House of R - ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4, Episode 7 Deep Dive

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

Jo and Mal return to the world of ‘Stranger Things’ to break down the final episode of the first half of Season 4 (4:00). They discuss the origin of Vecna (16:00), their favorite theories heading into the midway point of the season (29:00), and Eleven’s relationship with Dr. Brenner (56:00). Plus, they speculate on what could lie ahead for Hopper (67:00), share their brief thoughts on a scene of Eddie from the trailer (70:00), and close the show by answering some mailbag questions with Jomi (76:00). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Associate Producer: Mike Wargon Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP. and make it a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Hello and welcome back into the ringerverse, your nexus podcast feed for all things fandom.

If you haven't heard enough of our voices talking for nearly three hours of Obi-1 Canobey, I'm Joanna Robinson, and joining me is Mallory Rubin. Hello, Mallory. Oh, Joanna. What's your motive? Recording podcasts and always just seemed too random, too prosaic. Oh, my God. I love you.

I'm so glad to be here with you two days in a row talking about shows we love. Here we are to talk to you about the finale. the mid-season, the odd break, the part one closer of Stranger Things for episode seven, The Massacre at Hawkins Lab. That's all we're talking about here. We'll be doing a little theory and maybe looking forward at the end of the episode. But in terms of what we've seen and what we know, we've only seen what you've seen, which is through episode seven of part one of season four of Stranger Things.

Before we get into that course, quick programming reminders. Yeah. The aforementioned nearly three hours, Obi-One Canobi Deep Dive from House of R is already in your feed. Look, it was on two episodes. That's like, you know, tight hour and a half on each episode. I'm not knocking. The people have seen it. The people love it.

They're thrilled. Right? They're thrilled. This is the podcast we were born to make. So if you, yeah, that is in your feet already. Lucky you to have that. The Midnight Boys will be back with their instant reactions to episode. episode three of Obi-Wan, of course, in the midweek. We'll be back with a deep dive on Friday

for episode four of Obi-Wan. And then we've got stuff coming like the boys and Miss Marvel and all of that. We'll be here to cover all of that. And then before you know, it'll be time for Stranger Things Season 4, Part 2, you know? Just the calendar, the calendar, the time, the clock is ticking. The calendar's full. Here we go. So that's, my goodness. That's what's going on. We're all going to be here pitching in to cover all this stuff that you love and you're watching and you're loving. Just us and the peanut butter smuggler, Joe, here to make content. Phrasing.

All right. So how do you, how do folks keep track of all the stuff that we have coming, Mallory Rubin? Oh, boy. You know, you're out there and you're wondering exactly that. You can follow the pod. You can follow the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Refresh it every day. Hey, listen.

Refresh it more than once per day. Sometimes. We're going right now. Okay? And follow all of our myriad social feeds because it's always a great way to track what the Ring ofverse crew is up to. But right now, it is just particularly vibrant and popping out there on the Ring ofverse socials.

We were at Star Wars Celebration this past weekend. I keep saying weekend. It was a Thursday. It was a Friday. But what is time? That's one of the things we'll be discussing today, Joe. What is time? Sure will.

And Jomey was crazy. crushing it, crushing it on the ring of verse social. So a lot of goodies there for you. And of course, always the programming updates when a new pod is dropped. Listen,

if you want to watch, if you like me, want to watch Mallory Rubin build a droid, you're going to want to, you're going to want to get on the social. Thanks, thank you to Jomey for all of that content.

He'll be back. Jomeo will be here at the end of the episode for our mailbag section. He has a lot of stranger things, thoughts and feelings. Can't wait to hear them from him. I am going to issue you,

a spoiler warning. once again, even though I already said it, episode seven, that's what we're talking about. If you haven't finished part one, season four, Stanger Things, there's some big twist and turns in this episode. We're going to be talking about them. So you have been warned. That is what you're here for. That is what we're going to be talking about. I'm going to reread the tagline of this season because I think it resonates more once you know what the whole first part is about, right?

And again, I'm going to use my movie trailer voice. A new horror is beginning to surface. something long berries, something that connects everything. The massacre at Hawkins Lab. So we started this season with the massacre at Hawkins Lab. We end this part of the season, knowing everything that went on there. I have some big questions to get into before we do some of our character-by-character deep-dive stuff. But I guess I just want to ask you really quickly, big picture, Mallory.

Like, do you feel like these seven episodes live up to that promise? And how did you feel at the end of episode seven versus somewhere in the middle of the season versus at the beginning? of the season? In terms of the something that connects everything question, I will withhold judgment, I think, until volume two and probably until the final seconds of the fifth and final season. You know, I think I left the finale with a lot of questions, but broadly my answer is yes, because they're questions that feel more precise and targeted than the questions I would have been able to ask heading into this season and this volume of this season. I'm just going to say season. I'm not going to say this volume of this season every time. We all know what we're here

to talk about. It's efficient. It's efficient. And it's definitely a season that expanded the mythology. And that was something that we talked about in our part one pod. And hey, you know, go back and listen. Go back and listen to part one or part two here. Take the whole dirty with us.

There was, I felt a lot of investment heading into the season in the characters and their arcs and still had like a lot of pretty broad and sweeping questions about what the lore was actually going to look like. And it is starting, starting to stitch together. I think the mythology, much like the vines inside of the upside down, it's a hive mind, right? And so in theory, if we have one piece, we're connected to it all, and we just can't see that yet. I really liked the finale. I thought that the finale was the best and tightest, even though it was the longest, tightest episode of the season overall.

I certainly missed, you know, Will and Mike and Jonathan and Argyle on the characters who were not present. But overall, it felt like one of the most consequential downloads that we have gotten to date. Just like a fun, well-paced, spooky and intriguing episode of TV. So it made my season four journey to date feel like more cohesive and clearly pointing toward a hopefully satisfying conclusion. How about you? Do you have a good time? I had a great time with the finale. I think all of the nits that I had to pick about the pacing or the spread of the narrative in the earlier episodes of the season,

I don't have those complaints here partially because, as you mentioned, like, the California crew is not involved in this. Secondly, we get a bunch of strands coming together, which is something that Stranger Things is always good at at the end of a season. Except for the Russia stuff, which doesn't connect back yet. Probably will, but doesn't yet. But the Russia stuff was the most exciting it's been. So I didn't feel like I was dragging going over to the Russia stuff. So I think the lesson from that. So I loved it.

And for folks I knew who were watching it and were behind me and they felt like the season was not their favorite, I was like, it ends so, so well. I promise you, it sticks the landing so well. And then you'll go back maybe and rewatch it like I did and feel like the whole thing hangs together super well once you know what it's headed towards. And I think that a lesson that possibly they could take for season five from this is that it is okay to just not check in with. everyone all the time. Like, I think there wasn't enough plot for the California crew or even the Russia-alaska crew. And I think maybe all of these episodes would have felt tighter or more electric all the way through if we weren't cutting away to someone just to check in with them, which I think they did a couple times. I think it's okay for us to not see Hop and Joyce in every episode.

And I think it's okay for us to not see Will and Mike in every episode if Hawkins is still the hive of activity. I just think I just couldn't get over how well paced and how well cut together, especially that final lore dump sequences, you know? And if we had had to cut away from that

to go to California or something, or they're in Utah now, I guess, like it would have bummed me out. So, yeah, great stuff. Loved it. Yeah, the editing in that final stretch in particular where we are getting to glimpse one,

imparting all of this history to Elle, as Nancy also follows young Henry. who, of course, we learn, becomes one through the Creel House, through this history. We're spanning characters, we're spanning locations, we're spanning decades of story. And it was just so elegantly stitched together and thrilling to watch, really riveting. If you, like, when I went back to that part to take notes, I couldn't believe how much I was just writing down of what one was saying. And that is an amount of sheer exposition that could have made this feel really, really clunky and ineligent,

particularly at the end, and then would have heightened the, man, we had to sit through 20 minutes of lore download and we didn't even get to see Mike and Will, like, what is this? But it did not feel that way at all, quite the opposite. And, you know, in hindsight now, I think, like, the collective internet had a real, what's happening here with these runtimes and what's happening with seven episodes in volume one and two episodes in volume two. It's difficult for me to imagine, you know, we'll look back on the season as a whole after volume two. It's difficult for me to imagine breaking. this in any other spot because of where this ends. Like it feels, it just would not have felt satisfying, I think, if we had concluded at the end of five or six. I don't think, I think, you know, maybe in an ideal world, because we know, okay, some background information is that, you know, we got screeners for this. We know the digital effects weren't done on the last episode, which means they're still working on the digital effects for the final two, right?

Right. Which means those episodes aren't ready. And so I think, again, if this season hadn't been split, the way that it was, like, you know, and we had done Stranger Things in a classic binge. At the same time, I do think we're going to spend the next month with our theories, and that's fun because we haven't really gotten ever to do that with Stranger Things, and we've got a healthy theory section in our outline this week. So that's a fun thing to do.

Give us weekly episodes in season five. Please. Okay. We'll talk about it every week. It'll be great fun for all of us. I do want to hit some bigger, bigger, other bigger thoughts before we get into everything. Obviously, we're going to talk about Jamie Campbell-Bauer at a second, but I'll talk about. I want to bring up this water question, which I think is so interesting.

One of our listeners, Brandon, sent this on Twitter, and I'm not putting in the mailbag. I just wanted to address it up top, which is I never really thought about it. But as we journey into the upside down at the end of this season, and they're in Lover's Lake, and there's no water in Lover's Lake. And there's no water in Steve's bathtub, maybe, but is Steve's pool where... Steve's bathtub, season five, who says no? Follow me into Steve's bathub, into the upside down. You know, the pool where Barb is, there's no water. And then in season two, when Will is drawing the tunnels that go all around Hawkins,

they go around the bodies of water, which is how Bob can figure out sort of what he's looking at it all. So do you have any water theories about this? What's going on with water and the upside down? I have to be honest with you. I don't, not only do I not have a good theory. I don't even have like a good way to fake my way through a response here. I've got nothing. I'm fascinated by this observation though.

I think it's a, it's a great call out. Now, presumably there has to be some source of water in the upside down just because of how long Will was down there in season one without dying of dehydration. I don't know, maybe he was sucking on a vine or something for nutrients, but. What are those little, what are the flakes? Are they ash? Are they, what are the upside down flakes? So the flakes, I was going to mention the flakes today because we get that moment where Steve and Jess quite a few of them and is coughing.

And I was deeply concerned because we've learned in previous seasons that they're toxic. So that's not great. Worried about my guy, given the amount of flakes he's inhaled and the number of demi-bat bites. Morbius Stranger Things crossover? What do you think? Rejected. We're just workshopping. You know, it says our pal David Jacoby would say here, no bad ideas in a brainstorm.

I'm usually a yes and person, but this is a no period. That's where you draw the line, firm line. You know, it's funny that you mentioned the flakes, though, because I was going to ask you if with the light another like key iconic upside down visual, which was really brought to the fore in this finale when the kids are used, the teens are using the light to communicate via Morse code and talking about how it tickle, talking about how it felt, there seemed to be like a quality of life there. And it made me think of dust a little bit from historic materials. I was wondering if that had, if that had struck you at all or if you thought there was anything

to that. I'm just moving away for the water question, but I want to know what you think on the waterfront as well. Well, I don't have a good answer other than, of course, I always think of signs when I think of like creepy crawlies and an aversion to water. But like I, I think that golden light question is really interesting because it's possible that at the end of all this, the upside down is transformed from a hellscape to some sort of like beautiful golden, a healthy, wholesome place. You know what I mean? Because it feels like that light connection, this is skipping way ahead, right? But like the reason it feels like to me, the reason Will was able to convince. communicate with Joyce and the upside down was because of their like their strong like love connection,

right, between mother and son. And it felt like Steve was able to hear Dustin because of their strong connection. I mean, like, other people were able to hear him, but it was Steve who heard him first. You know what I mean? And so that connection between the kids and the older kids through the light that felt very love magic oriented. And, you know, I think some sort of of transformation for the upside down because like all those necrotic rotting vines being turned into something like healthy and beautiful and green at the end of everything. Yeah. What a nice thought.

That's so interesting. I love that, Joe, because every gate that we know has opened and we'll obviously talk about the gates later has come from either fear, anger, some sort of hunger, shame, you know, something like foul, something, something that somebody would, would either fear or, in the case of the minefire or Vecna, or even the demigorgans who are, you know, popping through the little mini gates in a tree trunk or whatever, like a hunger. So to flip that and to find out that the only thing that can really heal it, even if you think back to like, obviously we learn in season three that it wasn't fully closed, but the big gate that L shut in season two, what really allowed her

to find the full strength to close it as far as she did. It was the fact that Hopper was right there next to her. Yeah. Love it. Totally. All right. So now is the time we get to talk about Jamie Campbellbauer. And Mallory and I just want to state for the record.

So we watched all the episodes before we recorded our first two installments. And we had long discussions about how we talk about this. But we want to state for the record as educator consumers of pop culture and distrusters of Jamie Campbellbauer, we both were immediately like, No, no, no, no, no, no. We both immediately were like, that's one, like immediately. But we couldn't talk about it because we felt like we would tip our hand to anything. So now we told you is what I'm telling myself about Jamie Campbellbauer.

What are you going to say, Mallory? You're a more disciplined podcaster and human being than I am. This was so hard. It was so hard. When he appeared in the batch of episodes that we discussed in the last pod to not do on the pod, what we did genuinely and sincerely as viewers, we were watching this for the first time, which was immediately the second we saw him say, that's the bad guy. Yeah, 100%. And I think that like even honestly, like some of it was just, some of it is the casting. And it's actually always fun

across shows and films when there's a casting that just leads you as a viewer to say, okay, I'm paying very close attention here immediately just because of who this person is. You know, he's played so many villains before, but also the context, you know, the nature of his interactions with 11, the way that he immediately not only tried to facilitate this, this friendship and kinship with her, but turn her against Papa, the fact that he was appearing to us as viewers inside of these immersive memory sequences that we knew were the key to unlocking the eventual big moment of clarity, the epiphany inside of the season. I'm sure that, you know, the degree to which everyone was like,

okay, that's actually going to be the young boy and the creal flashbacks and he'll be one. And we're hearing them say Peter and he was announced as Peter, but this is definitely Henry, the name we saw on. Myelage may vary on that. But I'm sure that many people watching this immediately, you know, had a will-esque tingle on the back of the neck when he appeared because it was so suspicious. Well, I think what's genius about the way this all hangs together is I think most everyone had one piece and probably very few people unless they're like super super super super, you know,

healthy watchers were maybe going slowly, not like greedily consuming it and like chewing over their theories and got their red string cork board out, figured out all the pieces. But I think even if you did, the way it comes to all together in the end is so satisfying. Even if you figured it out, it's still incredibly satisfying and elegant. So I just thought that that was an A plus 10 out of 10. A big question for you, Mallory Rubin. Why on earth would Dr. Brenner put one in the mix with the kids like this? Why would he do this?

This is a great question. I think it's actually something we need to get an answer to in the next episode. The next episode is titled Papa. So hopefully we will get it in episode eight. That should be where we get it. Because, you know, we learn enough in this episode to understand. And first of all, some of the key things about the timeline regarding not just one and Papa, but Hawkins Lab in general. And I think we're just going to kind of weave in and out as we go today and that's fine, much like the hive mind.

It all connects, right? One of the things that we learn is that young Henry, his mother, wanted to send him to Dr. Brenner before the murders at the Creole family house. So one of my questions is, what was Brenner doing? And that was 59, 59. And the key memories between 1 and L and the big reveal, 79. Season 1 of the show, 83, season 4 of the show, 86. What was Brenner doing before Henry arrived and became number one that led him to be the person where this kid would go, where he would be sent, right?

So that's a question that I have. And I have a lot of questions about the mindflare of Vecna connection and whether the mind player is providing powers, targeting people who already have some sort of natural ability, et cetera. We'll hit that later. But one of the things that we learn is from one, he says to 11, when Papa finally realized he could not control me, he tried to recreate me, right? So that's a huge thing.

But this idea of control is very present in general. One of the ways that one is trying to break through to 11 and they kind of win her to his cause because he needs her to take the control beacon out of his neck, but also because he does genuinely seem interested in her partnership after a very lonely life. He says that's all he wants, control. Well, Papa couldn't get that, right? He wanted more. He wanted to control. We keep hearing this word control throughout this episode, both in terms of how it might impact the characters in the future and in terms of what unfolded in the past. And so I think that that idea is very crucial. he had to find a way to keep one in check and thought that he could continue.

I think it's just hubris that he could continue if he had his powers under control to monitor him, potentially use him. I mean, you could go into real, like, theory territory and say, is there any chance, I don't personally believe this, but is there any chance that Papa and one are like in cahoots in some way that they were running some sort of game? It seems to me not to be the case because one is very much looking to break away from Papa's control. but could there be some sort of larger conspiracy of a foot, probably?

There always seems like there could be a larger conspiracy of foot. We want to, like, a couple things. So Jamie Campbell-Bauer can finally go on like a publicity tour about this season that he couldn't talk about. Gave some great interviews to Entertainment Weekly, IGN. There's like a bunch of great interviews that you can read. Fun facts that I learned from some of those interviews that he was given sides, meaning like dialogue from Primal Fear, which is a great movie if you've never seen it, but in which Edward Norton plays like an innocent, shy man who's actually a serial killer.

And so there's these great interrogation scenes where he's like masking the evil that is in. Sorry. Spoilers for primal fear. Sorry, guys. And then Hellraiser. So Hellraiser is like the Becknicide. And Primal Fear is like the Henry, the friendly orderly sort of side of things. And I just thought that was a really fun combo.

I love that. Can I ask you a name question here? Yeah. Because one of the things that he said in that, or that he addressed in that EW interview, was the fact that his character had been announced as Peter Ballard, and he was basically like, I don't know where that name came from. That's not my character's name. Yeah.

But there are a couple. I was really confused by this because, obviously, as a child, he is Henry Creel. That is his name, Henry. And then Henry becomes one who becomes Vecna. But did, my question is, is, Peter the new identity of the orderly? Maybe so that other people would not make the connection that Henry was this orderly? Like, is this some sort of false persona that Brenner created? Because elsewhere in the season, we get a couple mentions of Peter. There's Brenner in the flashback

in the first episode, I believe, when he's checking in on the intercom and he says, Peter, Alec, what's going on out there? He's calling out to the orderlies. And then this one is the most like, hmm, I'm doing the Chin stroking. I'm doing the Zoom recreation of a thinking face emoji. Owens.

When they, when Sullivan and Co. hit the Owens home and they're taking that box out of the closet, Sam's wife says, why are you taking that box? Those are Peter's old school projects.

I thought Peter's the name of Owen's son. Mentioning two Peters in this episode when you've announced your main villain as the character Peter and not directly. connecting to who those peters are? It feels like red herring stuff to me, but but I could, I could be wrong. I look forward to learning more.

The thing that I love about this villain as opposed to the other goopy villains that we've met in previous seasons, this human, we talked, I tried to talk about this in a non-spiler way, but sort of like how humanoid he is, how connected he is to 11, like the demigorgian and the mind flare and all this sort of stuff has been really creepy. and fun, but it's so much better when you have a villain who is like,

was ever once a human and has some sort of emotional resonance with your characters, whether it's the connection he has with Nancy or the connection he has with 11.

How do you feel about that evolution of a stranger thing, creepy crawley? Can I ask you a question that's occurring to me in real time? That I,

for all I know, there have been 500 blog posts about this on the internet. So I'm not claiming that this is an original thought, but it is occurring to me for the first time. Because remember we talked last pot about the spires that had Chrissy and Fred, like their bodies in the, in the psychic realm, shattered creel house, Vecna, deep mind penetration?

All these really technical, precise names that I'm rolling with for the six-inth mythology. On the one hand, we have seen where a demigorgon begins. It begins as this little slug. You saw it fall out of Will's mouth, a little seedling slug at the end of season one, and a grue went to dart. Shout out, dart. He just wanted to eat candy and hang out with Dustin. He just wanted some...

He just wanted some nougat, man. Yeah. But the reason that I just thought of this when you were asking your question is because the demigorgan, and especially the one we see in the Russian prison fight sequence, other than the fact that there's no face, you know, which is a recurring observation from the character since the very beginning of the show, it's a humanoid body. And I'm wondering, like, do you think that there's a, I'm going to answer your question, I promise, but do you think that there's a chance that, especially because we hear Vecna say that they've, like,

joined me that these victims are turned into and, like, converted into this demigorgon army in some way? I don't know how to reconcile that with the fact that we see them start as little slugs, but maybe. Well, the question is, like, are the dema dogs definitely demigorgans is the question? because we never see the demigods turn into fully people, even though they look like people on all fours. Do you know what I mean? Right. Because they're all eliminated in that particular dog, demadogist state in season two again.

Rest in peace, dart, we miss you. Even if it were a retcon, I think it would be so much more haunting and affecting if the Devin Gorgans were victims of the mindler. Yeah. And then maybe they can births. slugs in some way. Anyway, to your actual question. Yes, I love the fact that we learned that Beckna was a human for a couple of reasons. One, as we start to get into the end game and think about what the end game implications are where the show is heading, I know you have some theories

you've been cooking up that you're ready to drop on the people today. We have to think about 11. We have to think about our characters who we're close with and what the insights that we've gained in these seven episodes prime us to anticipate for her arc and other character arcs too. So the idea of these parallels between 11 and 1, which, again, are a key part of his approach, how he wins her into his trust initially showing these ties that buying the similarities between them I knew someone once. You know, you remind me of someone I knew. This is when, before we learn he's won, this is when he's speaking about one earlier. The fact that being human is something that Henry considers a weakness, a vulnerability.

They're a pest. Yes. He cites the spiders, right, as like the godly predator, the creatures that allowed him to find some sense of like peace and purpose and belonging. We don't know still the mind fliers origin. But knowing that Vecna was a human being who hated humanity is a really big puzzle piece as we speculate about the potential connections between the Mind Flair and Vecna. And I think it's really fitting one overall in terms of the,

the canon of the upside down. Like, if we think back to, you know, still one of the great, like, pantheon, Stranger Things moments, Dustin's veil of shadows, quote, in season one, you know, it's like all around you and you don't even know it. The idea of taking humanity and turning it into something monstrous, taking your regular life, the streets and the homes and the things that populate your daily existence and corrupting them into something monstrous all just really fits perfectly. It was part of what I really loved about the finale.

So my big brain theory then I'm going to drop here, right, is that. that. And I'm not alone in this. Friend of the pod, Kim Renfro, my favorite, like, theory conspirator, we like hit each other with his theory at the exact same time on the text thread, which is that who's to say that Vecna isn't the mind flare himself? And here's my main argument for this. My main argument is how on earth are we going to care about a mind flair next season when Vecna is such a compelling, juicy, connected to L figure when L.C. When L. Creates, when L. aided him in some sense. Like, there's no, like, unless we take one of our heroes and turn them into a villain for

the final season, which is still on the table, I don't think you can go from a character like Vecna to the Mideflare. And let's be clear, this whole idea that Vecna is the five-star general and the demigorgans are the foot soldiers and the mind-flair is, like, the big one in control of everything, is just Dustin's theory. These are all theories that the kids put together based through the lens of D&D, which is the only way that they can understand something like this. Mali Rubin, your face is full of excitement and joy and you want to interject. Hit me. What are you thinking? Okay. So I agree with you. And I think that

thematically and in terms of what would be the most satisfying story, you're definitely right. I have a lot of questions still about the chicken egg of all of this and about the Mind Flares role for a couple reasons. One, and maybe this is just about evolving my read of how the show has parceled out information, it does, as compelled as we are by the humanity, it does feel like we have shrunk down, actually, in some way to like a smaller, more focused threat. In terms of the Dustin point, like a lot of the mind flare that you mentioned the five-star general thing, but like a lot of the questions about these ties come from Dustin directly. You know, he literally says in this finale, on top of that, how does the mind player figure

to all of this? And we get that exchange with him and Lucas right before Erica's just chef's kiss. Holy shit. That was incomprehensible quote, which was so a solve reference. Be kind. Rewind. I loved it. We get the who do we know who wants to take over the world, the mind flier.

Now, I think you're right. That could be building to the next big bit of clarity, which is, whoa, we missed this key puzzle piece, which is they're actually the same person. Or it was the other way, that looming shadow. By the way, it kind of shaped like a spider. So it would fit. Certainly that that could be something Vecna deployed. All of that I think is right. The thing that I just wanted to say,

the reason I was making the face on Zoom is Dustin. Yes, you're right. We've only gotten this term Dustin, either in the form of epiphanies or in the form of questions. But what else did we get from Dustin in this episode? We got the, listen, sort of egotomaniacal as Dustin, as David Eddy point out, he was like, how many?

times do I have to be right before you all just start trusting me? But isn't that again another red herring? I'm sort of like, well, obviously everything Dustin said is true. He's so often right. So let's just, it's just his theory based on a D&D manual, which is a great theory, my guy, but like we don't know the answer. And I think the spider stuff, which is not only the silhouette of the mind flare is a spider, but also the creature that he makes in season three is a spider shape, right?

And it's made by absorbing people. which is a lot of what Vecna is talking about in terms of like taking a Chrissy and a Fred and sort of like absorbing them into the larger hole. They've joined me, right? They're a part of me. And he's a part of me. And he's a part of me and he points of his head. Yeah. And there's no difference between the way in which Vecna targets Chrissy and Fred and the way that he targets, Will, who has his otherness and his queerness and his queerness.

And Billy who's got his abusive childhood. Like those those are all a similar profile with Chrissy and Fred in terms of targets in terms of who the MindFlherer is targeted and who. Vecna has targeted. So, like, I'm so happy to be wrong. And please, please forget I ever said. I think there's a really good chance that this is correct. To be clear, I don't, I'm not discounting it. I'm just, I'm, I think the main issue is I just don't know how we move on from this. Thinking of other shows that have, like, escalating big bads, you always want to end with, like, the juiciest. And I don't know how you get juicier than this again, unless it's like 11 or will or something like that. So, yeah, go ahead. Can I ask, okay, and again, I'm, I sincerely am not disagreeing.

I think that you're making an incredibly compelling case. Let me play devil's advocate with a couple more questions. We can talk it out in real time. So one of the points that Dustin makes that I do find compelling, this is in earlier episodes, not in the finale, is that 11 didn't create the upside down, right? She opened the gate to it. The upside down has probably been around for thousands of years, millions.

I wouldn't be surprised if it predated the dinosaurs, he says. No, but I don't think it's his theory because, well, I guess it could be. But I mean, I think the signature, the flicker of the lights, for example, in Henry's childhood creole memory now, that if he's the mind flier, then that could be because that's where that kind of power originated, right? But I think what's true is that like when we see Henry go, I'm sorry, we will talk about the episode itself and not just theories, I promise. But like, when we see Henry go into what we presume is the upside down when Elle shoves him through a wall, it's this fiery hellscape. Which is not, which is similar to the broken apart house that we see in that sort of landscape, but is not the cold, ashy, viny Hawkins that we see later. And it makes more sense to me that the upside down as we know it is something that Henry himself created. He's stuck in hell.

And he's going to create this like cold, necrotic version of this place that he was moved to that he hated, Hawkins, Indiana. and then he's going to spend his life trying to like, you know, eliminate humanity. It makes sense to me. What about, so what did you think of the, the visual of Eleven's birth? Like, the red crackling of light. Like, I guess maybe that's a birth canal quite literally, but it did seem to evoke deliberately some of the red lightning, like upside down imagery. Now, again, we talked about this last episode, and I think what you just noted is important.

We have more than just two realms of play here. We have what we think of traditionally as this vine-laden upside-down. We have proper Hawkins. We have this psychic realm where Vecna is luring his victims, and we know, like, what's one of the easy ways to tell that that's not exactly the same as moving from Hawkins into the upside-down? Your body doesn't go with you, right? That's like one cheat, one shorthand, right? Right. So we're definitely, and the characters are reinforcing and connecting the psychic power, the nature of this connection between the characters between Beck and the victims, etc.

Something about that visual of L's birth, though again, this does not in any way discount what you're saying because of the reveal that Brenner was powering up these other kids somehow by tapping into one, splicing in genetic code will learn, I'm sure, the specific. specifics later, you know, much like Palpi and Co. We're chasing those Grogu force strands. Like however they're powering up by taking something from another being. Yeah. Henry already

existed. He would have already had that. One thing in his backstory that I was like really trying to parse in terms of the timeline of it all and this connects to maybe the origin. And maybe this is just a, if your theory is right, this is moot because it's one and the same. But one of the things that I kept asking myself is

Did the mind flayer give Henry his powers? Where did Henry's powers come from in the first place? Yeah. Where did Henry's powers come from in the first place? Good question. Because we know, and it's not even just, oh, like, Hawkins, because Hawkins has some sort of thin barrier to the upside down that made it vulnerable to these gates in the first place.

Because one of the things he shares with 11 is that his teachers, they all thought that he was different before. That was why his family moved to Hawkins in the first place. Now, clearly there is an awakening that unfolds when he, he is in Hawkins. He realizes that he could do things. And so one of my reads in that sequence in particular was he has some sort of natural, like, telekinetic ability. Maybe he had it and the mind flare chose to make him that five-star general. Maybe he is the mind flare and that's how he had it. But then where did he come from in the first place? Where did that power come from?

And Hawkins and this connection, this thin barrier between realms, like allowed him to power up in some way, allowed him to tap in to the magic if the upside down per Dustin's theory does, in fact, predate all of this and has been there forever. Like, we don't actually know that the gate that we see 11 open when she sends one through the mirror and creates that gate in the rainbow room, we don't know that that's the first gate. Absolutely not. We have no idea. Previously, we thought the first gate was the one she created around season one, right?

We thought that was the mama gate. to use a steveism. So I think that like, all great questions. And I think a lot of things are on the table here. I think what you raise this idea of, again, this is going to go back to support my theory, of course, but like this question you raise of like, is 11 created from her mother and Henry's DNA? Is that the creepiness that, and you're the one who first, I think you texted me about this, this question. Like, you know, so is Henry. Henry's DNA? Is that the creepiness that, and you're the one who first, I think you texted me about this, this question. Like, you know, so is Henry is one, actually Levin's father, technically, her bio dad?

And it fits with this like spectrum of father she's dealing with, with Papa, with Hopper, etc. To go back to the Star Wars comp, like, what stronger villain in all of this than like, you know, your father, the person who created you? Absolutely. And if we get that Hopper line in this episode about it must be hardwired into us to reject our father. so we can grow and move on, become something of our own. A perfect line, yeah. It is so great.

And if that can apply to one, and even Papa, right, who would seek to make himself this kind of noxious fatherly figure for all of these kids that he created and turned into weapons, then she can, that can be true and she can still embrace Hopper

and these other people who become her found family, the family that she chose. I love this. I love all of this. I have one last thing. talk about before we get into the plot of the episode, which is, this is another theory that you floated. And again, we're going to have more theories to get to, but like the time travel theory.

This is something that you brought up that I hadn't thought about. I freaked out. I did a much. But in the finale, we see Henry and standing in front of a clock and he's closing his eyes and he moves the hands of the clock. We've had a lot of questions about why this clock keeps showing up. It's not just a piece from the house. But Henry, do you have the quote handy? Do you want to, do you want to read it? He is talking about being human, right? And he says, where others saw order, I saw a straight jacket, a cruel, oppressive world dictated by made-up rules, seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades. Each life, a faded, lesser copy of the one before. Wake up, eat, work, sleep, reproduce, die. Everyone is just waiting, waiting for it all to be over. And I think watching,

watching Henry manipulate the hands on the clock, whether that's just like physical telekinesis or some sort of time manipulation, we don't know. But that's on the table. And then, of course, the other element that happens in the finale is Nancy's discovery of the diary. Do you want to read that quote? Yeah, I'd also like to tell Nancy to keep her,

you know, time travel aside, keep her guns in a more secure place than where she thought it works. She discovers that the items that she is seeking, these guns are not there. and sees the flash cards. We remember them. We probably didn't need the flashback that we got,

but we got it to place us in time. She's thumbing through her diary. She's seeing all these things that are just out of time from what she would expect to find. And she says, I think the reasons that my guns aren't here is because they don't exist yet.

This diary should be full of entries. It's not. The last entry is November 6, 1983. The day Will went missing. The day the gate opened, were in the past. And so this question of, this ties back to my question of like, how do you have a villain beyond Vecna? And the question, the answer to me is that no, Vecna or One or Henry or whatever you want to call them is still the villain in the final season.

That feels like, to me, that feels like a must. And what could be really fun, and again, the time travel thing is a big part of if you watch the end of season three. They go watch back to the future. They talk about time travel a lot. Yes. Would it be fun if the final season somehow folds back, a varied Avengers endgame, folds back in,

folds back in on the beginning of Stranger Things somehow. And it plays with the fact that the kids have grown so much and we maybe see them interact with the events of the previous seasons somehow via Back to Future 2 sort of Time Highestiness. And if Vecna throws them out of time somehow, throws them back to 83, does something, and they have to fix all that to, again, wild theories. But I think the time stuff is so interesting. What do you think, Mal?

I'm thrilled. Let me just say that. I really, since the end of season three, have been waiting for some sort of time travel, time-hopping elements that come into play here. You mentioned the Back to the Future stuff. There's, there's, and we talked about this last pod, the nature. the nature of the editing in the Hopper letter reading sequence when we see the kids packing up saying goodbye, getting into the car, and then we go back and play that sequence again. Like, that has to be intentional. It had to be priming us for this exactly what you just sketched out, this possibility that we could return to and relive events with slightly different perspective. And even just the substance of what Hopper was saying in that letter, and it's not just any line in any scene.

it's like one of the most emotionally impactful and consequential sequences and stranger things. You know everybody watching is paying attention, right? And he said, I don't want things to change. So I think that's maybe why I came in here to try to stop that change, to turn back the clock, to make things go back to how they were. But I know that's naive. This is the key, I think. That's just not how life works. It's moving, always moving, whether you like it or not.

And yeah, sometimes that's painful. Sometimes it's sad. Sometimes it's surprising happy. And so I want to flip around what you just suggested. Vecna has frozen this in time somehow. Maybe he's the one who wants to stop that change. And maybe our heroes, our kids back on their bikes, have to be the ones to reject that. Have to have to say, no, we can't reset.

Like we have to find a way to push forward even if we've lost people we care about, even if we suffer through something terrible, right? And I just think that is so fun and cool to anticipate. I mean, hey, they might need three hour episodes to get all of this done and just two more episodes of this season and one final season. But like, I just think there's so many cool, interesting things that they could do there. And I am, though, I'm curious what you think about the specific moment here. Like, why is this frozen, why is the upside down frozen on the date of Will's disappearance, November 6, 1983, rather than the 1979 gate date, for example? example, which was the key moment for one himself. And what does that imply about the characters

who are going to be a crucial part of this moving forward? Right. I think it goes back to the question of Will because, like, I think you and I have discussed here, there and everywhere, this question of, like, how Will is being used this season and actually the last couple seasons? And, like, if that neglect of Will, if that backburnering of Will, if he and L not really connecting, if he and Mike not really connecting, if Joyce like fucking gallivanting off when she used to be the most overprotective mom ever, like if all of that is intentionally leading up

towards something to make Will particularly vulnerable to Vecna in some way. And like, I don't, the reason I don't want, A, I definitely don't want a Will death. But B, the reason that I, you know, the reason I feel kind of squeamish around this idea of maybe Will being turned and being part of the,

villainy or, you know, if he's given the option, you can just go back and have, and maybe Elle never showed up in your life. Elle never came to Hawkins. Maybe this is a devil's bargain that Vecna tries to make with him, something like that. Will is like a, you know, then like his, his friendship group has never busted up. He gets all of Mike's attention, like all these things that Will wants. He doesn't hate Elle. He loves Elle. But like, if Elle never came, like, maybe his life would be better. I don't know. Whatever. We're deep down the rabbit hole of speculation. But I think that Will is a very special character. And I think the way in which they're handling his journey through his sexuality, they're doing it very delicately and very subtly.

There was an interesting interview that Millie Bobby Brown and Noah Schnapp gave where they were like, we think it's up to the audience to determine no sexuality. I don't know if that's them trying to avoid a spoiler or whatever, but like it feels like the text of the show. And I just want the show to continue to be very delicate with it the way that it has been, do you know? Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I also do not want a heel turn for Will, nor do I want death for Will. I love Will. I want him to be happy and okay. And, you know, again, we've spoken many times in our three pods here about that great moment between Will and Mike in season three and that idea of change and how difficult it is to accept it. And for Will, finding the comfort to share

these these truths about himself and his life with mike with with with other people with jonathan etc and embrace the fact actually that their party did change that the people in their lives did change that feels like important evolution for will and like him trying to reject that to cut l out of it would be like i think a very weird i would be really surprised if they did that i i really hope not yeah again this is wild speculation so so who knows and i don't feel i don't feel after the finale. I don't feel as firm about that as I do about my effect and of mind player theory. But let's, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say the only other thing I wanted to mention on the time travel front is just that this season opened with time travel, actually. If we recall 11's letter, I mean, it opened with the flashback, but then in the present timeline, 11's letter. We get that. Feels more like 10 years, which we already talked about, kind of the wink to the audience there. But then the next line is Joyce says time is funny like that. Emotions can make it speed up or slow down. We are all time travelers, if you think. about it. They are priming this. And that's what Stranger Thing always does. Is it like the bread

crumbs are always there for every single thing that they do. Like even, you know, like Nancy and her guns. Like that's been a series long thing. You know what I mean? Like all of all of this stuff is always laid out. So, um, all right. Let's zoom through a few things because we've hit a lot of this stuff already. But like the upside down crew as they journey to the Munson trailer, What a group. It was driving me crazy because we kept getting shots of the ceilings of the trailer. And I'm like, why is nobody talking about the gate that's obviously in the trailer? So thankfully, they made the way back.

It was his uncle that one time who was like, yeah, there was like some sort of leak. I don't know. And I'm like, it's so funny. Anyway, they like, I would rather swim to the bottom of a lake and go through a gate there than go back to the Munson trailer. But anyways, where's the gate where Fred was killed? On the road. Is it just in the middle of the street?

I think it's in the road. Yeah. Exciting. Exciting to figure out what Hawkins Mayor Carriol was has to say about the cracks in the middle of his road. But yeah, Steve Hare Harrington, Robin Buckley, Eddie Munson and Nancy Wheeler make their way through. A great, great group. Not a ton to say here, except they're hitting, of course, the Stephen Nancy stuff pretty hard here. And Eddie Munson, a character that I absolutely, absolutely adore.

And he has a lot of stuff about cowardice that we will come back to. Anything else you want to say about these four in their journey? Just a tremendous crew. I loved, you know, we already noted how fun it was to get the kids on bikes again. We had the four teens, the four youngsters. Great shot. These parallels, these parallel images and the right side up and the upside down. Just phenomenal stuff.

I just want to call out three specific lines that involve Eddie, which I thought were some of the best moments not only of the finale. in the season, but of the series to date, and they, in some way, I'll connect to Steve, too. Chest hair corner, one of our new recurring areas of interest. When Eddie hands over his best and says for your modesty, dude. So good. Incredible. I loved the little moment between Eddie and Steve, where it's another version of the exchange that we talked about really enjoying between Eddie and Chrissy at the beginning, like how these characters can find, kind of. common ground with each other if they just take a minute to have a conversation and learn a single thing about the other person, right? Like, guess I couldn't accept the fact that Steve Harrington

is actually a good dude. Love that. Wonderful. Beautiful. Fills you with hope and joy. And then within that, this really interesting nugget where the specific things that Eddie is citing about, like, what made him and other people jealous of Steve. Oh, you've got these rich parents, all these girls love you, are things that we know Steve is like not happy about in his own life. I just thought that was so interesting. And then we texted about this moment of the season. Dustin is, this is what we talked about earlier. Like, why won't you just listen to me how many times we have to be right? And Steve says, Jesus Christ, this kid's got to get his ego in check. And Eddie with like one of the line reads of the season says, it's his tone, right? I've seen a lot of people drawing a parallel between

Joseph Quinn's performance here and like a young Robert Donnie Jr. which is, Which is really, as you said elsewhere, a high bar. But, like, I'm not at all mad about it. And it's really fun to see it because I think actually part of his weird line delivery is his American accent because the actor's British. There's a few times it like pokes through it. And I think it makes him deliver things in a kind of off-kilter way along with his performance. That just, Eddie, 10 out of 10, big fan. So good. You could definitely see a, you could definitely see Robert Taney Jr. saying those stains are,

I don't know what those stains are when his mattress is presented to the world. For sure. On the Steve front, do you think that Steve is going to be more vulnerable or susceptible to Vecna, the Mindfly or something about the upside down after the Demabat bites,

the flake ingestion, etc? I mean, I'm worried. I'm not worried about him. Also, I did a full rewatch of the series and I think the Nancy timeline finally makes sense. to me. We meet her sophomore year, fall winter of her sophomore year. Can I ask you a question? It's established in this episode that that was sophomore year. She says that. Yeah. Did they say sophomore year in season one? Or are they just helping us understand it now? When I did the rewatch, I was on the lookout for

timeline clues because you and I had our question. But I mean, I think the paper job does really feel like it could be a summer job. Like, it makes sense to me, the summer before it was a internship, yeah. And it feels like if Nancy, it feels like if Nancy, it feels like. college. It feels like if Nancy had graduated, we would have heard her talking about college or senior year and stuff like that. Do you know what I mean? Now she is here. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit Spectrum.com.

com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. This episode is brought to by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of

probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort. which includes gas, floating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. In the right side up, Dustin, Max, Lucas, and eventually Erica, of course, can't spell America without Erica, are, you know, being inherent interrogated by the cops. I want to shout out these two cops, Phil and Calvin, who've been around in the background, played by the great Rob Morgan and John Paul Reynolds since season one.

So, you know, they get a promotion since hoppers out of town. They're Keystone cops, obviously, they're fumbling things left and right. But I just, again, that's a stranger thing's reward. of like they don't lose the little things. The same actors came back season after season to play these very smallish roles as they, you know, to make Hawkins feel real. They're a delight. I loved when. First of all, having them in the room in this hysterical sequence where all the families are together watching their children get interrogated aloud our guy, Ted Wheeler, always coming through to say, threaten them with a little jail time.

Maybe that'll loosen their lips. This fucking guy. But Callahan Recounting why it was a mistake to talk to Max first was so funny So good I'm just kind of mean I loved it And then we get what you talked about

Four which is the light manipulation sequence And I don't mean this podcast just be like Things that you and I have bonded about Before we even got on the mic But like Light Bright If you ask my most 80s memory It's this

Daycare light bright, Transformers, boys flipping their eyelids inside out, which I think is a timeless, eternal, disgusting thing that kids do,

but like, that's such a strong memory I have. Transformers light bright's eyelids. But the use of the light bright hair is so good. It was great. Really great.

And then a really fun effect. Before Nancy gets snatched, a really fun effect of them crawling up through, you know, the visual effects on stranger things. top notch, $30 million as we as we. But this is something I think worth spending the money on, which is the crawling up through

the hole and falling down through the hole. It really, really, it worked so well. I loved it too because the participants in the scene are experiencing awe and wonder. Yeah. And it felt important, actually, for them not to become like too totally jaded by the fact that they're supernatural detectives and constantly figuring out the nature of not only the upside down in Hawkins, but the universe itself. for them to be like, holy shit, physics was really fun.

That brings us to the big lore done. Before we get there, though, let's talk about some 11 stuff leading up to it. I want to talk about Brenner and his like sort of, what's so fun about Brenner is that he's not just a mustache twirling villain because some of the things that he says to 11 is absolutely good advice worth taking. when he rejects this sort of simplified monster superhero binary that she's set up for herself. I think that is such a, like a beautiful moment. And then he'll follow it up with saying something like, this place is not a prison.

And you're like, okay, but you literally drugged her and dragged her. So what are you talking about? But what do you think of the Brenner as sort of complicated father figure in this episode? Yeah. So that line was definitely one of the key lines of the episode. You speak of monster superheroes. that's the stuff of myth and fairy tales. Well, so is the show, right?

Reality, truth is rarely so simple. People are not too easily defined only by facing all of ourselves, the good and the bad. Can we become whole? Now, we were saying this, our last couple of pods and talking about how desperately

we wanted Elle to embrace that idea that becoming a superhero again. Mike, I've gone back to become a superhero again. It doesn't mean rejecting these other aspects of your personhood. It means embracing them, ultimately, accepting them, really processing and reflecting on them.

And so he is right, and this is like sage counsel, this is wisdom. But I don't think that it's in any way altruistic or pure, because we know that his goals are corrupt. And I think that what's interesting about Brenner and one is that even though they are opposed to each other, and one represented a threat eventually, we can we can glean to Papa. and Papa had to seek to find another way to weaken him and control him and suppress his powers, they both do this. And they both do this

when they are talking to 11 because they are trying, even if they are projecting and saying something that they really do believe, they are trying through that lesson that they are imparting to manipulate her to their cause, right? So when one is saying

he wants to control you, to him you're an animal, you're a monster, Papa doesn't always tell the truth. He's right about all of those things, but it doesn't mean that she should trust him. And the same feels true here with Papa. He wants to use 11 for some sort of end. Now, I think what's interesting about this is the Sam Owens variable here,

because this is a character, though we talked last pod about how, like, Will and his, you know, that was you guys, you guys, Save Me Line really helps, like, pull us back into not warming up too fully to any of these, like, shadowy, scientific. or government figures. The fact that he's there makes us feel a little bit more comfortable,

but I think that that's how we get caught in a trap, you know, just like L potentially could. That's how we let our guard down. Like, we should not trust these people. And so I'm fully expecting the California kids that purple magic to roll in and get 11 the fuck out of here because I don't think she can be there

for a second longer or without risking some sort of real setback ultimately. It's either the California kids or it's the government figures too. Yeah, Sullivan is or probably in Great Stranger Things tradition, both of the same time. Both at precisely exactly the same minute and will probably descend on the Nina project. I love that you brought up how the Peter Henry won Vecna con job has so many truths in it. That's like the best kind of con job, right? Well, and the villain always thinks they're the hero.

Yeah, exactly. But like to have him talking about the way that Papa fears Ellen, 11, all this sort of stuff, and obviously he's talking about himself. He's talking about the way that Papa treated him. There's a lot of theories going around. I really like them this idea because Callie 8 gets mentioned a bit in these final episodes. And so there's this theory that he tried this on. eight first and helped her escape.

And when he got to the part where he's like, here's this tiny tunnel. Only you can fit through. She was like, Kay, thanks, bye. And left, right? And that's how she got out before the massacre, right? I love the tunnel, by the way.

Like the season one tunnel coming into play. But it would be very on brand for her, right? Whereas with this, like, it's a risk he's taking. He's like, here's you're out. And he's like, did I bait the hook well enough to catch her? Right. And he did. It plays with like a fiddle.

It works perfectly. The little satiria implants in him reminded me a lot of the lysine contingency in Jurassic Park, this sort of thing that keeps your monsters on the island. But as you mentioned before, he genuinely does feel a kind of kindred connection with her. There is genuinely something there. It reminded me a lot of Kylo Ren and Ray, right? Like, join me, you know, together we can rule, all this sort of stuff. what do you want to say about this manipulation?

Well, I think the other thing that I wanted to just mention with Papa while we're on, while we're on him is how much of what happened in the past with One shaped the way that he conducts himself? Like, we don't know, we know that he, we know from One's account that Papa put this chip in his neck because he couldn't control him. But what was the inciting incident? Like, was there one key turning point? Was there one thing that happened?

Was it a collection of events? I'm sure he killed some people. Like, I'm sure that happened. But what's also true is that we see, like, Matthew Modine in maybe one of the worst wigs ever in the history of the series, because I'm pretty sure you can see Matthew Modine's white hair poking out from underneath it, emergency wig watch corner. Tattooing a child. You know what I mean?

Like, that's sinister no matter how you slice it. This is the thing, because, like, you know, we talked last time. about how there's like a tenderness in this 79 memory sequence that he's showing not only 11, but like in the sequence with 10, for example, with the drawings, that he seems to have this real like paternal kind of air about him. But how much of that is just what he's manufacturing to make them comfortable? Like, two is an interesting character because he has mistreated 11 badly. He has bullied her.

We talked last pod about the parallels between the two arc and the Angela arc in Lenora Hills and how this seems to have surfaced some of what 11 had previously repressed. That doesn't make it any less horrifying to see Papa put that shock collar on him, right? And so before anything that happened with one, no matter what murders or anything else occurred that could have led Papa down this path of control and gene splicing and anything else he did, he took that kid. He took that kid into his lab in the first place. That's a thing that he did.

Well before anything with a little bit he did. 11 and 1 in the gate, he took Jane from Terry. Like, this is not a person that we can trust for a second. Hopefully, that's something that Elle can come to in the very next episode, in Papa, hopefully. Something that Henry says to 11 is he says, I know what it's like to be different to be alone in this world. And it very much sets up this there but for Mike and I. Hopper and Joyce and the rest goes 11, right? This these, and again, it goes back to that love thing, like the love anchor for 11 to keep her

from turning into a one seems very, very important. Absolutely. And, you know, one of the things that he says to her when he's saying, you know, you're better than they are superior. He says, imagine what we could do together. We could reshape the world. Again, very Kylo to me. Totally.

Like, that's, I mean, that's classic. Yeah. villain stuff, right? But, and it does. I think a line like that definitely fuels your Vecta and the mind flare or one theory. It's one of the moments where I found myself thinking, because we've talked a lot about wanting Elle

to find her courage and her confidence, right? And rooting for her evolution in that respect. And that is all still true. This feels like one of the moments where the fact that she doesn't trust herself could be a healthy and good thing. Like that she's not the kind of character to this point at least who would believe,

that she should be the person to reshape the world, like that level of greed and hubris. I mean, that's Palpatine shit, right? Like, you know, let's cheat death. That's how you move Anakin to your cause. And there's so many Star Wars Dark Side. I mean, I'm glad you mentioned, Kyla. I just was thinking about the pull to the dark side so many times in this episode. 11 has, is not a character we think of that way. And so it gives me, it gives me hope and confidence. I think we'll talk about some, you know, 11 theories. But one of the things that I'm holding on to, we mentioned this before, I've never played Dungeons and Dragons.

So everything that I, and it seems great and I'd love to play in the future. Everything that I've learned about, it comes from this show, other renderings in pop culture, and the researching, the Googling that we've done for these podcasts. And I was looking at the Vecna Wiki, and there's a line. I'll just read the direct quote from the wiki. Vecna's quote, right-hand man who ultimately, becomes his betrayer is Cass the bloody-handed. And I kept thinking reading that about all of the visuals we've seen of L this season

looking down at her bloody hands. Now, she has already betrayed one once, but is that setting up that they will ultimately definitively be opposed or... Join him only to betray him again, or is it will? Lots of questions. Or is it someone else? There's not, I mean, we've already talked a lot about this lore download. It's all great. It's all like beautifully done.

The image that Elle conjures of her, you know, of her mother felt very Harry Potter to me in terms of like, yeah. Yeah. This is your strength. Again, it's that, it can be really cheesy. but that love source versus the anger source that one is telling her to tap into. She taps into a love source instead. Absolutely.

You know, it helps her power him. Anything else do you want to talk? I mean, like, and also I just want to talk about the establishment. You were absolutely right. I don't think we talked about this on pod. We talked about it off pod. But you were absolutely right that they absolutely set up Nancy's guilt over barb as like such a long running thing.

So for it to pay off here, for him to snatch her, it's just perfect. And it makes us look to these other characters who are dealing with this sort of conflict like a Hopper or a Will or something like that, these people who are just sort of constantly crushed under something. And how vulnerable they will be.

I'm worried about Hopper. You asked Last Pod, is he going to be susceptible because of this shame and this guilt that he has revealed in this season? And I'm concerned. And the moment of reunion between Hop and Joyce was, of course, something that I have longed for

and it was Yeah. But it's interesting, right? But reading his face, there was, we saw it all in just that sequence, right? The final look on his face, you know,

when after he, they kind of, she runs to him, they embrace this all in slow-mo, and then he sort of like, you know, pulls her away a little bit and just looks down at her,

like, is this real, right? Are we together again? And then pulls her back in and puts his, kind of rests his chin on the top of her head and duzzles her allows himself to smile. And that was lovely and sweet and really, like, beautiful. And I was

happy for them. But I was worried, too, because everything that played across his face before then was what he had expressed in the last set of episodes that we discussed. Am I putting the people I love in danger? Am I the curse? And I'm concerned about, I hope that he can push through that and that having these people back in his life. And hopefully before long, he'll be together with, you know, not just just Joyce and our guy, Murr, but with 11 and co as well. And he's hopefully they can push through that kind of fear together and recognize exactly what you just cited. It is the love. It is the ties that bind and their commitment to and belief in each other that actually allows them to thwart their opponent, that that is the very source of their strength and their ability, the bond that they have together, not the thing that they should fear.

So that's my hope. I'm worried. Up! Mike saying it to her. Yeah. So he says what we learned, I mean, we've been talking about these sort of end. the Siberian monologues, but the thing that he says, you know, when he's talking about his daughter and how he was exposed to Agent Orange and the war and how he knew the risks and I hid them

and he decided to have his daughter anyway and then his daughter dies. And it's not for certain that his daughter died because of that, but he certainly feels that he is responsible. Vulnerable. Okay. One of the lines that really struck me in the Russia sequence was the major who Murray and Joyce are, you know, pulling the con on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is before the demigorgan comes out. And he says, I enjoy this part when they still believe there is hope.

And that guy is not Vecna. He's not the mind flare. But it was an important reminder again that the forces that seek to tear down the characters who we are invested in and rooting for, the hope is the thing they want to take away. And so if it's Hopper or anybody else, if they are allowing themselves, and this is the most relatable and human thing, that's part of what makes it so beautiful and compelling to watch,

if they are allowing themselves to sink into that waterless but still present pull of despair, that's the moment when they lose. I want to hit you with the thing that I'm even more concerned about Hopper, because whether are not Hopper dies. You know, and death is not the worst thing I can happen to you, obviously. But, like, I'm worried about Hopper, but I'm even more imminently worried

about our guy, Eddie. Because there is this famous shot from the trailer that people love, which shows Eddie absolutely shredding this guitar that he owns that we saw first in episode one of the season in the upside down. He's standing on top of his trailer

shredding on the guitar, which is probably an effort to use music to maybe help Nancy one way or another, right? That we've got all these moments where Eddie's like, I do what I do best now. I run. Like, I'm not brave. Like, all this sort of stuff. But he saw Nancy just grab the paddle, hop into the lake to go after Steve.

And he's probably going to grab his guitar, hop back in, like, up into the upside down and play a song for Nancy. I want to hit you really quickly with my favorite theory around this. This is one I came up with all my own. And please ignore it. It's not true. But the question is, like, what is the song going to be to play for Nancy? And, like, I was trying to think of, like, what a Nancy song would be. But, like, he's shredding on his guitar.

Nancy's not a, like, shred on the guitar type of girl. So I was rewatching episode one of this season to watch the part where Eddie introduces Vecna in the D&D game, right? Because someone mentioned somewhere that, like, Dustin rolls in 11 and he fails on it. Maybe setting up the fact that 11 is going to fail against Vecna this season to maybe defeat him next season or something like that. So I was like, oh, let me watch that part. The song that's playing in the background of that whole sequence is they cut between the basketball game, the D&D game is Detroit Rock City by Kiss. And the party chanting to the death.

Eddie's laughing. And this is the song that's playing. And I'm going to quick read some lyrics for you. Wow. I feel uptight on a Saturday night. Nine o'clock. The radio is the only light. I hear my song and it pulls me through. Come on strong. Tells me what to do. get-a-get-up, everyone's got to move their feet, got to get up. And then it goes through the clock, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock, and then the person singing the song in this song, Detroit Rock City dies at the end. And so I can just see this moment being an incredible – and, like, Stranger Things is never subtle with their – you know, if you look at the lyrics of running up that hill,

the Kate Bush song that is soaring up the charts because of the max moment is she's literally running and if I can make a deal with the God and all sorts of stuff like that. So I think it's the kind of song and the kind of on the nose lyrics about time, about death, about a song pulling you through. That could be like an incredible moment. And if Eddie dies in the very next episode, Saving Nancy, I will be very sad. I will happily issue him. The Sean Aston Sacrifice Yourself for the main character awards. But I would be devastated to lose him, but it could be a really, a really cool moment.

Boy, I mean, I love it. You know, we saw him. when he was back in his trailer earlier before all of the horror unfolded go up and tap his guitar in his room. It's clearly something that's very meaningful to him. Correct me if I'm wrong. You've now rewatched the season

more recently than I have. It was a couple weeks ago for me, which might as well have been a lifetime. Jonathan likes Kiss at the Halloween party when Nancy and Steve have their fight, the your bullshit sequence. Jonathan's like moseying around, uncomfortable right and he sees someone who's like kiss and she's like what the fuck dude he's like

no like are you dressed as someone from kiss and obviously music has been a key part of the jonathan will arc over the year but i like the idea that maybe music that not only would connect here to eddie and everything you just cited but also would be a a nancy jonathan connection potentially in a mary see of what's going on with steve and nancy questions i love that for you because but like jonathan's not there but it's still a little longer character of the show show. Yeah, he literally doesn't exist. The only other Nancy song people I saw coming up with is waiting for a girl like you, which

by foreigner, which is playing when she first had sex with Steve. But of course, that is also the Barb is Dying Outside song. So I'm not sure that that's really what would play. But it's funny. Like, you know, so many people think that Eddie looks like so many rockers from this era. I was talking to friends over the weekend. They said, Kurt Hammett from Metallica. He looks a bit like Paul Stanley from Kiss.

Like I already mentioned Eddie Van Halen. There's a million different rockers you come up with. But like, it feels like it's. And it's a bard. It's a thing that a bard would do in a game of D&D. It just feels like very, very big. Anything else do you want to talk about before we maybe get to some mailbag? I don't think so.

I think we covered all of it. I mean, you know, I miss Will. We already hit on that. I think we got most of it. There's so much to speculate on it. I'm excited to keep talking over the next few weeks and see what's cooking in our minds before. So much we want to say. Honestly.

But like, I do want to note that a couple people wrote into us to talk about the fact that Will's presentation that he was going to give in episode one was on Alan Turing, of course, a famously, you know, gay mathematician. And so that might be another hint to what I think is not at all unobvious, which is his sexuality here. Killing McLaughlin wore number eight Hawkins High Jersey as an homage to Kobe Bryant because he loves Kobe Bryant, which I thought on the Ringer podcast network, I should, I'm legally. obliged to mention. SecretSgirl watch. Who you have in this final episode? You know, I have to go with Yuri, I think. After this, after this sequence.

Like, what is, what is, what's going on with Yuri? The peanut butter smuggler. What a sober kit for our guy, Yuri. He's my secrets scroll. I'm going to go with number two. No, boy. A, no one seems that evil, actually. And B, like, his weird confession that I guess he thought he would get away

with. It was very bizarre. Alien behavior, truly, from number two in this episode. So that's my pick. All right, Joe Meaddinner on. Come on through. Mow. Joe, I am so glad to be here, but not as glad as Steve to see that Nancy is kind of still into him. That man, you know, he was giving her looks. My brother in Christ, Are you a Stephen Nancy Shipper, Joe? No, no, listen, listen. I'm team Jonathan. Okay. I think they've got great chemistry.

And my brother, my brother, Steve, you know, he'd be outside. You know what I'm saying? You know, he's going on dates and something. We're going to find you a woman, Steve. You know what I'm saying? Maybe Indiana's not it. Maybe he should be in the California crew, you know what I'm saying? He would thrive out here.

I think he'd thrive anywhere. That's true. That's true. Nothing more romantic than. bandaging up bat flesh wounds in the upside down using dirty clothing as your sanitary gauze. I mean, who wouldn't want to rekindle the flame in that scenario? I got to say, I'm with Robin. Like, we should be thinking about rabies. Like, just that's an aside. Absolutely. And not wanting to run. Those robin is right always. I think that I was watching

interview with Joe Curie where he was talking about how the Duffer Brothers are so nice to his character and they always pair him with Dustin, pair him with Robin, pair him with Eddie, pair him with all these nice characters that bring out the best in Steve. And I'm like, that's partially true. They've done you that favor, but what's also true is that you just have chemistry with like, you know, a demo bat. Like you can have chemistry with anyone, Joe Kiri.

He's incredible. Joe, big fan of the show. You know, I know he's listening. We love you. We do. We love you, my brother. All right, our first question comes from Cassie. If you had to add any MCU character to each of the respective groupings of the kids that we've seen this season to defeat Fekna, who would you choose?

For example, you could assign Thor to the Mike Will Jonathan Argyle team. But for mouth's sake, let's limit it to two MCU characters per team. That's a lot. Each team, I'm going to pick up for the sake of time, I'm going to say one MCU character to help one team. Okay. One character, I'm taking Yelina Belova off the board and she's going into the upside down with our older teens. We're thinking similarly because my pick was going to be Kate Bishop with that same crew, the teens and the upside down. We're just going to put the Young Avengers in the Hawkins and in the upside down.

Let's do it. Show me, what do you think? I'm taking Iron Man and putting up with the California crew only because, they don't have to like go to you know Utah to figure out that little you know tech problem he can just like use Google and you know solve that he can't use he can't use Google unless he time and unless he traveled listen listen Tony Stark when when was Google invented maybe he built it in a cave maybe he's got some more film particles and he's on another time heist with the box of scraps He can figure it out. Maybe we should put Wanda in with 11 and just like have Wanda, you know,

help 11 get explicitly out of there. I don't know if that's what you want. I don't know if that's what you want. You know my Wanda agenda, Jimmy. I'm always on it. You might be a pack. We might have to say goodbye to the earth. Listen, even if Google wasn't invented until 1998,

shout out to Arjuna for that information, Tony Stark would figure it out. It's true. You know, yeah, Mr. Time. I seek, he could do it. The question cited Thor with the California kids. Like, let's get the Warriors three there, you know. They'll have a party.

That's the party. Yes. Yes. And the Warriors three, all of it. Let's have a good time. Team party. Team party. With Argyle.

All right. Our next question. We have to do a second of preamble here. This is one of the most upsetting questions that we've ever received in the history of the mailbag on the ringer podcast network. I gasped aloud reading this. Continue. All right.

It is crazy. This question comes from Ashaya. Was the roller rink scene set on Will's March 22nd birthday on purpose? Did his mom and friends really forget his birthday, LMAO? So it's established earlier, I think it's season two that Will's birthday is on March 22nd. Like it's something Joyce says, back when Joyce cared about her kids, it's something that she said to try to establish proof of life and Will. And then we see on the camcorder footage of the torment of 11 that it is March 22nd. This is all part of Will's origin story, frankly, a villain origin story, you know?

This is just so sad. Did Mike really not remember his best friend's birthday? Did Joyce go out of town and like forget to tell Jonathan, hey, make sure to celebrate your brother's brother? Or she was still in town? At least when Joyce was gallivanting across. the globe, which she eventually checked in after returning from her meeting with, what was it, Joan and Brian Protagica. Is that what it was? She can say, hey, you know what? When you catch up with your friends and you hear about their light bright escapades, just remember to shout out dear old mom, because I figured that out

with the letters, the pink can and the letters on the wall and the Christmas lights in the first place. So shout out to Joyce. Mike, not remembering Will's birthday when he's there with him that day? I don't know. As a kid, I've always been bad with birthday dates. I mean, yeah, I guess this was pre, like, Facebook alert and Google Carolina parents. That being said, no, that was the same day they ate risotto. So, like, you know, Murray was making risotto for the team on Will's birthday. Come on, Jonathan, high out of his mind. It's tough.

He wasn't like, Will your favorite one from all of the oil. This is brutal. Awful. It's tough. I mean, I'm willing to talk it up to, you know, an error in, you know, a continuity, you know, like nobody checked the camp quarter date,

you know, against the birthday. Right? But, hey, but listen, you know what I'm saying? It just, it honestly reminds me that a, that flight of the concord song hurt feelings. And like, it's like, you know, it's my birthday waiting for a call from my family and he's just, they forgot about me.

It's like, by the way, this is, this is not contextually, uh, connected to this mailback question, but just because the word specific date just reminded me. We have to shout out Claire McNair's ringer piece on the widening mythology where she presented the theory of the potential connection between February 3rd, 1959, which is the date cited in the Creel archives and the day the music died, given the connection to music in this season.

Check out Claire's breakdown in the ringer piece. Unbelievable. Great article. That was awesome. Yeah, so if they really did forget Will's birthday. And it turns out that Will's the op in the next couple seasons, I'll understand. I completely understand. Okay, note to self and note to the ringer-verse team. Remember Jomey's next birthday?

Oh, yeah, for sure. Like, it's really like, remember my birthday and don't give me carrot cake. Like, that's really like the two things. Wait. What? Oh. Oh. Carrot cake is delicious.

I have. How much time do we have? I have an anti-carriage cake. cake agenda that spans the galaxy. Carr cake is delicious. Cream cheese frosting? It's wonderful. It's top five worst things that I've ever, like, eaten, like, clearly.

It's so gross. Something, okay, two things really quickly. A friend of mine, a friend of the pod camera and fro was doing a full rewatch of the series after the Vecna really reveal. She believes Vecna is the Mideflare. So she's, like, going back through it all, what's going on with Hopper in season three? And what's going with Hopper in season three drives me absolutely up the wall because he, to me, it's almost like a character assassination how Hopper is in season three. He's just angry and violent and all this stuff in a way that really bothers me. But she's like, if this is like a mind flay long con sort of like poking at Hopper's vulnerabilities, she's like, I love that. Similarly, if Mike being the worst, which I kind of feel like he has been for the last two seasons is all part of a setup for something, you know. I hope it is because Mike Wheeler, you're the worst friend, not a great boyfriend.

What are you good for? Happy birthday from Mike. It's tough. All right. Our next question goes from Rhino 4-4D. Why didn't you talk about Lucas's fade during the hair wig watch? Hey, Jomey, I'm going to throw this right back to you. I put this in here for you.

Listen, you can't trust me. I'm Lucas Hive, right? That's my guy, right, from season one. That's my dude, right? And so I'm looking at the fade. I'm like, I kind of feel like, honestly, isn't it kind of logically like a little bit early for him to have a high top? Like it's 86, right?

Is that more like early 90s, mid-90s, I feel? Or maybe, and here's my, see, here's why I love like this process. I think it. Lucas was the first one to do it. Oh. Everybody got the high top fade from Lucas. you know what I'm saying? Everybody was like, wow, that's what we want.

Like, that's, that's the guy we want to emulate. You know what I'm saying? But not, it looks, it looks, it looks all right. You know, I am not as, you know, like, I know when a wig is bad, you know, shout out Mordo. But this one, you know, like, it passed, like, the initial, like, sniff test. It's, like, off, like, all right. You know, maybe, like, when he's running or, like, you know, close up, this doesn't look too great. but like just off the rip,

not the worst thing. I think you're right that like it's late 80s, early 90s is really when that started hitting. But love a trend center in Hawkins, Indiana. Yeah. Love that for him. He's the OG.

I really hope we get more time with Lucas and Max. And I mean, we've gotten a lot of Dustin, but really mostly in terms of just exposition parsing. Like I hope we get more time with all of the kids in the next couple episodes. And we should because the next two episodes are like,

total five hours. Not enough. I mean, obviously we had a big max-centric stretch here, but not really not enough, not enough Lucas and not enough Lucas,

Max, Will, Mike, any of them. Yeah. Too much Yuri. I hope that comes into play for the final season.

Something about those kids and they're growing and growing apart. I think that's the key to Stranger Things. So. Uh-huh. All right.

Next question comes from River. Have you ever played D&D? If so, who was your character? And who would you trust from the Hellfire Club to keep your character going? Have not. No, I'm saying. Never played.

I have played, but just very little. And so I'll say this. I was like a, like, a ranger, I think, which is sort of like, you know, an agorne adventurer, right? But you've got to have, you got to have your mage.

You got to have your, like, lore person. Dustin. Like, I'm trusting Dustin. Dustin and his knowledge to get me through everything. That's who I would most hang on to. I'm going with Erica. Likewise. Likewise. Nice. Very good. Very smart. She came in ready to, ready to fucking roll when she joined Hellfire. Operation Child Endangerment. Erica, love her. Erica's going to put it down for me. She plays like I play. All gas, no brakes. I'm Jimmy Butler with 15 seconds left, down two.

I'm pulling up for three. You know, I'm not taking it against out Horford. I'm pulling up from deep. I'm trying to win this game right now. And that's how Erica plays. So I'm rocking with that. All right. I'm with you, I'm with you, ma'am.

All right. Our last question, I really like this question. A really cheerful ending note for today's podcast. Oh, yeah. Like, you know, who doesn't need, you know, an uplifting question to end this gem of a gem of a pod? from Matthew. The Chernobyl disaster happened on April 26, 1986,

seems like it's bound to figure into the events of the show somehow. Any thoughts on how? Here's what I will say about this. I don't know if Stranger... I mean, Stringer Things has always been mixing in the world of real world events. Like, the Brenner experiments are based on real world experiments that American scientists did to combat the Soviets in the Cold War, et cetera. Every interview that the cast has given about the final two episodes of this season,

they have used one word over and over and over again, which is explosive. That is the word they used. And when Jamie Campbell-Bauer was asked about the final two, he's like, I'm just going to say what everyone's been saying, which is explosive. So, like, are... What do you mean by that? Are the kids going to cause Chernobyl somehow? I don't know how I feel about that.

It makes me think of that Eternal's Hiroshima moment, which didn't feel great. But I don't know. What do you think? Jomey's face right now is what Jomey's saying in the space. Would it be the kids or would it be the Hopper, Joyce Murray-Enzo crew? Yeah. I mean, they put out a little. little teaser for the next couple episodes.

And there are a lot of, it's very short, but there are a lot of shots of Hopper in particular looking at some sort of upside down connected mythological form. Right. Yeah. It's like a wax museum of demigorgans. Demogorgans and cages. A demigorgon zoo is actually the word I want. And then like also a cage of just like swirling.

a black nonsense that the kind that went inside of Will in season two. Right. So like, you know, and it's just like there's a theory that hop the way that Hop and Joyce and Murray are going to get because they're plane crashed, right? So how are they getting home? A theory is that they're going to hop through whatever gate is open in Russia and go through the upside down back to Hawkins. It's a long way to travel through the upside down. But I don't know. Maybe they can take a car into the upside down. Jolie, what do you think? So I think they're worried about the wrong event, right? Chernobyl happens on April 26, 1986, what we should really be thinking about, right, is May 16, 1986.

The day, Top Gunn rolled in the theaters. That's what we should be. That's the moment. That's the moment, right? Could you imagine Steve taking the kids to Top Gun? Oh, my goodness, gracious. Like, that's what we should be worried about. That's how volume two should start, if I'm being honest with you.

You have a lot of agendas I support both wholeheartedly and tacitly, like sort of your carrot cake agenda. I'm here for you because I've got my own weird baked goods agenda, but this is your best one yet. I think you solved it. Take my breath away as the musical accompaniment for volume two of season four of Stranger Things. They said it would all connect. We heard Joe tell us that in her movie trailer,

voice at the beginning, what would connect it better than some Berlin bars here at the end? I'm in. So what the people need? And then 36 years later, we can see them watch the best movie of all time Topgar Maverick. I really hope that

that Beckness is, I've got a need a need to feed. Beckna! I want butts! Oh, God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. All right.

Well, thank you, Jomey. This has been Stranger Things. We did our best to cover these episodes for you. We'll be back for part two. In the meantime, of course, you can find all of us, Jomey especially, around the feed. Jomey doing everything he can on social, but also joining the Midnight Boys, of course, for their breakdown of Obie 1, episode 3. Malina will be back on Friday for the deep dive, you know, over under time on Ewan's Beard. I couldn't possibly

I could not possibly estimate but we'll be back for that so please do stay tuned to the Wrigarverse feed thank you very much for all the production work from Arjuna Rinkapal on this including looking up when Google started

thank you Arjuna and to Mike Morgan for stepping in and producing this episode and we'll see you again in the upside down or above the ground in a mig or somewhere where on the regular speed. Bye.

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