”Like the Mind Flayer...”
This is an exciting, action packed, penultimate episode full of thrills, anticipation and edge of one’s seat action. It is also, paradoxically, an episode in which, by Stranger Things’ standards, relatively little happens.
The cliffhanger to Episode Six is resolved pretty damn terrifyingly as hordes upon hordes of Demo-dogs emerge and the whole lab is evacuated- and the stragglers are, well, eaten. And then the electricity goes An the place is in complete darkness. Things are not looking good.
Meanwhile a struggling Will is sedated so the Mind Flayer can be safely kept in ignorance, and we see Billy using a disgraceful amount of hairspray for his mullet, which was sadly legal back then. We also see Billy’s abusive twat of a dad, and how cowed and uncomfortable Max’s poor mum is. Billy is just an example of the cycle of abuse, depressingly manifesting itself once again. But Billy is sent looking for Max, the slightly less terrifying of this episode’s two main threats. Also, he has a poster of “Kill ‘Em All” which is the only ‘80s Metallica album I just don’t get.
There’s an inevitable row between Dustin and Lucas over the revelation that Dustin kept Dart, but this episode is pretty much streamlined around the escape from the lab, and in particular about the unexpected heroics from Bob- decent man, nerd who gets the girl, massive piece of misdirection after all that talk of moving to Maine, after we have all that suspense about him getting to safety with a Demo-dog trying to get him- and then safety not being so safe as a completely different Demo-dog gets him and kills him anyway. It’s a truly shocking and well executed moment, brilliantly shot to shock and tastefully dwelt upon. Bob will be missed and remembered, and not only because he’s the only non-redshirt to die this season so far.
The episode concludes with everyone in dire straits, desperately trying to think of ways to kill the Mind Flayer (and it does indeed behave like said D&D monster), as everyone slowly uses memories to bring Will back to himself. But slowly the Mind Flayer reasserts control and the house is surrounded. There’s no hope. They’re all going to die and all is lost. It’s all brilliantly built up.
And... oh, there’s Eleven.
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