S01.E08: The Upside Down

[Athena]

Description TBA

[luckyroll3]

I really enjoyed this.  Even though, there were elements of ET, It, X-files, etc., it was great.  I laughed, I was scared and sometimes disgusted, I cried.  I liked all the characters, which in itself was strange.  Even the middle and high school bullies, Mike's dumb ass parents, and the "evil" military dudes.  My one gripe was learning that 8 people had disappeared over the course of the week, but everyone else in the town, including the families of the other disappeared, were not freaking the fuck out. 

[SeanC]

Steve, my man, when you showed up at the house I was sure you were fated to be fodder, but you proved to be surprisingly badass.  And you still had the girl at the end (though assuming there's a second season, that's probably going to be revisited; enjoy it while it lasts).

Poor Mike, you started making plans for the future with Elle before the villain was defeated.  Classic mistake, bro.  Again, hold out for next season.

I thought they missed a trick by not giving Matthew Modine's character a more graphic onscreen comeuppance.  Before the monster showed up, I was expecting Elle to kill him.  Speaking of which, I like the change of pace that the boys aren't particularly concerned with Elle's willingness to kill people, seeing as those people are trying to kill them.

The parallelism around Hopper's deceased child was kind of unnecessary.

[lucindabelle]

GlAd the dog survived.

i don't forgive Hopper for giving Elle up even if he did bring her eggos at the end. And why is she called 11? Do we ever learn? Why did they need to tattoo her? And doesn't Els real family deserve t know what happened?

why the hell did they have to be so MEAN to her? Why couldn't they have read stories to her, given her room carpeting etc? What was the point in throwing her into that cell when she wouldn't kill a cat? I mean what child wants to kill a cat?

 

of course I like that there's roo. For a sequel. Much better ths. The contemporary version of ending n a cliffhanger. Room for a sequel shouldn't mean "not finished."

[zxy556575]

I never fully understood what Dr. Brenner et al were trying to get Eleven to do. Eavesdrop on spies? Kill foreign agents? Did they not realize she could turn on them at any time?

The choice of an ending for Eleven was interesting. She could have vanquished the monster and lived, going on to join the Scooby gang in a possible season 2, but having her sacrifice herself to save her friends was more poignant  (and consistent with other 80s movies).

Did I miss a resolution with Barbara?

[SeanC]

1 hour ago, lordonia said:

I never fully understood what Dr. Brenner et al were trying to get Eleven to do. Eavesdrop on spies? Kill foreign agents?

The mission we saw was eavesdropping.  Probably, given her other abilities, they'd have progressed to using her for other things.

Quote

Did I miss a resolution with Barbara?

Elle saw her in her vision in Episode 7.  One of those snake-like things finished its gestation and crawled out of her throat.

Edited July 16, 2016 by SeanC

[ichbin]

23 hours ago, luckyroll3 said:

I really enjoyed this.  Even though, there were elements of ET, It, X-files, etc., it was great.  I laughed, I was scared and sometimes disgusted, I cried.  I liked all the characters, which in itself was strange.  Even the middle and high school bullies, Mike's dumb ass parents, and the "evil" military dudes.  My one gripe was learning that 8 people had disappeared over the course of the week, but everyone else in the town, including the families of the other disappeared, were not freaking the fuck out. 

Seriously agree about all the other missing people!   The show was good in a lot of areas but weak in others too.  

 I think they could have gone a little lighter on the homage moments celebrating earlier works by Spielberg, etc.  and spent some more time giving a better story about Eleven.  Was Matthew Modine actually her father?  

Why did the creature take Mike in the first place?  How was Mike able to hide away from it in the other dimension for so long?  How did the government know Mike had been taken by the creature and then make up a dummy of his body that was apparently identical enough to fool his brother and that the mother asked to see a birthmark? 

What did those snakelike things have to do with the creature?  

The sheriff went off with the government guys and then later was seen leaving food, apparently for Eleven.  It felt like this was supposed to be a limited series and then they decided to tack that on (as well as Mike coughing up that thing)  in case another season was ordered.  

The girl who played Eleven was really good in Intruders. She can do creepy very well.  Her talent was actually kind of wasted in this.  

Edited July 16, 2016 by ichbin
Punctuation

[Azgard12]

Really just have two thoughts:

1) In reviews of the show (before I'd seen it), I kept reading that the ending made no sense and explained nothing.  Uh, pretty much everything made sense (aside from how nobody else seemed to care that their loved ones disappeared).  Did they add scenes or were some reviews (IGN) just kind of dense?

2) Is this going to be an anthology show like American Horror Story?  Or will Season 2 build upon the existing world?

[Blue Plastic]

Oh, is that what Hooper was doing, leaving food for El?  I didn't understand that at all.  They built a little box in which to leave tributes to her?

I, too, want to know what the snake-in-the-mouth creatures had to do with the Monster.  Also why there would be a parallel universe with falling dust and a big creature and weird mouth-snakes that have nothing to eat unless they manage to suck in a person/animal from "our" world.

Also why do the movements of the creature cause lightbulbs in our world to go off in someone's house in our world just because "it" is walking around in the corresponding spot in Upside Down world?  What allowed this creature to travel between worlds?

If they explained any of this, I missed it.

Even though I'm kind of complaining about these loose ends/plot holes, overall I found the series entertaining and the acting was overall very good even though some of the situations were pretty cheesy.  As someone who graduated from high school in the late 1980s, I really enjoyed the 80s feel to everything, even the font used on screen.

[luckyroll3]

19 hours ago, ichbin said:

Why did the creature take Mike in the first place?

I think Mike was just the first person it happened to run into, you know, besides dude killed in the elevator at the facility.

19 hours ago, ichbin said:

How was Mike able to hide away from it in the other dimension for so long?

They said he was a good hider.  And since he wasn't bleeding, the monster probably couldn't track him as well.  That's my hypothesis anyway.

19 hours ago, ichbin said:

How did the government know Mike had been taken by the creature and then make up a dummy of his body that was apparently identical enough to fool his brother and that the mother asked to see a birthmark? 

They were listening in on all the phone calls.  I think they showed that in the 2nd episode, when the mom was trying to call call the dad.  And I don't think the dummy had a birthmark, which is why the mom freaked the fuck out, and said something along the lines of, "I don't know what that thing is, but it is not my son!".  She only believed he was dead after everyone convinced her that she was in denial. 

 

23 hours ago, lordonia said:

I never fully understood what Dr. Brenner et al were trying to get Eleven to do. Eavesdrop on spies? Kill foreign agents? Did they not realize she could turn on them at any time?

Definitely to help spy on the Russians, as everything the government did in the 80s was to defeat the Russians (or so I've learned from TV!).  And eventually as an assassin.

[lucindabelle]

Yeah looked at closely a lot of stuff doesn't make sense. Like how did will in the upside down see the letters on the wall by the lights to light them up? He wasn't even in the house in the upside down.

 

had to be the 80s for Cold War and distance from 70s I guess but yeah it made no sense. 

[SeanC]

39 minutes ago, lucindabelle said:

Yeah looked at closely a lot of stuff doesn't make sense. Like how did will in the upside down see the letters on the wall by the lights to light them up? He wasn't even in the house in the upside down.

He could have been at the time.

[zxy556575]

3 hours ago, luckyroll3 said:

Definitely to help spy on the Russians, as everything the government did in the 80s was to defeat the Russians (or so I've learned from TV!).  And eventually as an assassin.

The writers did miss an opportunity to show that Eleven can speak Russian.

Assuming a season 2, I hope we get more backstory on what I assume are the other 10 subjects. We know who Eleven's mother is, so I think clones are off the table. The tattoo pretty much makes no logical sense except that an allusion to concentration camps is effective shorthand for evil.

[missysays]

28 minutes ago, lordonia said:

The writers did miss an opportunity to show that Eleven can speak Russian.

Assuming a season 2, I hope we get more backstory on what I assume are the other 10 subjects. We know who Eleven's mother is, so I think clones are off the table. The tattoo pretty much makes no logical sense except that an allusion to concentration camps is effective shorthand for evil.

I sort of wondered if the other 10 subjects were dead or eliminated in some way since Eleven was the only one in the facility. She seemed to be the only one who survived the experiments that were run on them.

[zxy556575]

Oh, I definitely assume the first 10 are dead! Like, exploding brain matter dead. Those nosebleeds aren't for nothing.

[lucindabelle]

Did she speak russian? It seemed like someh they could eavesdrop on whatever she heard.

im not sure what the point of bugging the houses was.

and I assumed Hopper was lying to the scientists about giving up the girl but then he did just that.

why hasn't that been called out in the reviews?

[zxy556575]

1 hour ago, lucindabelle said:

Did she speak russian? It seemed like someh they could eavesdrop on whatever she heard.

I was trying to say I wanted to know whether she did or not, but it wasn't shown. :-)

Realistically, she'd be pretty limited as an eavesdropping device for cold war Russia if she didn't understand what they were saying. I could see her forced indoctrination including language training.

[Chaos Theory]

Steve the douchebag turn out to be a semi nice guy and gets the girl in the end.  This kind of reminds me of a couple of Molly Rinwald movies.  Her movies went in both directions so it could go either way but it is likely that Johnathan will win out in the end but it was nice to see Steve confront his even douchebaggier friends.

I honestly don't really care that nobody noticed or cared that people kept disappearing and hand waved it as either a plot device, 80s innocence, or something having to do with the evil science people manipulating them.  Honestly there are bigger fish.,...I am more interested in if Eleven will be back next season and what is happening to Mike.

All in all a very good series.  I loved how the boys kept comparing everything to D&D.  Use what you know even if it doesn't really make sense.  They had to remind each other at times they were not playing a game.   Which seems true for a bunch of boys.  

Edited July 18, 2016 by Chaos Theory

[Silly Angel]

Did the lab create the monster with no face? (And by the way, children, stop describing it that way--it had a huge four-sided gaping maw of death for a face; maybe worth mentioning.) For what purpose? What's the deal with electricity? How did El's powers help it/defeat it/have anything to do with it? What was all that inner organ mess about? How did Dr. Modine (sorry, forgot the character's name--Hawkins?) find El in the first place; did he know she had latent powers or did he recruit her to develop them?

I was on board from the start but by the end I just felt rooked.

[Guest]

Yeah, too many questions without answers and stuff without explanations.  I was viewing the shadow world asking how it kept up if there were no people.  Who built the theater, parked the cars there, etc. Usually a parallel universe has parallel people.  We binged it over the weekend because my 16-year-old was into it but I was kind of bored.  I did like the 1983 timeline.  I graduated from h.s. then.  In fact, Lonny's car was what I drove, though mine didn't look mint like his.  

Was Winona Ryder always an over-actor?  Sheesh, and I hate it when they don't bother to learn how to smoke.  The sheriff actor did a much better job, all around.  And the Eleven girl.  Even Mike did better than Winona.  

The monster looked like a venus fly trap.  

[lucindabelle]

3 hours ago, lordonia said:

I was trying to say I wanted to know whether she did or not, but it wasn't shown. :-)

Realistically, she'd be pretty limited as an eavesdropping device for cold war Russia if she didn't understand what they were saying. I could see her forced indoctrination including language training.

No what I meant was they seemed to somehow be able to listen in on her brain, and I assumed they had a translator,

 

but ut agreed that lots doesn't make sense including the decision to be so cruel to her, not even give her clothing, etc. She literally had zero motivation to help except for fear. Her strongest powers came out due to love. And it doesn't take genius because every war has used propaganda that way, played on people's love of home and country, so the whole cruel scientist thing was just stupid,

[Tarasme]

Not sure that this is necessary but:

Will= kid trapped in the upside down, vomiting suspicious goo and PTSD'ing (or not) the other side at the end.

Mike= Nancy's brother, El's sweet non-brother, willing to jump off a cliff to save his friend.

[Last Time Lord]

On 7/16/2016 at 7:34 PM, Azgard12 said:

Did they add scenes or were some reviews (IGN) just kind of dense?

Well, you know what they say, you can't spell Ignorant without IGN.

[RachelKM]

Goddammit!  Never trust that much denouement.

Anyway, I enjoyed the hell out of this.  I loved all the boys and their friendship.  I adore Dustin.  His hug of Will was the cutest.

Steve started turning it around for me when he got on the ladder.  I was genuinely afraid for him when he dropped his car keys.  I thought he was a goner with all that blood on his face.  Then he came back literally swing.  Well played, NotSoDouchebag Steve!

[DrLar]

Getting an "Aliens" vibe and those slugs will become monsters (season 2?) and Will brought one to this world..

I assume Barb was left in the Upside down, no funeral for her? 

I was so wrong and Nancy ended up with the jock!...

[pfk505]

Gave this show a try amidst all the hype and found myself absolutely loving it. Best written and acted kids I've seen in quite some time, and that includes the older ones (I thought Natalia Dyer was especially great). Plot and story wise it was so effective, episodes did not drag at all and each revealed just enough. Perfectly paced at 8 eps.

The only thing that bothered me was Hopper selling out Eleven at the end. Totally out of character, especially considering his back story. Anyone got an explanation for that?

[miracole]

Good series.  In addition to all of the other movies people said this reminded them of I also got a Little Monsters vibe from this. I liked the kids but I'm annoyed that Barb died because she was being a good friend and Nancy was being a jerk. I thought that picture of her was very poignant, you know until you realize there's a giant monster in the background that's about to eat her. Usually a fan of WR but thought she should have dialed it way back. She was just screechy and annoying for the most part.I think MBB is  a cute girl but I promise once they gave her that "makeover" all I saw was Asa Butterfield in a dress. Ewww, Will is hacking up green slugs, that can't end well.

Edited July 21, 2016 by miracole

[tennisgurl]

  I really enjoyed this, even with Winona Ryder chewing more scenery than the monster. I thought it was well shot and hit that 80s kids movie sweet spot, complete with shady government agents, horny teens, murderous bullies, and plucky kids on bikes. Sometimes the cliches crossed over into...cliche, but never too much. I really want to see what happens next, especially with 11. 

It really sucks that Barb is dead. And what a nasty way to go. Something about stuff getting stuffed into someones throat is just really gross to me. However, I am glad that Steve turned out to be a decent guy. I totally thought they were going with your typical "innocent girl leaves jerk jock for nice loner" story, but I was glad she ended up with Steve. He gets monster ass with that bat. I kind of hope he and Jonathan become friends next season (and maybe that will curb Jonathan's creeper tendencies). 

Hopper selling out 11 sucked, but I guess he thought it was for the greater good. Give up one kid to save others. 

[benteen]

I really enjoyed this too.  I thought the resolution was good and I suspect we'll be seeing more from this show in the future.

I do like how Steve for the most part was a step above being an asshole (not all the time of course, especially with Episode 6).

I didn't buy Hopper selling out Elle either.  I'd like to think he had something planned and this was just him working an angle.

I laughed at Lucas yelling out "Eat shit!" to the soldiers.

Poor Barb.  She deserved better.  Like people in the town actually looking for her.

[janie jones]

On 7/15/2016 at 4:18 PM, luckyroll3 said:

I really enjoyed this.  Even though, there were elements of ET, It, X-files, etc., it was great.  I laughed, I was scared and sometimes disgusted, I cried.  I liked all the characters, which in itself was strange.  Even the middle and high school bullies, Mike's dumb ass parents, and the "evil" military dudes.  My one gripe was learning that 8 people had disappeared over the course of the week, but everyone else in the town, including the families of the other disappeared, were not freaking the fuck out. 

Yeah I couldn't understand why Barb's parents apparently didn't care that she'd been missing for days.

 

On 7/16/2016 at 8:53 PM, Blue Plastic said:

I, too, want to know what the snake-in-the-mouth creatures had to do with the Monster.  Also why there would be a parallel universe with falling dust and a big creature and weird mouth-snakes that have nothing to eat unless they manage to suck in a person/animal from "our" world.

 

On 7/17/2016 at 7:49 PM, Winston9-DT3 said:

Yeah, too many questions without answers and stuff without explanations.  I was viewing the shadow world asking how it kept up if there were no people.  Who built the theater, parked the cars there, etc. Usually a parallel universe has parallel people.  We binged it over the weekend because my 16-year-old was into it but I was kind of bored.  I did like the 1983 timeline.  I graduated from h.s. then.  In fact, Lonny's car was what I drove, though mine didn't look mint like his. 

So I was wondering aloud what the animal ate, and my husband suggested that the creature had eaten everything in the upside-down world.  So maybe that's what happened to all the people?  I would have thought that anything that was built in our world would automatically appear in the upside-down, but that doesn't explain where all of the people and animals are, or how there are different animals in the upside-down.

 

On 7/16/2016 at 8:53 PM, Blue Plastic said:

Also why do the movements of the creature cause lightbulbs in our world to go off in someone's house in our world just because "it" is walking around in the corresponding spot in Upside Down world?  What allowed this creature to travel between worlds?

I think in the episode where Eleven destroyed the tank, when she was on her little walkabout, she found the creature and touched it and that's what allowed it to travel between worlds.

The chief sold Eleven out?  When did that happen?  I missed that.

It bugged me that nothing the teenagers did have any effect on what ended up happening.  I mean, I think the creature was bleeding a little, but that was it.  I wish he had been all mangled when he got to the school.

Edited July 22, 2016 by janie jones

[Primetimer]

Chanel Dubofsky looks back on the arc of Season 1.

View the full article

[withanaich]

Quote

The chief sold Eleven out?  When did that happen?  I missed that.

The chief sold her out when he was in the lab facility. In exchange for being allowed to use the lab's portal (and why didn't anything else come out of that?) to travel to the Upside Down to rescue Will, he told the government people where to find the kids as long as they agreed to only go after El. Definitely seems a little out of character, but maybe he was getting desperate to find Will and convinced himself that they wouldn't really hurt El if they got her back. Or maybe he discussed it with her beforehand, but I don't think so. El seemed just as surprised as anyone to see the bad guys show up at the school.

Quote

 

Getting an "Aliens" vibe and those slugs will become monsters (season 2?) and Will brought one to this world..

 

And now it's in the water supply! Anyone else remember that episode of The X-Files?

Quote

agreed that lots doesn't make sense including the decision to be so cruel to her, not even give her clothing, etc. She literally had zero motivation to help except for fear. Her strongest powers came out due to love. And it doesn't take genius because every war has used propaganda that way, played on people's love of home and country, so the whole cruel scientist thing was just stupid,

I can actually buy this. It seems like a stupid tactic at first, because everyone knows you get more flies with honey than vinegar. But don't forget that Matthew Modine's character (I think it's pretty clear he's not her actual "Papa," just the man who was experimenting on El's mother and kidnapped her as a newborn) wasn't cruel to El 24/7. He made her believe he was her father. He gave her a stuffed animal and things to color with. He pretended to reassure her ("these are all your friends") when she was scared about getting in the tank. Then of course he left her in there when she was terrified, and did lots of other horrible things to her. Of course we know he doesn't give a shit about her, but she doesn't know that. She has no way of knowing. He's all she's ever known. Until she meets the other kids and Joyce, she doesn't know what real kindness looks like. She doesn't know she's supposed to have hair and clothes and go to school. Lab studies have proven that primates, particularly young ones, actually respond best to a combination of cruelty and reward. It's horrible, but that's most likely why Matthew Modine's character (can't remember his name for the life of me) treated her like that.

Quote

Realistically, she'd be pretty limited as an eavesdropping device for cold war Russia if she didn't understand what they were saying. I could see her forced indoctrination including language training.

She didn't need to know Russian. She could remote-view people speaking it and then channel and broadcast them over the lab's speakers. Either the lab had an in-house translator writing it down, or they were recording it for a translator later on. Either way, El didn't need to speak or even understand Russian, as she was just the conduit. Maybe her powers (as well as the monster's and whatever's going on in the Upside Down) have something to do with electricity, and that's how Will was able to use the lights to communicate with Joyce.

Quote

Yeah I couldn't understand why Barb's parents apparently didn't care that she'd been missing for days.

I think at first they didn't know. I keep forgetting how much leeway kids were given back then, especially an older kid/teenager like Barb, who was pretty responsible. First her parents thought she was sleeping over at Nancy's, then they thought she was at school, then they probably thought there was a reasonable explanation why she hadn't come home from school yet. By that point, she was long gone and dead. At one point, I believe we do see them sitting with Nancy and her parents, and they obviously alerted the police, but then the cops found Barb's car at the bus station, so it looked like she ran away. I do think it would have been nice to see their reaction to that news -- did they believe it or not? -- but I guess there just wasn't time. We don't see Dustin or Lucas' parents at all, and they were gone for hours and hours and had bad guys looking for them. It's even weirder that we only see the Hawkins people sequester Mike's family and not the other kids', but then again, maybe that was cut for time.

Another thing that may have been cut was seeing reactions to the other people who went missing (like those dudes in the woods), but we can assume the Hawkins people were covering that up too like they did with the fake body for Will. Maybe there were fake bodies popping up all over town that looked like normal deaths (freezing from exposure, alcohol poisoning, etc.).

Although there were some loose ends, I thought a lot of things were pretty clear. Maybe people are confused because it was SO POORLY LIT. It seems that The Upside Down is just a reflection/mirror of this world, which is why there are buildings, cars, etc. Mike was in his house on that side when he was talking to his mother (which is why he said he was "r-i-g-h-t h-e-r-e"), but he later ran and hid in his fort in the woods (which is where the monster eventually found him). Apparently the monster(s) on that side already killed all the people who were there, as aside from Barb's corpse, we were shown lots of others in various states of decay (but again, it was dark as hell so it was hard to tell). And before El even let the monster out (either by touching it or alerting it to her/our presence so it could rip its way through in search of food), it was seen feeding on something (someone). So there were living humans there at some point in time.

At some point in the Upside Down, something happened and the monsters showed up and started killing people. Honestly, that's what I want a Season 2 for, so we can find out what that "something" is. I think it's either the experiments the Hawkins lab was running on that side that did it, or maybe what El herself did to discharge the monster. I couldn't help noticing that when she destroyed it (and maybe herself) there was a bunch of ash in the air, not unlike the stuff floating around in the air in the Upside Down. So maybe in Season 2, we'll get to see something similar start to happen on this side: monsters being created and starting to pick people off, and the environment getting changed. I also want to know what the long-term effects of Mike's trip to the other side are. Besides coughing up slugs, it looks like he can briefly travel back and forth, but not control it.

From what I understand, the creators have about 30 pages worth of data on the Upside Down and the origins of the monsters. As long as there's not too much interference from business types, we might be able to get a pretty satisfying second season out of this that explains everything.

Edited July 22, 2016 by withanaich

[LucyHoneychrrch]

IMO, the point of the shooting scene with Nancy and Jonathan comes back in the season finale. Nancy talks about how her parents don't really love each other and just wanted a quiet suburban life with no hassles, and fuck that; and then lo and behold, in the last episode, there's ol' Nancy, settling, in more ways than one, on the couch in her suburban quietude with the "right" kind of kid.

The point, to me, was to establish that Nancy initially thinks her parents are assholes; but after her own taste of adventure, realizes that there may be some comfort to be offered in certainty.

That, I think, is why the scene with Will coughing up slugs was so jarring to me, and is why I love this series. The movies of the 80s it tips its hat to all end with neat, packaged happiness. Everyone lives, everyone goes immediately back to the way things were with no emotional or physical consequence. Here, Nancy goes back to the way things were, but she's also giving presents to Jonathan (and, frankly, shouldn't Steve be replacing the camera?). Will goes back to the way things were, but he's also been irrevocably touched by his experiences in a way that none of us, including him, have fully realized yet. And Dustin, Mike and Lucas go back to the way things were, but have lost Eleven; and like it or not, she changed the dynamic of those friendships for good.

[withanaich]

I think the camera actually was technically a gift from Steve? The way he was asking Nancy about it sure made it seem that way. Because he's kinda sorta a nice guy deep down so he wanted to replace what he broke, but he's also enough of an asshole that he doesn't want to admit to Jonathan's face that he was wrong. (Not that Jonathan wasn't also wrong to be spying on Nancy.)

Very good point about Nancy literally "settling" for Steve. I don't either one of those boys are exactly Prince Charming, although Steve seems more likely to grow out of being a douchebag than Jonathan is to grow out of being a creepy weirdo.

[Chaos Theory]

8 hours ago, PreviouslyTV said:

Chanel Dubofsky looks back on the arc of Season 1.

View the full article

Nancy's storyline season 1 is every Molly Ringwald movie if they existed in a horror franchise. 

[Suzysite]

Here's my take on Upside Down world...it didn't even really exist until El touched the monster in her remote viewing session.  She had tapped into another dimension totally unlike ours with no reference point.  Once she and the monster made contact, it had a conduit into a form of our world - but only the part that El had experience with.  They said it had only appeared within a mile or so radius - the parts El had been around.  And the only Our World people it had eaten are the ones we already heard about because Upside Down was a new location, a connection forged between the monster and El. At the end she was able to break that connection, and the monster's access to here by destroying them both.  Without her, it had no more ability to enter our world or even the parallel version.   If it still exists at all, it is back in that blank space where we first saw it. 

[KaleyFirefly]

On 7/16/2016 at 7:34 PM, Azgard12 said:

In reviews of the show (before I'd seen it), I kept reading that the ending made no sense and explained nothing.  Uh, pretty much everything made sense (aside from how nobody else seemed to care that their loved ones disappeared).  Did they add scenes or were some reviews (IGN) just kind of dense?

One part that didn't make sense to me was, why was Sheriff Hopper driving out into the woods to leave Eggos in a random box in the woods? Did he think El was there? Didn't the kids tell him what had happened to her? (And really, what did happen to her? Is she now in the Upside Down place? or just dead?)

Also, if you coughed up a giant slug, wouldn't you be really freaked out and worried? But Will acted like it was no biggie. 

[KaleyFirefly]

Anyway, I still enjoyed this despite the questions at the end, and I hope there will be a Season 2.

[smices]

I think Will is trying to convince himself that he's fine. Or he's keeping it to himself. He's caused enough trouble for his Mom and friends and doesn't want them to worry.

Or the monster gestating inside him is taking over his mind. They showed that clip from "The Thing" for a reason.

[zxy556575]

24 minutes ago, KaleyFirefly said:

Also, if you coughed up a giant slug, wouldn't you be really freaked out and worried? But Will acted like it was no biggie. 

No kidding. I think season 2 will likely have some mind/personality control and strangers among us stuff going on.

[janie jones]

3 hours ago, KaleyFirefly said:

One part that didn't make sense to me was, why was Sheriff Hopper driving out into the woods to leave Eggos in a random box in the woods? Did he think El was there? Didn't the kids tell him what had happened to her? (And really, what did happen to her? Is she now in the Upside Down place? or just dead?)

I think he Knows Something.  I think that's what was indicated by him getting picked up by the bad guys toward the end.  But I don't know what they would have told him at that point.  They can't have known what had happened to her.

[jonesingjay]

On July 16, 2016 at 1:27 PM, lucindabelle said:

 

i don't forgive Hopper for giving Elle up even if he did bring her eggos at the end. And why is she called 11? Do we ever learn? Why did they need to tattoo her? And doesn't Els real family deserve t know what happened?

Maybe, she's the 11th person they've tried this with? Or perhaps maybe they rounded up other people with abilities and she just happened to be number 11? Good question. I hope some light will be shined on in next season. 

[Vella]

Out of everything, Hopper's choice to sell out Elle was definitely jarring. It's hard to know what his motive was, since it wasn't explained, nor was his getting in the car with the two guys outside the hospital or how he came to be responsible for secretly feeding Elle in the woods a month later.  My first impression is that Hopper ultimately realized that with the stun gunning and being trapped in the facility with nobody to rescue them, eventually he or Joyce WOULD spill what they knew about Elle without getting anything in return. They wouldn't be able to rescue Will, all the kids were still in danger and the monster was still around. They could very easily be tortured into talking and ultimately killed. He sacrificed Elle to get Will, to get him and Joyce out of the rooms they were trapped in, possibly forever, and get home.  Maybe he hoped that Elle would be able to hold her own, as we saw her do, and get away with the boys. Maybe it was him hoping that this was the best choice until Will was safe and he and Joyce were out of the facility.  If there is a season 2, and I really hope there is, I fully expect his choice (especially since the kids were wondering about how they were discovered), will come out and for there to be fallout.  I was wondering if the show was ever going to draw a parallel to Hopper/Sarah and Hopper/Elle. Seeing how he's now feeding her, I hope season 2 develops that. Fingers crossed.

[Fretful]

I think everyone believed that Barb ran away- which is why they stopped worrying about her. The deputy said that "State Troopers" found her car at he bus station.

[janie jones]

But still.  Your daughter runs away, and you're like, "Oh well."  I mean, I suppose they could be freaking out off-camera.

[Guest]

Was Barb's family even shown?  

I understand why they minimized her death, from a story standpoint.  They needed a death to make the consequences for Winona's trapped kid more real, but the show wasn't supposed to be a real tearjerker about murdered children.  

Plus with Ryder's panic and grief being so overdone, including another panicked, grieving parent or two would've just killed things entirely, I think.  Look how many viewers complained about Ryder's panic level by itself.  

[Raachel2008]

On 17/07/2016 at 0:53 AM, Blue Plastic said:

Oh, is that what Hooper was doing, leaving food for El?  I didn't understand that at all.  They built a little box in which to leave tributes to her?

I thought that was a gate to the underworld. Hooper knew El was living in the underworld and left food for here. I have no idea how she knew, but I like to think that the government folks who picked up him in the end were good government guys in opposition to the Matthew Modine's team of bad guys.

I imagine Hooper was gambling and thinking a way to save the kids and El. This series doesn't leave room for ambiguity, characters are not Tony Soprano and all his 536342 shades of good/evil; and Hooper is jadded, cinical, etc, but not evil - plus it is too obvious with his past and dead daughter.

I don't think Winona overdid it, I think she was great in portraying a mother whose son is missing and who thinks she is going crazy. For a while I wondered if she was really allucinating and I'm glad she wasn't. However, the writing did no favors to her, because her storyline was almost the same for 8 episodes, so there was a one-note vibe there. Still, I liked her a lot in the role.

The best thing about this show is the cast, these kids are awesome and the adults were perfectly cast even if they didn't have much to do - hello, Matthew Modine, you've aged fiiiiine. 

Speaking about the kids: let's all praise the writing for giving us kids and teens who talk, act and think like children and teens, not like sitcom smartasses.

This cast could have been a tad more diverse or 1983 Hawkins, Indiana was just a waspland? Same with the government? I'm asking because durying the ceremony for Will at the school, all those folks  except Lucas and the principal were white. The government folks except one were all white, and the only Asian was the teacher's GF. They could have given some lines to Lucas' parents, at least.

Pleasantly surprised that Steve turned out to be half-decent, same with Nancy and Steve staying together.

Ten bucks Hooper and Joyce hook up next season.

I was sad, very sad, to watch those 10/12 year old kids biking all around almost until midnight and nobody being that concerned, because you just assumed it was safe - and maybe it was. A different time, indeeed. :(

Overall, I LOVED it. Some parts were extremely predictible, like Nacy being able to shoot well while Jonathan couldn't, the other cops being kinda of dumb, etc, but all in all I had great fun. A lost of questions didn't get answers, but I'm hoping season 2 explain some stuff. 

People say the series is a love letter to Dungeons & Dragons, Stephen King, Spielberg, Goonies, Stand by Me, the 80's in general, but I disagree. I think it was, above it all, a love letter for the kids who enjoyed these things, like Matt and Ross Duffer themselves (who are not 80's kids themselves, but grow up in this universe).

Edited July 26, 2016 by Raachel2008

[caracas1914]

I loved how bad ass Nancy turned out to be, even after Barb was revealed as dead, she double downed on just wanting to Kill the f*** monster, simple as that.  Plus when Steve shows up at the house it was hilarious Nancy wanting to get rid of him as if saying she didn't have time for his dead weight and noncontributory presence.  Nice touch that she assumed he would get his douche self out of there once  there was real danger and he proved her wrong.

Good to see a series with three strong women characters , Joyce (well the mother love part of her, LOL) Nancy and Eleven, who all were willing to risk their lives for something other than  self preservation.  

As to Matthew Modine's character , it makes sense to me how "deprived" he/Harkins  kept El, it was as much for him not to have any emotional attachment to her which would endanger their core mission as far as developing her (from what I could tell) as a weapon.  His almost sadistic awe when she killed those lab people was jarring.

[CofCinci]

Quote

This cast could have been a tad more diverse or 1983 Hawkins, Indiana was just a waspland? Same with the government? I'm asking because durying the ceremony for Will at the school, all those folks  except Lucas and the principal were white. The government folks except one were all white, and the only Asian was the teacher's GF. They could have given some lines to Lucas' parents, at least.

With the exception of Indianapolis and Gary, Indiana is very Caucasian - even more so in 1983.  Hell, many communities had just taken down their "Whites Only After Sundown" signs (research 'Sundown towns of Indiana').  If Hawkins, Indiana is modeled after a town in rural Indiana near the DoD's Jefferson Proving Ground, those were Sundown towns and the population was not diverse.  I live in Urban Cincinnati and commute to work in a rural Indiana clinic each day.  The county where my practice is located (per 2010 census) is 97.5% white, 0.6% black or African American, 0.4% Asian, 0.2% American Indian, 0.1% Pacific islander, 0.3% from other races, and 1.0% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 1.0% of the population.  My older clients grew up remembering Sundown signs -- some of these signs didn't come down until the 1980s/1990s!

I respect the creators' casting vision as it was true to the demographics of that place and time.  A more diverse cast would have felt anachronistic. 

Edited July 27, 2016 by CofCinci

[Armchair Critic]

14 hours ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

 

Was Barb's family even shown?

 

I remember they showed Barb's mom on the phone with Nancy, but I think that's all we were shown of them.