S02.E01: Chapter One: MADMAX

[HunterHunted]

A couple of random things that I have to point out as a Pittsburgher. I don't think there is a single Main Street in the city limits. I think there is a Poplar, but it's super short. When 008 said there's a tunnel nearby, that would be like saying there's a road in any other city. Pittsburgh is filled with bridges and tunnels. There are so many of them that they often have places for you pull off if you get too freaked out to go through a tunnel, you can ring to have someone drive you through.

[Unclejosh]

In Massachusetts here and it was always called KFC in conversation ever since I was a little kid (born in 72). The only time you ever heard the words Kentucky Fried Chicken was from the tv ads but nobody every called it that in real life.  McDonald's was called McD's, Burger King was BK.  I guess we liked our abbreviations a whole lot back in the 80's. Papa Gino's was actually called Papa Guineas which looking back is all kinds of wrong and offensive but no one knew better back then.  The first time I heard it called that was actually from my friend's grandfather who was born in Italy.  So weird looking at it with 2017 eyes.

[The Companion]

On 10/29/2017 at 9:33 AM, marceline said:

Same. Kentucky Fried Chicken didn't officially rebrand as KFC until 1991. I never heard them referred to as KFC before that.

Just to add to the KFC discussion, we definitely called it KFC when I was a kid. The only time I used the name Kentucky Fried Chicken was in a little song we did in choir, and it always seemed weird to me to say the full name. This would have been 1987ish. I think we can mark it as plausible. I do always love the way this show gets us all talking about our very different experiences of the 80s and the regional customs and dialects.

I am SO HAPPY this show is back. We can't binge watch it, so I am stuck watching it an episode or two at a time, which is hard. I was so excited to see Eleven at the end, and I loved that last season's events had lasting effects (rather than being largely glossed over). I was excited to see Sean Astin and I feel like Joyce deserves a a nice guy who treats her well, even if I don't see it lasting. I was intrigued by the introduction of 008. I had assumed the first 10 were dead. It opens up the world significantly, but I appreciate that they kept the sense of place, at least in the first episode. 

I was amused that the kids are still left to run around on their own (other than Will). I am really excited to see where we go from here. 

[Unclejosh]

Back to the show, I really enjoyed episode 1. I cannot binge watch due to my current work schedule but I hope to finish over the rest of the week.  I did have some weird issue connecting with Eleven due to the difference in what a little hair makes but also how Millie Bobbie Brown looked at the recent premier.  Like a totally different person so I kept focus on how she looked rather than the character. I am hoping that goes away as I get more engrossed in the story.

 

On a kinda shallow note, since I have not seen Sean Astin in a while and was kinda taken back at his weight did anyone else flash to this scene?

 

Kinda mean but that was my first reaction when I saw him.

[Happywatcher]

On 10/29/2017 at 10:33 AM, marceline said:

Same. Kentucky Fried Chicken didn't officially rebrand as KFC until 1991. I never heard them referred to as KFC before that.

In the 80s they were still commonly called Col Sanders, never heard KFC back then

[mledawn]

On 10/30/2017 at 7:49 PM, HunterHunted said:

A couple of random things that I have to point out as a Pittsburgher. I don't think there is a single Main Street in the city limits. I think there is a Poplar, but it's super short. When 008 said there's a tunnel nearby, that would be like saying there's a road in any other city. Pittsburgh is filled with bridges and tunnels. There are so many of them that they often have places for you pull off if you get too freaked out to go through a tunnel, you can ring to have someone drive you through.

Whaaat!? Someone to drive you through!? Wow. Now that is service.

[Unclejosh]

19 hours ago, Happywatcher said:

In the 80s they were still commonly called Col Sanders, never heard KFC back then

Regional terms are so interesting to me. I have never heard any call it Col Sanders.  That wold be like calling Wendy's Dave's because he was the guy in the commercials to me.  Love this type of info.

BTW, it never made sense to me why the word Colonel is pronounced Kernel.

[nodorothyparker]

I do remember it occasionally being referred to as "the Colonel."  There's an old Married With Children episode from maybe three years after this episode is set where Bud walks into the house carrying a container yelling "Hey guys, the Colonel's here."   I figured they could probably get away with that at a time when most shows went out of their way to only use plain labeled products marked as "soda" or "milk" to avoid paying royalties because the Colonel was not its official name even if we all knew what they meant.  Well, that, and in the story line it clearly wasn't KFC anyway.

Yes, I watched a lot of sitcoms as a kid.

[milizard]

RE:  KFC.  I'm from lower Michigan, was just about the same age as the younger kids in this show in 84, and it was always called Kentucky Fried Chicken until closer to 1990.  

[Happywatcher]

4 hours ago, Unclejosh said:

Regional terms are so interesting to me. I have never heard any call it Col Sanders.  That wold be like calling Wendy's Dave's because he was the guy in the commercials to me.  Love this type of info.

BTW, it never made sense to me why the word Colonel is pronounced Kernel.

Yes, we drink pop here in place of soda, too.

Colonel is Old Italian, and never got softened into English the same way Caesar did.

[Unclejosh]

Yeah I heard pop used here too although not nearly as much as soda.  It was usually only used when referring to fruit flavored soda. Orange pop, grape pop as examples.

[VCRTracking]

"Coke" here in the Bay Area.

One of the things that always bothered me about last season's finale was Hopper selling out the kids to the lab by telling them they were at the middle school. I get why he did it. He had to help Joyce find Will and it was one kid's life over the other and he knew that they at least wanted Eleven alive. I wish though they had one moment of hesitation. They probably wanted to show how decisive and pragmatic he was.

When it looked like she died though he had to have felt guilty about it.

So when he found her I think his initially helping and hiding her was relieving that guilt and trying to do right by this child.

ETA: Just found snippet of interview Duffer Brothers did last year where they said that yes, Hopper did feel guilty for selling her out!

Edited November 2, 2017 by VCRTracking

[Meowwww]

In 1985 there was a restaurant near my work.  We called it KFC

[Armchair Critic]

I don't remember people referring to it as "KFC" until the early 90's, I also live in lower Michigan.

Edited November 4, 2017 by Armchair Critic

[SparklesBitch]

On 10/29/2017 at 9:40 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I love that the show puts so much effort into getting the details of the 80s right. That paper cup dispenser in Will's bathroom was the winner in this episode.

Awwww, Hopper and Eleven having tv dinners together warmed my cold dead heart.

I was wondering if someone else would mention the cup dispenser! When I was a kid we had the exact same one in our upstairs bathroom for years. I love all the little 80’s details. Also, the Reagan/Bush ‘84 sign at the very beginning.....=) 

I went into this season completely unspoiled, so I was thrilled to see that Hop is keeping an eye on Eleven. I loved them eating TV dinners together too. I wish they’d find a way to let Mike know that she’s okay, poor kid. He could use a break. 

On 10/29/2017 at 10:45 AM, EarlGreyTea said:

Speaking of Barb's parents, they broke my heart. I loved that it seemed that Nancy and Steve were eating with them on a regular basis. The dad being gruff, the mom smiling through her tears - my God. The casting director already deserves a medal, but they continue to earn the hell out of their paycheck in the casting of the smaller roles.

Oh, Barb’s poor parent broke my heart! And Nancy can’t say anything while they sell their house to pay for the investigator. Kudos to Nancy for continuing to visit them even though it’s gotta be killing her. 

On 10/30/2017 at 0:54 PM, MaggieG said:

I loved Steve saying "It's finger-lickin good" to break the tension.

Yes! He cracked me up! 

Overall, I’m so happy this show is back! I’m trying not to binge all at once so that I can stretch it out and make it last longer, but it’s so hard to resist temptation. 

I’m intrigued by the addition of 008 and Max and very excited to see where that goes. I know that we haven’t properly met Max yet, but she won me over with her note for the boys. As someone upthread said, I like that they’re more impressed than angry at her beating them at the arcade game. 

I’m expecting Paul Reiser to be totally evil, and for the relationship between Sean Astin and Joyce to fail. 

Also, Dustin’s mom made me smile, if for no other reason than because of her clear devotion to her cat. I feel that she may be where my future is headed.....since my own orange tabby was snoozing in my lap while I was watching this episode. =)  

Edited November 5, 2017 by SparklesBitch
Additional thoughts...

[methodwriter85]

Quote

Oh, Barb’s poor parents broke my heart!

Barb being an only child makes SO much sense. They tend to be more mature and they tend to be overachievers. They also tend to be a little bit awkward with age peers. And the photos reminded me of when I went to this childhood house of an upper-middle class guy who was an only child for a New Year's party. His photos were plastered EVERYWHERE.

[VCRTracking]

On 11/4/2017 at 10:18 PM, methodwriter85 said:

Quote

Oh, Barb’s poor parents broke my heart!

Barb being an only child makes SO much sense. They tend to be more mature and they tend to be overachievers. They also tend to be a little bit awkward with age peers. And the photos reminded me of when I went to this childhood house of an upper-middle class guy who was an only child for a New Year's party. His photos were plastered EVERYWHERE.

I honestly think if #JusticeForBarb hadn't been such a big thing last year, she would have gotten probably just a passing mention in a line of dialogue in season 2 and that's it. It's one of the positives of internet.

Clips from Beyond Stranger Things and an appearance by Barb herself,l Shannon Purser:

Spoiler

 

Edited November 7, 2017 by Athena
Added spoiler tag

[CathieA]

On 10/28/2017 at 1:12 PM, Blue Plastic said:

Well, they did not call themselves KFC back then like they do now, and I never called it KFC at the time.  I never heard anyone call it KFC, certainly not the company itself, at that time but like you said it may be regional or just personal habit, like some people calling it McD's even though McDonald's does not call itself that as its official name.

It's probably regional.  In my part of Michigan, McDonald's is often MickeyD's.  I think I first heard that back in the 1980s.

[Booger666]

On 11/1/2017 at 2:52 PM, milizard said:

RE:  KFC.  I'm from lower Michigan, was just about the same age as the younger kids in this show in 84, and it was always called Kentucky Fried Chicken until closer to 1990.  

That’s so funny bc I am also from lower MI and we called it KFC in the ‘80s.  The Knights of Columbus was also big in my area so it was always confusing if people were going to KFC or KofC for dinner unless they spoke really slowly.

[milizard]

8 hours ago, Booger666 said:

That’s so funny bc I am also from lower MI and we called it KFC in the ‘80s.  The Knights of Columbus was also big in my area so it was always confusing if people were going to KFC or KofC for dinner unless they spoke really slowly.

I'm on the west side.  Haven't heard anyone call Knights of Columbus KofC before, either.  That's pretty funny.

[mahree]

21 hours ago, Booger666 said:

That’s so funny bc I am also from lower MI and we called it KFC in the ‘80s.  The Knights of Columbus was also big in my area so it was always confusing if people were going to KFC or KofC for dinner unless they spoke really slowly.

I grew up in the Detroit area (graduated from college in 1986) and we always called it KFC.  

[Hanahope]

Ok I know Paul Riser is playing a villain or bad guy of some sort.  Same smarmy look that he used in Aliens.

poor Barbs parent wasting their money and selling their house to pay a scam private detective.  I’m trying to remember, how do they know for sure the creature killed Barb?  Did they find her shoe or something?

Edited November 18, 2017 by Hanahope

[Cattie]

6 hours ago, Hanahope said:

Ok I know Paul Riser is playing a villain or bad guy of some sort.  Same smarmy look that he used in Aliens.

poor Barbs parent wasting their money and selling their house to pay a scam private detective.  I’m trying to remember, how do they know for sure the creature killed Barb?  Did they find her shoe or something?

Hopper saw her body in the Upside Down, just before he and Joyce found Will.

[Absurda]

I'm from California and, while I don't recall when we started calling it KFC, I do recall it was well before the company rebranded themselves as KFC. I always figured they rebranded because everyone called it that anyway.

I love seeing all the 80's details. I was a kid in the 80's, a bit younger than the mains but it's still a lot of fun. When I saw Max's brother I got a total Lost Boys vibe and, yeah, he'd be totally hot in 1984.

[jhlipton]

On 10/27/2017 at 2:48 PM, Kel Varnsen said:

I like that Will has been sharing what he has been seeing with people and they have been trying to get him help. In a lot of shows he would keep quiet and it would get out in the worst way possible at some point midseason. Although i do wonder if his mom and or Paul Reiser just think it is all just in his head or if this is actually something from the upside down.a total agressive asshole about it.

On 10/27/2017 at 1:06 AM, thuganomics85 said:

Will seems to still have some connection to the Upside Down world, and is having visions off possibly an even worse creature showing up to cause shit.  Poor Will!  The kid just can't catch a break!

So, in the opening bank heist: the woman who made the cop think the tunnel collapse, had an Eight tattooed on her arm just like Eleven has her number on hers, right?

If it was me, and I knew about the Upside Down, and Will told me what he saw, my first reaction wouldn't be "PTSD" but :Oh shit, is it BACK????"
 

008 looked more masculine thane feminine to me..  But I see that the character is played by a woman, so I was wrong.

On 10/27/2017 at 1:20 PM, VCRTracking said:

I was unsure of this new girl Max but her note to the guys "Quit watching me, creeps!" endeared her to me.

It was "Quit stalking me, creeps!"  Even better than "watching"!

 

On 11/18/2017 at 4:53 PM, Cattie said:

Hopper saw her body in the Upside Down, just before he and Joyce found Will.

I think that since Hopper knows that Barb is dead, he saw a dispatch from another town saying that a body was found and cremated.  Her face was part of the dispatch, so he knew it was Barb.  A nice lie, not even all that far from the truth, that would give her parents closure.

[Whimsy]

On 10/31/2017 at 0:56 PM, The Companion said:

Just to add to the KFC discussion, we definitely called it KFC when I was a kid. The only time I used the name Kentucky Fried Chicken was in a little song we did in choir, and it always seemed weird to me to say the full name.

I wonder if it’s the same song my kids learned in elementary school? I don’t remember the whole song, only “McDonalds, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut” all accompanied by arm movements lol.

All the “stalker”talk seemed a bit out of time, though. I feel like referring to someone as a “stalker”wasn’t a thing in the ‘80’s

[Clanstarling]

2 hours ago, Whimsy said:

All the “stalker”talk seemed a bit out of time, though. I feel like referring to someone as a “stalker”wasn’t a thing in the ‘80’s

You may be right. The actress whose death helped prompt the first anti-stalking laws was killed in 1989 by a stalker (Rebecca Shaeffer). I don't remember if the term was used prior to the late 80's, and couldn't find anything that referenced when it began to replace other terms used. I thought she was murdered closer to the mid-80's, but I was wrong. Memory's a funny thing.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Clanstarling

[Dev F]

1 hour ago, Clanstarling said:

You may be right. The actress whose death helped prompt the first anti-stalking laws was killed in 1989 by a stalker (Rebecca Shaeffer). I don't remember if the term was used prior to the late 80's, and couldn't find anything that referenced when it began to replace other terms used. I thought she was murdered closer to the mid-80's, but I was wrong. Memory's a funny thing.

I did a quick search on Google Books and Newspapers.com, and it's clear that stalker wasn't yet a common slang term by the mid-1980s. But I can find a few newspaper articles about criminal profiling that use the term to refer to killers who obsessively follow their victims. And there's a description of the film Prom Night in a 1983 TV listing that refers to it as "a 'stalker' movie about three girls who get mysterious, threatening telephone calls." The quotation marks indicate that it's not a term the paper expected the reader to be familiar with, but the lack of additional explanation suggests that the paper did expect readers to comprehend what the term implied, probably because the notion of a killer being like a hunter stalking his prey was pretty easy to understand.

So, yeah, the term seems somewhat anachronistic, in the sense that you probably wouldn't have multiple kids casually using the word to describe obsessive behavior. But it's not impossibly anachronistic, in that it's conceivable they picked up the term somewhere, and that even the characters who weren't familiar with the term could intuit what it meant.

[Taryn74]

1 hour ago, Clanstarling said:

You may be right. The actress whose death helped prompt the first anti-stalking laws was killed in 1989 by a stalker (Rebecca Shaeffer). 

I remember when that happened!

[The Companion]

On 12/10/2017 at 9:12 AM, Whimsy said:

I wonder if it’s the same song my kids learned in elementary school? I don’t remember the whole song, only “McDonalds, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut” all accompanied by arm movements lol.

All the “stalker”talk seemed a bit out of time, though. I feel like referring to someone as a “stalker”wasn’t a thing in the ‘80’s

That's the one.

[festivus]

Finally getting to watch the show. It's not good for me though because I spend all my time looking at everything since I was an 80's teen and I miss half the the story that's going on. The high school scenes are funny to me because of those skirts everyone was wearing. I had skirts just like that but no one would be caught dead wearing them to school. Also to weigh in on the KFC thing; I worked there in 1983 and we never called it KFC. This is in south, Nashville TN. I remember bringing home the buckets to keep my junk in. I had also forgotten all about that Dragon's Lair game. I love this show. What bothered me most is Mike's mom telling him he had to get rid of two boxes of toys. My first thought was oh man I bet he'll be putting all kinds of cool He-Man toys in there. It was killing me! I don't even know what to say about the actual episode, this is why watching this show is bad for me. It just makes me think of how I miss the arcade.

On 12/10/2017 at 9:12 AM, Whimsy said:

All the “stalker”talk seemed a bit out of time, though. I feel like referring to someone as a “stalker”wasn’t a thing in the ‘80’s

I don't know if it was common but I had a stalker and that's what I called him. This was in 1986 though.

Edited January 29, 2018 by festivus

[Darian]

I don't know if this commercial really aired in 1985, but the clothes and hair look right for that time and they say, "KFC."

[foxfreakinmulder]

Starting my season 2 rewatch and all I can say is, hello Steve and your lovely hair :-)

Yuck. Billy is on my screen.

Love Johnathan's relationship with Will.

Murray and your crazy Russian talk. Or is it?

Joyce looks better and Bob is fun.

Poor Will, here we go again.

[Gothish520]

On 10/30/2017 at 5:27 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I just wouldn't want a picture of a missing teenager staring at me while I was pooping, the same way I wouldn't want a picture of my parents facing towards me while I was having sex. I'm all for family photos, but I prefer to keep them elsewhere.

Just finished binging the series, (which is freaking AWESOME) and had to comment on this. A couple of years ago, my dear mother-in-law redecorated her main bathroom and installed a small white shelf to the left of the sink. On it, she put a framed picture of her and her three sisters. On our first visit after the redecorating, my husband exited the bathroom and informed his mother that he did not want to stare at a picture of her and his aunts while doing his business. She proceeded to poll a few others in the room, who pretty much agreed with my husband - there's been a picture of a generic kitty there ever since. 😄

Edited August 12, 2019 by Gothish520

[Jayseadubs]

Not sure if anyone touched on this, I’m new, but at about 33:00 minutes into episode 2 season 1 when Nancy’s on the phone, her mom calls  Nancy down for dinner but it sounds like she says  “Natalie, dinners ready”. I know her name is Natalia but maybe she goes by Natalie some times when not filming?

[Nashville]

On 12/10/2017 at 11:27 AM, Clanstarling said:

You may be right. The actress whose death helped prompt the first anti-stalking laws was killed in 1989 by a stalker (Rebecca Shaeffer). I don't remember if the term was used prior to the late 80's, and couldn't find anything that referenced when it began to replace other terms used. I thought she was murdered closer to the mid-80's, but I was wrong. Memory's a funny thing.

Shaeffer’s death was the first to legitimately push the term “stalking” into the legal arena, but the term was already around before that.  The first time I remember hearing “stalking” in a similar context was around 1982-83, in reporting on the death of Dominique Dunne (the “older daughter” in the original Poltergeist) at the hands of an obsessed ex-boyfriend.

[Clanstarling]

7 hours ago, Nashville said:

Shaeffer’s death was the first to legitimately push the term “stalking” into the legal arena, but the term was already around before that.  The first time I remember hearing “stalking” in a similar context was around 1982-83, in reporting on the death of Dominique Dunne (the “older daughter” in the original Poltergeist) at the hands of an obsessed ex-boyfriend.

I do remember Dominique. That was so sad. The little girl in the movie died very young too. It seemed like a cursed movie (if I believed in such a thing).

[Taryn74]

Interesting, I'm doing a rewatch right now and reading through the episode threads as I go, and I noticed that the note that Max tosses in the trash can says "Stop spying on me creeps" but people in the thread are commenting that it said "Stop stalking me" - I wonder if the original posters were remembering it wrong, or if they changed it in between then and now?