The Ringer-Verse - ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4, Episode 9 Deep Dive | House of R

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

Mal and Joanna are back in the Upside Down for the Season 4 finale of ‘Stranger Things.’ They go through each story line, starting with what is going on in Russia with Joyce and Hopper (7:05). Then, they break down what is going on with the California kids (41:20) before discussing what happened in Hawkins (52:35). They finish by looking forward to Season 5 and taking some mailbag questions (1:38:28) Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Associate Producer: Carlos Chiriboga Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the host that brought you to Coding Westworld. And Westworld, the recapables, comes the Ringer Prestige TV podcast on Westworld. I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm Danny Hyfitts. And I'm David Shoemaker. Welcome to Westworld Season 4 in the Prestige TV podcast feed, where we're going to break down every episode of Westworld season four.

Every Monday, the day after the show comes out on the Prestige TV podcast feed. Wherever we get your podcast, but get them on Spotify. For adults with Crohn's Disease, or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks.

If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis, serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis.

Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Trimphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks.

If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease, and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible.

Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit trimfairadio.com. Hello and welcome back into the ringer verse to your nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I'm Joanna Robinson. Join me now after a truly dispiriting, arduous opening shift at Surfer Boy Pizza in Nevada, cleaning up God knows what happened the night before. It's Mallory Rubin. Hi, Mallory.

Gotta be clean to enter the mind. Big question. a big question for you, Mallory Rubin. Have you ever worked retail? Oh. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've worked at an ice cream shop.

I've worked at a noodle shop. Perfect. Never worked at a pizza parlor, but... What's better, being an opener or being a closer? Oh, boy. Probably an opener. I think it's definitely being a closer. Maybe it depends on your age.

You have to deal with all kinds of bullshit as an opener, I find. With a closer, you have to... You just make sure they think. To prep. Reasonably clean. And then you can just fuck off to the Taco Bell. All right. We're here to talk about Stranger Things.

The finale. I don't even have to caveat it anymore. The finale. All the Stranger Things is up and available to you on Netflix. That's what we're talking about here today. Specifically, the episode Piggyback, which is the finale written and directed by the Defer Brothers. But, you know, we're allowed to go all over the shop.

We're allowed to go back in time if we want to talk about earlier. episodes. That's your spoiler warning. All of the stranger things that has ever been. And we'll try not to spoil other properties, but a little preview for you, I'm going to talk about Star Wars. So, um, I think we'll be mentioning a fair few other properties, actually. Yeah. And we haven't watched the film The Empire Strikes Back. I recommend it. Uh, all right. So that is what we're doing here today. Uh, this is coming to you a little earlier than I think I mentioned before. We just decided why make you wait? Why make you wait? Why make you wait? for Stranger Things content.

So this is coming to you on a Sunday. And if you're like, well, what else is going on in the Ring ofverse Feed? I really relate. I also like to know what's going on the Ring ofverse Feed. Wednesday, the Midnight Boys Whopew! We'll be back doing a two-fer. A little Miss Marvel, a little the boys. Together at last.

Two great tastes that taste confusing probably together. We'll find out. Mallor and I went back on Thursday to do a Miss Marvel deep dive ourselves. and then Midnight Boys will hear on Friday with their Thor, Love and Thunder, instant reaction, and then we will be doing the Thor Love and Thunder, of course, deep dive. So that's the general roadmap in front of you right now. Things could change, but that's what we have on our plate.

That's what we have on our minds. We're really excited for you. And I do want to say something about the fact that this is coming to you on a Sunday. So we're recording this Sunday morning. I know for a fact that some outlets have, have done some interviews with some stranger things talent that they are not allowed to publish until Monday. So if you listen to this on Monday and you're like, but the deafers, okay, we did not get to

read any of those interviews. So we can't account for any actual insights that might be provided in the future. Absolutely not. So you can let us know when you read those great interviews, what we, what we messed up and what we miss. But we have, we do not have access to those. So that's where we are now. We'll account for those comments when we're preparing for season five.

Absolutely. In 2024, I promise to read all of those interviews. Before we get into the episode itself, though, Mallory. Yes. Quick question. Joanna. For people, Mallory. For people who love the Ringerverse.

Who want to participate in the mailbag section that we have at the end of this episode, who want to know what Jomey's up to with his lightsaber. Like, what should they be doing right now, Mallory? Oh, boy. first of all, follow the pod, you know? No better way to know what is on the pod than by following the pod. Follow it on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And then you'll see every new episode that's published.

And when you see them, you can listen to them. Also, you can track our requests for mailbags, our podcasts, our questions, our memes, sometimes our spontaneous singing by following the ring of verse across our social feeds. We are everywhere. Everywhere. Not in the way that the Stranger Things cast is everywhere, spread out across this globe and many dimensions as well.

But I don't know. Can you access the ringerverse TikTok in the upside down or the psychic realm? Only one way to find out. Absolutely. But the question is, does our service reach, gulags in the deepest Siberian wastes of Russia. Yes, probably, but let's just talk about that for a second. Let's start here.

We're going to go storyline by storyline, beat by beat. And we're starting with Russia. We're starting here mainly because I know that Mallory is really eager to talk about what happened between Hopper and Joyce. But I'm just going to say, I'm going to frame it this way. Storytelling-wise, I think it's. It's kind of baffling to focus a lot on an escape from a place only to go immediately back to that place. That is an odd, I think, storytelling choice.

That being said, if the only reason they left the prison was so that Hopper could get shirtless and make out with Joyce, maybe it was worth it. Mallory, what do you think? To quote my friends from billions, worth it, Bob! I have to say, between Yuri's... very protracted by women make noise when I please them. Helicopter explanation and the Joyce Hopper scene. This is one of the horniest episodes of Stranger Things, certainly horniest openings to an episode of Stranger Things in some time.

And hey, I'm not complaining. I am complaining about the telephone ring timing interrupting the long-awaited hookup between our beloved Joyce and Hopper. God damn it. But to get the Joyce Moans subtitle, we talk often, Joe, about our favorite subtitling descriptions and captions. We got some tender emotional music swells. You know, I think the use of swells there feels deliberate. We got both exclaim as they were fumbling around, bumping into all sorts of objects and each other.

If you ask me at some point in this episode what my season five predictions, hopes, dreams, and previews are, I'm just going to just going to quote that, Joyce Moans. That's where I am with this. I want everyone to know that, though Mallory and I exchanged numerous texts about Serger things, the very... They were pretty much all about this. The very first text I got. The very first text I got was a screencap of Joyce Mones.

So, you know, needed you to know where my... If you're wondering if, like, this is something Mallory puts on for the podcast. It's not. It's just purely who she has. is and we love her to death for it. Speaking of death, we couldn't talk about this when we discussed episode eight. But episode eight and nine of this season are just choked with death watch alarms, right?

Character saying things. The classic in cinema is one last job, right? One last job. And then I'm out. Okay. That character's probably not going to survive. So we're going to call it a few death watch moments. a big one from episode, the previous episode was Eddie telling Dustin, like,

I love you, never changed, man, or whatever. And you're like, okay, Eddie. That's a wrap. But here we have Hopper and Joyce talking about the date that they have to get to. So, you know, so like if you were sitting at home watching this episode, like, twisting yourself in knots over who's going to survive, this was maybe a moment that you got worried for Joyce and Hopper and whether or not they'd ever make that dinner date. Mallory was never worried. I can tell by her face.

Well, here's what I'll say. And I think that this is, this is probably going to be something that comes up a lot in our discussion today across character sets, both inside of this episode and as we look ahead to the finale. I did not feel particularly worried about either of them in the context of forecasting the date because looking ahead to their date and then having mortal peril. thwart those hopes and dreams only to realize that in fact no one in this particular equation had died is something that the show has already done with this exact date set up and these exact characters.

Now there is a lot of maybe things will be different this time talk in this episode, which could end up being true at some point in terms of like major, major, major true like A level top tier main characters being killed. I think that that probably probably will be the case by the end of this show. But weirdly, this was an episode where I started to feel a little more secure than I previously had that Hopper and Joyce might be able to work

their way towards some version of a happy ending. I do hope that they make time on their pursuit of that happy ending for some, you know, there's a lot going on. But it kills me every time you do that. Always makes me laugh. Love it. Let's like, A brief digression to discuss personal hygiene, if you'll allow it. Now, I know everyone's trying to save the world, but if you're going to go out of your way to find clean clothing to change into, let's wash up a little bit. Take some of that snow and scrub some key areas before you maybe hook up, you know? Like, I know everyone's busy, but I need somebody to.

A little horse bath in the snow. I need somebody to freshen up. That horrified. We did see the underwear change. Maybe it was good that, like, things did not progress beyond some shirtless mooching. I was, like, devastated but also relieved on that level, at least. How did you feel about, I know we don't actually have time to spend 30 minutes on the hookup, but how did you feel about the old, you know, let's dip some breadsticks, euphemism in the dream breakdown?

I loved that Joyce was just like, that's what you've been dreaming about and really want to wanted Hopper to give the beat by beat play by play of how their night would go. I was really into this. I'm not convinced Joyce knows how to pronounce Kianti. I mispronounced it while I was slagging around. I'm sorry. Actually, I want to go back to this sex and death go hand in hand. So let's go back to this death thing for a second.

I want to pull this conversation maybe up to the top here, which is this idea of like when we look at Stranger Things reactions and as you pointed out to me like sort of off Mike earlier this week, like the people who have already binged through Stranger Things at this point are sort of a select group of people who have made this like a priority for themselves, right? And there's going to be other more casual fans who are going to sort of parcel out the four-hour chunky final stretch of the season. A select enough group to have crashed the Netflix servers at Midnight Sharp. You know what?

That's a great point. the main reaction I've seen, like a lot of people love it. There's a lot to love. But in terms of critiques or disappointments or misaligned expectations is the question of like, who actually dies in a penultimate season of stranger things, right? And I want to address that pretty quickly. There was a lot of chatter going into these final two episodes that the Duffer brothers had said there would be a body count at the end of the season.

And technically there is, if you want to talk about, I mean, the 22 anonymous townfolk of Hawkins at the very least. But I just want to clarify that what happened is, it's not that the deaf brothers are going around being like, we're going to kill a bunch of people. It's that they were asked by a reporter, will there be a body count? And they went, like, what do you say to that, you know? Not that it's an unfair question, but it's sort of like, do you say no? What do you say when you're trying to like preserve the mystery of your final season?

And technically, you know, some characters did die. Other expectations setters, Joe Quinn, who plays Eddie, described the finale as just carnage. And, you know, from a certain point of view, specifically his, definitely was, right? And then the trailer clips, you have Vecna saying your friends have lost and you have Robin saying it might not work out for us this time. So that was all setting people up to believe that there was going to be. be some massive major core character deaths in these final two episodes. And at the end of the day, there wasn't really. There was the classic Stranger Things, Bob Newby death in the form of Eddie, right?

A death that we had all been kind of expecting. Brenner dies. And Max fakeout dies. That's where we are. I'm not too stressed about it. We could talk more about Max if we get to Max. But like, is this a takeaway that you're stressing out about or how do you feel about it? Stressing out in terms of like feeling like I personally need the death stakes to be higher for the show to fully work?

Or like, I guess, I mean, so I have my season four answer to that and then my season five answer to that. I, we briefly talked about this in the volume one pods when we were discussing Max. And I was, I really did not think that they would kill Max and was shocked and appalled when her limbs started snapping in this episode. I think that like the larger model of Stranger Things killing a major player inside of each season is obviously a consistent pattern right now. we have our on the record established thoughts on Barb, but that was like in season one, death of note, right? You already mentioned Bob in season two.

Billy is the big character who's introduced and then killed. I mean, he's introduced earlier, but like as a more central player, right? And then dispensed in season three. And then Eddie here. Eddie feels like a more, a more major player than those other ones. In part, frankly,

just because of the runtime, of these episodes. Like, we just did spend a really long time with him, even though it was one season. But it still feels, like, very contained, right? I would also argue that he feels like a bigger character because of the pause. Because we had a month to, like, you know, if he, if people binge this season and then he died in the finale, you know, it would feel akin, I think, to a Bob death in season two.

Like, they really build up Sean Aston as, like, a beloved character in that. that season just to kill him. This is what they do. You know, Alexi in season, like, if you don't care for Billy, there's Alexi in season three. You know, like, there's always someone like this. And, yeah, I think, I think a lot of the responses I saw it to Eddie's death, and we'll talk about Eddie's death a little bit more in depth, but a lot of the responses I saw

were, how could they kill such a fan favorite? How could they kill such a beloved character, something like that? And I'm like, well, because when they wrote this, they didn't quite know how Joe Quinn was going to hit. you know, how well he was going to hit with people. So I have a question for you, my like not on TikTok friend, Mallory Rubin. Have you heard the Chrissy Wake Up remix song? I have not.

No. I only, as you know, consume TikToks when Jomi makes them or you send them to me. Yeah. I'm going to play it for you right now on Mike. And it's going to make for great radio probably maybe. Okay. Chrissy Wake up. Hey, hello.

That is one of the most viral TikTok sounds of, like, the last month. And it's just, like, all part of the, like, weird Joe Quinn, not weird, because he's great. Eddie Mystique, you know, like, it's, it's just been building. But if he had just died in a binge, then I don't think he would have, like, he wouldn't have become such a folk hero that he, that he became in the interim. He had a whole month to speculate about the guitar riff that was featured in the trailer, etc. Right. I think that to like, to your larger question about the how I think about the deaths in the show, I don't know.

I'm a little, as you and I have talked about outside of our Stranger Things pods and inside of them as well, I tend to really like push back against the idea that stakes can only come in the form of death inside of shows. Like I really do not feel that way and find it a little bit strange when that becomes the consensus. And so I do not think that a lot of characters need to die in Stranger Things for me to find it emotionally resonant or satisfying at the end. I will say that in Stranger Things may be more than inside of some other stories where there's this horror element and the entire framework of the show has operated, even as it has expanded and morphed around the idea that these teenage kids in their, you would think, regular town, are constantly, you know, we've been talking a lot on our pods recently about like, borders and veils and gateways and doorways like they're really the doorway between this encroaching evil and humanity and that doorway has to splinter right it's just not plausible that it wouldn't so i don't know as much as i like want everyone to be okay i don't know that there's a a way that this show ends without one of the truly core characters dying that would be conceiving

And if you're like Joanna, are you going to do a season five speculation section? Oh, we will. We'll get there. That's a promise. And I have some thoughts about that. But I think to your earlier point, so when Max, I mean, harrowing scene when Max is, you know, being snapped in the air. But I did have, there was a small tiny thought in my head where I was like, Mallory said they weren't going to kill Max. And I said, I don't know.

I think they might. And I was like, I was like, ooh, I was right. And then they pulled her back. I was like, oh, Mallory was right. Me too. I was like, another one for Trude. Don't worry. That one went back in your column. So back in the Mallory was right column.

But I think, you know, a reason why we are trained to be almost bloodthirsty when watch these shows is because of our time with Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead. Like, you know, these shows set up our expectations for stuff like this. And I think that the only thing that I will say that I wish the Duffers wouldn't do, if they're not going to kill their main characters, is stop with the fake-out deaths with their main characters because you've had like Will 11, Hopper, now Max.

Like that's... Even Papa. That's a lot. Not a character we cared about, but also Brenner. Still. That's a lot. So, like, if you're not going to kill them, like, don't fake kill them is how I feel with that.

Speaking of Thrones, I think ultimately, to zoom back to this Russia plot, I think ultimately what I decided while watching the finale and watching everyone in their little sort of bite-sized chunk, for most of the finale as they've been for most of the season, I really have to think that at least some of this has to do with COVID. And we might find that out in an interview or we might not. But like keeping, having people spread out and sprawl out, which was their like, we want to do Game of Thrones sort of idea is one thing. But Stranger Things always converges back in

the end. And so for it to not converge here, maybe that's just a penultimate season kind of thing. I mean, they all do physically come together at the end end. But for it to not reconverge, the final fight feels very unusual and I really feel like there might have been some COVID reasons for that. But I have no. That's interesting. Yeah, I was actually going to, I was going to ask you about that and if you had any insights on that front because I think like, because that happens in more than one of the plot lines where we get, you know, we get 11 with the piggyback insight and plan hatching. And then the hopper, Joyce, oh, they all have their we can help from here moment. Like multiple different groups say that, say a version of that out loud, well, we can do our part from here. And the finale, you know, I am curious to know your thoughts on the length and how that felt to you watching it. But just there's this, you know, very, very long, like longer than a normal episode would be stretch of the actual like battle and cutting back and forth so frequently between these camps. And there was a part of it just watching it that I thought was like, you know, the TV, you know, the TV.

version of the demobats like screeching and flying through hell. It had this pace and this momentum. It was fun and interesting and like exhilarating to watch. And there's something thematically kind of poetic about the idea that so much of the story hinges on this idea of like the heart and the connection between the characters and they can support and help and reach each other even when they are not literally in the same place. You know, the story made the necessities or the choices work for it in that way. But it was... it was very hard to shake the feeling that the heartbeat of the show, which is these people being together, particularly the kids being together,

was just something we were not going to see at all inside of this very long season of TV. And like, that doesn't mean that the pace of the battle wasn't fun. But like Mike, we've talked about, you know, the sidelining of Mike more broadly. like basically being reduced in the finale to shouting into a freezer full of water and salt was a pretty passive use of one of the central figures in the show. And maybe you could say if everyone's in the same place, it would just be too chaotic. But I did miss that element of it. I would argue that the major misstep they made, and I agree with you, there's so much fun here and there's a lot I loved and I actively cried numerous times this finale.

I was in tears more than that. wants. Absolutely. However, I think the thing that the mistake they made in terms of us thinking about the runtime and the pacing is putting Robin and Nancy and Steve on a wall for literally 30 minutes. And then you just start to like, you have to start to question how this is all sort of flowing together. If you have three of your main characters, just gently choking to death for 30 minutes. But let's talk about this. Like, I can help from a far thing. because I can help from afar really has, has to have something to do with these particles.

And when you talk about these particles, this dust, if you want to get his dark materials about it, right? Don't I always. Yeah. The smoke monster that we talked about from episode eight, you and I talked about this off mic about how we were trying to, like, really parse what happened here.

It feels like what happened is the tanks break open, the dust gets out, and then this dying, guard says the others came alive, meaning I think the demadogs in the tank, right? The particles. They called the shadow. The shadow went into them. And then Murray goes and looks at some like fuzzy footage of demadogs like, you know, wreaking havoc in

the Russian prison lab. And he goes, that's your answer. Hop. That's, they went into them. So my best understanding of this is that the shadow particles went into the demadogels went into the demigogorg and maybe also the demigorgon and at least with the demadogogs like brought them back to life possibly if they were dead or has have made them into super juicy demadogons with like a fun particle smoky center core um all that's to say you've got to have those

particles there because if the particles are in there and we've decided it's part of the mind flare and joy says they're only alive if the gate is open i don't know how to Joyce knows that, but that's okay. Like, that's how they decide that fighting these little monsters here is going to help the big fight elsewhere, because it's not just we killed some, we flambayed some demodogas and beheaded a demigorgon. It's we attacked a part of the dust, which is central to the hive mind power of the upside down. Is that your understanding of what happened here? Yes, it is. I think like rewatching that, rewatching the finale after our episode eight pod and our discussion about this specifically and paying close attention to not only the them aspect of this discussion and what was happening there, but just the emphasis throughout on particles, like how often the camera lingered or a character, Joyce, or otherwise drew attention to the particles, the shadow naming this thing. We also, you know, we'll talk about this soon, but the, the, the massive mythology reveal of the the mind flayer vekna clarity at last and the initial

trip into the upside down for our guy one henry vekna um and shaping that smoky stormy cloud into the spider like figure that we have called the mind flier throughout the show etc so okay here are my here are my thoughts i i the the the tlDR probably don't to say anything else is just, I agree with what you just said. I think that the, this feels like one of the most essential things to parse heading into season five in terms of the end game and how to actually thwart Vecna and the threat, but also, and this is the part that I have a little bit of a harder time, like wrapping my mind around. Still, I'd be excited to brainstorm as we go today, the L connection to all of it. I think that particles, promise I'm going to answer your question in a

second. Particles are manifesting in a couple different ways in the show. And so we have this the shadow, the smoke monster, smoky, whatever we want to call it, the storm, the cloud, this living, moving, sentient thing. We also have the particles that are falling from the sky at the end, that we've heard previously the characters of the show say, those are toxic, don't breathe those in. My kids down there. Those are so different, though. Those are like snowflake, like, you. You Yes. So, yes.

Holly's like, it's snowing. Yeah, it's snowing. Yeah. Yeah. But the reason I mentioned that is because when we get the big mythology download from Vecna, who is, to his credit, always down for like a 15-minute

exposition sequence when he should be killing a character. And let me just say, I'm here for it. And I love it because it's such a captivating performance. No one has ever been caught monologuing more often. in such a short period of time than Henry Vecna won. Well, it hasn't had a lot of people to talk to for a long time.

So, you know, he's got a lot to say. When 11 initially destroyed one and opened the mother gate, which we see again as he's then swinging through into the new dimension, she turns him into those particles, right? And his body sees, to exist. And there's a lot of talk in this episode about like form. And I'm one of the things I'm

wondering is like are these two totally distinct things, the particles that he became and this shadow, which like I think there's a very clear like, yes, we see that they are different, right? But do they connect to each other? Have they melded it anyway? Like how did his body reform when he poured it in to the upside down and made the discoveries and became this explorer? Was he melding his own particles with this shadow in some way? Like, is that part of the way that he's controlling them? So that's one of the questions that I have that I'm eager to learn more about. In terms of just the hive mind aspect, yes, I agree.

That's my reading too. I think that coming out of this episode, it feels like the way that Beck does hive mind is actually operating is that he is directing the shadow into his victims, the demogorgans, the demigods, the demigoths, anything that is part of the vines. You know, that was one of the things that was interesting. is seeing the way the vines have spread so much over time, which we already knew, but the upside down looks so different when we initially glimpse it here, and not just because of the comparatively smaller vine footprint, but Hawkins isn't there, right? So is that the key? Pulling the

shadow out of the hive mind in some way or gaining control over the shadow and the particles in order to thwart Vecna and thwart the hive mind. Because if that's the way that he is connecting everything, those particles, that shadow, that dust, then controlling it would be the way to undo him. But then that makes me nervous for a lot of the characters, like the wills and the maxes of the worlds who have that in them.

And what does that mean? Is that a way to save them by purging them? Or are they going to be at risk because they are connected to this thing that maybe needs to fall? Yeah. It's a great point. And I think that trying to parse exactly what happens here because, like, in his monologue, Henry Vecna one says, I became an explorer. And I explore of a realm unspoiled by mankind.

I saw so many things. And one day I found the most extraordinary thing of all. Something that would change everything. I saw means to realize my potential to transcend my human form, become the predator. I was always born to be. So this goes back, okay, if we're talking about like, I took a lot of... Wait, you got to take a minute here to do the pat on the back for yourself. I'm literally what I'm about to do.

I took a lot of Ls in this episode. Here's my big dub, right? Which is that me saying that like, I serves as the mind flare and Vecna had the same thing, which like, yes and no. But certainly this idea of like the mind flair, like Vecna being... the one in charge that Dustin got the order of authority a little wrong here because he's just guessing with the best information that he had available. And the fact is the one in charge and all of the stuff that we talked about in our episode seven podcast and go back and listen to if you want about the spider shape connecting to his fascinating with spiders, but this idea of absorbing things and how that connects to like what he does and what the mind flair did in season three.

Um, he says to 11 here when he's monologing, like, uh, I found a way to take some of your power. And that's what happened in season three, right? That they create this like gooey spider thing made out of different, uh, residents of Hawkins. Super gross. Still one of the grossest things that the show has ever done. And what it wants to do is take, take. take 11's powers. And like our understanding of the time in season three was that I wanted to take

11's powers because it just wanted to depower her. But what we find out is that Henry wanted some of her powers because she's the one who was able to open the gates in the first place. So he takes some of her powers in season three. This is my understanding. He takes some of her powers in season three via the goopy mind flair thing. And he is then able to open some gates for the first time. Right?

So that's him, sound right? That's great. I saw it a means to open my own doors. I sought your power is what he says here. And one of the things that we heard, him say we now understand through Billy at the end of season three was all this time we've been building it for you. Yeah. And we get a little flash of that to like underline that that's the connection they're trying to make there. So this is, you know, this is the thing that Papa said in last, in the last episode that we're unsure if we will see more fall out from that.

the final season, but in terms of he absorbs people's powers and we don't know where he's been. One of the places he's been is Star Court Mall. And like actually I think he attacked El and Papa's cabin, right?

Like that's where it was out of the buyer's house or yeah. The bike's in the cabin, which is where the cabin fracturing and then they go to the grocery store. I love stories set in grocery stores. Joe, can I just this is not, this is a quick 10 second diversion, but can I just tell you that when I was a kid, I used to have like really protracted fantasies about getting stuck in a mall or a grocery store and having to like, just like, I was going to say eat my

way out, but I know you'll say phrasing. So I'm just going to anticipate that. How fun to just be a kid in a grocery store with going around and get to just have ice cream all the time and as many flaming hot Cheetos as I want. So I always love that part where they're in the store. Continue. Did you ever see the movie Career Opportunities? No. Oh, it's a Jennifer Connolly 80s movie where they're locked in a target. Okay. You'll probably enjoy it. So, I mean, all of that's to say, all of that's to, like, help us understand the particles

and how they're to connect to the hive mine, all of that stuff. But also, it's a convenient way for Joyce and Hop and Murray to help without having to make it back to the states, right? Because the particles are in these monsters, we can help. Murray gets to do the full-blown the flamethrower thing and have you ever seen the film Aractophobia?

Certainly not. Truly one of the scariest movies that I ever watched in my childhood. Ron Weas and I have never seen that movie. But there's a great like John Goodman with the Flamethrower just like torching a bunch of spiders. It's a 1990 horrifying horror movie that will make you never want to take a

shower again. But I was just thinking like with the spiders in the bechna, I was like, I wonder if that's a racanophobia reference. It may or may not be. But yeah, and then, oh, we had a couple of people ask where the sword came from that Hopper uses. That sword was brought in to the fight initially in the first half of the season when the prisoners are going to go in and fight the demigorgian. One of them picked up a sword. That was just an option in their arsenal.

So, yeah. All right. Anything else we want to say about Russia before we leave? Are we going to come back to the any of the L. Vecna, Mindflare Vecna stuff later? Should we do that all here? Because I have a couple follow-up thoughts on that part. I think I'm done with Russia. Yeah. Russia goodbye. Yeah. Peace out.

I really liked this reveal. I thought of you immediately. And I thought not only of you calling your theory shot here, but of a point that you've made in other discussions as well about how the most satisfying answer is always going to be a person, right? And how right that feels here, not only as a storytelling choice, but inside of this tale, where with Vecna and L and the link between them, there's often, for both of them individually, but also collectively, this through line of how they assess and think about humanity, right? And so that like adds heft to it. And so to get the, you know, an explorer of a realm unspoiled by mankind,

Vecna line here. And it was, it was really fun as he's looking up at Smokey, the mind flier before he shaped it. You see like the little, the little demadog crawling on the rock. And, you know, you think back to like one of his other infamous monologues from the volume one finale where he was talking about humanity as this pest in the way he said like multiplying and poisoning our world all while enforcing a structure of their own. This is like villain 101 shit. And I don't even mean that in a bad way, right? This is archetypal. He is doing the very thing. Like he's becoming the thing he hates, right? He's doing the very thing that he is critiquing and

maligning humanity for colonized the upside down. He gentrified it. And now he's going to take what he has made and warped and weaponized inside of the upside down and spread it into Hawkins through this, you know, four gate now megagate, a cruel, oppressive world dictated by made-up rules. That was what he said at the end of volume one. Well, that's what he's unleashing now, right? And like the way that he has talked about spiders, you know, their solitary creatures deeply misunderstood gods of our world, like that is the thing that he's seeking, that godly status. I think there's a like almost word for word,

Deathly Hallows, Stranger Things Season 4, comp to do here. Oh yeah, there's a little bit of her and him. Okay. You know? Yeah, it's the, the horrocks, but not just that. We'll save it. We'll come back to it because I think that feels very germane.

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 progress. 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, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. This episode is brought to by Viori. When it comes to close, that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers? Oh, yeah.

They have the perfect. I could watch a game and then go out to Dioriore. dinner vibe. And the metapant, that's my number one. I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at viori.com slash Simmons and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply, visit the website for full terms and conditions. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty, limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, market peach, apricot, rose, Italian soda. Perfect.

for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with the yellow sale sign storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Let's zoom through a couple of things that happen this episode. like Team Callie, we already talked about them a little bit. Argole coming through with some great strategy in a clutch moment. Not bothering to question whether or not any of 11's powers are real or whatever. He's just like, sure, yep, okay, I got what you need.

And this is not, you know, sometimes you see things seated early and you're like, well, clearly that's there. You know, like Mike's inability to say I love you, clearly that's there for this reason. But like, the whole existence of Surfer Boy Pizza being to pay off a place to put 11 with plenty of salt. Didn't see it coming and loved it entirely. Great stuff. My favorite part of the whole infiltrating Surfer Boy Pizza sequence other than Argyle 2.0, which is how this other stoner dude is labeled in the... Gotta meet Chaz and Taco Bell. Who among us?

Was Jonathan trying to, like, speak Argyll? He's like, my dude. Incredible. We are not going to ask you to do this for free. Like, I was just like, this is a great job. A great Charlie Heaton moment, a great Jonathan moment. Jonathan's saying it'll make all your troubles float away like the seed pods of a dandelion in the wind. What is this remarkable?

Best Jonathan episode in a long time. Yeah. Speaking of, yada, yada, yada, yada. They set everything up. Argyll takes a moment to make a pizza while they set everything up so they could have some sustenance. It's like, what a guy to have on the team. Great, like, great Samwise GNG energy here. Okay.

Jonathan Will have a follow-up scene to their, like, you know, what we noticed in the previous scene with Jonathan noticing Will in the rear of mirror while they're making the brine. This beautiful, beautiful shit from Charlie Heaton. Talk to me about how you're feeling about it. I just don't want you to forget that I'm here and I'll always be here no matter what because you're my. brother and I love you and there's nothing in this world. Okay, absolutely nothing that will ever change that. So moving and so beautiful and a really lovely performance from both of them. And we chatted last episode about how just that glance from Jonathan in the rearview mirror and that moment of clear recognition was not only such an important thing for Will and his journey, but to

rekindle and reestablish this brotherly bond. Like I was, I was, I was, weeping watching this. And I have really missed the Jonathan Will bond as a central heartbeat in the story because it's always been one of my favorite things. And, you know, this moment of recognition and then active support and encouragement from Jonathan, but paired with like the, the, the, what was unsaid, right? Which is like, you can do this on your time frame. And, and it's okay. Like, it was just such a beautiful and. of love without condition, right? Like the unequivocal presence that you can have for another person.

And like, you know, we talked last pod about the moments earlier in the show where they, where Jonathan has encouraged Will to just be who he is. And I was thinking back to like the, you know, the clash listening party scene in season one where they're sitting there on the bed and they're talking about music, but they're just talking about everything. They're talking about life and, you know, they're talking about their father. And Jonathan says, you know, he's trying to force you to like normal things and you shouldn't like things because people tell you you're supposed to, okay?

Like, Jonathan has always been the person in Will's life who reminds him that it's okay to be who he is in all of the different ways that he is and that he should surround himself with the people who remind him of that, not the people who make him feel ashamed of it. And this was a lovely scene to bring all of that together. Who might be making Will feel ashamed of his slow progress through life? Could it be Mike? Really? The villain?

No, I'll talk about Mike in one hot second. But I just want to say, Jonathan and Will, I thought this theme was so beautiful. And it is exactly what I'm talking about when I'm saying. Stranger Things is that as best when it's trusting its audience? Because at no point does Jonathan say, I know you're gay dude. And that, you know, like, but we know the subtext is there. And you don't need to, it's just all there. And you don't need to have the underline it for us.

We get it. It's beautiful. It's emotional. I loved it. Meanwhile, Mike is doing some cute shit with glasses. I'm not going to begrudge him this. Mike, like, making the glasses and being kind of cute and funny with 11. This is the most I've liked him in a long time.

So good job for Mike. I was talking to show on Mike in the last episode, and we got a lot of responses, both on Twitter and somebody email me about this, saying, should we cut Mike more slack because he's a 15-year-old boy and his obtuseness and his self-centeredness. is core to a 15-year-old boy experience. And on the one hand, I have some room for that. I definitely do. On the other hand, the show does that no favors

by trying to position, at least in Will's eyes, and I understand that Will is a crush, but at least in Will's eyes, Mike as the heart of this group, when Mike is the least emotionally intelligent of these boys, And then also, Mike suffers in comparison to characters like Lucas and Dustin, who have absolute banger emotional, you know, moments in this episode. Just unparalleled, fantastic stuff.

And so Mike, by comparison, just seems like peevish. And, you know, he has this reach out to Elle. I love you speech that he gives. But none of it just feels another one on the Joe ledger there called that one. It just doesn't, it doesn't hit me the way that, you know, Dustin shedding even a single tear hits me. You know what I mean? And so, like, I want to ask you, my Harry Potter expert friend, my experience reading Order the Phoenix was, I have rarely ever been so annoyed with the character as I was with Harry Potter in that book. And a friend of mine who loved the series as well was like, but that's the point.

This is the stage in his evolution of going through young adulthood that this is a stage you go through. So if Mike is having his Order the Phoenix seasons, because I would say it's like two in a row here where I'm not a big Mike fan, like, is that something that feels intentional or accidental? Like where are you in all of that? Good question. because I am experiencing a little bit of dissonance with Mike for that reason really where, you know, there's a part of Mike's journey that feels like it maps on pretty clearly to adolescence in general, right? You grow up.

You lose some of your deftness maybe or you become very selfish and inward looking because you're trying to figure out your own shit. We even get a moment like in the beautiful Jonathan Will sequence where Jonathan's like, that wasn't about you. That was about me trying to figure out my own. own shit. And like Jonathan's older and still processing how to like navigate his own feelings and supporting the other people in his life. Like that's just a thing that all of us have to have to figure out for ourselves. Right. And and and well, and Steve has the whole thing where he's like, hey, remember how when

you met me, when you met me, I was a piece of shit and thanks to what happened, I am now one of the best TV characters of all time. It looks good for me. You know? Totally. Yeah. What a thump it was. Can't wait to talk about the language choice in the thumping. You know, thumping my head sequence later. Got some thoughts. But if Mike is in his crawling backwards phase or his order of the Phoenix phase, I think that the thing you need,

given that Mike was not always this kind of character, much like Harry was not always in his order of the Phoenix state, right? Mike was, oh, God, I wish I could remember who tweeted this, but there was the tweet of like, this is just not the same character, like the one who doesn't see his friend crying next to him, who, like, was willing to literally jump off of the cliff. to protect the people that he loved in prior seasons, right?

Apologies for not being able to recall the handle there. But like so many moments in the early, in the first two seasons of the show, hinge on Mike's active pursuit of protection and the party. And again, like we've talked about this a lot. The fact that the characters are relating to that idea of the group and the party in different ways is like, actually I think part of what's interesting about the show.

The thing that you need, the thing that like makes the Order of the Phoenix Harry plot to me so fulfilling ultimately is that Ron and Hermione are there to say what the fuck is wrong with you? Like, we have given up everything in our lives to be here for you. Do not treat us this way.

Like, who's going to do that for Mike? And we had a little bit of it with the like, I dump your ass stuff in season three and I, you know, now in hindsight it's like, God, I'm sure glad that we got the one and a half minutes with Ellen Max that the entire story is.

going to hinge on. But like we, I think we need a little bit more of that. I think we need people actively challenging Mike on why he is looking inward so much. Because the thing is, like, are 15 year old boys going to be the most emotionally intelligent people? I mean, are any 15 year olds? I think that's a valid point to raise. But Mike's best friend in the world was sitting next to him in that car sobbing and he didn't ask if he was okay. He didn't ask if he was okay. Meanwhile, like imagine if like Lucas or Dustin had been there. Do you know? Like, yeah, I agree.

In contrast to having Ron and Hermione be like, what the fuck is wrong with you? You have Will being like, you're the heart, man. You're the heart and silver. Okay, our producer Carlos is weighed in with Mike is trash. So I think that's a great place for us to move on. Oh, boy.

Tough time for me. Former 15-year-old boy, Carlos. Yeah. If Mike, I do think it's interesting to consider whether like some of this is priming us for being more ready to say goodbye to Mike in season five. Does that feel like a, like a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,

or it could feed into my big theory for season five, which I will talk to about at the end of the podcast. So, um, folks in the industry, we call that a tease. Hey, this time, right? There's no shit for me, okay? No, you're going to do that yourself. No, yeah. Say, I'm going to look after them.

Say it. We've talked to. about a few dubs for the prognosticating power of DeWere Robinson, here's where I take an L. Which is, uh, definitely thought Eddie was going to die. You didn't take any else. Joe, you got two of the biggest things that happened in this finale. You crushed it.

I definitely thought Eddie was going to die at the beginning of episode eight. So delight we got to spend so much more time with him. That made me really happy that we got to. Um, definitely got the song wrong that he was going to play on top of the trailer in the upside down here. However, I will say, tons of TikTokers and Redditors figured this out merely by watching the finger placement in the trailer footage.

I saw some videos that were just like some of the most incredible detective work I've ever seen. So master puppets by Metallica. Also, the people who figured this out also pointed out that Eddie has like a, had like a puppeteer tattoo on his forearm. So like master puppets and Vecna is like the math, you know, like when you watch the kids go up in the air

and their arms sort of crack and Ben likes a very puppet sort of moment anyway. The hive mind control. Very like, you know, master puppeteer. I would like to, one of the things I would like to do

between seasons and by would like to do, I think what I mean is read an article by someone on the internet, but maybe we'll do it here, is like really go through all of the lyrics of all of the needle drops and see what the roadmap is for the conclusion of this show,

which I feel like is there. You know, I feel like, like there's like a James Gunn Guardian's reading of the song selections to do in terms of like what it might reveal about the plot. People have probably done this already. I thought about that.

So there's a there's a, you know, there's a callback to season one with the Moby song that plays. So the song that played when Joyce and Hopper were trying to bring Will back in season one and successfully is a moby song called When It's Cold I'd like to die. One of the few like anachronistic song, I don't think they've gone that anachronistic since they use that in season one.

That's a 1995 song. And then it plays again in this episode. And there's a lyric about, where were you when I was lonesome, locked away with freezing colds, someone flying only stolen. I can't tell this light's so old. So what is cold I'd like to die? It's very literal like Will was freezing to death in the upside down. Like that was what was happening in season one. But I don't know.

I'm ever since you read read me a brand chapter in last week's episode, I'm on the lookout for flying references. We not to, I feel bad for after we, you transitioned just away from Mike for bringing him up again. But he gave us the inverse of that line of the, the Papa set up a building toward flight. But one of the things that Mike said to Elle was, I can't lose you, you can do anything. you can fly, you can move mountains. I believe that I really do, but right now you just have to fight, like sort of inverting where the flight was there.

Also, you know, that whole just like real Bridget Jones Mark Darcy stuff in the head. I like you just as you are. Exactly who you are. Anything that makes me think of college birth, I'm also thought of Bridget Jones in that moment. So thank you so much for being on my wavelength.

Oh, God. But yeah, the flight, flight mention again. Yeah. What is this about? Gosh, she literally has to fly in the finale. I mean, the final season? Maybe.

But like, to what end? We'll find out. The... Was that the worst answer to a what could this mean question? I don't know. We'll find out. At least it wasn't, I haven't thought about it. Incredible.

I don't know. Okay. Let's go back to Eddie. Our dearest darling, Eddie, who dies. We expected him to die. Did he have to die like this? Let's dig into it. All right.

So he's in the upside down. He grabs the guitar. He grabs the upside down guitar instead of his like, you know, instead of taking the guitar from his trailer through into the upside down, he grabs the guitar, which I guess has been hanging there since 1983. And I thought that was just kind of cool and extra metal for him to like take this like upside down instrument, right? I loved this because it obviously is his guitar. He's in his room. He's walking toward the mirror where he has it hanging. One of the things I loved was that the room is so consumed, like, completely blanketed in the vines.

And, you know, so much of the finale is, oh, God, like, is, is, is poor, dear sweet Robin going to accidentally touch and activate the vines? Yeah. And the guitar is untouched, pristine. And Eddie gets to say it's like she was destined for an alternate dimension. And I think we both have, we and, you know, much of the internet have some notes on how our dear sweet beloved Eddie went out here. But this particular moment was great. Like this, you highlighted the like, is this music moment? Like, Eddie doesn't fit in so often.

Even inside of a group of people who have come to love and really like cherish him. And this thing that is like the embodiment of his taste and his passion, just getting to like shine and and stand there as this like a beacon of untouched joy, I thought was was really cool. And then he shreds. I'm pretty sure that if you, yep, this is true. Okay. So if you go to BC rich guitars.

Dot com, B.C.rich.com. They have the special edition guitar that they made for this Stranger Things episode, which you could pre-order, and it is $900. And you can get it in Relic Crackle, which I think is the color of it in the right side up. And you can get it in Liquid Black, which is the color of it in the upside down. Pretty sure that's the case. Which one are you going to get? Oh, it's liquid black for me.

The Relic Crackle looks a little too leopard-printy for me, even though they're going where, like, crackling Hellscape is what they're going for. but how are you? Are you going to get liquid black or relic crackle? You know, I think I'm just going to stick in the Dustin role of, oh, you're on the monitor for me. You're on the amp and then with the countdown. Doing some cosplay, cheering you on from the side and shouting, most metal average you!

Okay, first of all, also, I forgot to put this in the notes, but we need to talk about their battle fits because Dustin's like, I don't know, swamp guy sort of look that he put together was absolutely my favorite. Did you have a favorite?

I got strong Ewak energy from Dustin. You know? And maybe that's not what he was going for. Maybe it was. But that was, felt like I was just there

on Endor with my guy Dustin and known Star Wars enthusiast. If there's another, if there's like another comp that people know about, like if it's like a predator comp or like something like that,

like let us let us know but I love I love thinking of him as an eWalk um can I just tell you that when he was like looking out for the demo bats uh I got strong Legolas and Krebin from Dunland uh sort of my favorite Lord of the Rings line by the way um so we get we get the look at us we're not heroes and then they have their mission which is to distract the Demabats And then I guess the plan was to be in the trailer, which was supposed to be impenetrable and then go back up through the portal and be safe. But the bats get into the trailer because they forgot about the vents. They kind of forgot about the vents.

And a version of this death that I would totally able to hang with is Eddie feeling like he sends us enough. through the portal and cuts the sheet rope and runs so that the bats will not go up through the gate and hurt Dustin and or anyone else in Hawkins. And that's kind of what happens here, right? That's kind of what we're seeing. But it gets kind of messy and mixed up. And then also he takes his stand against the demobats and then because of what Murray does over in Russia, the demobats drop dead like a minute later.

And so I'm not alone in this feeling. I don't mind that Eddie died. This is what the character was written to do, was to show up, have an arc of like, I'm not going to run away and die. I loved him. I would love more of him, but I'm not mad that they killed him.

I think we could have made his death feel a little bit more metal. You know, even if he had like gone out playing the guitar, I think that would have been more metal than like this, this interesting thing that we got here. How do you feel about it? Yeah. So I broadly agree. I think that Eddie's death felt inevitable.

And as sad as it was, and as much as we adore him, I kind of made my peace with me, eventuality. I actually started to feel like, wait, why? And again, there's always, I experience a lot of dissidents when I'm analyzing stranger things from,

I have my kind of reflexive response, and I'm like, well, maybe this makes sense. this was one of those moments too because of the whole the goodbye chat with step and co before they even like got to the the concert phase the whole decoy thing you know we're not heroes like i get it of course that part of eddie's arc is you know he doesn't have to live but he does have to decide not to run right i i actually was like i had a really hard time accepting a version of the show where d who has been on the front line for so many of these seminal showdowns is like, yeah, I'm not a hero. I'm a decoy. That was really weird to me. And I know that Steve has his protective instincts and that's part of the thing that Steve still needs to work through and that's okay. But what version of stranger things leads us to believe that we should be like relegating Dustin to sideline decoy status?

That was just strange. Now, like, again, that's a great point. It builds toward the moment of Eddie being able to embrace not running. But here's a structural issue that I had with the episode. And this was one of the only times where I was like, maybe this is actually just, this should not have been this long.

Now, we haven't really talked about that. And I'll just say quickly, the length I think bothered me less than maybe in other scenarios because I normally just sit down and watch eight hours of stranger things in a row. Right? So like the fact that it was one episode, if you start to think about that, then it feels strange. But watching three hours of strangers things in a row is not that unusual.

Flashbacks, not only to earlier things in the show that we did not need to see again because we understand them. But a flashback to something from this episode in terms of that like we're not the heroes, where the decoy thing, bizarre. We do not need to be reminded of that. It was mere moments ago and we are adept enough as viewers to understand him the arc here. I feel the same way about one of his dying words being, I didn't run this time. I'm like, we got it, man. Like, you didn't have to say it for us.

And again, this is like the flip side of the Jonathan Will conversation where I'm like, sometimes stranger things writers don't, like, trust their audience to get the arc, you know, to get the beauty of the ark without him saying it as he dies. That being said, all of those logistical problems aside, still cried. When Gain Monarazzo cries and not only cries, but snats as he cries. Oh, I was done. When he was, like, pounding Eddie's chest, conceding finally, I'm going to look after them. That was heart-wrenching, as was Eddie saying, I think it's finally my year.

I love you, man. And we learned on Twitter. Right. Yeah. The I love you, man, was Joe Quinn. Joe Quinn improvised that. Oh, my God. He also improvised the best line of episode 8, which was Big Boy to Steve, was also a Joe Quinn special.

Incredible stuff. Actually, my favorite, my favorite line from this episode was also improvised, but it was by a different actor. And we'll get to that in a second. But yeah. Yeah, like the saying out loud, I didn't run away this time. You're right. Like we don't need that. I guess it's again, it's the distinction between maybe what we need as viewers and what the characters need. Like Eddie needs to prove that to himself and I can rock with that. But the show needs to trust us to know that that's what Eddie is thinking when he made that decision. Right. And just like again, I mean like there's just like a few things like if, if, because they had walkies with the house crew. Like if I mean, I think the house crew was like on the wall at that point. But like if the house crew got in the walkie, wait, I'm glad you mentioned this. What happened with this and with just talking? Did I miss something? Definitely possible. With like the we can't speak.

We have to write, write things down and he'll hear us. like, I thought maybe that was so, like, they could fool him into thinking only Max was there. But the whole, his whole thing is that he can like, oh, I know, psychically reach everyone. I know, but I think that was the whole thing is like, we're going to communicate with light flashes and not talking so that it just seems like it's just Max here offing herself up as sacrifice. Look, in terms of a deus ex machina, in terms of the rules of the universe, hardly on par with, like, learning that 11 can resurrect the dead in terms of like, hey, this is a thing now and we're literally going to say we make our own rules to explain it. But I did think that was a little, yeah, the switch and how they are communicating with each other was slightly perplexing.

But they had a walkie. They got in the walkie before they went to the house. And maybe the whole thing was like, once we're in the house, we're not going to make any noises or whatever. Right. They have their phases and their light signals. Yeah. Since they had the walkie, like, if they had gone the walkie and been like, hey man, we need more time. Like, you know, your amazing rendition of master puppets wasn't enough. We need more time. And Eddie had been like, I'm going to buy them time, the time that they need.

Like that, even that felt more logical to me than what we got. There was also like Nancy saying that no one moves to the next phase until like everybody knows that we're cool. So yeah, that was a little. Also, like, I don't want to rob any of his metal shredding moment. That was dope. but like, couldn't they have just played a, like, I don't know, put on a, put on a tape? A boombox? An Iron Maiden tape?

100%. 100% they could have. Anyway, Eddie's dead. This was his year. He has graduated. He has moved on. Will the town of Hawkins learn the truth? Because one of the really genuinely kind of tragic end notes of the episode is that everybody

thinks Eddie is the murderer still. And Dustin hands over the guitar pick and provides Eddie's uncle. uncle with some closure and some peace. But the bulk of the town is still, you know, defacing and vandalizing his missing person poster. The local news reporter is calling him the Munson murders. Like Eddie's legacy is not a reflection of who he was. I don't want to dwell too much in the negative

because there is a lot that I did love about this episode. But I will say, like to skip forward to the Coda, I have a lot of questions. Everyone just being hunky-dory fine, except, like, doesn't mean the only one to, like, care that Eddie's dead seemingly. Like the rest of the teens are just sort of like, like, you know, Robin and Steve and Nancy spare not a thought or a second for Eddie.

And that, you know, Joyce took a whole season to be sad about Bob. So, you know, like I would have liked a little bit more. Yeah. Even just compare it tonally to the code of season three where everyone's the packing up and L reading the letter and the like really palpable despair that is permeating each of those rooms and each of those vehicles that they're in. And like, you know, there's some of it that they're just channeling into action and purpose with Robin and Steve and Dustin going to the gym that has been repurposed into a shelter

and trying to help and the other gang going to the cabin to, you know, make it another a safe harbor again for Elle. Like, you know, our gal Karen remembers that she has a son when the whole server was, that was like a funny one, right? where everybody is so overcome when the surfer boy van unloads, but I'm kind of like, wait, yes, we know that they have been trying to reach them unsuccessfully and have been very worried, but they're just kind of like cheerfully talking about the stuffed animals in the box instead of being like, will we ever serve? Where's Will?

Where's our child will? Everyone in Hawkins seems to be operating at a very leisurely pace because two days later still a long line of cars to leave town there. So, yeah, it takes a while to pack up all of your life's belongings, I suppose. All right, let's move to a part of the episode that I absolutely loved that worked extremely well for me, which is Max and the Sinclair's in the murder house. Okay. What an episode for Max and Lucas.

Yeah, okay. So Sadie Sink has been crushing it all the season. We've shouted this out before. The Duffers had said that like Caleb Lachlan, who like when we're talking about characters who have been sidelonged, or not really well used. I would say Lucas has been like a suspect number one in that regard for like the last couple seasons. But they started the season strong by giving him this like interesting, I thought, plot line with,

you know, the basketball team. And then his max stuff and then just let him rip in this episode. And he absolutely like just came through in so many ways. The Death Watch alarm did sound for me with the like. like, let's make a movie date. I know you already mentioned that like, that didn't work for you with Joyce and Hop, but I was just like, oh, no, don't make, yes, concerning it. Don't make plans. Don't make date plans.

The thing that I love about Caleb McLaughlin and Sadie Sink is that, and I found this out in an interview recently, that they knew each other before Stranger Things because they were both like tiny kid actors on Broadway at the same time. They were in two different shows on Broadway. And Gaten was also a Broadway kid before he was a stranger thing kid. So I just have to say like the theater kids crushing it this season. Just absolutely killing it. I love the blue light.

I love the lighting design and all of that. I love like it made me think of the conversations we had around Obi-Wan with like the blue light savers and the red, you know, Vecna's red light and the blue light. You know, like those lanterns, which I guess are like, I don't know, bug zappers, black lights. I don't know what they are. but like the production design to give them those blue light lanterns was so smart, so stylish, incredible. And then we get this like confession from Max, which is not entirely different from what we saw on Dear Billy, but it didn't feel redundant to me. How did it work for you?

Yeah, I agree. Everything with Max feels like it's, there's forward momentum. And, you know, again, there are these moments of, of tension where you as a viewer trying to wrap your arms around what Max is really thinking and feeling, but in a way that really works, because again, that feels true to life that you would have this doubt and be at war with yourself over your own guilt and your own shame about the choices that you've made, right? And then the payoff, like for something like that, that kind of seesawing to ultimately really land, you need that payoff of the like extraordinarily heart-wrenching moment where Max is

initially dying at least in Lucas's arms and saying that she's not ready and that she does not want to die and that she cannot feel and cannot see and does not want to does not want her time with these people and in Hawkins with her friends and her family to be over right and has that clarity that real clarity that was like so beautifully performed from both of them and really like devastating. sad. Again, I was, I had a, with just the, the, the initial Vecna Max of it all, like, almost visceral. I kind of can't believe we're seeing this happen to Max. Why is this happening to Max? I wish that this were not happening to Max response. But I was, like, deeply, deeply moved watching Caleb and Sadie perform that. And their relationship has been so lovely because, you know, you made the really great point in our volume one pods that we had gotten this like incredibly compelling initial exchange between them about like are you a ghost in your

own life and is this really the thing that you want and like that teenage impulse to kind of like hurt somebody you love but also like say something really true but that doesn't fully recognize maybe their perspective and you know that Lucas um mic exchange about, you know, has it ever occurred to you that we don't want to be popular? And Lucas saying, like, I'm tired of this. I'm tired of being bullied. I'm tired of being bullied. I'm tired of feeling like a loser.

We came to high school wanting things to be different, right? And then how we sort of left that in the rest of volume one. One of the, obviously, this was mostly about Lucas and Max. And Jason is, I think, a real, like, couldn't have been happier to see our guy, Jason, and get literally torn in half by a spreading maw of an upside downgate, great stuff. To quote my favorite scribe, Joanna Robinson, as you put it in the Google Doc, quite literally, rest in pieces, Jason, iconic stuff from you in the notes. But there was this great, great Lucas moment.

I was so glad that there was room in this massive finale. There needed to be room for it, and there was for him to sit. Like, it was the, you're wrong about Eddie. No, but I was wrong about you. I never should have let you in the door, Jason line. And Lucas saying, and I never should have knocked, I thought I wanted to be like you, popular, normal, but it turns out normal is just a raging psychopath. Like, it was quick. It was brief.

But we needed that. It was such an important thing for Lucas and for this larger central theme in the show about embracing who you are and not being a, afraid to love the things you love and love the people you love. Like, I was one of my favorite quiet little moments in the finale. I loved it. I loved it, too. I never should have knocked. It's an incredible bit of running here.

Caleb, Caleb getting to play, Caleb is Lucas getting to play both like the Vecna Lucas stuff, which is just sort of, like, which is fun and scary and great. And even though we saw that already happened with like Max's mom, like, it's still just like worked really well the way that they shot it. Yeah, where you're like on her and it's like her number one fear of this like rejection and all this sort of stuff. And then him just absolutely falling to bits and pieces and crying and screaming. And the line that I alluded to earlier is him calling Erica help.

The way that he says Erica help is he's like, you know, calling it to his little sister for help. As he has in his arms, he's absolutely, I'm going to. cry thinking about it. He's like absolutely torn apart by this. You mentioned Bridget Jones earlier for me. And then I think this is a fair analogy because because

Caleb is a theater kid is I couldn't help but think of the moment at the end of rent when Marine says like Roger Mark help. It's Mimi, I can't get her up the stairs. It's just like the way that he said it sounded like that inflection to me. And I just like it really, it really got me. Really, really got me. And like, in that similar sequence, we're going to zoom back to

11 inside of Max's memories right now, but like, 11 also being there, but him not being able to see her and her, you know, Millie also brought plenty of fireworks at the table and, like, as 11 is upset about Max here, but I just, just the visuals of like, Lucas thinking he's alone with Max and us knowing that 11 is there, but he doesn't know she's there is. I thought was incredible work. So very sad and very, very moving. Should we talk about 11 and accepting herself into Max? Yeah.

Let's do it. Yeah. And then the here and in the hospital scene where our beloved Lucas is reading the talisman to Max in her hospital bed. Just an all-star showing from Lucas in this finale. Like, oh, he's really allowed so earnestly. Anyway. And he had hung the drawing of them on the wall.

Erica's there. And he had hung the movie tape there. heart wrenching. The Sinclair is really, really fucking doing it. Oh, so, okay. Just a need to mention Erica hitting one of Jason's little henchmen and saying crit hit as she did it. After landing a swift kick to the balls. Loved it.

Right before that. So part of the, the whole plan here from afar, from inside the pizza freezer, is inception essentially, right? the 11 is going to piggyback into and go into layers deep into Max's mind and then maybe also into Vecna's mind it's confusing

but so is Inception a movie I love so she starts at the top level which is like the gunfight in the street level inception where she's in this memory of Max

back in California being a skater girl etc. But then what she needs to get to is the snowball level, which is like the Swanky Hotel level in Inception, right? She's getting the snowball level.

And they have the big confrontation in the gym. I thought that was a great use of location, not just to call us back to season two, that that's her memory. It's very sweet. But also season one,

the confrontation was in the Hawkins Gym, right? So, I don't know, a well-used location. Those bleachers have seen some things, you know? Definitely. Hawkins Middle and Hawkins High. Like, my goodness. I loved the choice to make the snowball dance this really pivotal setting because, you know, for Max,

and of course made me think back of, like, Lucas asking if he was going to be there in the memory, right? And like, you know, the dance and their first kiss. But more broadly, like I think I've mentioned before in our pots that that that stretch of the season two finale is like legitimately one of my favorite stranger things stretches, period. And a lot of that is Dustin centric. It is just like devastating to see all these people pairing off and coupling off. And he's just alone and like so sad.

And then Nancy comes over and dances with him. ever like Nancy Wheeler. Like she's forever okay in my book because of that move. Yeah. You know, the hope that a Wheeler child can eventually recognize someone else in a moment of need, right? And show some empathy. But it just, that stretch felt like this distillation of growing up in all the ways,

like good and bad, right? The pain of feeling like lonely or not good enough for other people. and the real joy of feeling like you found somebody who is interested in you and who wants to spend time with you and maybe you're interested in that person too. And all of this talk about the heart and the heart of the party and the party and coming together and the ties that bind and the source of strength, it's such a contrast. And again, this is like deeply potteresque, right, in terms of like love is this protective force. that felt like a really good choice to remind us of the depth of feeling

that these characters have for each other and what a distinction that will be ultimately between them and Vecna who is offering up as his most central boast that he is not interested in humanity and what is more deeply human

than forging that kind of bond to someone, you know? Yeah. Man, school dances. I remember the record hops in Reisterstown, Maryland. The record hops? Yeah, that's what they were called record hops, our middle school dances.

What? Yeah, they were great. Did you go to the school in the 1950s? That's so fucking cute. A record house. Record hops. Yeah, they were great. Oh, my God.

All right. The way in which Vecna invades the snowball here, very quick foreshadow of the ending of like

the upside down coming to Hawkins or he turns the gym into the upside down. The balloons are popping with blood which

isn't it as a person who does not lie horror. That scared me. That's a it reference for you.

Oh, the thing that I will say and you alluded to this earlier is like the max 11 French was really only like one episode last season.

And I really liked that episode a lot. A great episode. Yeah. A great episode that I really liked. The Material Girl shopping sequence, iconic. Yeah, just like giggling in their bedroom and like talking about something. Yeah. Learning about Wonder Woman. Always thought the, you know, ethics of spying on the boys was a little dubious. But, you know, you're learning. Yeah. If we're going to give Mike a pass for being a 15 year old boy, I'm going to give these girls a pass.

So that's a great episode. I really wish that they had held on a little tighter to that friendship. Especially, I think it could have worked really. Like, if they knew they were aiming to this, they knew going into the season, they were aiming to this. It would have been so easy to cede some of this into the earlier season, like part of why Max is feeling, and I talked about this in Volume 1. Perhaps part of the reason Max is feeling so isolated and all this sort of stuff is that her one female friend is gone. you know, and it could be a reason why 11 is feeling as the way that she's, you know, like make that, make us feel that separation. But all of Max's storyline had to do with Lucas and all and Billy and all of 11 storyline had to do with like Mike, you know.

And so I just like, give us some of that good, good stuff before and then and a roller skate before, you know, before you make it so important here. Do you know what I mean? So. Yeah. That seems to be. one of the more common refrains and just discussing the finale with people. I feel like every person I've chatted with about the finale has mentioned that. Like,

it, not that we are not interested in Alan Max as a duo or a pairing, but like, did we spend enough time with them together for it to pay off in that way and feel that, that seismic at the end? I, that was, I mean,

it was actually one of the moments where, like, watching it, Adam and I turned to each other. It's like, wait a minute. And especially because, again, just like stylistically and structurally, the finale relied so heavily on quick cuts of prior scenes. Like, you're really seeing. Oh, right.

Yeah, they have the same haircuts and outfits and everything we're seeing because this all took place in this really brief span of time. Like, speaking of friendships, they have not forgotten about. Let's talk about the best friendship on the show, which is Robin and Steve. And Nancy's also there. I love Robin and Steve so much. Love. I mean, they don't have a ton of. to do the finale. I'm not that mad, though, because they've had a lot to do throughout the season.

So on balance, they had plenty to do. Not much to do in this season, except for, or in this episode, except to choke on a wall for literally 30 minutes of the episode runtime. I counted it. 30 minutes. Slow strangulation. The close caption was tentacle adheres wetly to them as they're on the wall. Do you want to talk about the Steve and Nancy Thump conversation? They're thumping? Or did we cover that? Yeah, let's, well, I think, you know, we talked about the sweet Winnebago, you know, little nuggets exchange in episode eight. And we got the follow-up to that here where Steve said that he left out the most important part, you're there. You've always been there. And then Robin just comes in with her version of the red phone ringing in Russia, right? Interrupting this incredibly charged moment between a couple that we're deeply invested in. I, one of the things that I was interested in, you know, we're, I just love Steve, you love Steve, we're in the bag for Steve. I am like totally captivated anytime Steve Harrington is sharing his heart and his feelings with us. So I was, uh, I was, you know,

wrapped watching the scene. I was really interested in the Jonathan Nancy reunion at the end and the like, you know, I'm glad you were here. So there was an adult like, who else would have been in charge Steve, oh, he's matured a lot. Like, wait, what kind of look from Jonathan and the fact that neither, you know, even though there's the, wait, are we okay? Question from Jonathan, like neither Jonathan nor Nancy is being honest with each other. You know, Nancy about the poll that she's feeling towards Steve again, Jonathan about college. Like, that's obviously I assume going to bear fruit in season five. But I did love, you know, it's come up multiple times in this episode and we talk about it a lot. Like there are times when the characters and strangers think say some, out loud that you would prefer remain subtext. Here I really liked that Steve was just like, right out of the gate, I'm super confident, but I'm also an idiot, which is a brutal combination. Steve is a character who like when we get the opportunity to hear him reflect on his evolution and his growth and have him say like, I can learn, I can crawl forward. I just loved and thought was really great. And then he said, thank you for giving my head the biggest thump of its life.

and I was like Joanna Robbins and would say phrasing here. Joe would come in with a big old phrase in here. Absolutely. 100%. I should say, so part of that is writing, but part of it is also,

it's not fair. It's not fair. But some actors can get away with almost anything, right? And Joe Kiry is one of them. So charming and charismatic. He's so charming. That's just the case of it.

So like, the writing's fine. The performance is great. hearing him call, like, when Steve's like, I'm an idiot, you're just like, your heart is just like, oh, Steve, you are. We love you. Okay. I also loved the look as he was folding clothes in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, Coda, and he's watching Robin and Vicky, like, the look on his face of just their

friendship is really special to me. Okay. We're going to hop to the Cota. I just really won't briefly say, uh, we did the Molotov cocktails. Nancy got her like gun girl moment. She loves her guns. The film Zomeland had not been released in the 80s, but if it had, I would say he got a double tap. You guys, like this most important rule of Zombolland, I think, is the double tap.

So they let Vecna on flames, you know, he gets shot out a window. I would have looked out the window, baby, shot him from there. I don't know. They mosey on down. he's gone. And this is very, this is very Halloween, very the end of Halloween. And we all know what that happened

at the end of Halloween. There are more sequels. So Vecta Will return in some form or another. Also kind of classic Stranger Things fashion, like we don't really need to speculate. Will tells us definitively, he's back in Hawkins. He can feel him. He's out there. Okay. But I was really unhappy to see the return of Will grabs the back of his neck. The neckrope.

Just my least favorite. story for Will. Anyway, okay, so we're in the Cota. I saw a lot of people had a major issue with the Abrupt Two Days Later card. I wasn't mad about it, but I just would agree that we, I don't think we needed it. Like, we could reasonably assume that it would take, you know, everyone a couple days to get there, I suppose. I don't know. I had, my issue with it was less the, oh, you're doing a two and a half hour finale and you still need to skip two days and more or not even issue. The thing I was trying to like parse is like we cut, who do we cut away from?

What do we cut away from? We cut away from L in the hospital sequence with Max attempting to reach into Max's mind. And then we go back to that later and see this kind of like emptiness, right? And L shouting out. And one of the things that we can kind of deduce from the whole like, where's Lucas?

He's at the hospital? You don't know. And then like Lucas saying, she was dead, clinically dead for a minute, and they're saying it's a miracle. I'm paraphrasing here, right? And then the look that Mike and Will share is that 11 didn't tell them anything about what she did. And- But-

Sorry. No, and I was just going to say, I'd like to know why. Like, that feels like a really central thing. But this fees into my theory, and I want to go back to what you said about Jonathan and Nancy, it feeds into my theory that every single person is going to go into this final season with like a secret. it, a shame, a something that is going to make them vulnerable in one way or another to whatever it is. Because we have not resolved all the shit that Hopper said about his guilt around his daughter. If 11 is carrying guilt that she couldn't save Max, you know, like if she is feeling like she didn't

do all she could have or something like that, she made mistakes, something like that, like I could, like these kids keeping secrets from each other is like, what? what they do. And the Jonathan and Nancy thing, the Nancy Steve Jonathan thing is the most, the strongest hint, I feel like that this is going to be something that is going to come back to haunt us in the next season

because I was talking to front of the pod, Kim Redfro, and like she was so convinced Steve was going to die in this episode, as were many people. She was so convinced. And the main reason she was convinced was because they were hitting that love triangle shit so hard.

And she was like, why are we doing this? Why is everyone invested in Steve and Nancy? It makes no sense unless Steve dying is then therefore going to hurt the most number of characters all at once. So that was her math that she was doing. It was very sound math. But I think the reason they're hitting that so hard is that we go into season five and Nancy is not telling Jonathan. Jonathan's not telling Nancy everything.

You know, Robin has found a girl that she's flirting with, but she's still queer and holding that a secret. And Will's holding his queerness a secret. and like Mike and all aren't necessarily talking to each other. And, you know, like all this stuff is still roiling up inside of them in a way that I think Vecna, who is a master of secrets, master of shame, is going to exploit in some way in the final season. Yeah, no, I think that's really sharp and really astute. And like, you know, we got that line from Jonathan and the Will conversation, you know, right now we need to talk more than ever.

and when the characters are unable to do that, it can leave them, even though it's a very relatable thing, it can leave them vulnerable. I think to the L point, like, one of the things I was trying to interrogate is like,

if her guilt is a, so her guilt is like that she didn't do enough. Well, they know that she feels that way because she told Mike that and Mike tells Will that she's like, oh, you know, Brenner warned her that she wasn't ready and now she's worried. that maybe he was right, but to not tell them that she brought Max back from the dead, that she can like Grogu force heel.

Force heel, yeah. Yeah, is like a really big thing to not be sharing. And is she like coming to terms with what that reflects about her own power still? Or did she know that she could do that? Did she know that it worked? Maybe she didn't know it worked? Or I don't know. I'm not trying to make excuses for the show.

But like maybe she didn't know it worked or maybe she's afraid they'll be scared of her if they know that she can do that. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. And we have, you know, the Mike line about how he's never been afraid of her. But we know that part of the reason he needs to say that is because that's one of her anxieties and fears is that they are afraid of her. And that would be a pretty massive thing, right? I have the power to bring people back from the dead. Now, some of this connects to the like, we'll hit this in, you know, in our season five, look ahead in the mailback.

but the time travel of it all, right, with the possibility of like winding back the clock for deaths or otherwise. But the other thing that I was thinking about, and this gets back to that larger like L. Vecna, Harry Voldemort connection, this idea of absorbing powers, right? So if this is something that 11 can do, our understanding, based on what we know so far, about him having absorbed her powers

via that bite is that he can do this too, right? This would be a thing that he could do. But one of the things I'm interested in kind of thinking about is, okay, we talk a lot by William E and I about Horrockses. Like I just think the Horrocks comp is like so palpable here.

But one of the things that I think is important to remember with the end of, and you know, Joe opened the pod bites to thoughtfully and sensitively saying we wouldn't spoil other stories. Here's a spoiler for the end of Harry Potter. You've been warned. Fast forward 45 seconds if you'd like to. It doesn't just hinge on the fact that Harry is a horrocks

and that he is a tether for Voldemort to the mortal coil. It's all, it's the inverse whorecrux. It's that Voldemort dared to take a piece of Harry to take Harry's blood into him. and to bring Lily's protection into him. And like a lot of Dumbledore's Kings Cross chapter explanation hinges on that aspect, this like this way that it works in both directions, right? And so like the bite in the end of season three and Vecna taking 11's powers,

how much of Vecna's power absorption is like a conscious thing that he needs to decide to do? Because we've heard this description many times about the way that he, you know, absorbs. I asked that because like, did 11, you know, we know that there's this larger, just the connection between one and the other, the other kids in Hawkins Lab because of what one tells us about Brenner's experiments and this, you know, he couldn't control so he sought to recreate, right? His program. But beyond that, like when 11 initially defeated one in 79, did she absorb? You know, you noted, oh, did he absorb all of the powers of the other kids? I think it's reasonable to deduce yes.

Does that mean that she then did too? If she took all of his powers? How much of this is going in both directions? And a lot of the mailback questions that we got hinge on some version of, is 11 going to be the one who has to close the gate? Like, can you really, really, really ever sever this connection if 11 is alive? And I guess one of the reasons I'm bringing up the Horkrocks and blood protection element here or parallel here is, is there's a part of me that thinks it's like absolutely 11 has to choose to sacrifice herself and die, but also I think a kind of a clear roadmap for how she could do that and live.

And then there's the time travel aspect of it still and the fact that the upside down is frozen in time and what it might mean to go, if the upside down is encroaching now on the right side up of Hawkins, does that mean that 1983 is coming back with it? because the upside down is frozen in time, right? Let's talk about a couple things that the deafers have said about season five, and it's not much. And again, there might be more interviews out by the time you listen to this, but this is what we have so far.

One, they have, they mentioned that they might have to do a time jump given how much the kids are growing, that they were like thinking of that, which is bizarre to me given the imminent danger of what's happening to Hawkins here. You can't end the season this way and then do a time. jump. I don't see how. Right? A lot of questions. Yeah. They've also said that they will explain why the upside down looks like it does and is stuck in 1983 in season five. So that they have an idea as to why that is. That is coming. I feel like part of part of the why that we at least can glean already is because that's when the mother gate opened and everything began. And so 11 needing

to seal the opening that she made at that point in time, even though we know the first gate that sent one through was earlier. like that all tracks, but what are the implications of 83 as a time period kind of encroaching onto the main time period and all of the clock imagery and the ticking and the chiming. And we've talked about time travel a million times already. Like that didn't, that didn't have an impact here at the end of the season like I thought it would. And now it feels inevitable in season five.

And I've gone from being really excited for it to a little bit nervous about it. on the time beat there is this great Reddit post by oh danger flirt I love a Reddit username Dangerflirt who fancies themselves a D&D expert and they have a lot of examination of like what the character of Vecna who's a real character in D&D like how knowledge about that could inform what we might see in the final season this idea that Vecna has a essentially a horrooks a philactory is what it's called in D&D, which has, I guess, its origins in Jewish heritage,

but like it's essentially like an amulet, a talismet, if you will, of, you know, all her crux. That's what it is. And a lot of people are guessing that maybe, that there's an object on earth that keeps Vecna connected to earth. And a lot of people are guessing that it's the grandfather clock in the creel house, which feels like maybe that's true. Or maybe it's a person. Maybe it's max being alive. Maybe it's 11 is the thing that's keeping him there.

11 is the horrocks makes a little bit more sense, something like that. But some sort of vessel for Bechden or a vessel for Weckner. So what I've been saying about what I meant when I said I felt like Vecna really needed to be the villain of the final season is that I really felt like we need something humanoid, that that's so much more interesting. So there's a couple options here. We could bring back Jamie Campbell-Bauer either in the suit or looking like he did as the orderly if we want to. We don't know exactly what Vecna is going to look like in the real world if indeed that's where he is. Or are we going to give Sadie Sink an entire season of getting to be like Vecna, that could be something that could happen. Or are we going to have Noah Schnapp do some things?

Or is it going to bounce around? I'm interested in the particles seemingly being able to bring people back to life. Are we going to see the resurrection of dead characters at all? Like, is that something that could happen? Like, I'm still remain confused about the exact significance of the particles and what they did to the demodogs in Russia. I remain confused by that pronoun of them. Well, maybe that's part of why 11 is able to resurrect now,

because that's a power that Vecna has that she has absorbed, because of their power swap or power share. And maybe that's why she's like, oh, shit, what does it mean that I can do this and is starting to realize that she has some of one, more of one maybe than she realized inside of her. That would be interesting. You open the door. Right. Right. And we got the hop, like in the very sweet, you know, having even mentioned this, like lovely to see Hopper in 11, finally reunite and get, you know, the buyer's family.

reuniting all the characters back together. We did, you mentioned that. But the 11 Hopper Exchange included a mention of like leaving the door open. That's that three, leave the door open three inches, the call back to his letter. And it's also to me like a, that feels just like a very deliberate in addition to the sweetness of it and her telling him that she got the letter and all of that. That's like a right. 11 is the one who has left these gates open. And now Vecna has decided to open the doors himself, but still she's got to be the one. to seal them. I think to your Max point, like I was thinking about the, her eyes, that those clouded eyes. Milky, yeah. Yes, that indicates it's from, you know, what we've seen so far, this, like,

link to Vecna. And when 11 in the hospital sequence and then the return to that moment is, like, searching and reaching out for Max in the psychic realm and can't find anything, like this idea that Vecna could deploy Max as a vessel feels like very much in play. And I think, yeah, like could Will be a part of that too. That all feels like plausible, I think. Because there's a little bit of Fekna and Will still, right? Yeah. In theory.

Neither can live while the other survives. And enduring, confounding Harry Potter prophecy in my view. But it does seem like if there's some of that 11 and 1 and 11 through this transactional biting process, but also what we've learned, which is our theory that perhaps Henry is technically her biological father, if that's how she was created. The whole thing, and this is somebody who's first flagged for me by friend of the pod, Dave Gonzalez. He's like, I didn't, I didn't pay, he said it seems a little late for them to do their Empire Strikes back season, but I guess that's what this is. And we mentioned the sort of like, Luke with the X-wing, Degobah comp of 11 leaving the Lab to Save her Friends in last week, or last episode, but ending with Max in a coma and our friends defeated, but looking towards the horizon with purpose is classic. empire. And of course, the big part of empire is Luke finding out that Vader's father. So, you know, it's all, it's all in the Star Wars. Well, that would support a time jump if we're moving

toward our return to the Jedi leveling up. But I agree with what you said, like, I just don't see how the upside down is encroaching against the wild flowers like that and the sky is on fire. By the way, I was glad we got the mention on the local news report of like some people are not so sure. This isn't earthquake. And think that a doorway to another world is open. I'm like, man, I wonder if that's because of the massive plumes of smoke and red lightning in the sky. That some people don't think this is an earthquake. Thank you. Citizens of Hawkins. Similarly, there's this line that Bechna Henry says to 11 when he's caught monologuing. He says, is that what you did? Did you kill me? That feels very important.

though just like a one-to-one Harry Voldemort. Like, he was not initially defeated and that essence lives on and then reforges and what is a human form and what do you need to achieve it and do you even want that and what other forms can you use to deploy as your soldiers. I think, like, you mentioned that great Reddit thread on the D&D clues, which you share with me this morning and I took a look at. And I, as I've noted before, I've never played D&D, very eager to play a campaign before season five of the show. But I was really interested in the part of that post about like the dealmaking that Vecna does.

Vecna the dealmaker. Yeah, because one of the things, obviously like on the one hand, it is not notable to have run it up that hill accompanimenty a scene in season four of Stranger Things because it does 547 times rough count. but I was really interested with the lyrics that accompanied the moment in the mind palace when Vecna is screaming and this is not the Vecna that Stephen Robin and Nancy are burning in the upside down in the attic. The Vecna in the in the psychic realm that L is facing screams begins to vaporize. and the lyrics that accompanied that part are, do you want to know, know that it doesn't hurt me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want to hear about the deal I'm making?

And this idea, again, that kind of horrocks comp, like the tethers between him and the hive mine, him and L potentially. But then it got me thinking again about like what exactly he found in the upside down in the first place with the shadowy form that becomes what we have long called the mind flare. what is that arrangement? And is that one that 11 will ultimately be able to trump and control and and take command of, either because she has this piece of FECNA inside of her or because of her own powers?

Like, what is the deal and can she break it? And further, I would say, the lyrics are running at the hill. And if I only could make a deal with God and get a. to swap our places. So let's talk about the history of like realms and gates that need to be closed in fantasy, sci-fi literature, right? The big one that you and I have talked about in various places is His Dark Materials. Spoilers for His Dark Materials.

When we, in order to close that fissure, we need to separate our beloved protagonist. who have fallen in love with each other, Will and Lyra. They have to be on either sides of, you know, the fabric of these worlds in order to keep everything close. And there's a poignant. Devastating. Devastating parting, right? Yeah.

They have their bench. And your identical thing happens in Doctor Who. Sorry, I have to. But, like, Rose and the doctor have to be in different realities or else it'll rip open the fabric of reality. So they have to have this very poignant parting on either side of a reality.

It gets me every time. I can see a version of the show where like, because a lot of people are like, oh, 11 has to die. Maybe. Maybe she has to die the way that Harry dies, which is not dying, right, really, in the end. Or maybe it's that 11 has to go to the upside down and that's

the only way to close this all off forever. And maybe she can make the upside down into a beautiful place, you know, not an ugly hellscape, but maybe she can live in some kind of paradise in the upside down, but she has to swap places with Vecna in order to keep Hawkins safe. And maybe she and good old Mike, the emotionally intelligent heart of the group, can, like, meet in the, like, black space with the water on the floor as, like, part of their, you know, pen pal ship or something like that. But, like, it feels like a possibility, not, I I'm not putting all my chips on it, but like, that's a classic fantasy sci-fi.

I got to stay on this side and you got to stay on this side, sort of parting of the ways. Absolutely. I really agree. I think that, like, one of the things that's really painful to think about in anticipating that is, and there's always a somber element to that when it happens in a fantasy story, but it's often paired with this real progress for the protagonist or at least a recognizing. mission that something seminal has changed about their life. Like, Frodo saying that there's nothing left for him in the Shire anymore and not being able to go back to that prior part of his life is like devastatingly sad and a real parting

of the ways between the fellowship, right? Some of the members of the fellowship were most invested in. But it's also him recognizing something about himself that he needs to in order to move forward not only literally, but like emotionally. The thing that feels so different about 11 is like, No one would be there with her. I know. It's devastating.

But like, unless someone decides to go with her, like hopper or something like that. But like, Frodo deciding he has to leave this world is not like a, it's this like, I've come back from the war and I don't belong to this world anymore. Yeah. Yeah. A feeling of separation. You know, and he does get to like go to the Grey Havens with the elves. But it's just like, I don't belong here. You know?

Yeah, absolutely. That's why I'm saying it's devastating, but at least he has a chance to forge a new fellowship with somebody else because he's not alone. Like, who would 11 do that with?

That's just really sad to think about. I also thought about, like, Avatar a lot and the convergence, the harmonic convergence watching this finale and like the... I love to think about harmonic conversions. You know, the spirit wilds, like the incursion of the spirit wilds

after like Coral leaves the portal open, but also just this idea of like Rava and Vatu and like these two forces eternally battling for the fate of the world feels very like L. Vecna. And also then you think about like the merging of Rava and Wan to get the avatar spirit, right? And like could there be a version of that here in some way? Yeah.

In Ursa Kela Gwyn's book, Wizard of Earthsea, which... Stepmom's absolute favorite. Shout out, Debbie. Oh. Which Dustin's girlfriend was reading. Susie was reading in a previous episode. That ends with our...

Spoilers for Wizard of Earth. That ends with our protagonist absorbing this evil force and turning it good by absorbing, you know, taking it within himself and therefore neutralizing it. So maybe 11 can just get away with just, you know, eating. you know, the Vecna bad dust stuff. Oh, God. I love it. On the turn back time front in terms of like what could happen here, it does feel somewhat significant that 11 goes inside one of Max's earlier memories, like to younger Max, you know,

like who else's earlier memories can she like hop into? Will that be necessary, useful going forward? And the other option for a time travel plot line, and we talked about this a little bit in volume one, is if we turn back time and 11 never came to Hawkins, what would the difference be? And I don't love that. I only love a version of that if, like, our main characters can remember her. Because I do not want to erase all of the character development that our main characters have gone through. I would not feel good about that. that's why I was saying earlier

I've started to feel nervous. Either like, because I've loved the idea of introducing time travel into this and it's felt like so heavily teased throughout the whole run. But if it is,

if it ends up coming into play either to do something like that or even like unwind some of the deaths of consequence, that feels like it has the potential to sap. There's that old stakes word again. Like,

because the thing that the story hinges on for me much more, than any of the plot is like the journey that the characters have shared together and to not have that happen. Like what who is hopper to us as a character if will never went into the upside down and he and Joyce didn't forge their bond and 11 never made you know that the the he and 11 never made like ego extravaganzas together like who is who is he for us then etc. etc. etc. I don't know. That's a tricky one. It's very complicated. One last thing I'll say. In this episode, Dustin, my pal, my best friend Dustin, is giving out water to all people in the like emergency shelter.

And he says, water, vital for all forms of life, which brings me back to our water conversation from volume one, which is what is the significance of the like upside down fissures not being able to like no water in the upside down? What is going on there? Does it matter at all? I don't know. we did get one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time. Hemnichemone's Signs, which I have seen, I'm not kidding, like 50 times. There is a reference to that movie in this episode when the Demabats are on the roof, and he's like, they're on the roof.

Like, that's a science reference, and I loved it. But I don't know if the water, this show will be as important as the water is in science. But what I do love doing with you, Mallory, is talking about literally anything. but also like taking a tour through fantasy sci-fi properties we have known and trying to sort of like lay some of those rules or some of those profound stories onto this show, especially because more than any other show that exists, this is a show that is actively engaging in existent familiar tropes, you know?

Yes, there are definitely times where the response to the efforts to find some of those parallels might be like, Not everything is Game of Thrones. And it's like, to be it is. But the duffers are, yeah, they're so actively in dialogue with the stories that influence them and that influence the characters that it feels like very, very, very, very fair game here and actually like an essential exercise. We should say that the book that Lucas is reading to Max is the talisman, as you mentioned,

Stephen King, Peter Straub, and that book basically involves an upside down. And there's a concept called twinning it exists in other Stephen Kinns books. Very hard to explain. But essentially, like, there's a thing where, like, if you die in one world but not in the other, I don't know. Like, is it just like a little Easter egg for their number one famous fan Stephen King? Or are we to take something from the fact that it's the talisman specifically? And especially that, that specific line that he's reading is about the main character sort of going to their. analog of the upside down for the first time and sort of being like, whoa, here I am in this other

place. So that feels deliberate then. I have not read that book, but it felt also like it's such a, it's a scene that we're just so actively paying attention to because it's so sweet, right? So it's like not a subtle Easter egg. It feels like a clue you're meant to analyze. You mentioned Max dying and then not dying, saying she wasn't reading. that of course makes us think of good old Petty Parker, right?

I don't, you know. I don't want to go. I don't want to go. But also for me, Doctor Who, David Tenet saying, I don't want to go. Oh, my God. I could just, like, look at a giff of that and I cry. Anyway, so. Oh, God.

We talked about the needle drops, Metallica, more Cape Bush. I have a question about the Kate Bush in this episode because, like, it's possible this was already scored, But it's also possible that they, like, did the return to Kate Bush because the first use of it was so popular. They had time to do that if they wanted to. I don't know the answer to that, but. Fiddling until after the episode's actually aired. So, yeah. Tweet it until the end.

And beyond. I know you met fiddling, like, tweaking, but I was, like, literally fiddling. Anyway. Should you do mailbag? Is there anything else? Do you want to talk about? I don't think so. I think we speculated and, you know, we'll parse those interviews when they surface and

who knows how long the wait for season five will be, but plenty of time to revisit our theories between now and then. I will say I'm excited to do a rewatch, even though I just did one heading into this season. I am now excited with like the back in the mineflyer clarity to return to the text and see what stands out and new. I think that'll be a pretty rewarding rewatch before season five. Mailbag time. Jomey is not here.

He is on vacay. So it is the two of us navigating your great, thoughtful questions and prompts here. I'm so excited to for you all to hear Mallory's answer this because she's already told me about this. Paul asked, would you watch a sequel to Stranger Things where we follow Stephen Robin as they bounce from job to job trying to find their loves? Valerie, what's your pitch for a Stranger Things, a spinoff or a prequel? I just think that we need the show set in the video store. And frankly, I think we deserve it. And if we are deprived of it, I will be wounded and dismayed.

That's how I feel about this. This is something that we deserve. I would also like to see the future show of the Harrington family, you know, the Nuggets, driving across the country in the Winnebago, plopping themselves in the sand. And when he said, by the way, going to Yellowstone, that's talk about the time travel that I want. I want Steve Harrington to end up on the Dutton Ranch with Kevin Costner. The true visit to Yellowstone. What about you, Joe?

What, what Steve Robin spin-off are you hoping for? I would take Stephen Robin the college years, and obviously they have a job that's going to get them through college, but they go to college together. I mean, they're truly the only things that I care about are Stephen. That's not true. I cared most deeply about Stephen Robin and their friendship. As you mentioned, that look he gives her as she's a little. like, you know, flirting with Vicky over the peanut butter. There's also a moment, speaking of stranger things, not stepping on the gas too hard, and I want to

give it praise every time it does that, when Jonathan and Nancy like hug. Yeah, the pad on the back. They don't do. I was like, I was like, okay, here comes the like really eye rolly cut to Steve looking sad. They didn't do that. He was, because he's walking past. Robin gives a little gentle and he's just walking past. And we don't need to cut his face.

be like, oh, no, Steve's upset. You know, I was just like, that was beautifully, quickly done. Loved it. I want to zoom back to the, this idea of dealmaking for a second because it made me think of something, which is a Stephen King book that, again, in front of the show, Dave Gonzalez made me read called Needful Things, which was actually the inspiration for Stranger Things, the title. And Needful Things is about, Stephen King loves to do.

stories about a devil type character comes to town and what do they offer and what do they you know, whatever. And so there's a character in that book who is a devil analog or whatever who like basically comes to town, runs a shop and sort of offers these people, these items in the shop that some sort of fulfill, some sort of need they have. And it's like a monkey's paw always with like all of these items. And so this idea of like Vecna comes to town, comes to Hawkins, and has things to, like, tempt or manipulate people with? I mean, maybe that's not work yet. Maybe instead we're going to get the fucking full-on monster invasion

that Nancy talked about in her. You know, maybe it's just going to be, like, weird, goopy monsters, and it might be. But they really are setting up all these characters for this need to be in this needful thing sort of place where there's, like, a wound, a secret, a something that a tempter, a dealmaker could exploit. Love that.

All right. Brandon asks, where does this season rank among the four? For me, he puts an order of two, one, three, four, two being the best, I suppose four being the worst. For me, I would rank, I think number one is still the best and purest for me just in terms of us being sort of surprised and delighted by this thing that exists. And then I think I would put it two, four, three. I think three was the weakest for me. Oh, wow. Interesting.

Reserve the right to change my answer after I do a full rewatch just in the heat of the moment coming off the initial Season 4 volume 2 watch here. I'm going to say one for sure. One is definitely first and two is definitely last for me. Those feel easy. I'm a little torn on my ordering of three and four in the second and third spots.

I'm going to go for now, one, three, four, two. I really like that. season three. I think it's underrated. I enjoy it. My issue was season three. I like the mall stuff and some of that stuff. My issue was season three and I felt it, I felt it at

the time and I felt it on my rewatch was I really hate the Hopper character in that season. He's full of so much frustrating rage. And he's always violent, but he's just extra violent in that season in a way

that I just sort of like, I don't know how to root for this guy. This guy is not the hopper that I am excited to root for. But I was talking again to friend of the pod camera and we were talking about like maybe if we if we can reverse engineer, as you say, the full rewatch and think about Vecna working on them this whole time in various ways, then maybe we could see this sort of like weird ultra dark, darker than season one place that Hopper goes to in season three where he's just this like deeply shitty dad. Like, you know, and I understand that like the pain of your daughter growing up and you feeling insecure about it.

But like the stuff he does in that season, it still doesn't sit very well with me. And so, but maybe if I can see it in the vein of like, this is a weakness that Vecna as the mind flare is all along preying on, then like maybe it works for me. But that's my issue with three. I just want, I just want to root for Hopper, you know, like you and the rest of America. All right, Marshall asks, he's any of the best one and done characters. since the Red Viper. Oh, boy.

A lot of similar energy. And listen, if Joe Quinn wants to make his way to his own Disney Plus show where he gets an adorable Muppet adopted child, I would love that for him. Oh, my God. Is there higher praise to be offered than a Red Viper comp? I'm not sure there is. It's the ultimate compliment.

I'm really interested if Joe Quinn, who is not only British, but like looks pretty different without the Eddie wig on. I'm wondering, I'm so curious to see how he parlays this, you know, high stock that he has attained here. Like, where is he going to take that career-wise? Who's knocking, you know? I'm sure someone at Disney has already come knocking on his door, but. This was something that Juliet and I talked about before the season. But like, not-

A great episode. Not a lot of the stranger things kids. They're super famous on like Instagram and TikTok, but they're not in a ton of other things. I mean, they're in some things. You know, Millie's in the Godzilla movies and Finn was in Ghostbusters and everything. But like, and so it's like not like they're in nothing, but you don't see them in the number of things that you would expect. I wonder when that will start to happen. I know.

And like even Joe Curie, like, you know, he was in some things. But like you would really expect his hot, you know, like David Harbor, I think has parlayed this into the most. stuff. So yeah. You see you character now. That'd be interesting to know. I haven't. I'm going to bring him up now because I forgot to bring him before.

But as far as we know, Owens is still alive and hopefully not still handcuffed to a pipe in the middle of an abandoned lab in the desert. But I'm hopeful that like he comes back to help 11 train in the final season, a better a better Yoda than Brenner was to her. For sure. Yeah. That would be awesome. I hope to see him again.

I mean, his pal, you know, dropped off Hop and Joyce at the cabin. So they're in touch, I hope, and maybe looking for him and ensuring he's okay and not just indisposed. I call that lady on the other side of the phone. There's some weird drop threads around her. Like when he's like, please go check in. Please send some of your guys go check on. Max Mayfield and her friends, they never do. Like, I guess, typical government, whatever.

Anyway, all right. Final questions from Rachel. The most important question we've ever been asked in Mailbag, I believe. Rachel asks, what are your top three subtitles? Tentacles undulating is a top one for me. So, Mallory, do you want to go, like, back and forth? Do you want to start? Do you want me to start?

Let's do it. This is, you should start. I'll just say this is nearly impossible to narrow down. There's no bad choice here. This list could be 500 long, and we wouldn't exhaust the options. I'm going to come in hot with fissure writhing wetly. It's good. I didn't know if fissure could rive, let alone wetly.

But thanks, uh, things, stranger things. Oh, my God. Absolutely in incredible stuff. I often like to avoid picking one of the examples that is offered up in the prompt because, you know, more variety if we don't do that. But I can't not pick tentacles on drilling mostly. It's an all-timer. It's an absolute hall of fame entry. It's astonishing.

And almost everything is measured against that exact description, just incredible stuff. So that has to be on my list. All right. Number two for me is this is the Victor Creel flashback. It's sinister music overlaid with jaunty big band music. That's amazing. We got a lot of music descriptions. Yeah. Yeah. So good. Tender. It was like, it was like, quirky synth was one of them. I was like, okay. Sure. All right. What's your number two? My second one is from the director's cut extended edition of the Joyce Hopper conversation about their respective sex streams. Not actually, but in my head, it is. It's gate pulsates wetly. All right.

Oh, my God. Beautiful stuff from you. I want to get you a T-shirt that says gate pulsates wetly. Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. In brackets. In brackets in all lowercase. All right.

I cannot in good conscience leave this segment without giving you the one that started it all, which is flesh distends wetly, never before, never since have I heard a better phrase than flesh distends wetly. Mallory, what do you got? It's atop our coaching tree for this entire exercise. You know, I went just off the finale for all of these. And so I'm going to go for my number one with one I've already mentioned in time. talked about today, but Joyce Mones. Couldn't have loved it more. Joyce Mones feels like a real promise for a future plotline. And I, for one, can't wait. Joyce D.J.S. Would you rather,

would you rather Joyce Mones or, by the way, the ring of Rerskin Tates adult content? Or Joyce Mones-Wetley. Like, I mean, hopefully, hopefully one leads to the other, hopefully one the same. We also got an incredible hopper grunting gingerly in the run-up to Joyce modes. So, you know, we also got to both exclaim again. That feels like really a promise for the future. Mom and dad had a great trip to Russia. Mom and dad should go on more encyclopedia Britannica trips as far as I know I'm concerned. All right. That does it for Stranger Things. Oh, did we technically get under the runtime of the episode?

Maybe not quite. Maybe squeaking in there by a hair. So I'll get out of here quickly, so maybe we could have a hope of getting in under the runtime. So thanks as always to Mallory, obviously. Please follow the ring of verse on all the social networks and, you know, subscribe. Like and subscribe, as the kids would say. We'll be back. Wednesday, Midnight poise, poup.

Miss Marvel, the boys. And I just want to thank our Jitterman Gupal for his production work on this episode. And of course, the wonderful, incredible, amazing, Carlos Chirovoga who's working on a Sunday with us. Thank you, Carlos. And we will see you on Thursday for Miss Marvel, which, in which things will definitely be chittering and pulsating less, probably. A-bye. What's the difference between butter and butter made from real? California dairy?

It's the real California farm families behind it. Real people. Real care. Real intention. Why? Because real matters. So whether you're pouring milk, melting cheese, or just grabbing one more spoonful of yogurt, keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk by real California farm families.

You can't reason with the son. Trust us. We've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer at Columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on allolotion.

You're welcome. Columbia, engineered for whatever.