Stranger Things - Dig Dug

I think with all the writeups I put on the blog yesterday, the well is about dry. I almost didn't write nothing at all. And, truth be told, I thought this was a great episode. My favorite from the second season so far, actually. I thoroughly enjoyed when Eleven actually gains insight into the moments when her mother has a hard pregnancy, is left without her daughter (taken from her by Dr. Martin Brenner), goes into Brenner's institute to find her daughter, and is held down and practically lobotomized. Eleven's mother, seemingly lost to the world, tries to communicate to her by flickering the lights in the house. The repeated fragments from memory--“Three to the right. Four to the left. Breathe. Sunflower. Rainbow. Four-fifty.”--elaborated when Eleven gains access to exactly what went down when Dr. Brenner ruined her life forever. This was much needed for Eleven. She needed answers.

I loved how Bob, Mike, Will, and Joyce all collaborate (Bob left in the dark for the most part until he sees for himself what the Upside Down produces once he follows Joyce underground to find an inconvenienced Hopper, being almost enveloped by creepy-crawlies sprouting and extending seemingly from the lab where Brenner's mad science opened the door for all of this to enter our world) to try and find and rescue Hopper. Will connected to the "shadow monster", collapsing at the end and seizuring when Dr. Owens' flamerthrower suits arrive to set fire to the underground "growth". This Cronenberg/Lovecraftian nightmare fuel has "sacs" in the ground wall spitting out slime into Hopper's face while slithery worm-like growth tries to wrap around him, eventually doing so when he stops for a minute to take a smoke break.

Dustin needing to send his worried, harried mom away to “find the pet” that had been eaten by Dart, so he could trap Dart in a shed in a bunker in the back yard, Lucas filling in an aggravated Max about everything involving Will and the Upside Down (much to her disbelief) so she would quit being so mad about him at the local arcade, Bob worried about Joyce’s son and eventually being dragged into helping her determine what Will’s sketches, once connected by Joyce and Hopper, spread throughout the floors and walls of the house, actually mean, and Jonathan and Nancy eventually locate conspiracy nut, Murray Bauman, with Owens’ recorded admission to the Upside Down attempted containment; the episode covers much needed ground. Dustin soon involves Steve, looking to give roses to Nancy in the hopes of winning her back, while Nancy and Jonathan discuss the distance between them in a double bed hotel room that doesn’t produce net results. And Billy Hargrove, who doesn’t think his shit stinks, is still a dick to his stepsister, Max. One of my favorite scenes has Nancy’s father asking her mom where the kids are, admitting to Dustin (who can’t contact any of his friends), “Our children don’t live here anymore, you didn’t know that?”

I did have enough to say after all. I guess I just needed to get the juices flowing. 4/5

“I’m sorry. You ate my cat.”

“Last year Will didn’t get lost in the woods. He got lost…somewhere else.”

Dustin in full hockey gear, while his pet Demogorgon follows his path of bologna pads, cracked me up and Lucas's sister giving him a hard time on the walkie-talkie was cute. Lucas's family at breakfast made an appearance which I enjoyed. But douchebag Billy seems incapable of not coming off an asshole.