Stranger Things - The Monster

Every time I close my eyes…I keep seeing that…thing.

Today…we make contact.

The gate…I opened it. I’m the monster.

I have to say that seeing Jonathan kick Steve’s ass made this whole episode so fucking satisfying. Okay, a bullied kid getting a bone thrown to him has to get that out of the way before moving on to the rest of this terrific episode. Steve provoking him as he tries to walk away, just pushing him over and over, the kid had reached his breaking point. And Steve bringing up Will and his mom, bad move. Jonathan couldn't take it anymore. Few could blame him for reacting as he did. And defending Nancy's honor, too...he had to get out his frustrations.

There’s some really good plot development in “The Monster” as it expounds upon “Jane” and the mother who produced her, no longer even able to talk or function normally it seems. Terry Ives was a product of experiments to “expand the boundaries of the mind” at Brenner’s “institute” where she claimed to have birthed a daughter they are holding captive (sound like Eleven perhaps?). The Duffer Bros make sure to edit in Eleven’s powers to reiterate (or hammer home) that the baby didn’t miscarry as Brenner and his group of lying, corrupt staff indicated. Joyce and Hopper are now joining forces and investigating, finding Terry uncommunicative with her sister filling them in on what led her to being damn near a vegetable. Jane has been missing for twelve years…and Terry held out hope for a girl never to reach her. Joyce contemplates that as Hopper tries to encourage her. I think it is easy to see why Joyce could lose hope. I really like Hopper’s response to Joyce in his car, as she has her doubts regarding finding her son, he tells her that’d he love to just get a chance to rescue his daughter. So as long as there is that chance, it appears Hopper is all in. Joyce needs him, that’s for sure.

Back to Jonathan and Nancy Wheeler. Like Mike, Lucas, and Dustin (with help from Eleven) looking for their buddy Will, Nancy and Jonathan have been out hunting for Barb as well. A good hook from the end of the previous episode had Nancy finding her way inexplicably in the Upside Down through a portal in a tree. That portal closes in “The Monster” just as Jonathan helps pull Nancy out of the Upside Down. Slightly altered from the woods of her real home, Nancy is in this alternate dimension as the monster feeds off the deer and hears her, trying to find her. Nancy must find a way out, trying to follow Jonathan's voice (in the Upside Down, you can hear outside of it). Although leaving the Upside Down keeps her somewhat safe, Nancy realizes that inside that place is perhaps her only hope of finding Will and Barb…if either is still alive. Jonathan is more than willing to help her. It is clear where the show is going and had been from almost the beginning. You can read how scenes (and the acting by Charlie Heaton and Natalia Dyer, both fine young actors) drop hints of potential romance eventually. Jonathan deep in the woods with Nancy as they search for their loved ones, brought together for a common cause as feelings eventually develop; the show provides the necessary cues. Sure Nancy gave her virginity to Steve, but Jonathan would give his life for her…true love. A nice touch has an employee for the police department rattling that cage a bit for Nancy to realize just what Jonathan feels. If he would pummel Steve on the asphalt of the alley nearby the theater where he spray-painted a derogatory statement about Nancy being a slut, that obviously exposes Jonathan as having the feels. And Jonathan lying in bed next to Nancy so she feels a bit safer after her scary experience in the Upside Down further illustrates where the show is heading in terms of their potential young love. Still, even if Steve is also there, hurt from climbing up to her window and finding Jonathan sitting next to her on the bed, consoling her, the show identifies multiple suitors for Nancy’s affections. It keeps the pot stirred anyway.

In the previous episode, Lucas and Mike had a falling out over Eleven. It takes Dustin to address the friction and try to reunite all parties (including Eleven who falls asleep in the woods and goes to a supermarket to take some waffles, using her powers to deter adults trying to stop her by using shopping carts and the automatic doors as weapons of thwarting) even as Lucas wants no more of Eleven and Mike is insistent that she is a part of their gang now. When two bullies from school corner Mike and Dustin at the top of the cliff overlooking the quarry from quite a steep height, Eleven has to interfere before something really bad happens to her friends. In what is a bit of razzle-dazzle for the episode, Mike is willing to jump off the cliff due to Dustin having a knife to his throat (the bully wanting revenge for Eleven causing him to piss his pants in front of their fellow students), levitated back to safety by Eleven. The bullies are harmed for their efforts (the knife kid has his arm broken while the other is thrown to the ground), while Dustin and Mike let Eleven know that she isn’t some monster. Meanwhile Brenner’s many staff posted all over Hawkins looking for Eleven finally spots her…Brenner and plenty of his folks grabbing machine guns head out, presumably to return their lab experiment back to where she supposedly belongs. So we’re left pondering whether or not Brenner will be successful. While they are off doing this, Lucas sets out to find Will on his own, locating Brenner’s lab through how screwy his compass is. The show doesn’t really establish what Lucas will do, perched on a tree that allows him to peer at the lab through his binoculars, but it does seem to indicate he might be involved in something significant when the time comes.

And the reason behind why that growth with the portal exists on the wall of Brenner’s lab is foretold as the saltwater tank submersion experiments with Eleven elaborate that through her contact with “the monster” inside the Upside Down it caused a “fracture” providing a gate between our world and the alternate version. So Eleven is just trying to keep her friends from going anywhere near that portal so that they won’t be as lost as Will and Barb are. Something also ominous to me is this woman visiting the science teacher looking for bright kids to further their education…if only he knew who she was actually!