#the flayed

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Stage 1: First Contact

Caused by brief exposure to spores

Causes mild illness

Usually clears without treatment

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Stage 2: Taking Root

Caused by moderate exposure to spores

Sickness is obvious and analogous to pneumonia

Patients have nightmares or “visions”

May begin to grow paranoid

Won’t clear on its own but will with treatment

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Stage 3: Infiltrating The Mind

Caused by high exposure or Stage 2 not being treated

Causes psychological symptoms like memory loss, foreign thoughts and knowledge, and personality changes

Feels sensations that don’t line up with reality

Seizures

Aversion to heat

Blue/grey/black veins appearing under the skin

Hallucinations

Temporary episodes of aggression and violence

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Stage 4: Possession

Caused by overexposure to spores or Stage 3 not being treated

Psychological symptoms extremely prominent. Major behavioral changes and memory loss

Flattened affect

Original consciousness still exists but is suppressed by The Mind Flayer

Veins on a large portion of the body. The whites of the eyes begin to shift to black, grey, and blue.

Is incredibly violent and unpredictable. Known to have the deep want to kill anything and anyone around them. Attacks are feral and brutal

Patients in this stage have been known to attempt to mimic their original personalities to lure others into a false sense of security.

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Stage 5: Fully Flayed

Caused by Stage 4 not being treated.

Fully assimilated to The Mind Flayer and its hive mind.

Any remnants of personality before infection is lost.

Fungus-like growths burst from the skin and produce the same spores found in the Upside Down.

Looks less and less human as time goes on. The body begins to steadily deteriorate and rot while it turns into biomass to be used by The Mind Flayer.

Cannot be cured or reversed in any way. Patients with Stage 5 should be eliminated on sight. They are not human anymore.

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Purpose of Infection:

Why would The Mind Flayer want to infect people and animals? For two reasons: To gather nutrients and to spread more spores.

Infected can serve a similar purpose to demogorgons, that being killing prey to feed the hivemind. Patients of this infection have been known to kill off small/medium-sized animals to consume and carry off to areas with the Mind Flayer's vines.

Once infection progresses, spire-like structures break from the victims skin and produce spores to infect others with. Some may attack, but not kill others, if they are trying to spread more spores. They may even drag victims into the gate of The Upside Down to ensure they get infected and have a chance to infect others.

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Main treatments for spore infection:

Antifungal (effective in early stages) (works because biology is similar to Earth fungus)

Heat treatment (effective in early stages and destabilizes later ones)

Oxygen treatment (effective in early stages)

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Patient can relapse if all the spores were not removed and/or they already infected part of the brain. Continued treatment can keep them at bay, but cannot cure it if the original infection wasn’t stopped in time.

Spores can only fully infect the patient while it has contact with The Mind Flayer. If the gate closes, the spores remain, but are inert and dormant.

Prolonged exposure to cold temperatures enhance the speed of the infection. Patients should be kept in an environment above 80°F at all times, even when they report discomfort or pain.

The speed which the infection spreads and how much power it has over the victim depends on the victims mind. Typically, those with weak/damaged minds are easier and faster to control. They also have more of a chance to become violent and kill others without much trouble. Due to this, The Mind Flayer targets traumatized people to infect in order to carry out its plan.

HOWEVER... Survivors of the later stages of infection have a chance of gaining the psychic abilities that the hivemind possess, especially if they had experience trauma prior, as that gives more connection to the hivemind. Additionally, continuous exposure to spores from a young age gives a higher chance of gaining these powers without negative effects and a lower risk of violence. US government figured this out because of Henry Creel and as a result, MKUltra was started.

In my AU, Henry Creel is the first to be infected and flayed.

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When I first saw season 3, this was the arc I had the most investment in. A big chunk of that had to do with the new character interactions between Steve, Dustin, Robin, and Erica, and how the four of them bounced off each other in unexpected ways. This is a paring which sounds bizarre on paper, but works with how it’s executed. Part of that has to do with how each of these characters initially try to present themselves one way to everyone else …….only for the rest of the group to see right through them, and still choosing to roll with it.

Steve tries to present himself as in control of the situation when his panicked reaction to the elevator descending, and seeing the full extent of the Russian Underground Base, says otherwise. It’s clear to everyone else in the group he’s just improvising on the spot. To be fair though, his improvisations (like using the vial of green liquid to hold the elevator door, or knocking out the Russian in the communications room) are helpful, which is why he isn’t getting too much flak from the others in that regard. The most he gets rubbed for is stating the obvious, his malapropisms (‘gumbo’ instead of ‘Gumby’ and ‘Prometheus’ instead of ‘promethium’), and his reluctance to be grouped in with the nerds (despite channeling his inner dork with his faux lightsaber duel with Dustin three episodes ago). He may not be book or comic savvy, but that’s a matter of him needing to brush up on those topics should he choose to.

Erica tries to present herself as the smartest in the group, with her even spouting off random facts (i.e. free market system, dehydration, communists cutting corners when building architecture, etc) to assert that. Despite this, she isn’t as clever as she thinks, and nearly makes the boneheaded decision to drink from a vial of green acidic poison. There’s also her skewed priorities of not wanting to be seen as a nerd (despite acting nerdy about specific topics she’s interested in, which does NOT go unnoticed by the others), or being more concerned about getting back to Tina’s rather than the reality of the life-or-death situation before them (as Steve exasperatedly points out to her).

(Side Note: Back in 2023, there was a post about a possible casting call for Tina in season 5. I don’t know if anything has come of it, but it’s possible she’ll finally appear on the show after several seasons of being name-dropped by Erica and Lucas).

Robin initially started out acting aloof to Steve and his friendship with Dustin, only to take an interest because they’re bad at keeping secrets and talk in a way that invites suspicion on them (something she notes as they’re walking down the underground hallway) and because the thing they’re interested in (i.e. the Russian message) piques her curiosity, which causes her to start making connections the others would have missed. Like figuring out what the message meant, and how it related to Starcourt Mall. Or how they need a keycard to work the elevator again. Or inadvertently causing Dustin and Steve to realize the Russians are here operating a Gate to the Upside Down based on her questioning why the Russians would have any interest in Hawkins to begin with. The one secret she’s kept close to the chest is her sexual orientation, and the only person who finds out about it later is Steve (who accepts her for who she is).

As for Dustin, he’s the de facto leader of this group. He’s the one who got the others involved in this adventure the moment he brought them the Russian message, and he’s the one with the best connections to the other three: Steve is his friend, Erica is Lucas’s sister, and both him and Robin are similar in that they know the most about pop culture and can theorize on the spot. He’s arguably the outlier in that he isn’t trying as hard to put on a front for the others in how he presents himself. He’s a nerd, and he’s fully embraced that. It can lead to him making remarks that seem belittling on the surface (his patronizing congratulations when Steve won a fight for once, and his sarcastic comments about staying for a picnic when Erica complains about walking all the way back to the elevator), but they’re not meant in a mean-spirited way so much as wanting everyone to be on the same page as he is (and getting frustrated when they aren’t).

We get some heart-to-hearts in the next episode, but for the most part, there’s this unspoken bond slowly beginning to form where all four characters are realizing they can be open with one another without having to worry about social appearances.

In terms of inspirations, there are few for this arc. Die Hard was cited in the season 3 podcast for the scene when Erica is climbing through the vents in the previous episode, much like how John McClane is forced to when he’s being chased by Hans Gruber’s men.

Additionally, there’s parallels to be drawn between how Steve, Dustin, Robin, and Erica hide on the elevator’s roof when the Russian maintenance team comes to pick up the packages vs. how McClane hides above after killing the first terrorist (Tony Vreski) and putting their body in the elevator with a message to rattle Hans and his men, all while McClane eavesdrops and writes down names and information on his arm to understand what the terrorists are doing at Nakatomi Plaza. There’s also the sneaking around to avoid detection, spur of the moment decisions these characters make when they encounter a problem (i.e. Steve taking out the Russian in the comms room vs McClane picking off the terrorists one by one), and how they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time while inadvertently stumbling onto a conspiracy that threatens the lives of multiple people.

However, that is where the parallels to Die Hard end. At least in regards to the Scoops Troop. John McClane’s character and arc correlates better with Hopper in this season, and there’s even a direct homage to the movie featuring Hopper I’ll talk about in a minute. There’s also how McClane was a force to be reckoned with, to the point of derailing Hans’s plans. The Scoops Troop, meanwhile, acts as a minor inconvenience to the Russians, but it isn’t until Hopper, Joyce, and Murray get involved that things start to go wrong for their operation.

I remember a small minority of fans a few years ago on Reddit accusing the Scoops Troop arc of just being a pointless detour as a result, as if they expected these kids (who are NOT trained cops like Hopper and McClane) to somehow be able to take on all the Russians single-handedly. Steve got lucky by catching the Russian comms guy off-guard, but a big reason this group made it as far as they did was by winging it and using the element of surprise (since the Russians weren’t expecting teenagers and kids to ever find out about this place). Otherwise, they would have been dead, or worse. As for the accusation of “pointless,” this arc was meant to be character-driven for the Scoops Troop, where all four of them would grow as a result from their adventure. Ever heard the phrase that it’s about the journey and not the destination? That’s what this arc was going for in terms of character development, and I have no issue with that (even if those specific fans did).

On a related note, another movie that came to mind when the four were sneaking around was WarGames. Specifically, when David (Matthew Broderick’s character) escapes the NORAD facility in Colorado (after being accused of espionage and working for the Soviet Union) by using the vents and crawlspaces to evade detection and get the hell out of dodge. The Season 3 Podcast cited WarGames as one of the movies that inspired the Russian arc, and it’s likely that scene from the film factored into how The Scoops Troop moves around the base.

There’s also the way Steve’s character is portrayed this season. I know Back to the Future is referenced, and that both Steve and Robin will later see the film in theaters while drugged out of their minds, but I can’t be the only one who saw similarities between Steve and Marty McFly.

I don’t know if Joe Keery specifically cited Michael J. Fox’s performance as Marty McFly for inspiration with how he played Steve during season 3, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. A lot of the inflections Steve uses when speaking (“Your mom’s not going to be able to find us if we’re dead in a Russian Elevator.”) (“You saw the comms room?”) reminds me of the way Marty used inflections (“Are you telling me you build a time machine out of a DeLorean?”). Both deliver them in a high-pitched voice of disbelief because they’re that stressed out in the moment. Furthermore, Steve and Marty also share similarities of being caught in overwhelming situations and having to think on their feet while putting on a brave face to mask their insecurities. Meanwhile, they’re constantly suffering humiliation and injuries (Steve having a heavy box land on his groin, Marty being locked in the trunk of a car, etc). They also both have a loyal streak for their friends and loved ones that’s admirable and makes them endearing to root for.

There are two other grittier inspirations for this arc. One of them is mentioned by Dustin in this episode. The other is obscure, but factors not just into this specific storyline, but the whole season: The video game Fallout 3.

Fallout 3 takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting following a nuclear war between the United States and China in the year 2077. The game occurs 200 years later (2277) dealing with a playable character known in-universe as the Lone Wanderer. Originally having grown up in Vault 101 (which was sealed off from the rest of the world prior to the nuclear devastation), the game centers on the Lone Wanderer searching for their father after they break protocol and leave the Vault. Once outside in the Capital Wastelands (which refers to the areas around what was once Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia), the Lone Wanderer discovers the remains of the world, where radiation has altered both animal and human life, there are dividing factions fighting amongst one another for resources, and everyone is scraping to get by. In any case, the Lone Wanderer discovers their father is attempting to restart a project they abandoned years ago called “Project Purity,” which would allow for clean water in the Wastelands. What follows is a fight against the Enclave (a shadow military faction of the former U.S. Government) as they attempt to wrestle control of the project from the Lone Wanderer and their father to use for their own nefarious agenda.

In some ways, one could argue that the game and its environment holds similarities to the Mad Max series (which have also been cited as inspiration for Stranger Things).

I’ll dive more into the game as the reviews develop, but watching this episode and seeing the interior of the Russian Underground Base reminded me of the interior for the Enclave’s Base that the Lone Wanderer is captured and held prisoner at during one point in the game. The Russian Base looks cleaner by comparison, but the way both bases are used for military and scientific operations remains the same.

In both cases, the Russians and the Enclave are exploiting power for self-serving reasons.

For the Enclave, those reasons vary: Some in the Enclave (like Colonel Augustus Autumn) want Project Purity so the Enclave will be seen as the saviors of the Wasteland, allowing them to establish sovereign reign. Others (like President Eden) want to activate the purifier and then contaminate the clean water with a compound called Modified FEV to genocide all beings considered non-human (i.e. ghouls, super mutants, anyone with mutations or contaminated with leftover radiation, etc) so that pure humans can thrive and rebuild society. Either way, there is nothing benevolent about their intentions.

As for the Russians, Shawn Levy summed up their motivations best in the Season 3 Podcast:

“We’ve seen the Americans and now the Soviets trying to harness the power that seems to reside in the Upside Down through that Gate. We’ve seen both sides of the Cold War now try to tap into it and control it in order to weaponize it so it felt like a really compelling way to take a real-world fear, an actual authentic historical paranoia, and to mix it with a very specific sci-fi genre plot that is unique to Stranger Things.”

The irony is, despite the Enclave weaponizing science for warfare in the same way the Russians do on the show, they claim to be opposed to communism, which was one initial motivation for going to war with China in the game’s backstory (the other motivation involved fighting for control of energy sources). The resulting events lead to the post-apocalyptic Wastelands seen in the game, showing how badly things ended. Now, everyone’s lives are more difficult as a result.

Regardless, both the Russians on Stranger Things and the Enclave from Fallout 3 employ the same oppressive tactics and dehumanization that they accuse their opponents of doing, to the point that both groups arguably cross over into fascist ideology. The Horseshoe Theory in action once again, just like we've seen historically in real life. They can make all the justifications they want, but at the end of the day, human life means little to them over the pursuit of power and dominance.

As for the former inspiration mentioned earlier, Dustin references it as they’re hiding from the Russians: Red Dawn.

To give a brief synopsis, Red Dawn is a 1984 war film that takes place in an alternate timeline where the Cold War has escalated into World War III. Following a series of catastrophic world events (i.e. the Soviet invasion of Poland, the dissolving of NATO, Cuba and Nicaragua building up military strength while El Salvador and Honduras fall under Soviet influence, the withdraw of nuclear weapons from European soil, and Mexico’s communist revolution), the United States is invaded by Russians, Cubans, and their allies. The story centers around the surprise attack on Calumet (a small town in Colorado) and its subsequent occupation under the Soviets. During the invasion, a group of teenagers led by the Eckert Brothers (Jed and Matt) take refuge in the forests away from their town. When the Soviets impose martial law on Calumet by forcing everyone into “re-education camps,” the teens decide to wage a gruella war against the Soviets (led by Jed, who’s an expert on guns, hunting, and surviving in the wilderness), branding themselves as “Wolverines” in honor of their high school mascot. The movie deals with their battles against the Soviet occupation while trying to stay one step ahead of them.

Red Dawn has been described as a “conservative wet dream,” which I’ve maintained is unfair and oversimplifies the movie. For one thing, the current crop of MAGA conservatives (who couldn’t even successfully enact their insurrection on January 6th 2021 without embarrassing themselves, to say nothing about MAGAs like Tucker Carlson and MTG who’ve gleefully become useful idiots for Putin and Russia) don’t hold a candle to these teens in regards to their determination and the methods they use to survive. For another, Red Dawn isn’t really the glorification of conservative ideals (even if there are some sprinkled throughout the movie) so much as a deconstruction of the emotional and psychological toll warfare takes on people, especially at a young age. This is a DARK movie that doesn’t shy away from how bleak and hellish the situation is for these characters. They are teens in high school who had their lives ripped away from them in an instant, and can never go home again. They are forced to constantly evade the Soviets while adopting a mentality of “kill or be killed,” and the war leaves its mark as the months go by. One of the teens, Robert, becomes bloodthirsty after the death of his parents. Jeb starts out with a hardened exterior that slowly chips away as the war drags on with no end in sight. Then there’s Daryl, who never truly comes to terms with his new reality, which eventually leads to him getting captured by the Soviets, forced to swallow a trackable bug, and then used as a means of rooting out the other Wolverines. In one of the most brutal scenes from the movie, the others opt to execute Daryl (who went to the same school they did and was their friend) for his betrayal.

To say Red Dawn isn’t a happy feel-good film is an understatement.

The reason I emphasize this is, despite this movie being listed as an inspiration for season 3, there is a major dissonance between how Stranger Things depicts its Russian invasion vs Red Dawn’s version. Stranger Things Season 3 placed an emphasis on comedy whereas the tone of Red Dawn is grim. The Russians on the show, despite all the technological advances they have and how they originally present themselves, are depicted as incompetent buffoons the main characters eventually drive out of Hawkins. Meanwhile, while the Wolverines are successful in most of their surprise gruella raids, the Soviets were still a force to be reckoned with, and had the numbers, weapons, and manpower to drag out their conflict with the Wolverines no matter how long it took. The military was not coming to save the Wolverines, and despite the victories they achieved during the movie, they ultimately failed to liberate their town. The main characters on Stranger Things deal with the Russians for a few days in Hawkins, whereas the Wolverines were fighting the Soviets for 6 months to the point it mentally and emotionally drained them. To cap it all, most of the Wolverines get killed off by the end of the movie. No matter how good they were at gruella tactics, there was going to come a point where their luck would run out, and they eventually get picked off one by one as the battles rage on. That is not the case here with the Scoops Troop (or the other main characters on the show for that matter) who manage to survive towards the end, with the Russians coming off as an inconvenience rather than the life-altering threat they were presented as.

I discussed this in my review of “Suzie, Do You Copy?,” but aside from the lack of paranoia surrounding the Russians, the sense of danger for the main characters in season 3 when fighting against the Russians was watered-down compared to Red Dawn. If anything, I found the Russians this season to be cartoonish rather than intimidating, and underwhelming rather than interesting. There aren’t even any moral or ethical predicaments Steve, Robin, Erica, and Dustin face while dealing with the Russians. That was NOT the case for the Wolverines: They had to reckon with whether their fight against the Soviets was ever going to be successful, as well as how the war was changing them for the worse. Given the Russian arc in season 3 was inspired by Red Dawn in the first place, that’s a problem relating to the disjointedness I was referring to earlier between the show’s story and tone vs the movie that inspired it. The only reason I have any investment in the Scoops Troop is because of the character dynamics between Robin, Steve, Erica, and Dustin, as opposed to the Russians themselves who come off as window dressing in this story. The Scoops Troop’s growth has more to do with how they dealt with each other as companions rather than how they deal with the Russians. It’s not a bad arc for the characters, but it’s not as morally complex as the situation presented in Red Dawn.

The irony is the Red Dawn parallels to Stranger Things work better in season 4 when it’s the teens vs Vecna. The army uniforms that Steve, Robin, Nancy, Dustin, and Eddie wear during the Battle at the Creel House were even inspired by the Wolverines’ outfits, further strengthening that parallel.

There are several reasons for that. For one thing, the darker tone of season 4 perfectly matches the tone for Red Dawn, and even involves the main characters making morally grey decisions (like the Wolverines did) to salvage a horrific situation. For another, Vecna, with his army of monsters and intimidating presence, posed a true physical, intellectual, and psychological threat that left the teens overwhelmed and barely surviving by the skin of their teeth. There was a sense of peril and paranoia in Vecna’s arc, which was absent this season with the Russians. Furthermore, while the Party managed to drive Vecna away for a time, they paid a heavy price and he still wins at the end of season 4 while causing serious damage, including opening the Gate, killing Eddie, and maiming Max. Like the Wolverines, they don’t come out unscathed. The result is that, despite both arcs having personal stakes regarding the fate of Hawkins, it’s a lot easier to invest in Vecna’s arc than the Russian arc because those stakes and resulting consequences have more of a personal and lasting impact on all the characters.  

Judging by the recently released trailer for season 5, it looks like the tone, aesthetic, and costume designs for the last season will also take inspiration from Red Dawn.

Before we move on to the Bald Eagle arc, there are two things I want to quickly address:

Yay for Steve winning his first fight on the show against a human antagonist! Fingers crossed that streak continues into season

Back in 2022 when Russia first invaded Ukraine, and the war was in its early months, there were photos circulating online of Russian tanks decimated by Ukrainians, with the word “WOLVERINES” painted on them. A direct reference to Red Dawn. I mention this to not only point out Red Dawn’s place in popular culture, but emphasize how that movie touched upon the political climate back then. Meanwhile, parts of the film continue to be applicable to today’s world. In a similar vein, that’s how I view the Russian arc on Stranger Things despite its flaws, and why I’m a lot more lenient with it compared to other fans: There are aspects of this arc that are relevant to current world events.

Are there things that should have been improved upon writing-wise with the Russians on the show? Yes. However, the themes explored in this arc (i.e. weaponizing science and resources for destructive purposes, political corruption, dehumanization, sacrificing human lives for a poisonous ideology built on radicalization, fascism, and cult-like thinking) are ones that deserve to be analyzed, both with how they’re implemented on the show, and how they relate to today’s political climate. Given what’s going on in the world right now, it’s necessary to have those discussions as a means of not repeating the mistakes of the past, and working to improve our future (which certain individuals are making harder to do each day).

Part 2: Bald Eagle

When I was talking earlier about the use of media inspirations for season 3, and how the Duffer Brothers allude to (or straight up pay homage to) them in a way that doesn’t gel with the way they’ve written the story, this arc came to mind. It’s packed with multiple references to movies and shows: Die Hard, the first two Terminator movies, Fletch, Romancing the Stone, Miami Vice, Magnum P.I., and Midnight Run. The problem, however, is when they lifted story elements and beats from those inspirations. While those elements may have worked in those movies and shows based on how they were written, they don’t have the same impact being incorporated into Hopper and Joyce’s storyline, and it ends up muddled as a result.

We’ll start with the references that most people easily picked up on: Die Hard and the first two Terminator movies.

The show wasn’t subtle about casting an Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike to play Grigori (Mayor Kline even made a quip about Schwarzenegger to Hopper in the last episode). The way Grigori was written, as well as how some of his scenes were framed, evoked the titular Terminator which Schwarzenegger plays in that film series: An unfeeling, calculated, killer determined to hunt their target down no matter what it took. The difference is the Terminator is a machine sent from the distant future to alter the course of history, whereas Grigori is a Russian working on behalf of their government.

There is the sense Grigori wasn’t just meant to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s version of the Terminator, but also imitate its robotic mannerism and detached personality that made it unnerving. This is where the parallels run into problems though. The Terminator from the first movie (and the T-1000 from the sequel) have that detached personality by design due to being machines programmed with one objective, with all other concerns either being secondary or irrelevant. T2: Judgment Day reveals that Skynet deliberately engineered Terminators so that their CPUs (which act as their learning computers) are at a “read-only” stage so that they can’t think for themselves, or have any sense of agency or individuality from what they would learn living among humans. It’s another means for Skynet to have absolute control over them. The T2: Judgment Day tie-in novel also reveals that this is why Skynet was reluctant to create T-1000’s (and only did so as a means of killing John Connor): The way they were designed allowed them to develop human qualities such as emotions, reasoning capabilities, and even self-awareness, which would be problematic for Skynet if they ever decided to rebel against their creator. Skynet wanted its terminators and machines to be subservient, and follow its orders without question. The result is their very existence is dedicated to carrying out those orders, and will destroy everyone and everything to do so. As Kyle Reese from the first movie puts it: “It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.” That’s what made them scary.

But Girgori isn’t a Terminator, even if he’s framed in a way to evoke call-backs to that specific character. He is human, and the detached personality he displays on the show doesn’t make him intimidating or unnerving. It makes him dull. I don’t find him frightening the same way I do with the Terminator from the first movie or the T-1000 from the second, and the lack of motivations and character on Grigori’s part render him little more than a one-dimensional cookie-cutter thug. It doesn’t help that the writing for Grigori isn’t that good. I pointed this out in my review of “The Case of the Missing Lifeguard” where I questioned why he didn’t just finish Hopper and Joyce off at the Lab when he had the chance. Unfortunately, that lack of logic in the writing carries over into this episode.

Take for instance the scene when Grigori comes to the Hess Farm: He knows at this point (courtesy of Mayor Kline calling him) that Hopper and Joyce are looking into the locations where the Soviets bought property containing generators near transformers that they were using to steal from the Hawkins power grid. Driving up to the house, he would have had to see Hopper’s car parked outside, which means he knows they’re there. Rather than take a stealth approach to catch them off-guard and execute them, he instead stomps on the floorboards of the house in a way that telegraphs to everyone that he is there, which gives Hopper and Joyce enough time to handcuff Alexei, tie up the other Russian, and ambush Grigori from behind. The only reason Grigori doesn’t end up dead is because of several stupid decisions from Hopper and Joyce (more on that in a minute). The way he blundered into that situation though should have gotten him killed.

Then there’s Grigori’s attack on the 7-11 employee (Ricky) while the cops are right outside the store. There’s never any consideration given for what would’ve happened if another cop, customer, or employee had come in during that moment and saw what Grigori was doing. Or if Ricky was in enough of a panic that he would have screamed anyways for the cops, regardless of Grigori’s attempts to keep him quiet. Or even if Ricky later went to the cops to tell them he was assaulted by Grigori and give them a description. This is egregious because the whole reason Grigori is after Hopper and Joyce is to keep the Russian operation in Hawkins a secret, and yet his actions (combined with how he behaved in “The Case of the Missing Lifeguard”) are just bringing more unwanted attention.

I understand these scenes are framed in a way that’s supposed to make Grigori look intimidating and skilled, but the way those scenes are written instead makes him look stupid. Fans might try to argue that since Grigori is human and not a machine, it’s natural he’d make mistakes. However, that comes in contradiction to Grigori being a professional killer who’s been shown to carefully analyze the environment (like him spotting Hopper’s destroyed car in the woods and following the group’s footprints) and use it to his advantage (like when he ambushed Hopper in the dark two episodes ago at Hawkins Lab). This is plot-stupidity as opposed to Grigori acting in a way that would make sense for his character. It doesn’t help that other characters around him must act dumb as well for Grigori to get as far as he does. Like Hopper announcing he’d count to three and not shooting Grigori in the head before time was up. Or Joyce throwing the gun overhead instead of sliding it to where Hopper was, allowing Grigori to get his hands on it. Or Hopper and Joyce not heeding Alexei’s warnings to stop until the last second when the car exploded, which left a trail of smoke that attracted Grigori’s attention. What worked about the first two Terminator movies is that the Terminators didn’t just rely on brute force, but also on cunning and intelligence. They could change their tactics for the given situation in a way that made them unpredictable and dangerous, which is why it was earned when the protagonists were able to barely evade them. It also helps that there were certain variables (like Sarah not being at her apartment in the first movie when the Terminator tracks her there, or John’s friend warning John at the arcade that the T-1000 disguised as a cop was looking for him, giving John a head start so that he wouldn’t be killed), which had more to do with random circumstances the Terminators couldn’t foresee rather than a question of their intelligence. Or that the heroes in those movies were taking every precaution instead of bumbling around and surviving due to dumb luck. The result is I don’t find Grigori chasing Hopper, Joyce, and Alexei through Indiana to be thrilling or intense so much as boring and contrived.

Then there’s the homage to Die Hard: The “policeman have rules” scene taken almost word-for-word from the moment when John McClane confronts Tony Vreski (one of the terrorists under Hans Gruber) at gunpoint.

There’s an irony in how Hopper got ripped to shreds by this fandom for being a “loose cannon” and engaging in police brutality, and yet the one moment he follows protocol and gives Grigori the opportunity to put down his weapon and surrender, it blows up in his face and causes problems down the line. In Die Hard, McClane follows up Tony’s remarks with “Yeah, that’s what my Captain keeps telling me,” ……. before proceeding to attack Tony. He doesn’t count to three, or give Tony any opportunity to disarm him. He takes him out then and there, and manages to kill Tony in the process.

One of the themes explored in Die Hard deals with the morals and ethics of McClane’s vigilantism and whether it’s making an already bad situation worse than it needs to be. The police and FBI who are trying to negotiate with Hans seem to think so, but we also see that these terrorists aren’t playing by the rulebook the FBI expects them to, and we later find out the hostages the terrorists are holding captive are expendable in pursuit of their true goal.

I will give credit that the parallels between McClane’s vigilantism in the movie vs Hopper’s vigilantism on the show work well. I analyzed this in the previous review, but given the way Hopper is going against people who are backed by powerful authority figures (whether it’s Hawkins Lab in the first two seasons, or the Russians and Mayor Kline this season), the traditional methods of following police protocol wouldn’t have worked, and would’ve only enabled the villains to get away and cause a lot more damage than they did. It reminds me of the dilemma Riccardo Tubbs faced in the pilot episode “Brother’s Keeper” from Miami Vice: He had tracked down a powerful drug dealer named Esteban Calderone, who was responsible for the murder of Tubbs’s brother and the deaths of multiple other people. Calderone had powerful connections he could leverage to evade law enforcement, and Tubbs had an opportunity to kill him and prevent his escape. Instead, he followed Crockett’s advice not to shoot Calderone, and arrested him. Because of that choice, Calderone was able to post bail due to bribing a judge, and proceeded to flee the country. He would return later to take revenge by eliminating his competition in the drug trade, nearly killing Crockett in the process. There’s an argument to be had that those deaths (which included Lou Rodriguez, Crockett and Tubbs’s former Police Lieutenant) could have been prevented had Tubbs shot Calderone instead of taking him into custody. Same goes for McClane’s dilemma in Die Hard: The main reason Hans and his terrorists don’t succeed is because McClane followed his gut instead of listening to the FBI’s demands to stay out of the way. Had he not done so, the hostages would have died, and Hans would have gotten away with his crimes.

Likewise, it’s the same argument I’d make here for Hopper: He shouldn’t have given warning to Grigori. He should have just incapacitated Grigori then and there when Grigori least expected it. The frustrating thing is Grigori telegraphed that he knew Hopper would follow the rules, and Hopper still took the bait and acted exactly how Grigori predicted he would, allowing Grigori to disarm Hopper.

Additionally, there’s a parallel that can be struck between Grigori from the show, and Karl Vreski, the brother of Tony, from Die Hard: Both characters are the large grunt who poses a physical threat to the heroes, and even come close to killing them. Unfortunately, the parallel stops there because of the lack of depth given to Grigori. While Hans is the main villain in Die Hard, Karl acts as a close second, and his rivalry with McClane is deeply personal due to McClane killing his brother. He wants revenge. This leads to Karl ignoring Hans’s advice about how to deal with McClane (like not shutting McClane in the deactivated elevator shaft so he’d be neutralized as a threat) because he’s that set on murdering McClane, which leads to him making bad decisions that cause future problems for Hans and the other terrorists. Given how his grief and rage over his brother’s death is blinding him, this is understandable, and therefore doesn’t come off as contrived.

Grigori, on the other hand, doesn’t have that excuse of personal enmity, which makes his moments of stupidity around Hopper less acceptable. I get the sense we were supposed to see Hopper and Grigori as foils to one another, and that their interactions were meant to establish a rivalry between the two, but the show doesn’t do a lot to make that rivalry earned. This isn’t like El and Vecna who had past history and inflicted personal and psychological injuries on one another, or even Lucas and Jason in season 4 who come to blows over their differing viewpoints and how they’re each handling the threat of Vecna. Both those rivalries were built up over multiple episodes. Hopper’s rivalry with Grigori is just spontaneous, and the lack of backstory and depth given to Grigori makes the attempts to present him as a foil to Hopper fall flat.

For what it’s worth, there is an Issue from Tales from Hawkins 2 that’s set to come out in September 2025 which will go more into Grigori’s backstory. While I appreciate the comics are planning to flesh-out the character more, that’s something which should have been done during season 3 if they wanted people to be invested in Hopper and Grigori’s feud to begin with. It’s a little late for that now.

Hopper, Joyce, and Alexei’s venture into the woods wasn’t nearly as entertaining as it probably looked on paper. Aside from how I never got the sense they were in danger (even though they were being chased by Grigori), the constant bickering between Joyce and Hopper quickly got tiresome, and the way their snipes were played for comedy didn’t do those scenes any favors. I was deeply annoyed at Hopper continuing to bring up how Joyce snubbed him on that date three episodes ago despite the fact they were currently in a life-threatening situation. I also wasn’t thrilled at Joyce’s unhelpful suggestions about how they should handle things. That’s not even getting into how her attempts to communicate with Alexei weren’t funny or interesting.

I mentioned before that Romancing The Stone was cited as inspiration for this season, and it’s likely the arguments Joyce and Hopper have are meant to parallel the ones Jack T. Colton and Joan Wilder engage in when they’re on the run from Colonel Zolo and his military police. What worked in that movie, however, is that this was the first time Jack and Joan had met, and were forced to trust each other (despite bad first-impressions) because they didn’t have a lot of other options. Therefore, it was natural they’d have tensions and fights over how to handle their situation, as well as initial mistrust. Jack was originally helping Joan because she promised to pay him for his services, and there was always the question of whether Jack was truly falling in love with Joan, or if he was more interested in the treasure at the end of the map she carried. By contrast, Hopper and Joyce not only have known each other for years, but have been able to work well with one another without resorting to childish fighting. I get they’re in a stressful situation, but that’s also been true in past seasons, and yet they’ve never been at each other’s throats in this manner. I’m also not impressed by how the show once again uses Murray as a mouthpiece to simplify this into a “lovers' quarrel.” If Hopper shouting at Joyce and his jealousy over Joyce visiting Scott Clarke for important information is meant to be synonymous with him demonstrating that he’s in love with her, or if Joyce blaming Hopper for the engine exploding while she was in the car is meant to invoke the same sentiment, that is a major YIKES.

Additionally, we get a nod to Fletch during Hopper’s improvisation with Todd when he manages to commandeer Todd’s car as official police business. In that movie, one of Fletch’s skills was ad libbing on the spot, whether it was coming up with fake names based on real people for his identity (i.e. Ted Nugent, Gordon Liddy, Harry S. Truman, etc) or disguising himself (i.e. maintenance worker, waiter, homeless person, inspector, etc) or inventing lies on the spot to throw his targets off their game (similar to Hopper’s lie about Joyce being a detective). What worked in that movie, however, was Chevy Chase’s comedic timing as Fletch, and Fletch’s ability to make his cover stories appear believable unless someone was paying VERY CLOSE attention to details. Hopper, on the other hand, does not have that kind of improv talent. He’s had moments of comedy, but he’s never been written as a comedic character. The result is his cover story for taking Todd’s car, as well as his awkward conversations with Joyce in front of Todd, are so stilted and unnatural that it’s not believable, and it makes Todd look like a tool for allowing his car to get swindled out from under him. Maybe that was the point with someone like Todd and his vanity license plates (TODFTHR), but that isn’t a case of good improv skills on Hopper’s part so much as dumb luck.

We now get to the movie that inspired the main plot for this episode: Midnight Run.

Midnight Run is a 1988 action comedy starring Robert DeNiro as Jack Walsh, a former cop turned bounty hunter who’s tasked by his employer, Eddie, to bring back a man named Jonathan “The Duke” Mardukas in the next five days to collect money on a bail bond (being referred to in-universe as a “midnight run” for Walsh). The Duke is wanted for having embezzled $15 million from a mob boss named Jimmy Serrano (whom Walsh has ugly history with due to being the only cop Serrano couldn’t buy during his time in Chicago), and Walsh’s employer was unaware of who The Duke was until he already posted bail. Desperate to get the $450,000 in bail money back, Eddie promises Jack $100,000 if he delivers The Duke to him in L.A. However, as one can probably guess by the genre of this movie, things don’t go according to plan once Walsh meets The Duke, and he is forced to deal with the FBI, another bounty hunter, Serrano’s men, and The Duke himself trying to escape Walsh’s custody.

The situation of a cop character (Hopper/Walsh) transporting a prisoner in handcuffs (Alexei/The Duke) to a certain location (Murray’s house/Eddie’s business) is the same, but the characters and circumstances aren’t.

The Duke initially starts out pestering Walsh with questions about his personal life (partly to offer advice, and partly to annoy him), but they eventually find common ground on their adventure together due to both men having a similar code of honor. Walsh refuses to take any kind of payoff when it comes to his job, which is why he got driven out of Chicago by Jimmy Serrano and was separated from his wife and daughter in the process. Multiple times, he’s given opportunities to hand over The Duke for more money, but refuses to do so out of personal integrity. Likewise, The Duke initially believed he was working for a legitimate accounting firm under Serrano before finding out who Serrano truly was and dealing him a crippling blow by stealing $15 million and giving it to charity so Serrano couldn’t use the money for corrupt reasons. Both Walsh and The Duke could have looked the other way when it came to these dishonest dealings, but they chose not to, even if it put a target on their backs and made their lives difficult in the process. It makes both characters endearing despite the unlikable way they present themselves to others.

Alexei and Hopper (and even Joyce and Alexei) never really develop that kind of bond. Unlike The Duke, Alexei doesn’t have any noble intentions. He does what he does out of self-preservation, and he’s just someone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when Hopper and Joyce showed up and captured him. The only reason he’s going along with Hopper and Joyce is because he doesn’t have a choice, and because he knows Grigori will kill him. Likewise, Joyce and Hopper aren’t really interested in getting to know Alexei as a person so much as what he can tell them regarding the Russians being in Hawkins. Unlike with Walsh and The Duke, who form some kind of friendship by the end of the movie, calling Alexei a friend to Hopper and Joyce is a huge stretch. They barely knew him, and he barely knew them. On top of that, while The Duke and Walsh were traveling all over the country and had more time to get to know each other, Hopper and Joyce only knew Alexei for about 48 hours and the language barrier prevented them from communicating effectively (no matter what Joyce told Hopper earlier in the episode about making progress with Alexei).

Next, there’s Magnum P.I. Hopper’s look and clothing choices aside, there were two episodes from the first season that each represented different parts of this arc: “Skin Deep” and “The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii.” The former episode dealt with Magnum tracking down a porn star/actress named Erin Wolfe on an isolated island to save her from her jealous ex-lover. “Skin Deep” in question was serious in tone, similar to the first half of the Hopper/Joyce arc in this episode. Just like the fight Hopper and Joyce engage in with Grigori at the Hess house before they escape, the last third of “Skin Deep” involved Magnum and the actress being hunted on the island by the ex-lover in a scene that reminiscent of the short story “The Most Dangerous Game.” Both scenarios involve the main characters nearly being killed by a psychopath who doesn’t care how many bodies they rake up, and having to rely on their wits to make it out alive. The second episode “The Ugliest Dog in the World” also featured a chase scene between Magnum and a mafia boss over a dog, which takes on a comedic tone similar to the second half of the Joyce/Hopper arc in this episode. In “The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii,” Magnum, another woman named Sharon, and the dog are all pursued into a banana plantation (which also acts as a hidden cannabis plantation for drug dealers) where their car runs out of gas (due to having holes shot in the tank) and they’re forced to go on the run by foot (like Hopper, Joyce, and Alexei do in this episode). The two Magnum P.I. episodes were different in plot and tone, and didn’t try to mesh comedy into serious moments and visa versa. Unfortunately, that’s an issue with how they wrote the Joyce/Hopper scenes in this episode, which is why I wasn’t as invested in them as I could have been. The comedy was forced, and the moments that were supposed to be taken seriously were undermined by the flaws in the writing I was talking about earlier.

Couple of things before we wrap up and move on to the Griswold Family arc.

The first is just an observation from my perspective: That’s arguably the cleanest 7-11 I’ve ever seen in my life.

The second is about Murray. In hindsight, I’m not surprised at him being able to speak Russian (even if it’s a convenient way in the plot to overcome the language barrier between Alexei and the other characters). They’ve established he’s a journalist, and given the political climate in the 80s, as well as Murray’s initial belief Russians were infiltrating the U.S., it would make sense for someone like him to learn Russian in case it ever came in handy.

That being said, for someone who was all over Hopper’s case last season about a potential Russian invasion in Hawkins (and the idea Barbara Holland was somehow connected to it), he seems to not have done anymore investigating regarding that matter since Hawkins Lab closed. I talked about this in my review of “MADMAX,” but I have a hard time buying that Murray wouldn’t have continued to keep an eye on Hawkins to see what other conspiracies and cover-ups he could find since that town was a hotbed for governmental and local scandals. This is someone who (as Brett Gelman put it) liked to “expose everything that is bullshit,” and there is no way in hell he wouldn’t have noticed suspicious activities in Hawkins between the second and third seasons. Like the convenient land purchases that went towards building Starcourt Mall, and the way people were driven off their properties. Or Mayor Kline’s corrupt policies that were leading to protests outside his office. Given the kind of character Murray is, this just comes off as a plot contrivance to keep Murray out of the story until this point.

Either way, I did get a chuckle out of Joyce telling off Murray for his condescending attitude, and insisting that he just speak with Alexei already after the hellish day they’ve had. Good for her!

Part 3: The Griswold Family

The first 2/3rds of this arc were slow to get through, due to the characters finally clueing in on what the audience already knew several episodes ago. We saw the attack at the Holloway house two episodes ago, we knew Heather was possessed by the Flayed and that she wasn’t the only one, we knew victims were being taken to the abandoned Brimborn Steel Works for possession by the Mind Flayer, and most of us could have already guessed as far back as “The Mall Rats” that the Flayed were ingesting poisonous crap (i.e. rats eating fertilizer, Billy with the bottle of chemicals in the pool storage closet). In many ways, the group visiting the Holloway house and piecing together what happened felt like an unnecessary recap. It would be one thing if the audience was discovering this information at the same time the characters were, but the audience has already been several steps ahead, which makes this plot drag unnecessarily. It wasn’t until the characters got to the hospital to see Mrs. Driscoll, and Nancy and Jonathan had their confrontation with Tom and Bruce, that the pacing finally picked up.

I know the nickname “Griswold Family” doesn’t get used until later in the season, but the dynamic has already formed with this group (along with the in-fighting to accompany it), so we might as well talk about National Lampoon’s Vacation. I’m aware there are several other sequels, but since they haven’t come out yet in-universe (the sequel National Lampoon’s European Vacation wouldn’t premiere in theaters until July 26th, 1985, and it’s currently July 3rd, 1985 in-universe), I’ll only be discussing the first one.

National Lampoon’s Vacation is about the Griswold Family’s trip from Chicago to Wally World (a not-so-subtle parody of Disneyland) in Southern California. Rather than taking an airplane, Clark Griswold (patriarch of the family) wants to drive there over the course of two weeks to bond with the family and visit various sites across the United States. As you can imagine, things don’t go according to plan. There are various mishaps and accidents, they make stupid decision, they get exploited/taken advantage of by various strangers, the family gets into childish fights, and they’re all left wondering if this trip is really worth it.

Fun Fact: Back in 2012, my family also decided to do a road trip all the way to Disneyworld in Florida, which lasted for several days. We did have a few mishaps (like the number of mosquitos that got into our car at one of the Rest Stops down south), but for the most part, it was the less funny version of this movie. My parents’ marriage was already on the rocks, and this trip did NOTHING to improve it. There was also in-fighting, but unlike where the movie played that for laughs, a lot of it got nasty and personal. I wanted that to be a good trip, but it wasn’t. It’s likely why I have mixed feelings about this movie: There are parts of it that are relatable, and other parts that aren’t.

While National Lampoon’s Vacation did get a few laughs out of me, it’s not my cup of tea. I can tell some of the humor from this movie likely influenced season 3’s comedic tone, and you can even see that in certain scenes during this episode. Like Mike complaining to Lucas and Will that Max and El were conspiring in the bathroom against him (with both girls overhearing), and Will’s exasperation with the situation. Or even the station wagon Nancy drives everyone in to the Holloway House (with Mike and Will unhappily stuck in the back) looking similar to the Griswold Family Car.

There’s also Nancy and Jonathan’s brief spat in front of the others and the way it’s played for dark laughs, just like how Clark and Ellen Griswold argue in front of their kids about how they should have handled Aunt Edna dying of old age. In both cases, it’s Nancy and Ellen making it clear they are NOT IMPRESSED with how Jonathan and Clark have been acting up to that point. Nancy is still irked with Jonathan about what he said to her in the previous episode (to the point she didn’t immediately call him when Mrs. Driscoll revealed herself to be one of the Flayed), and Ellen is upset that Clark cares more about getting to Wally World than about the fact he callously dumped Aunt Edna’s body at her son’s house in the pouring rain (To be fair: Aunt Edna was a miserable bat who rudely invited herself on this trip and criticized everything the family did, so Clark’s callousness isn’t entirely without merit). The difference is, comedic tone aside, there is an undercut of seriousness to Jonathan and Nancy’s scene.

This whole moment comes off as harsher in hindsight given the direction they went with Nancy and Jonathan’s relationship in season 4. I would even go as far as to call this foreshadowing for Jonathan’s decision not to meet Nancy in Hawkins during spring break, and only arriving at the end when their relationship is on thin-ice. I mentioned in my previous review that I wasn’t satisfied with their reconciliation later in the hospital elevator because it doesn’t truly address the core issues between them. Contrary to what Murray claims, it can’t just be “shared trauma” or the threat of the Upside Down that keeps these two together. If anything, that’s a convenient excuse to ignore the bigger problems regarding their differing viewpoints and personalities clashing with one another. I’m hoping season 5 finally addresses this because they’ve been beating around the bush for quite a while now.

On a more positive note, I did like the brief Lucas/Max and El/Mike scenes of them sharing candy, as well as El leaving an olive branch for Mike. I also appreciated the nod to E.T. The Extra Terrestrial with Mike sharing M&Ms with El, and complementing her on her new look. That was nice.

I also enjoyed the black receptionist nurse who was holding up the phone lines to gossip. I know plot-wise she was a convenient way for Nancy and Jonathan to not be able to call for help when they’re being chased by Tom and Bruce, but she still had some great lines (“She brought a whole zoo in here!”), and compared to the patronizing and unhelpful police receptionist in “The Monster and the Superhero,” she at least got a few laughs out of me.

Something tells me she’s probably going to get fired when the police discover the dead bodies upstairs, but she was fun while she lasted.

Finally, there’s the confrontation between Flayed Tom and Flayed Bruce. I’ve made references in past reviews to The Evil Dead (the poster for the movie is still in Jonathan’s room), but this is where the homage truly takes off, with the morbid twisted humor of the deadites being seen through the Flayed, as well as the gruesome and bloody ends they meet.  

For all the gore and hacked up limbs in this movie, what was honestly the most sickening part was the sense of isolation the characters were experiencing at the cabin, the sheer horror of watching Ash’s loved ones become monsters trying to murder him, and the psychological toll the situation takes on Ash during the night. All throughout this, he is painfully aware that it’s still his sister, his girlfriend, Scott’s girlfriend, and later his best friend Scott (who also becomes possessed by the deadites) that he is forced to butcher. That’s the true evil of the deadites: The way they possess loved ones to inflict maximum psychological and physical torture. Ash makes a bunch of mistakes in this movie, and even hesitates when he shouldn’t (like not attacking the approaching deadite with the axe, to the point Scott had to do it himself), but given how overwhelming the situation was, as well as the painful reminder that he once knew these people before they got possessed and turned demonic, it’s understandable why he’s frozen. There’s even a heartbreaking scene when Ash knows he needs to dismember Linda (who’s become possessed by the deadites), but is unable to do it (especially after seeing the necklace he gave Linda earlier in the movie) and instead opts to bury her in a shallow grave. This goes about as well as you’d expect.

The reason I highlight this in connection to Jonathan and Nancy is because this episode is the first time they’ve ever truly killed another person. Their track record prior to this season had been injuring and burning the Demogorgon (with help from Steve), and Nancy aiding in forcing the Mind Flayer out of Will. However, these were Upside Down monsters, and those creatures didn’t die despite the damage they inflicted on them. With Bruce and Tom, even if they were possessed by the Mind Flayer, they were still human beings, and the blows Nancy and Jonathan dealt to them were lethal. Fans will likely argue they were already dead men walking due to the chemicals they ingested, and while I’m not going to dispute that, it doesn’t change how Nancy bashing Bruce’s head in with a fire extinguisher, and Jonathan stabbing Tom in the throat with the scissors were moves designed to kill them. Just like how Ash and Scott butchering Cheryl and Shelly was meant to finish them off, even if they were possessed by the deadites.

Before I get words put in my mouth, I want to be clear that I’m NOT blaming Nancy and Jonathan for using deadly force against Tom and Bruce. While there were aspects of the chase scene during the hospital I didn’t buy writing-wise (like not pulling the fire alarm to alert everyone in the hospital), Jonathan and Nancy still acted in self-defense, and in the defense of each other. They were in a bad situation to begin with.

However, what I take issue with is the lack of moral conflict presented in this situation, as well as how the show glosses over what kind of psychological effects Nancy and Jonathan would have experienced over killing another human being. One of my main criticisms of the Flayed arc is, aside from Billy, none of the other Flayed have much of a personal connection to the main characters. Tom and Bruce were written to be little more than Hate Sinks (even BEFORE they got possessed) so the audience doesn’t feel bad for them when they meet their demise, and Nancy and Jonathan don’t have to feel guilty about their actions. Imagine, for instance, if Billy had gone through with kidnapping Karen, taking her to be possessed by the Mind Flayer, and it was Karen that Nancy was facing off against in the hospital. Or if Will got possessed again, and was the one trying to murder Jonathan instead of Tom. Does anyone think Nancy or Jonathan would have shown the same lack of restraint in lethally attacking Flayed versions of Karen and Will, even out of self-defense? There was a moral dilemma that could have been explored here (same as in the first Evil Dead movie) of friends or loved ones coming under the possession of the Mind Flayer, and the main characters having to grapple with whether they could go through with killing them if it came down to it. Even with Billy, the show conveniently found a way to side-step the predicament of whether Max would have killed Billy herself if she was left with no other choice. If she already felt guilty about Billy’s death in season 4, imagine what kind of psychological impact it would have had on her to be the one to do the deed herself, even if it was to protect herself or someone Flayed Billy was hurting.

The situation with the Flayed also calls back to the circumstances regarding mutated humans in Fallout 3 and the moral/ethical dilemmas the players face with how to treat them. Ghouls in the game are altered humans who look like zombies due to the heat and radiation from the Great War, and there is the potential for them to become Feral Ghouls if they’re exposed to more intense radiation than usual which renders them little more than animals who will attack the player on sight. The game invokes the question of whether Ghouls still constitute humans regardless of what happened to them, and it’s ultimately up to the player how they behave towards them. Same goes for the Super Mutants, who are revealed to have been former humans experimented upon in Vault 87 who were subjected to a modified version of the Forced Evolutionary Virus (which can alter the DNA of a being and cause mutated physiological changes in them), and eventually escaped into the Capital Wastelands. While most are considered feral, the player does meet a sapient Super Mutant named Fawkes, who can act as an ally and companion depending on how the player behaves towards them. There’s even the question of whether the player’s behavior is rooted in pragmatism and selfish desires, or based on having standards and demonstrating altruism. I see some of those comparisons in the show to how possessed people are treated by the main characters: In the case of Will, they did everything they possibly could to get the Mind Flayer out of him, even at the risk of their own lives. In the case of Billy, there was an attempt made to burn the Mind Flayer out of him (which failed), but following that, the characters were willing to use lethal force against him (like El throwing him through a brick wall, or Nancy shooting at him with her gun in “The Battle of Starcourt:”). It isn’t until El appealed to Billy’s memories of his mom that he was able to regain control, and it’s inferred that El was the ONLY person who could have done that since she was there in his mind beforehand. As for Tom and Bruce: There was one attempt by Nancy to appeal to him (“Tom, whatever you’ve done, it’s not you. He’s making you do this.”) before Jonathan smashed the vase over his head. Following that, the gloves were off with how Nancy and Jonathan dealt with the Flayed.

Speaking of which, I find it interesting once again that even though Bruce and Tom were “activated” by the Mind Flayer when they tried to murder Nancy and Jonathan, Will doesn’t sense it the way he did with Billy at the pool (at least not until the next episode when Tom and Bruce have already merged into the Flayed creature). This has happened enough times in the past 2 seasons that I’m convinced the Mind Flayer has a lot more control over the connection it shares with Will than it lets on. It appears to be able to withhold information from Will about when it’s active in other hosts if it chooses to.

Nevertheless, there’s still the catch-22 of the hive mind, where it’s the Mind Flayer’s greatest strength and weakness. It allows for control over all the Flayed, but it also means that if one of them gets hurt, not only do they all feel it, but they also manifest the same injury in the form of black veins (i.e. Nancy bashing Bruce’s face in with the fire extinguisher, incapacitating Tom so he couldn’t attack Jonathan). From a pragmatic standpoint (notwithstanding its end goal to take El’s powers from her), it explains the decision to have all the Flayed gather in the next episode to assimilate into the Meat Flayer, or even transform Tom and Bruce into one Flayed creature instead of continuing to have them as two separate people on the offense: It wanted to minimize how much pain it experienced, and it was another means of complete domination.

On a final note regarding the Hospital, the BTS photos released last year for season 5 indicate Hawkins Memorial Hospital will play an important role again. There was even a post a while ago showing medical documents claiming Karen had been admitted to the hospital due to severe injuries.

The part that catches my attention is how Karen may have an “infection,” which could mean that she’s either been possessed by the Mind Flayer, or that there’s some kind of disease spreading from the Upside Down. Assuming it’s the former, does this infer that the Mind Flayer is planning to possess people again? If so, could it be trying to create another army of Flayed, or a second Meat Flayer? It already took El’s powers once, and it may attempt to do so again. Unlike last time though, Brenner is dead, Owens is in custody, and the NINA project is disbanded, meaning that if El loses her powers this time, it could be permanent.

As for Karen, if she truly is possessed and Nancy is forced to come into conflict with her in season 5, she may have to deal with the moral implications and psychological impact of possibly killing her mother if she’s unable to save her. That would be the cruelest (but also most efficient) method for Vecna and the Mind Flayer to break the main characters: Take control of their loved ones and use them as weapons. Just like how the Deadites operate in The Evil Dead.

Part 4: Song Choices and Final Thoughts

First song heard is “Strike Zone” by Loverboy. This plays on the stereo when Todd shows up to the 7-11 to get gas, and later when Hopper commandeers Todd’s car and drives away to get him, Joyce, and Alexei to Murray’s house.

Hearing the full song on Youtube as opposed to the brief snippets in the episode gives me a better appreciation for it. I think it may even become a favorite for me. The song acts as an ominous warning about the idea that you won’t face consequences when things go wrong (“You tell yourself you're not the one. You won't get hurt when the damage is done”). It’s unclear if the song is referring to a specific situation, or is meant in a general sense about people believing they can act a certain way without repercussions. What is clear though is that the singer’s attitude towards the individual they’re addressing is scathing (“Can't you read it, it's up on the wall. How can someone so big be so small?”), and that said individual will eventually be in the “strike zone” where they can’t hide or fend off the reckoning they will inevitably face.

I don’t know if I’d apply this to Todd (despite this song blaring from his car) because it seems a little harsh towards him. “You tell yourself it won’t happen to you.” While the show probably meant to convey that Todd was full of himself (the vanity license plates), the most this guy did in the brief scene he’s in was come to the 7-11 to get gas and snacks………. only to have his car stolen by Hopper and Joyce. The idea he deserved what happened to him (despite not having done anything wrong and rightfully being upset with Hopper) is mean-spirited if that’s what the show was going for.

For that reason, I see the lyrics applying in a general sense to all the main characters and how they need to rely on each other to survive (“You're nothin' without your friends. They'll be with you till the bitter end.”). In the context of Hopper and Joyce, they’re both in the “strike zone” now that they’ve uncovered the Russian conspiracy, and they must either put aside their differences and work together, or risk death.

Next, we have a musical piece from the movie Midnight Run: “Stairway Chase” by Danny Elfman. This plays during the scene when Hopper forces Alexei into Todd’s car, and Hopper claims to Todd that Alexei is a child murderer.

In the movie, this music plays when Jack Walsh’s character is first introduced chasing down someone in an apartment complex that he’s been hired to collect. It’s when we first learn that he’s not a cop, but a bounty hunter, and he’s willing to use whatever means (i.e. picking locks, chasing down perps, attacking other bounty hunters) to get the job done. Just like how Hopper resorts to unethical means to get Todd’s car so he can transport himself, Joyce, and Alexei because the situation is that dire.

Following that, we have “A Certain Kind of Feeling” by John Anthony. This plays when Grigori is talking with Ricky (the 7-11 employee) about where Hopper is before Grigori resorts to threatening Ricky with violence.

Like the previous music, this is instrumental. It has a nice, pleasant sound to it that could put a person at ease. All of which makes it jarring when Grigori stops with the pleasantries, and jump straight into violence against Ricky, creating a nice juxtaposition.

Finally, there’s “Boogie Man” by Sid Phillips. This plays when Murray invites Joyce, Hopper, and Alexei in, and proceeds to inspect Alexei with his metal detector.

This instrumental piece was also featured in Fallout 3, and can be heard on Galaxy News Radio. In the game, the station is run by Three Dog, who acts as both a DJ, a commentator on events in the Capital Wasteland, and someone encouraging people to “fight the good fight,” whether it’s for survival or against the corrupt Enclave. The music itself also fits well with the 1950s aesthetic that the game frequently employs (despite taking place in the distant future).

In the context of Murray, I see parallels between him and Three Dog in that they’re both out as crusaders for the truth, and are the kind of people to tell it like it is. Neither character minces words, or pretends to be anything but what they are, and they are not above criticizing the actions of the main characters, whether it’s Three Dog calling out the Lone Wanderer depending on the choices the player makes during the game, or Murray being blunt with others regarding how he views them.

Given the emphasis that’s been placed on the WSQK Radio Station for season 5, I wonder if it may serve a similar purpose to Galaxy News Radio from Fallout 3. I know I proposed past theories about the station serving as a way for the characters to create a distraction for the monsters of the Upside Down (like what Eddie and Dustin did in the season 4 finale), or even as  the base of operations for a radio “shock jock” to make a bad situation in Hawkins worse than it needs to be (and also serve as social commentary on media bias and the promotion of conspiracy theories that cause harm to others). However, a third alternative (based on what the recently released trailer seems to imply) is that the Radio Station could be a means of protecting Hawkins residents from both the Upside Down and the military. There could be a potential plot about free speech being suppressed during military quarantine, with the main characters forced to work around that via the Radio Station in order to protect the remaining residents of Hawkins since the Government won’t listen to their warnings about the Upside Down. Whether or not that theory pans out remains to be seen.

To finish this review, here’s a Funko Pop of Flayed Tom and Bruce. Enjoy! :)