First Things First…
We’re coming off the best episode of the season so far, and we’re crossing the halfway point now. I’m wondering how things will play out with Max now that they saved her from Vecna. Is she really safe? Was his hold over her a one-time thing? Or do they still have to worry about her?
Also, after leaving with Dr. Owens to get her powers back, El wasn’t in the last episode. I assume her story will pick up here. I just hope it’s not the whole episode.
6 Things I Like
6. Doorway to Bunker
I LOVE this aesthetic.
The entire bunker Owens takes El to is underground. But rather than the entrance being a hatch built into the ground, there’s a lone doorway standing tall in the middle of the desert. It’s literally just a door with a few feet of cinder blocks behind it for support. It looks strange but so cool.
5. Max on the Mend
As has happened a few times this season, these characters are asking the same questions I’m asking. In this case, they also don’t know exactly how Vecna’s curse works, so they don’t know if Max is in the clear either. And they’re taking no chances, making her listen to “Running up That Hill” on an endless loop. (Or at least on a 46-minute loop.)
I loved it even more when she wondered—if she listens to the song so much that she gets sick of it, will it still protect her from Vecna? Or will its loss of emotional weight make it worthless?
4. Desperation, Thy Name Is Eddie
“Hey Dustin, this is Eddie the Banished. You there?”
Eddie
Eddie has been largely sidelined since the season premiere because he’s in hiding, so I was glad to get more of him here. Sadly, he feels neglected. And he’s not wrong—they pretty much are neglecting him. Of course, it’s because of their emergency with Max, which he knows nothing about. But it’s put him in a real predicament as Jason and company zero in on his hideout at Reefer Rick’s place.
Eddie is so likeable that seeing him in such dire straits, desperate to figure out what to do so he doesn’t get beaten to death by a bunch of angry jocks with tire irons, is affecting. The suspense really kicks in as he tries to escape on the lake, but the boat’s engine won’t start, so it’s essentially just a rowboat. Ironically, Eddie has Vecna to thank for killing Patrick just as Patrick and Jason are closing in.
3. Hopper’s Self-reflection
Once again, in a storyline I generally dislike, we get a great scene. Now that Hopper is locked up again—with Enzo this time—he blames himself for putting Joyce in harm’s way by ever trying to hatch an escape plan in the first place.
But more than that, he tells Enzo this whole backstory about getting drafted to Vietnam, suffering long-term consequences of inhaling Agent Orange, and how that’s the reason his daughter wound up dying from cancer. He says he knew the risks because his friends who made it back were suffering similar pregnancy issues. He hid himself in drugs and alcohol after Sara died and his wife left him.
He also mentions that he didn’t mind going off to war in the first place because he could finally prove to his dad he’s not the piece of shit his dad thought he was.
Bringing it back to the present, he says…
“And then people started coming into my life. This girl El, and Joyce just happened, and I told myself they needed me. But that wasn’t true. That’s a lie. They didn’t need me. I needed them. I needed them.”
Now he believes he has sentenced Joyce to death, just like he did Sara. And he ends his monologue by saying…
“Everyone I love I hurt. I was wrong this whole time. I wasn’t cursed. I am the curse.”
It’s a powerful scene. We don’t usually get so much introspection from Hopper, though this feels like it’s been on his mind and on his heart for a long time.
It still doesn’t make all the meandering worthwhile. But at least he’s helping save a storyline I wouldn’t otherwise like at all.
2. Infiltrating Vecna’s Mind
It didn’t occurr to me last episode that, once Max reached the reddish hellscape, she was someplace Vecna didn’t actually want her. Dustin has a pretty cool theory…
“Maybe you infiltrated his mind. He invaded your mind, right? Is it that big of a leap to suggest you somehow wound up in his? Like Freddie Krueger’s boiler room!”
He continues…
“What if you somehow unlocked a backdoor to Vecna’s world?
I assume they wouldn’t raise this possibility if it wasn’t right—at least to some degree. It feels a lot like Occlumency in Harry Potter, with Harry and Voldemort breaking into each other’s minds at different points. And it makes me think Max will be the key to defeating Vecna in the end. I’m on board.
1. Entering the Nest of Evil
I’m disappointed it takes them so long to check the attic. Not only does that seem like the most obvious place to find something scary or evil, but Victor Creel even told Robin and Nancy he believed Vecna was nesting there.
Aside from that, I love the investigation in the Creel house. It’s crazy-spooky, plus we see all the things from the visions of Vecna’s victims—the grandfather clock, the black widow, and the stained-glass window.
There’s also a cool scene where the lights give away Vecna’s position in the house—only he’s on the other side, in the Upside Down—and they follow the flickering to the attic. Ultimately, all the lights shatter as Vecna kills Patrick.
But before they follow him, it gets really creepy for a moment as they start asking if Vecna can hear or see them. They believe he’s there, but they really don’t know if he knows they’re there, too, or if he can harm them.
Of course, this entire investigation comes at poor Eddie’s expense. But for our purposes, it’s well worth it.
4 Things I’m Mixed On
4. Jason Sees the Truth (Hopefully)
I’ve been lukewarm at best on the storyline of the jocks hunting Eddie, and busting skulls of any of his freak friends who get in their way. Really, the only reason I’ve liked it at all is because it gave Lucas a chance to step up.
Now, this episode ends with Patrick being killed in vintage Vecna style right in front of Jason, as they close in on Eddie on the lake.
I don’t need Jason to join the team and suddenly become a good guy. But being that he watches his friend’s bizarre death right in front of him—with Eddie clearly not responsible—maybe he’ll realize he’s been wrong, and Eddie can explain this is exactly what happened to Chrissy, too.
On the other hand, if he can’t wrap his mind around what he’s seeing, Jason may blame Eddie anyway. He says earlier in the episode that he doesn’t believe in “supernatural crap,” but if he thinks Dungeons & Dragons really involves witchcraft and spellcasting, and then he witnesses this, blaming Eddie for both deaths might be the only way he can make sense of it.
3. The Pain of Opening Up
“Sometimes I think it’s just scary to open up like that. To say how you really feel. Especially to people you care about the most. Because, what if… what if they don’t like the truth?”
Will
I’m getting the sense more and more that, even though Will and Mike are back to being BFF’s, they’re still not entirely on the same page. Because Will isn’t opening up to Mike about how he truly feels about him.
I like them as best friends, and I don’t want that friendship to feel diminished if Will only starts looking at Mike as someone he’s in love with.
But it would make for an interesting dynamic. And it seems totally reasonable for this to happen (assuming Will is gay, which I don’t think they’ve ever said explicitly).
Right now, I don’t have a sense of whether or not I like this. But I’m curious where it goes.
2. Sensai Murray Brings Down a Plane
Murray really is a badass with his karate skills. Who knew?!
I can’t knock how funny it is watching him put his black belt to good use in taking out Yuri. But this storyline continues to meander. I hate sounding like a broken record about it, but what else can I say when they keep stalling?
1. Experiments with El
I really hoped Brenner was only back in the flashbacks. I really did. But here he is, in the present, working with Owens.
He sticks El in the Nina machine—against her will, I might add—and forces her relive the same memory again and again. It’s boring for awhile, because we keep seeing the same thing.
In the end, I guess whatever they did worked. El seems to have regained her powers, though she can’t control them or summon them at will. And of course, only Brenner knows how to help her. I can wait and see before judging this aspect of the story. Hopefully it makes sense—and gets her away from Brenner sooner than later.
The thing that saves these scenes for me, though, is the orderly. He has a Tom Riddle vibe. He’s charming toward El, but there’s something blatantly sinister lurking just below the surface. My first thought was that he looks like a serial killer. But then I realized, they still have a massacre at the lab to explain. I haven’t been terribly invested in that story. But now that I have a theory that this guy might’ve been responsible, I’m more eager to find out.
1 Thing I Don’t Like
1. Putting the Pieces Together
It’s one thing for Nancy to recognize the stained-glass window with a rose in Max’s “incredibly vague drawing” …
But it’s another for her to piece together probably 15 drawings, knowing exactly what kind of odd angles to fold each one at, so they fit together and create the shape of the Creel house. It looks impressive as she does it, but what is she even spotting? How does she know to do it—and so quickly?
Tim Matassa
