Stranger Things - Holly Jolly

So at the onset of Stranger Things, a child named Will comes across a creature while bicycling home. His mother and brother have been topsy-turvy and under quite the strain. Will’s buddies are out there trying to find him as are the Hawkins’ Police Dept. it is all tied to the Hawkins Lab, headed by the enigmatic Dr. Martin Brenner. He’s conducting experiments of some kind, including telepathic testing on a girl, Eleven. In Holly Jolly, Eleven flashbacks to when Brenner was testing her mind reactions to a hissing cat and later resists being returned to a windowless cell by hurling one orderly into the wall (causing a crater-sized fracture) and snapping the other orderly’s neck. Brenner responds by carrying her in his arms down the hall, as if cradling a newborn, Eleven’s face bleeding from the use of her power. As far as Mike and his pals, they were hoping Eleven would help them find Will alive. Will’s mom, Joyce, believes she hears her son across the phone and through electrical devices, but after stringing Christmas lights throughout her home, it isn’t her son communicating to her but the creature coming out of some alternate dimension from her wall, seemingly the same creature that drags Barb into an alternate version of Steve’s pool. There is still a lot not quite explained and it all points to Brenner and his lab. The ending is not what Mike would have hoped for or Sheriff Hopper. Will’s lifeless body plucked from a lake at the bottom of a mountainous terrain is certain to rock the sleepy Hawkins town.

At the opening of the episode Nancy gives her virginity to Steve while  Barb is trying to escape from the clutches of the show’s otherworldly (or experiment gone wrong?) monster. Throughout the episode Nancy appears perhaps regretful for this decision but tells her mom, upon returning home afterward, that “nothing happened”. The next day Nancy feels the eyes of all the students upon her as she walks into school to her locker. Steve has a big smile, and their friends can’t help but mock the sexual encounter in the lunch area. Will’s brother, Jonathan, is a loner. He’s in pain, under severe stress as his mother gradually goes mad, and has a deadbeat dad. And, with all that, Jonathan deals with Steve and his entourage, the “cool kids”. Jonathan doesn’t need their nagging and bullying. Some photos were taken of Nancy during the previous night while out looking for Will, coming to life in the red room, Jonathan is told on by the girl who catches him to Steve. So Steve and his entourage break Jonathan’s camera, call him a stalking creep, rip up his photos, and tell Nancy of his fixation with her specifically. So Jonathan’s bad day just grew progressively worse into an absolute nightmare as his brother is found drowned. Nancy continues to look for Barb, reporting to her mother (she calls Barb’s mother, realizing she never returned home, later finding Barb’s abandoned car and hearing something rustling in the woods) that she feels something bad happened to her. I think you can tell Nancy looks at Jonathan sympathetically, but the pictures certainly added awkwardness between the two unexpected. Nancy sees how her new gang behaves towards those that are unpopular, in this episode’s case, Jonathan. He’s easy prey due to his home situation and loner status. But we see him outside of school and how responsible he is, what he does for his mom, and the chores he takes care around the house. So he’s much more than what Steve and his droogs consider him. With his mom a real mess and brother missing (later found dead), Jonathan’s life is in the dumps.