Stranger Things - 'Chapter 6: The Monster', 'Chapter 7: The Bathtub' and 'Chapter 8: The Upside Down'

The Monster

Okay; it's time to wrap up another one, as I address the last three episodes of the astonishingly eighties Stranger Things. I'm going to try to be brief.

In 'The Monster' Nancy escapes from the tree with Jonathan's help. They have a plan to go a-hunting for the monster, but Steve sees them together and his friends paint the town with graffiti accusing her of being a slut and him of being a perv, which precipitates a fist fight and arrest. Steve goes on to come good, realising that his buddies are colossal dicks, but this delays the monster hunt until Hop and Joyce get back from visiting a woman who claimed that her daughter went missing instead of miscarrying, and believed - before she became catatonic - that her daughter had powers. Hop links this to reports of a girl with short hair telekinetically wrecking our favourite knife wielding junior high bullies. It is during this confrontation that Elle admits to having opened the gate that let the monster through, and states that she is a monster.

This is the end...

This brings all of our heroes together for 'The Bathtub', with Nancy radioing Mike to arrange a meetup and Hop rescuing the kids from Hawkins' goons, because it turns out he is some kind of ludicrous badass. They put together an impromptu iso-tank to float Elle in, so that she can focus enough to locate Will and Barb. She finds the former in the Upside-Down version of Castle Byers, but the confirms that the latter is 'gone', actually seeing her dead with things crawling out of mouth, which is pretty yick; like... Exorcist level ick.

Either at the end of this one or the beginning of 'The Upside Down', Hop and Joyce head to Hawkins to storm the gate, while Nancy and Jonathan go monster hunting at last. With help from Steve, Nancy and Jonathan bludgeon, trap and burn the monster, but it vanishes back into the Upside Down. Hop and Joyce are caught, but Hop trades Elle's location and their silence on Hawkins' involvement, in exchange for being allowed in to find Will and a promise to leave the boys out of it.

"Your soul is mine!"

Goons descend on the school and Elle kills a shitload of them - seriously, like... 90% of the casualties in this series are Elle-inflicted - and the blood attracts the monster, which kills the rest of the goons before going after the kids. The boys make a ludicrous stand with a catapult, but Elle steps in and makes it explode. However, this costs her all of her energy and she vanishes along with the monster, leaving Mike devastated, if marginally less confused.

Joyce and Hop rescue Will and bring him home, but a mystery car picks up Hop, implying that there was more to his deal than he let on. Nancy is happy for Will, but sad for Barb.

Oh.

Some months later, at Christmas, the boys reach the end of another campaign, in a scene which suggests that they are expecting more than just monster killing now. Jonathan comes to collect Will and receives a new camera from Nancy (and, unspoken, from Steve, who is dating Nancy,) and all seems happy. Except that Hop is leaving food for someone or something in the woods, and before Christmas dinner, Will coughs up a slug and flashes momentarily into the Upside Down.

To be continued...

Stranger Things is a glorious love letter to eighties scifi horror, and - coming back to something I mentioned talking about The Exorcist - it is much more horror than a lot of more conventionally horror-themed series which focus on pretty vampires making out. Although initially the female characters occupy the conventional roles of the 1980s, they grow through the series into strong and dynamic roles, and while it's a small thing, the fact that Nancy continues her relationship with the chastened Steve - and the fact that Steve is complex enough to be chastened - is important.

Overall, the series walks the line between loving the eighties and being the eighties very well, although the boys seem a little too okay with Elle melting people's eyeballs. I especially felt that Mike's confusion over his relationship with Elle and the conflicting desires to bring her into his family and take her to the Snow Ball was very well played. This is perhaps unsurprising, as Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown are the stand outs of this series, bringing a real intensity to Mike and Elle and their relationship.