Stranger Things - The Weirdo on Maple Street

Yeah, for 80s horror marks, Stranger Things certainly doesn’t hurt its cause appealing to them. Whether it’s a homage to the above-the-bed “Freddy stretching the wall” scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street, a poster of The Evil Dead, or a half hanging poster of Jaws; Stranger Things purposely shows its love. Of course, I’ll never complain too much when The Clash makes an appearance, particularly when its blasting from a boom box seemingly on its own. The show further establishes the creature as its face literally opens (it looks like it has four mouths) upon arriving at Steve Harrington’s pool as Nancy’s best friend, Barb (Shannon Purser), bleeds from a cut after challenged to stab the bottom of a beer and drink it as others at a small party of friends gather. This creature just seems to pop up and leave at will and snatch folks away. Barb is gone from the pool diving board, now missing like Will.

While Hopper still aches inside, seeing now that he is dealing with a missing kid and a dead burger joint cook (who was well liked by guys in town…though not a favorite of his exes), he feels cursed, opining in his sparsely-worded lament to his lover while taking a smoke and going over matters in his head. Despite quite the search party combing the area near where his bike was found, Hopper has no good news for Joyce and Jonathan. Speaking of Jonathan, he drives to the house of his daddy who lives “in the city”. Lonnie (Ross Patridge) isn’t much of a father figure. He’s with a younger woman and he roughly hugs Jonathan who pushes him back. Jonathan just had one goal: to see if Will was there. Equipping himself with a camera, Jonathan takes to the woods to look for signs of Will, wondering just where he is. Despite getting a new phone, another call comes through and once again there’s static, electrical current, and slight hint of Will’s voice. And once again the phone is “burned” and Joyce is left in hysterics.

While Jonathan is momentarily in school, Natalia offers concern to him, much to his surprise. Influenced by Steve to come to his house, Natalie’s pal, Barb, tries to persuade her to think about this relationship with him. Barb clearly sees his endgame is sex with her friend, but convincing Natalia of that proves unsuccessful. It appears Natalia is destined to give it up to Steve, although what he does once this quest is over is the question.

As the pilot episode left us, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) meets Mike, Dustin, and Lucas, all of whom are looking for Will. Right before Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine) and his gunmen could catch her at the diner, Eleven fled into the woods, encountering the boys. The boys take her back to Mike’s where she spends the night. She reveals her power to move objects with thought. Closing the door in order to make it a point that the boys don’t reveal her to any adults as doing so results in Brenner ordering their execution; Eleven reveals to them that she’s “special”. And Eleven likes being safe and sound. A flashback seems to indicate she’s Brenner’s daughter, shuffled down a hall and tossed in a room with no windows. Just a horrible moment that explains just why she doesn’t want to hide in Mike’s closet when mom comes home. Mike is a kind host and Eleven clearly sees him as a precious ally. Now just being able to bring her food and continue to hide her: that’s the problem. He does introduce her to his dad’s Easy-Chair.