Stranger Things

I'm going to talk about the new serie Stranger Things.
Yesterday, I watched the first episode of season 1 "the vanishing of Will Byers" and after that, I can say that it promises to be an addictive serie...

The first scene takes place in 1983 in a laboratory of experiences in the Hawkins city in Indiana where a frightened scientist runs away from stranger noises. Suddenly, he disappears like sucked up by something not very clear.
Will Byers is a normal child who likes playing with his friends. But an evening, he fall of his bike next to the laboratory where he sees something wrong. He runs away to his house but nobody is here. He disappears also without justifications.
His mom, his brother, his friends and the sheriff are looking for him but the sheriff doesn't find other thing that his bike.

In the meantime, a young girl doubtless kidnapped, absconds of the laboratory. Her hair is very short and wears a white night dress. She arrives in a pub in order to steal food but the cooker sees her. Finally He decides to offer food to the girl. She's really anxious and doesn't speak. On her arm, she's tattooed with the number eleven. In order to act in her interests, the man calls a social worker but this woman doesn't wish her well. Indeed, whe arrives with men and they kill all of employees in the pub to catch the girl. However, the young girl succeeds to escape them...

One night, the three friends of Will want to find their missed friend. They move in the forest despite the rain. One of them is really afraid by this initial situation when suddenly they hear footfall noises... They turn over and see with their torchs the young girl in front of them.

About the second episode...

This episode begins in the house of Mike's parents. We can see the three friends face to Eleven. While Mike gives to Eleven, clean clothes, she stands up in order to change her clothes in front of them with a natural way. For more privacy, Mike leads her to the bathroom but she doesn't want to close the door. Mike's friends consider she's crazy.
Mike decides to hide Eleven in his home. She doesn't talk so much but he nicknames her Elf. He understands that she already saw Will somewhere. When Mike's friends decide to denounce Elf to Mike's mother, Eleven slams the door and locks it with her powers in front of the shocked faces of the boys.

Meanwhile, Will's mother who believes that his missing boy called her, decides to buy a new phone because her precedent phone was touched by lightning during Will's call. But she's really poor... She succeeds to obtain a new one then she stays at home waiting a new call.
When her eldest son hung on the walls of his brother's school, posters in order to find him, he see Mike's sister with her best friend Barbara talking with popular guys who invite them in a pool party.

Throughout the episode, we understand that Elf discovers objects or concepts she did not know before. For exemple, she did not know the concept of "friends", or the TV. She hates being enclosed in a small place because it reminds her of her treatment in the lab she escaped through a small duct.

When Will's mother, receives another call, she hears strange noises and perceives among them the voice of his son which says "Mom". It's at this moment that the phone is traversed by the current that grill it. The bulbs of her house begin to flash and the favorite music of her son starts alone in his room. She's scared and flees.

At the pool party, Barbara gets hurt when she's opening a can of beer. Her friend Nancy, the Mike's sister, enjoys the party and Barbara decides to go out. Before that, she dips her feet in the pool while the others are occupied in the house. A drop of blood from her injured hand, falls into the water when suddenly a monster catches her and she disappears sharply.

LAURINE BRUN wrote:I'm going to talk about the new serie Stranger Things.
Yesterday, I watched the first episode of season 1 "the vanishing of Will Byers" and after that, I can say that it promises to be an addictive serie...

The first scene takes place in 1983 in a laboratory of experiences in the Hawkins city in Indiana where a frightened scientist runs away from stranger noises. Suddenly, he disappears like sucked up by something not very clear.
Will Byers is a normal child who likes playing with his friends. But an evening, he fall of his bike next to the laboratory where he sees something wrong. He runs away to his house but nobody is here. He disappears also without justifications.
His mom, his brother, his friends and the sheriff are looking for him but the sheriff doesn't find other thing that his bike.

In the meantime, a young girl doubtless kidnapped, absconds of the laboratory. Her hair is very short and wears a white night dress. She arrives in a pub in order to steal food but the cooker sees her. Finally He decides to offer food to the girl. She's really anxious and doesn't speak. On her arm, she's tattooed with the number eleven. In order to act in her interests, the man calls a social worker but this woman doesn't wish her well. Indeed, whe arrives with men and they kill all of employees in the pub to catch the girl. However, the young girl succeeds to escape them...

One night, the three friends of Will want to find their missed friend. They move in the forest despite the rain. One of them is really afraid by this initial situation when suddenly they hear footfall noises... They turn over and see with their torchs the young girl in front of them.

I've just watched this. Good 80's feel, perhaps a little slow but worth giving the second episode a chance.

I've finished 2 and 3.

Love the music and the 80's toys. Story is fun.

I agree with you, the music is really good !

Third episode :

The scene starts with Barbara (Barb) waking up after unconsciousness to find herself at the bottom of an empty pool. This pool belongs to Steve, but into another dimension, more freaky, cold and dark. Barb tries to escape from the pool but she's driven to the bottom of the pool by a creature which looks like a monster.

Will's mother, Joyce, is the focus of this third episode...We perceive that this woman very worried, always keeps in mind that his son is alive despite the passing days. She's beginning to connect the dots of the lamps to a way to communicate with Will.
After a purchase of Christmas lights from the store where she worked and setting up the lamps in Will’s bedroom, she waits a sign of his son.
Then, Joyce finds a better way to communicate with Will in order to replace their system of flashing lights to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for her questions. She writes the ABC’s on the living room wall, and starts to have her answers of Will.
Will responds to his mother by saying that he’s "R I G H T T H E R E" before telling her to run. This is the moment where we see the creature trying to cross the wall.

After discovering a tunnel in the forest, Sheriff Hopper and his colleagues find that it leads to Dr. Brenner’s laboratory. They try to get into the laboratory and after thinking, Hopper concludes that the surveillance video of the night when Will disappeared is false. Indeed, the rain is lacked on the images.

After research about Dr Brenner, Hopper finds an article detailing rumors about kidnapping, cruel experiments of the laboratory... But at this moment, he receives a call announcing that Will's body was discovered in a quarry.

About the episode four :

When Hopper tells to Joyce that the discovered body is Will, she doesn’t believe him.

Mike is angry against Eleven because she told him that Will is not dead. She knows he’s alive and uses her powers to listen Will singing The Clash music “Should I Stay or Should I Go” through the talkie walkie. After hearing this, Mike is convinced that Will is still alive.

Hopper is surprised to hear it was State officials who did the autopsy on the body. He suspects something wrong. Hopper decides to see the body and performs an autopsy and cuts the body cavity and sees it packed with what appeared to be cotton, like a pillow.

However, Jonathan is ready to plan the funeral for his brother. He plans it when Nancy meets him to ask about Barb. She describes the same monster his mom saw. He didn’t have a face.

Then, Eleven uses her powers to try to talk to Will through the radio at school. She is in a pink dress with a blonde wig and she is able to make contact and the boys can hear him calling for his mom and Joyce can hear Will too through the wall in their home, but the radio catches fire before they can make further contact.

Joyce tells to Will to hide from the monster, but she starts taking a sledgehammer in order to break the wall to find her boy. He’s not physically here, but we know how to reach the world upside down, it is through the gate in Brenner’s laboratory.

Hey!

I also watched this show, amazing acting of the kids and loved the tense/dark atmosphere!
Finished the whole season in one weekend.. oops!

Just watched 4 and 5. There are some great themes developing that would be great for discussion.

Why isn't Hopper telling anyone?

I feel so sad for El.

The cruelty of man alongside the innocence of youth and and the complexity of love.

About the episode 5 :

Firstly, we can see Hopper in the laboratory. He finds a bedroom of a child. That is the bedroom to Eleven before she ran away.
He ventures into a forbidden part of the lab where the creature has appeared. Hopper discovers the Upside down gate, the lighting is dark with a greenish tint. When he turns around, he is banged by scientists.
Then, Hopper wakes up suddenly to find himself in his home surrounded by drugs and alcohol. He starts checking around his house for anything indicating a government presence in his home and finds a microphone in one of his lights.
Later, Hopper visits Joyce. After checking the house for microphones, he confirms what Joyce already knew : Will is alive.

Jonathan and Nancy meet up together after the funeral to discuss about the creature.

Meanwhile, Eleven, Mike, Dustin and Lucas are following their compasses with the hope of finding the gate to save Will. Eleven implores Mike to turn around and says that is not safe but they continue. Eleven don't want to go back there, so she uses her powers to distort the direction of the compasses in order to they can’t find it.
Lucas thinks that Eleven is a traitor for this reason. Eleven uses her powers to fling Lucas through the air.
This high emotional state triggers a flashback. We see her submerged in a water tank in order to locate a man for Dr. Brenner. She hears a growling and she's running away from this dimension, asking for help. After the flashback, we see that she has disapeared from the boys.

Jonathan and Nancy are looking for the monster. At first, they seem hopeless until Nancy finds a sticky tree trunk. She enters into and walks into the Upside Down.
The episode ends with Jonathan hearing her screams and not being able to find her.

Next time, the episode ended when Nancy was being with the monster in its dimension.

In the episode 6, we see Nancy's trying to escape from the monster. However, even as it’s right near her, she succed to run the tree portail thanks to Jonathan’s voice. Luckily, Nancy survives to this encounter with the  monster.
When Jonathan and Nancy go back to her house, Nancy compares the monster to a shark due to its apparition when blood is flowing. That confirms the theory that Barb is probably dead because of her blood was which it attracted the monster.


Hopper tells to Joyce what he had seen in the laboratory. He had seen a child’s room and, after thought , Hopper concluds that the child may be connected to a woman, he had read about it in his research on Dr. Brenner. Hopper and Joyce come to a consensus that they need to find this woman to determine what happened to her missing child.
However, when they discover her, they understand that she's mentally gone. Her sister answers for her and tells them that it is a lost cause. Indeed, in the past she did experiments with Dr Brenner in order to make quick cash. These experiments involved taking drugs like LSD. It's revealed by the woman’s sister that she had been pregnant during these experiments.

We are taken back into a flashback where Eleven in a tub of water where she is supposed to make contact with the monster. She touches it but she's terrified and screams. And then the opening between worlds is born.
In another scene, we can see Mike who is prepared to jump off the cliff into the quarry because of the bullies, but Eleven uses her powers to immobilize Mike in the air and save his life.
Eleven apologizes to Mike for opening the gate of the Upside Down. She thinks she’s the monster. Mike says she’s not because she saved him.

But Eleven and the boys aren’t out of danger because Brenner want to bring Eleven back to the laboratory...

next - is the future
last - is the past

Oups, it starts pretty bad...

but you'll never make that mistake again..................................................hopefully

I hope !!

About the episode 7 :

We can see that Eleven and the boys flee the Dr. Brenner with bicycles and hide in an abandoned bus in a landfill.

After John and Nancy told what they knew about the monster in Hooper and Joyce, the four started looking for the kids. Utilizing a walkie talkie, they are able to determine their location.
Now that everyone is together, they need Eleven to locate Will and Barb with her special powers, but she can’t do it until she gets if she don't have a bathtub. The group heads to the school to furnish themselves with salt and water. After putting salt and water in an inflatable pool, the sensory deprivation tank allows Eleven to enter the Upside Down.

First, she finds Barb and confirms that she is definitely dead. Eleven finds Will alive in the Upside Down and he begs her to hurry. His skin is blue and he looks near to death.

While Eleven recovers from her sensory deprivation experience, Hopper and Joyce decide to break into the Hawkins Lab to try to get into the Upside Down. Meanwhile, when Nancy and Jonathan are supposed to be watching the kids, they decided to go to Joyce’s house and prepare to lure the monster in order to destroy it.

The episode ends with Will singing his favourite song “Should I Stay or Should I Go” when the monster breaks his hideout...

About the final episode :

After being catched by Brenner team into the laboratory, Joyce is interrogated by Brenner and Hooper by his team. Hooper deals with them in order to find Will in the Upside Down and getting him back. Then, Joyce and Hopper enter the gate of the Upside Down wearing special suits.
We understand with flashbacks that Hooper's daughter died from a cancer.

Meanwhile, Nancy and Jonathan set up a bear trap inside Joyce's home in order to catch the monster. Nancy and Jonathan got the monster to come to the house but he didn’t fall for their trap. But Steve arrives in Joyce's house to apologize to Jonathan and sees Nancy and Jonathan slice their hands to attract the monster with their blood, so he runs out of the house.
Suddenly, the lights flicked, meaning that the monster is coming. They set the trap and light it on fire, but when the fire goes out, the monster is not found.

Into the school, Mike tells to Eleven that she is welcome in his family. When she asked him if that mean he would be her brother, he explains that no kissing her. Sadly, the laboratory people have found out where they are located and are coming with guns. Eleven used her powers to make them bleed from their eyes until killing them. The blood attracts the monster... So Eleven uses the last of her strength to protect the boys, knowing that she will probably die.

Back to the Upside Down where Hopper and Joyce have to perform a cardiac massage on Will after finding him into a cocoon. He's alive.

The episode ends about a month after the events when Will excuses himself to go to the bathroom where he proceeds to puke up a black slug. While he is gasping for air, he shifts back briefly into the ‘Upside Down’ before coming back to the reality. Moreover, we can see Hopper into the woods leaving food in a box... Maybe Eleven is alive ?!

I'm looking forward to see the next season !