And, after some terrific wide-eyed looks from Winona Ryder, they’re a little bit closer to finding out what’s going on. What could have inspired this?) Kline’s day goes from bad to worse when Hopper and Joyce follow him home, where Joyce helps Hopper figure out what the Starcourt land grab might mean in terms of the recent power outages. (Hmm … shadowy Russians doing shady deals with American politicians. One intense interaction with a cigar cutter later, Kline spills his guts: He doesn’t know who the biker is, but he knows he’s associated with Starcourt Mall, which is trying to buy up some more property and is bribing Kline for help. So he heads over to city hall to confront Mayor Kline, and while Hopper probably doesn’t plan to beat the hell out of Kline when he walks in the room, not beating him up becomes impossible when Kline mockingly refers to Hopper’s dead daughter. After Hopper wakes up unexpectedly nude, he puts two and two together with the help of Joyce and remembers the last time he saw an out-of-place biker in Hawkins and where he saw him. Getting beaten up by a Russian biker no doubt helped clarify matters for Hopper. While the lion’s share of the investigating belongs to the younger generation, at least Joyce and Hopper aren’t ignoring all the ominous signs. Driscoll in the hospital, where things do not go as planned.
In a rare mother-daughter scene, Karen basically lays out how hard it is for women to get anywhere and how proud she is of her daughter for standing up to the “shitheads.” It’s a nice moment, but have we seen these characters talk to each other in any meaningful way since the first season? True or not, the pep talk gives Nancy the resolve to go visit Mrs. (Admittedly, he’s not wrong about Nancy and Jonathan impersonating reporters or breaking and entering.) Jonathan is not sympathetic but Karen is. Driscoll, and watching as she screams “I have to go back!,” Nancy and Jonathan find themselves rewarded by getting fired from the Hawkins Post by the newly possessed Tom, who wasn’t that sympathetic to Nancy’s nose for news even before getting taken over by the Mind Flayer. That’s just one of several simultaneous investigations to edge into dangerous territory this episode. (Erica has this episode’s two best lines: “I still haven’t heard what’s in it for Erica!” and “You can’t spell America without Erica.” Which is better? You’ll have to choose for yourself.) But even if Erica’s a reluctant recruit, she finds herself in as deep as the others when the secret room turns out to be (a) filled with some kind of mysterious green substance and (b) actually an elevator going to who knows where? (Best guess: somewhere where they speak a lot of Russian.)
Enter Erica, who’s still at the mall and who agrees to sneak in in exchange for free ice cream for life. They figure out a way in via the ducts but they’ll need someone with even more flexible shoulders than Dustin. Dustin, recently annoyed that nobody answered his walkie-talkie call, remains incommunicado while he, Steve, and Robin try to figure out what to do about the mysterious room being guarded by the Russian with the big gun. Others are already on high alert, and not just in Mike’s basement. Max is the last of the Stranger Things gang to catch on that the town might (again) be in trouble. No wonder she tries to reassure El that everything’s still okay after they crash Billy’s dinner with Heather and her parents, then take off before Heather’s parents take a dive to the tune of “American Pie.” Why not relax and enjoy an issue of Wonder Woman (a comic none of her geeky male friends have apparently thought to show her)? And why not be annoyed when Mike phones in with a “Code Red”? And, by all appearances, things have been relatively normal ever since El sealed the portal to the Upside Down. She wasn’t around for the previous year, the one in which Will disappeared and Barb died (R.I.P. And from her perspective, maybe it was just a blip. Here she is, a California transplant to the seemingly normal town of Hawkins who’s ready to take the events of 1984 as a blip and move on with her life. It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for Max, even before this episode takes an intense turn that finds her trapping her own brother in a sauna and intensely hoping that he hasn’t been possessed by the Mind Flayer.