First Things First…
The last episode ends with Hopper about to cut his way through the fencing surrounding the lab. Seems like a bad idea — but with confirmation that that’s not really Will’s body, we’ve got to find out what’s going on. And I’m anxious to find out if the term “Upside Down” will finally come up. This episode puts us more than halfway through the season. And if Hopper really makes it into the lab, it seems like it’s about time.
6 Things I Like
6. Bad Romance
It doesn’t take long for Joyce and Lonnie’s reunion to turn to shit.
I don’t know what to make of Lonnie yet. Joyce calls him out when she realizes he wants to sue for wrongful death, and that he’s only there for the money to “pay off his debts.” And maybe she’s right.
But he says they could use the money for Jonathan to go to school. And if he’s being honest — a big if, I know — he makes a lot of sense. Plus, when he first gets there he seems to genuinely want Joyce to get help.
It’s interesting, though, that as soon as things start going badly, he basically calls her crazy, he calls her a mess, and he even blames her for Will’s death. Compare that to Hopper in the previous episode, who’s so much more compassionate after they find Will’s “body.”
Joyce’s fierceness is also worth noting here. After Lonnie calls her a mess and criticizes the general state of her life — including the Christmas lights — she says…
“Maybe I am a mess. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m out of my mind! But, God help me, I will keep these lights up until the day I die if I think there’s a chance that Will’s still out there!”
5. The Acrobat and the Flea
The episode title is a metaphor Mr. Clarke explains to the boys to describe how we move through space and time — just forward and backward — but how we could move through space and time if we were capable of producing enough energy to tear their fabric.
I probably didn’t explain nearly as well as he does. But it’s still a cool metaphor, and it goes along with the idea that there are infinite parallel universes. And that — theoretically — with that power, someone could travel to them.
4. “Oops… Did I Just Puncture Reality?”
Finally, some answers!
So the connection between the experiments on El at the lab and the presence of the rift leading to the Upside Down is that she opened the rift.
I still don’t quite understand what Brenner was having her do — is he using her as a spy? She’s listening in on a guy speaking Russian, and we’re in the 80’s. I guess he could be a scientist working for the government, trying to find new weapons to win the Cold War.
The scene itself is terrifying if you put yourself in El’s shoes. She’s trapped in the water in that suit while vulnerable to whatever came through. She obviously escaped, but still. I wonder how much time passed between the opening of the rift and her escaping the lab in episode one.
3. Sabotage
I feel for El here. (And for Lucas. He’s probably concussed.) You can see from the start that she wants no part of their plan to find the rift. I don’t know if it’s because of how dangerous the Upside Down is — or how dangerous the lab is. She certainly doesn’t want to go back there.
Her sabotaging their mission puts Mike at odds with Lucas, which seemed inevitable since Lucas can’t stand El. He even says…
“We’re looking for some stupid monster. But did you ever stop to think that maybe she’s the monster?”
It also puts Mike and El at odds again. And as much as I loved their chemistry in the beginning, this is now the second time he’s yelled “what’s wrong with you?” at her when he’s upset with her. No wonder she ditches them.
I assume she’ll find her courage, though, and help them get to where they want to go. And probably come face to face with “Papa” again.
2. Finding the Vale of Shadows
Hopper is great sneaking around the lab. He punches more people out and makes everyone he comes across look like a fool (at least for awhile).
But even cooler is when he gets off the elevator and approaches the rift. It’s at this point that his journey deeper into the lab is narrated by the boys reading the description of the Vale of Shadows from Dungeons & Dragons:
“The Vale of Shadows is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place of monsters. It is right next to you, and you don’t even see it.”
Love that description.
1. Entering Fraggle Rock
Is it just me, or is the Upside Down like Fraggle Rock, but with monsters?
Regardless, it looks like there are multiple ways in and out of the Upside Down. Nancy wanders into one in the woods, after she and Jonathan look to kill the monster.
After all the teases, the darkness and corrosion, and the eeriness of it still resembling the real world, make it genuinely scary…
And scarier still because the rift she went in through starts to close behind her.
2 Things I’m Mixed On
2. A Bit Early for This Lovers’ Spat
Jonathan and Nancy’s partnership passes through phases quickly.
They make some interesting observations and criticisms of one another. Jonathan criticizes Nancy for trying to be someone she’s not, and for thinking she’s rebelling — but in the same way all the other suburban girls think they’re rebelling. And he says she’s gonna wind up just like her parents anyway.
And Nancy criticizes Jonathan for being a pretentious creep. And only now does she bring up how messed up it was to have taken the pictures he took.
But it seems like they should’ve spent more time together and had more of a chance to get sick of one another before this happens.
I have to give them credit for seeing one another clearly, but I don’t buy that they’d be having this conversation at this point in time.
1. Paranoid Hopper
Hopper acts so bizarrely after he wakes up in his trailer. I get being a little paranoid after discovering what he found in the lab, and having been captured by those people. But he seems like a completely different person.
And what actually happened after they finally captured him at the lab? Do they drug him, bring him home, and mess up his place (while bugging it) in the hopes that he’ll wake up in a stupor, not remember what he saw, and assume he went on a bender?
Seems like a hopeful plan, if that’s really what happened.
In the middle of all this craziness, though, I’m intrigued by the phone call he makes to a woman. Is that his ex-wife? I’d guess so, especially because his demeanor changes when he hears a baby crying in the background.
2 Things I Don’t Like
2. What Do They Bury?
Hopper cut open the “body” and pulled out a bunch of fluff last episode. Did they just sew it back up and bury that? There’s no indication at all of anyone discovering what Hopper autopsy. Maybe it’s because he went straight to the lab from there, and that’s where he gets caught. But I would’ve liked more clarity about this.
1. Mike buys into the Upside Down way too fast
Eleven literally only says the words “upside down” and Mike instantly starts filling in the blanks. He remembers her turning the board upside down, and that it’s dark, and then remembers that she took them to Will’s house and said he was there. And he theorizes about the parallel dimension without her explaining anything.
I mean, I get that they all realize something incredibly strange is going on. And he’s right, as it turns out. But that’s a lot to put together on the fly, just from her saying two words.
Final Thoughts
As much as I don’t buy how all the characters act in this episode, we start getting answers. We learn how the rift to the Upside Down opened. And we get to fully see the Upside Down. It was worth peeling this back slowly so they could end the episode this way.
Tim Matassa
