan in the California crew so he will see how Will feels about Mike. 

On 6/1/2022 at 1:56 AM, silverstream said:

Last but not least, I noticed that cough - the show better not kill Steve!

Yeah that's what worries me about this love triangle. Since they can't really kill Jonathan because of the effect it would have on Joyce and Will. It would be too big a departure for a fun horror show to handle that kind of loss effectively. Losing a friend in battle though happened all the time in Eighties movies.

[Chicago Redshirt]

10 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

This brings up so many questions for me. If she knew how to escape in 1979, why did it take until 1983 for El to sucessfully escape? Was she waiting for just the right moment? Did something happen that caused her to want to escape? I am hoping these questions are answered this season or next season. 

A couple theories:

1. El didn't fully know how to escape. One told her the general plan but she was going to need his help to figure out how to actually navigate the whole route. Or in her trauma over the massacre she blocked out the escape information.

2. El knew how to escape but did not attempt to because of Papa's pressure/trauma and guilt over her role in One's massacre/the desire to make amends/the new situation with the gate to the UD.

3. The lab staff and military, learning of One's plan and with El being a far more precious resource with the deaths of the other younglings and the UD problem, hardened the potential escape route that One had planned and any other escape routes. So even if El attempted to escape, she would not have had the same opportunities as she might have in 1979.

[eleanorofaquitaine]

I can't remember if we were talking about 80s fashion here or not but I was thinking this morning that one place they are really falling down here is that none of the women have the truly "big hair" that really was common in '86. 

I mean, at least one or two of the characters should have teased up, hair-sprayed hair. Neither Nancy nor Mrs. Wheeler's hair is quite there and I feel like they should have had at least Chrissy and/or Angela have "big hair," which really was the style favored by the popular girls of the era.

[Capricasix]

Yeah, I thought we would see at least one Spike-from-Degrassi hairstyle!

[festivus]

My Steviepoo better be okay. The people will riot! 

[QuantumMechanic]

I saw this over on Insider.  Is it really the same sound?? 

Quote

The clock chime that signals Vecna's presence was first heard when the Mind Flayer (who we now can assume was really Vecna) possessed Billy.

The clock chime noise heard throughout season four was actually first heard in season three, episode two. The chiming began when Billy was psychically transported to the Upside Down after being possessed by the Mind Flayer. 

If true, that might settle the debate over who is really in control of the Upside Down.  (I've previously said I think Vecna is, given how the UD seemed pretty desolate (even for it) when 001 was thrown into it.)

Edited June 6, 2022 by QuantumMechanic

[Taryn74]

34 minutes ago, QuantumMechanic said:

I saw this over on Insider.  Is it really the same sound?? 

If true, that might settle the debate over who is really in control of the Upside Down.  (I've previously said I think Vecna is, given how the UD seemed pretty desolate (even for it) when 001 was thrown into it.

I just went in and checked in S3 ep 2 (when Billy is trying to call 911 from the pay phone and suddenly finds himself in the Upside Down) and and then S4 ep 1 when Chrissy is in Eddie's trailer and hears the clock, and yeah, it sure seems to be the same! I really do think what we're learning is that the Upside Down is Vecna's "world" and he at first populated it with places from his memory plus creatures of his own imagination (the demogorgon, the mind flayer, the demodogs, etc), and later after El began to access it he "watched" the world through her eyes and used that info to populate it more and more. Which would be why it pretty much became a creepy version of Hawkins.

[Sarah 103]

2 minutes ago, Taryn74 said:

I really do think what we're learning is that the Upside Down is Vecna's "world" and he at first populated it with places from his memory plus creatures of his own imagination (the demogorgon, the mind flayer, the demodogs, etc), and later after El began to access it he "watched" the world through her eyes and used that info to populate it more and more. Which would be why it pretty much became a creepy version of Hawkins.

I like the idea that the Upside Down is Vecna's world/creation and he uses access to other people's minds/imagination to populate it further. In that case, wouldn't the the demogorgon, the mind flayer, the demodogs, and some of the other creatures be the result of Will's influence, and not El's? He was the one playing D&D, not El. It would still fit with your theory and would explain why the Upside Down is a creepy version of Hawkins. 

[Taryn74]

51 minutes ago, Sarah 103 said:

In that case, wouldn't the the demogorgon, the mind flayer, the demodogs, and some of the other creatures be the result of Will's influence, and not El's?

The demogorgon was there before Will was grabbed, though. El touching it was what created the Gate in S1, as I recall. At least that's what it was made to look like. We may learn more in the final episodes and realize differently.

I'll have to do some research, but I'm not even really sure that what the guys were calling the demogorgon actually looks like the D&D monster. Vecna could very well have been creating monsters based on something like Cthulu or War of the Worlds, which both predate D&D, or just his own twisted imagination, and the guys were assigning names to the monsters they were already familiar with.

[CeeBeeGee]

On 5/27/2022 at 11:51 PM, bettername2come said:

I can't say I thought of the Upside Down being stuck on November 6, 1983. I loved the shot of both halves of Team Hawkins looking up at each other through the Gate. I like that going through the gate was fun for Eddie and Robin. Oh, God, I didn't call Vecna attacking Nancy! I mean, I thought others could be in danger because they're all traumatized but I really was confused when she fell into a different space. Oh, I just realized that we've got Nancy versus a Freddie Kruger-esque character. Okay, good movie reference there.

The UD being stuck 2.5 years in the past is awesome. I don't know why it's stuck there but I love it.

I'm genuinely terrified for Nancy. I feel like Steve has plot armor but Nancy, not so much. And yes, great callback to Nightmare.

On 5/28/2022 at 5:34 PM, krankydoodle said:

The bullying and torture scenes this season were hard to watch, so I'm glad they didn't make the rabbit that 001 tortured very realistic looking. On the other hand, I thought the de-aged El worked really well. It helps that they used that effect sparingly.

Oh my God, the poor rabbit. That was horrifying. I threw my hand up in front of the screen so I didn't have to see that. And yes, Baby El looked fantastic and truly convincing.

On 5/28/2022 at 8:49 PM, Spartan Girl said:

I KNEW El didn’t do it! So Brenner is kind of complicit here because he basically modeled his mutant kids after a superpowered sociopath. All the more reason not to trust him.

Ditto. I knew something was up, there's no way she killed all those kids.

On 5/29/2022 at 1:36 AM, peridot said:

I thought the orderly was an undercover reporter, I wasn't expecting that reveal!
I'm not sure why El didn't just kill him outright, instead of sending him into another dimension. 

I'm surprise Brenner didn't kill One.  The threat of poison wouldn't have kept him down for long.  Brenner should have been watching One, knowing how sly he could be.

What did I miss--why did One lose his favored status and get busted down to fake orderly?

On 5/30/2022 at 9:26 AM, blueray said:

Hawkins: Now the main story group. I really am enjoying this group the most and the addition of Eddy and this season has the perfect amount of Erica. I love how the parents know something is up but are still clueless. And the cops being lost without Hopper but doing their best. I like the kids working together and of course the scene where they were looking at each other from the upside down and the physics made no sense lol. I would be with Robin and Eddy in thinking that was a fun jump.

The scene with the rope was great and as someone pointed out, a great callback to Poltergeist. That movie absolutely still stands up.

On 5/31/2022 at 2:05 PM, MamaGee said:

I saw this similarity, too. Also when El was fighting One, it was a lot like Dumbledore/Harry vs. Voldemort showdowns from the Harry Potter movies. 

Also Kylo Ren telling Rey "join me" during the climactic battle of The Last Jedi.

On 5/31/2022 at 11:06 PM, BlackberryJam said:

Angela was a super bitch, but what you’re saying about El is dead on.

As to the bolded part, in 2nd grade a girl, we‘ll call her Jessie, in my class decided she and I should be best friends. I did not like her. I can’t remember why. I had two very good friends who would help me avoid her by ensuring she didn’t get to sit next to me. 

Jessie would follow me around on the playground. Tell people we were best friends. Ask the teachers to pair me with her for things. I wanted Jessie to stay the hell away from me. I told her I didn’t want to be her friend.  

Jessie told her mom that I was her best friend and her mom would always want to give me a ride home from school or to invite me over after school. I always, always refused. I was constantly anxious about it. 

This went on until I think right before the Christmas holiday. I don’t remember what happened, but in gym, we ended up on different dodge ball teams and I hit her with a ball in the stomach so hard she cried and went to the nurse’s office. I did not get in trouble for that because …well it was dodge ball and everyone was getting nailed. It was the late 1970s.

I was wrong for what I did, and I know it. I was also 8. Jessie stopped trying to be my friend. 

In no way is what Angela was doing right, but bullying is not as black and white as TV portrays it. Does Jessie remember me as a bullying bitch who was mean to her without cause? Probably. Do I remember her as a weird stalker who made my first semester of 2nd grade such hell that I would cry when I got home? Yes.

There's a classic Lifetime movie called Death of a Cheerleader, based on a true story, about a Mean Girl cheerleader who's stabbed to death by a girl on the outer edges of their shared social circle. I know this movie well--my ex-roommate will randomly text each other lines from it sometimes. The killer desperately wants to be friends with the victim and tricks her into sharing a car ride with her and then begs her to be friends. (They're rising juniors, BTW.) The victim is disgusted and contemptuous and leaves the car--the killer follows her in her car, devastated and imagining how the Mean Girl will "tell everybody" when school starts again, and when the Mean Girl arrives home, she runs out of her car and stabs her.

And back when imdb had comments, you would see people defending the killer in the comment section, saying the victim was bullying her and deserved it. No, she wasn't. There's another character, a Goth girl, whom the Mean Girl bullies, but not the killer. She just doesn't want to have anything to do with the killer, didn't want to be her friend. That's not bullying. Nobody owes friendship to anyone.

That's not really what I see happening with El and Angela though--El wants to put on a show for Mike and weave a tale of how wonderful her life is. But she's not following her around or anything.

[Taryn74]

37 minutes ago, CeeBeeGee said:

There's a classic Lifetime movie called Death of a Cheerleader, based on a true story, about a Mean Girl cheerleader who's stabbed to death by a girl on the outer edges of their shared social circle.

I remember that movie! The scene I remember most is that the killer girl wrote her mom a letter confessing to what she had done, the mom saw the letter and set it aside to read after her prayer time, not having any idea of course what a horrible thing she was about to read. 

[CeeBeeGee]

39 minutes ago, Taryn74 said:

I remember that movie! The scene I remember most is that the killer girl wrote her mom a letter confessing to what she had done, the mom saw the letter and set it aside to read after her prayer time, not having any idea of course what a horrible thing she was about to read. 

The movie is verrrry sympathetic to the killer, to the point I would be profoundly offended if I were the family of the victim. But it's a great movie--Tori Spelling plays the victim and Kellie Martin plays the killer and they're both fantastic. You should be able to catch it on YouTube. (DON'T watch the remake, it's not very good.)

[QuantumMechanic]

I'm pretty sure One got chipped and demoted to orderly because Brenner realized he was too psychopathic even for Brenner.  (We also had a hint of that with Brenner telling the kids before one test (the blindfolded face off?) to not use angry thoughts.)

[Taryn74]

1 hour ago, QuantumMechanic said:

I'm pretty sure One got chipped and demoted to orderly because Brenner realized he was too psychopathic even for Brenner

Definitely agree! I think Brenner realized he couldn't "control" him, hence the implant which suppressed his powers. And at that point, what option does he have other than to keep him at the facility but pretend he isn't powered? He can't ship him off to jail or a mental institution - it would be too easy for him to find someone to take the implant out, kill everyone, and set himself free on the world. Other than flat out killing him, I don't think Brenner had any other choice.

[marcee]

I saw something on TikTok that showed the video at the skating rink showing the date March 22nd - Will's birthday. Oops! They forgot Will's birthday. Womp womp.

[janie jones]

23 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

 In that case, wouldn't the the demogorgon, the mind flayer, the demodogs, and some of the other creatures be the result of Will's influence, and not El's?

Are the demogorgons and demodogs not the same thing?

22 hours ago, Taryn74 said:

I'll have to do some research, but I'm not even really sure that what the guys were calling the demogorgon actually looks like the D&D monster. Vecna could very well have been creating monsters based on something like Cthulu or War of the Worlds, which both predate D&D, or just his own twisted imagination, and the guys were assigning names to the monsters they were already familiar with.

They are just assigning names. I don't remember about the demogorgon, but the mind flayer shown in the D&D book in season 2 looks nothing like what was actually in Hawkins. I remember that Dustin even had to admit that the comparison between the D&D character and the actual creature only went so far and wouldn't completely help them deal with their mind flayer. It's like how Europeans named animals in the New World after animals they knew, even though they weren't the same thing, based on similarities.

2 hours ago, marcee said:

I saw something on TikTok that showed the video at the skating rink showing the date March 22nd - Will's birthday. Oops! They forgot Will's birthday. Womp womp.

The Duffer Brothers said this was an unfortunate continuity error. (I posted a link about it in the media thread, if you want to check it out.)

Edited June 7, 2022 by janie jones

[Taryn74]

11 minutes ago, janie jones said:

Are the demogorgons and demodogs not the same thing?

From what I remember, the demogorgons were the more humanoid creatures (like what they fought in Russia) and the demodogs were more, well, dog-like. LOL. Smaller, ran on all fours. But the same basic sort of creature.

[janie jones]

I thought they became upright as they matured. Dart, for example, started out as this squirmy thing. I thought the bipedal version was the fully mature stage.

[Kel Varnsen]

21 hours ago, CeeBeeGee said:

The UD being stuck 2.5 years in the past is awesome. I don't know why it's stuck there but I love it.

That seems like it will be one of the big mysteries that will need answering. Because if a gate was opened in 1979, what is so special about the 1983 gate?

[Clanstarling]

15 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

That seems like it will be one of the big mysteries that will need answering. Because if a gate was opened in 1979, what is so special about the 1983 gate?

The 1979 gate got bigger and more dangerous as the years went on? I don't know, the 4 years earlier bit has thrown me.