Stranger Things and Story Structure

Stranger Things was a huge success, given that it was released during the summer as a short series on the internet-only subscription Netflix service.  For anyone who was able to navigate its awkward beginnings, the show captured the audience's attention and held it throughout the season.  I think this was because the story was constructed with integrity;  it convinced you that it asked concrete questions and would ultimately provide real answers. Rather than ending in confusion and bewilderment, the questions are answered but the answers create deeper questions, drawing you further into the world of the story.

It means that the questions are worth asking, and they are worth the audience's time to try to answer.  

The Triumph of the Narrative

There are three great narrative questions that the story attempts to answer throughout the chapters.  Nearly every episode has some piece to contribute to figuring out each of these puzzles.  Each of the characters has its own narrative to explore, but the story itself constantly references these questions

First, what exactly happened that first evening?  We see some of the events of that evening from many different perspectives, but always incompletely.  As the audience, we have to piece together the narrative fragments to find our own answer.  The show never presents us with a fully formed narrative that explains things from beginning to end.  Where it does play fair, however, is that it does give us enough information for us to form our own narrative.  It is not ambiguous.

Second, what is happening to the children of Hawkins?  What happened to Eleven did not occur in isolation.  Many children are involved, including Will, Mike, Dustin and Lucas. Something similar happened to Hopper's daughter. There is some piece that ties these characters and their experiences together.  Something happened to them or around them that sets them apart.

In my wild speculation, I feel like there is something similar in the backgrounds of their parents, as well.  Karen Wheeler and Joyce Byers know more about a past experience than they have had an opportunity to reveal.  Possibly this is something Hopper has also experienced.

At this point we don't know, but I would even extend this to Nancy, Barb, Jonathan, and Steve.  Its interesting that the town is stratified into age groups:  The eleven year olds, the 17 year olds, the parents in their early 40s (?) and the Hopper's admin assistant, Flo, and the middle school principal, and Joyce's boss at the store are in their early 60s

Something has happened in Hawkins, Indiana and the ramifications are continuing to unfold.

Third, what is the Upside Down?  We hear a possible explanation from the science teacher, we see Nancy and Joyce and Hopper make journeys into that strange dimension.  We see Eleven travel there through her own mental pathways and we observe Will's struggle to communicate across the barrier between these worlds.  But why does it exist and why are there creatures living there?  Why are they drawn to our existence?

Beneath the Surface

I also think that the meaning of the story went beyond the narrative.  It's not just about finding out Eleven's real name.  In order to be able to do that, we need to explore friendship and trust and truth and a whole range of concepts, that were meaningless until we presented them in the context of a monster movie.

In parallel to our narrative questions, there are three great philosophical questions that the story addresses.  As it turns out, these questions tend to be interwoven with the narrative ones. The most meaningful scenes, the scenes with the greatest narrative implications, also happen to have the clearest answers to the philosophical questions as well.

First, what is the nature of truth?  We explore the difference between truth and falsehood, but also the difference between truth and speculation, and between truth and madness.  We see Cassandra-like figures in Joyce and Barb, constantly telling the truth, but destined never to be believed.  Joyce, because she is perceived as mentally unstable and Barb, because she isn't bold enough.  We see Hopper readier to believe soothing banalities rather than face hard truths.

Second, What is the nature of friendship?  In all the important scenes, the characters are exploring the nature of friendship.  For the four boys, their existence is centered their friendships with each other, and the enmity between friends and their enemies, the bullies.  When they meet Eleven, one of the great questions they struggle with is whether or not to bring El into their circle of friendship and confer on her all the rights and privileges that it entails.  While Nancy is romantically involved with Steve, she develops a truer friendship with Jonathan because of their shared bereavement.  Nancy and Barb's friendship is tested and then physiclly torn apart

On the other end of the spectrum, we see how people who are not friends behave.  A primary example is Joyce's husband Lonnie who left his family.  His return upon learning that Will is missing initially seems to be motivated by genuine concern, but slowly we begin to learn what Jonathan knows, that Lonnie is weak and unreliable and moved by greed.  Similarly, Steve appears to be friends with his two cronies, but later comes to understand that their friendship lacks permanence. The story asks the question, how do friends behave, and how do people who are not friends behave?

Third, what is the importance of history?  The story itself is set in the past, and not some mythic golden age but in a real and proximal past that many of its audience remember well. In fact, if you are in your 30s or 40s, this story could be about you.  It could be your past.

Each character has a personal history that is integral to the story as well.  And these histories aren't peripheral bits of character development but directly affect the narrative.  We want to know how Eleven got to this point, but we're just as interested in Joyce or Hopper's backstory as well.

Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street Part 2 ST: 2

The great thing about the dinner scene is when Eleven starts walking down the stairs behind Mrs. Wheeler's head.  Mike chokes on his milk, and Dustin pounds on the table.  Karen and Ted are distracted, but Holly saw El and she is  a little unnerved.

Out at Benny's, the indefatigable volunteers continue to search for Will, calling his name.  Among them is Mr Clarke (the science teacher) who finds a scrap of cloth at the end of a stormwater drain pipe.  The other end leads into the Hawkins National Laboratory.

Mike:  Friends, they tell each other things.  Things that parents don't know.

And speaking of things that parents don't know, everything that Barb tells Nancy is exactly what ends up happening at Steve's house.  Barb is supposed to be Nancy's guardian, and in a way that turns out to be true.  Barb is only there because Nancy asks her to be, and in the end Nancy sends her home.  But she won't leave without Nancy, because she is a good friend.  And she is the one who gets eaten.

Back in the basement, Eleven sits down in front of the D&D grid, does a little divination, and picks up the piece that Will was playing with :   "Will," she says.

She brushes all the other figures onto the floor and turns the board over.  With a flourish, she places the wizard in the center of the black backing.

 

Eleven:  Hiding...

Mike:  Will is hiding?

Eleven nods.

Mike:  from the bad men?

Eleven shakes her head in dismissal

Mike:  Then from who?

Eleven places the model of the demogorgon next to the Wizard

Asleep with the phone in her lap, Joyce is jolted awake when it rings.  Her intuition has paid off, because it is Will.  I think we can't emphasize this enough.  Joyce is the truth-teller.  Everything she does that seems to be crazy and unreasonable and absurd - it all turns out to be exactly the right thing to do.

Not only can she hear him breathing, but he speaks to her, "Mom..."   The phone shorts out again, but now the lights around the house start blinking.  She tracks them into Will's room, with a portable stereo system playing very loudly and the lights surging and flashing.  Suddenly, the lights go out and the tape player is silent.  And something tries to break through the walls of the room, stretching them like they are rubber.  Joyce flees in terror from the house, starting her car to drive away.

Just as suddenly, the roaring of the monster is gone, and the lights come back on, and the tape starts playing again.  (This is the same tape that Jonathan gave to Will).  Mrs Byers thinks of her son again, and slowly returns to the house.

Nancy and Barb visit Steve's house.  Jonathan, searching for Will, finds himself in the woods outside Steve's house and sees Nancy goofing around by the pool.  Later, he sees Barb sitting alone on the diving board, having been sent home by Nancy.  She can't leave her friend alone inside, but she's struggling with Nancy's rejection. 

Barb knows that Nancy is probably not making the best decisions, and that all her good advice has been rejected, but she can't abandon Nancy.  And in the end, it is she who ends up paying the price.

As we found earlier, Nancy's story is about about moving between worlds.  Earlier, we saw her reject her brother and his friends, closing the door on that world of childhood. Here we see her leaving her best friend, her confidant, protector and companion at the bottom of the stairs as she ascends into a different world of sex and dating, a world where Barb is not ready to follow.

It is a moment that Jonathan captures perfectly on film in the ambient light of the pool.

In a way, this current transition is a step that Nancy has to take as well, despite the costs to herself and those around her.  This is what empowers her to cross class divides and partner with Jonathan and also to cross over into the world of the Upside Down. 

Barb's bleeding hand drips into the pool, and in an instant the monster takes her and she is gone.

After a minute the lights around the pool come back on.

So what about Barb's story?

In this particular scene, I see broad allusions to the Fisher King. Clearly, Barb is a protector; a knight whose task it is to safeguard Nancy.  In doing this, however, Barb is wounded, a wound that takes her away from her duties as grail protector. She has to bandage her cut hand, a hand that she cut while trying to participate in Steve's world.  Steve's world is a world of alcohol and sex; it isn't a world in which Barb belongs.  Nancy can make that transition because that's what she does, while Barb cannot.  And, like the Fisher King whose wound is related to sex, Barb is punished for trying.

While she is gone taking care of her hand, the grail (Nancy, in this case) jumps into the pool and is taken upstairs to dry off.  Symbolically, it is taken beyond her reach.  You can have differing opinions about whether Nancy is making good choices or bad ones, but Barb clearly thinks Nancy is in danger.  As a true white knight, this is something that Barb recognizes as bad behavior, and her wound is in some regards a result of that same behavior. In the end, all she can do is sit by the river, or in this case the swimming pool in a sort of paralysis.

Nancy is frequently associated with portals.  She is closing doors, opening windows, ascending stairs to greater levels of understanding, plunging into baptismal pools to emerge changed and ready for new experiences.  This association will continue throughout this story.

What is Barb's fate?

Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street Part 1 ST: 2

The show opens the same evening on the night where the boys found Eleven.  She sits on the couch, still wet from the rain while the boys pepper her with questions.  El flinches at the thunder and Mike backs everybody off:

Mike:  Alright that's enough.  She's just scared, and cold.

In passing, we need to note that Eleven has blood on her yellow t-shirt (the one Benny gave her).  Is this from killing the two HNL thugs that tried to stop her at the diner?

El takes a minute to feel the softness of the clothes Mike hands her.  It's as if she's not used to wearing them and spends most of her time in the hospital gown.  When the boys insist on privacy, this seems like an unfamiliar concept.  The writers are trying to offer an explanation for why Eleven is the way she is; she has been de-humanized, lacking social awareness.   This is the beginning of an explanation for why she doesn't talk much.

Throughout Eleven's story, we see parallels between the way she has been treated in the laboratory and the way that normal, loving people treat her.  In many ways, the words and situations are the same - the words that Dr Brenner says to her are the same as the words that Joyce says to her, for example.  She now mistrusts anyone who, like Papa, claims to be trying to help her.  It puzzles her to hear genuine caring and affection from people.

More than anything, she hates to be alone. She hates to be shut up in small rooms.  The first word she says is on the occasion of Mike closing the bathroom door after her. 

Lucas thinks she has escaped from Pennhurst, "the nuthouse in Curlee County".  (Pennhurst was a real state institution for the mentally disabled in Pennsylvania, with an infamous past).  Mike sees the tattoo  011 - and Eleven reveals the source of her name.  I like the ominous nature of the leading zero.  If the lab is numbering its test subjects, it obviously left open the possibility of having over a hundred of them.  And again to state the obvious, if El is number eleven, then it is highly likely that there were at least 10 other test subjects.  And, there is no reason to limit them to 11.  Nothing suggests that El was the last of them.

This ties into a larger Myth:  El is not the only child in the program.  There are others.  As we look around the list of people mentioned in the series, we can begin to identify some of them.  Later, we will meet Terry Ives from a nearby town who claims that her child was stolen by the government and her death was faked.  Terry sets up a pattern: Children in this area of Indiana, highly sensitive or intelligent, apparently died at a young age, all in the same age cohort (currently eleven years old).  Hopper's daughter Sara fits this profile perfectly.  So does Will.

 Mike:  "'Night, El
Eleven:   "Night, Mike"     One of her first sentences.

Mike goes upstairs and leaves Eleven in the basement all alone.  The thunderstorm continues outside and El is still scared.

The next morning at the Byers' house:  some unnamed service company in a bucket truck is working on the wires on a pole outside.  Based on what we know about the listening room at Hawkins Lab, its a fairly easy stretch to say that the Lab is now wiretapping the Byers' house.

Jonathan and Joyce are talking about printing Missing posters when Hopper knocks on the door.  Hopper reveals that the search parties have been out all night.  Hopper is clearly taking the search very seriously.

Hopper:  Flo says you got a phone call.
This immediately ties in with the service truck outside - the mention of a phone call is not a coincidence.

Hopper examining the burned handset:  The storm barbecued this pretty good.
Joyce:  The storm?!
Hopper:  Yea, what else?
Joyce:  You're saying that's not weird?
Hopper:  No, it's weird.

Hopper suggests it might be a prank call, but Joyce is completely convinced that it was Will.  (and she is, of course, correct.)  So how was Will communicating through the phone, and why did it burn out?  Later, we will see El use a radio to search the Upside Down.  Maybe Will can cross the barrier going the other way using a telephone.

Joyce:  You think I don't know my own son's breathing?   Wouldn't you know your own daughters?

While Joyce is justifiably defensive here, I think the writers are consciously planting in our minds the seeds of the idea that Sara might still be alive.  They call to mind the image of Hopper being in the same position as Joyce, searching, listening to breathing on a phone line.

Hopper is clearly moved, but also becomes angry himself.  He strides out of the house saying that he's going to have Lonnie (Joyce's ex-husband) checked out.  This strikes me as a bit of Scullying.  He's trying to eliminate every possible alternative.

Jonathan follows Hopper out to his truck and offers to go to Lonnie's house on the chance that Will might hide from the police.  And Hopper seems to struggle to retain his composure, even emphatically popping Jonathan in the shoulder with his fist.  Joyce's words seem to have affected him deeply, far more than would be expected from simply bringing up the memory of a lost child.  This situation with the parent thinking that she is hearing from a lost child seems to resonate deeply with Hopper.  The tires spin in the gravel as the Chief pulls away.

Mike explains to Eleven his plan for having her sneak out the back door and come around to the front.

Mike:  And my mom, she'll know who to call.
Eleven:   No.

I think it's the mention of the phone call that is the icing on the cake.  Of course this is what happened to Benny.  anybody that Mrs Wheeler might call will undoubtedly also bring the goons from HNL.  And when they come, Mike's whole family will end up like Benny.  El has seen what happens first-hand.

Mike:  you're in trouble, aren't you?
El nods.
Mike:  Who are you in trouble with?
Eleven:   Bad.
...
Mike:  they want to hurt you?  the bad people?
Eleven makes a gun out of her hand and points it first at her own head, and then at Mike.
Eleven:  Understand?

The scene shifts to Hawkins National Laboratory. where the listening room has overheard Joyce's call to the police operator.  Dr. Brennan is made aware of the breathing, and also something that sounded like an animal.  Brennan recognizes it as a reference to the  monster.

The volunteers continue to search in the woods
Hopper:  Hey! Anything?
Callahan:  You?
Hopper:  No, Nothing but a dead phone
Callahan: Joyce?
Hopper:  She's about one step from falling off the edge.
Powell:  She's been a few steps for a while, now, hasn't she?

While officer Powell is a bit insensitive, we're establishing a key point about Joyce's backstory.  This agitation about Will's disappearance isn't something that just started.  Her emotional instability has been part of her history for several years..

At high school, Steve invites Nancy over to his house because his parents are away.  She is intrigued, but is distracted by Jonathan, putting up Missing posters for Will. It is obvious that they are currently on different social scales, but she reaches out to him, even as her social friends are laughing at and pitying him. This is Nancy's role as a person that moves between worlds

In middle school, the other boys notice that Mike is late.  He isn't just late, he has skipped school entirely and is back home with El, showing her around the house. She looks at pictures of the family and tries out the recliner, developing trust.

Jonathan is driving into the City to search at Lonnie's house, even though Hopper tells him not to and the radio reminds him of an incident with Will.  We take from Joyce's off-screen conversation that Lonnie was supposed to come take Will to a baseball game, and has failed to turn up.  Jonathan is consoling Will, who is a little disappointed.

Jonathan: Do you even like baseball?
Will  No, but... I don't know...   It's fun to go with him sometimes.
Jonathan:  Come on.  Has he ever done anything with you that you actually like?  You know, like the arcade or something?
Will:  I don't know.
Jonathan:  No, all right?  He hasn't. He's trying to force you to like normal things.  And you shouldn't like things because people tell you you're supposed to.  Especially not him.

That line at the end is particularly telling, only because it emphasizes once again that Will isn't "normal."  He doesn't like normal things.  He has a perception that is different from most people.

Joyce shows up at the store where she works to get a phone ans ask for an advance, which she gets.  It's nice to see that the world is not entirely against her, and that the people of the town still support her. the other tidbit we learn is that she's been working at the store for 10 years.  Probably started a year after Will was born.  I also wonder if that's when Lonnie left her, forcing her to get a job, but that's speculation.

Back at the Byers' house, while Joyce is in town buying a phone, the repairman is back at the front door.  He radios the all -clear to the waiting van and men in white hazmat suits emerge, including Dr Brennan.  They scan the grounds with odd-looking devices, and Brennan is immediately drawn to the shed in the back yard.  Like Hopper before him, he is drawn to that corner, only this time there appears to be some oozing slime coming through the siding. " Extraordinary,"  Brennan comments.

So this is what Hopper knew was there last episode, but which we definitely could not see.  Brennan had his beeping device to draw him to that spot, but how did Hopper know anything was there?  Wild speculation says that Hopper is not unfamiliar with what's going on here.

Back at the Wheeler house, Mike is still entertaining El.  She spots a picture of the four boys at a science fair, and her eyes widen at the sight of Will.  She points him out to Mike in the picture.

Mike:  You know Will?  Did you see him, last night, on the road?

She doesn't answer at that moment, but it brings us back to one of our original questions:  What happened the night that Will disappeared?  What was Eleven's role in releasing the  monster, in the abduction of Will, in her own escape?  How does El recognize Will's picture?.

At that moment, Mike's mother returns home.  In a panic, Mike puts El in a closet and she is very reluctant to go.  Mike tells her about promises.  Despite obvious concerns, El enters the closet but we can see her anxiety and it causes her to flash back to the laboratory where hse is being carried by two thuggish orderlies down a long hallway as Dr. Brennen looks on.  She pleads with him, calling him Papa, but he says nothing and she is thrown into the room with careless brutality.  This is obviously a horrifying and traumatic experience for her.  Back in the Wheeler's closet, El is sobbing quietly at the memory.

Downstairs, Mike is explaining to his mother about why he staiyed home from school.  Contrary to his own expectations, Karen Wheeler is surprisingly understanding.

Mrs. Wheeler:  Michael
Mike:  Yeah?
Mrs. Wheeler:  I'm not mad at you.
Mike:  No?
Mrs Wheeler:  No, of course not.  All this that's been going on with Will, I can't imagine what it's been like for you.
                     I just.... I want you to feel like you can talk to me.  I never want you to feel like you ever have to hide anything from me.  I'm here for you, Okay?

Now there is no particular reason why Karen is being anything other than a good mother, but I'm hearing something else in this scene.  I think that Karen is concerned that her children might begin to exhibit some of the unusual signs that other children, such as Will and Sara have done.  I think she is being hyper vigilant in looking for early symptoms.  It is beginning to appear, in my mind, that Karen knows something more about the unusual things that are happening and she is trying to protect her family.

Upstairs in the closet, El is revealed to be silently weeping, terrified.

Mike:  Is everything OK?
Eleven nods
Mike:  Are you sure?
Eleven:  Promise.

Joyce Byers waits with her new phone on her lap

Hopper and Caldwell are out by the quarry.  Volunteers are crawling everywhere still searching for Will.  The two talk briefly about how hitting the water from this height would break every bone in your body when Flo calls on the radio and tells them about Benny.  Benny's death has been arranged to look like a suicide and

Hopper is genuinely affected.

Callahan:  Missing kid.  Suicide.  You must feel like a big city cop again, huh, Chief?
Hopper:  Well, I mostly dealt with strangers, back then.  Benny was my friend.

This is the first indication of what Hopper did, prior to 4 years ago.  Here, Callahan says that he worked as a "big city cop."  So prior to 4 years ago, he was a policeman in Indianapolis (?).

Jonathan reaches his father's house in Indianapolis.  and we meet Lonnie and Cynthia (his girlfriend).

Dustin and Lucas have been released from school and ride over to Mike's house.  The two are not pleased to find Eleven still there.  But Mike comes up with an interesting theory that doesn't quite mesh with what we think we saw happen the evening Will disappeared.

Mike She knows about Will.  She pointed at him, at his picture.  She knew he was missing, I could tell.
Lucas:  You could tell?
Mike:  Just think about it.  Do you really think it was a coincidence that we found her on Mirkwood, the same place where Will disappeared?
Dustin:  That is weird.
Mike:  And she said bad people are after her.  I think maybe these bad people are the same ones that took Will.  I think she knows what happened to him.

So if any of this is true, this is a huge bombshell and turns on its head anything that we think we know about last night.  Call it the Mike Theory

OK, the Presented Theory (the one that the first episode seemed to show us) was that the monster got loose - broke through the barrier and escaped from HNL.  Out on the road, by chance, Will happened to be riding home and ran into the monster.  The Monster tracked Will to his house and stole him from the shed in the back.

Mike doesn't know anything about the monster at this point.  His theory is that the "bad people" - people from HNL who have guns like the hand sign that El made - are the ones who took Will.  Now initially our reaction is to say that Mike just doesn't have all the facts, but we've heard the truth from unreliable narrators before (Joyce, for example).  We also instinctively distrust coincidences.  Mike introduces the idea that it wasn't merely a chance meeting with the monster but that the Lab people had some hand in Will's disappearance.

The final question here is:  how does Eleven know about Will?  The story hasn't provided us with even a possible explanation, at this point.  She was escaping from the lab that night as well, as evidenced by the torn hospital gown.  Did she see Will in the woods? in the Upside Down?  Earlier at the Lab?  There doesn't seem to be any plausible explanation for when the two of them could have met.

The scene continues with Lucas deciding to tell Mike's mom and Eleven shutting the door to prevent him from leaving the room.  Symbolically, the D&D figures on the table shake,and with the final slam of the door, they topple over.  The party has been broken up.  El's nose begins to bleed.

At Lonnie's house, Jonathan is still searching for will.

Jonathan:  then why didn't you call Mom back?
Lonnie:  I dont know, I just...  I assumed she just forgot where he was.  You know, he was lost or something.  That boy never was very good at taking care of himself.

Another reference to Wills past as being unusual.

The Vanishing of Will Byers, Act 2 ST: 1

Riding home on their bicycles, the boys eventually get separated and Will has to ride through Mirkwood Lane, which runs past the Hawkins National Laboratory.  On the road, Will's bike lamp flickers and goes out, and he catches a glimpse of a grey humanoid figure.  It is the monster.  We assume that this is what has escaped from Hawkins Lab in the show opener.

Will is startled and runs off the road, tumbling off his bike. He picks himself up and runs away, eventually reaching his own house.  The location of the Byers' house, down a long dirt driveway on the edge of town, seems symbolic of their position in the community as well as their emotional state.  This a family that is isolated, physically, socially, emotionally, financially.  It is from that position of isolation that Jonathan and Joyce must begin to reach the Sheriff and Nancy.

Back in the house, Will locks himself in and tries the phone, which stops working just as his bike light did.   He realizes that doors alone will not protect him.  He runs out back to a detached garage, where he unexpectedly pulls a small rifle off the wall and begins loading it.  The literary implications of such a literal Chekhov gun are pretty obvious, and this is one that is never fired, since Will is surprised by the creature from behind.  However, I think with something so obvious, that there is an implied meaning as well.  While the audience has been encouraged to think of Will as a defenseless child, Will instead demonstrates unexpected resources.  The Gun is symbolic of the fact that Will might not be as defenseless as he appears.

Interestingly, we don't ever see Will get taken by the monster.  The camera focuses in tight on the light bulb, which surges brightly for a moment, and then returns to normal.  When we pan back out, the garage is empty.  Until now, when the monster appears, the lights have been flickering.  I'm not sure if this surge is the same effect, or suggests something else.

The Next Morning

The next scene opens in the home of Hopper, starting with a child's drawing on the wall.  The picture is of a family: two parents and a child - obviously a little girl.  In contrast to this domestic scene, we pan to beer cans littering the table, a heavily used ash tray, and Hopper himself asleep on the couch, half-dressed in the midst of the mess.

We see him smoking and drinking another beer to wash down a prescription medicine as he gets himself ready for work, already late.  It is only as we see him adjusting his gun belt and pin on his badge that we realize that he is some form of law enforcement.   Although he pulls himself together, this is obviously not a well man.  As he heads out the door, the TV news warns of gathering storms.

Our third rule of interpretation was: Symbols Matter.  I think there is something meaningful about the fact that Hopper is taking something from a prescription medicine bottle.  This isn't just Advil for his hangover.  This is something different, and it is thrown in here very purposefully; part of the core makeup and background of Hopper's character - like the drawing on the wall.

The same morning, Joyce and Jonathan notice the absence of Will, and we get a glimpse of how these two interact.  While they are mother and son, we also see a little co-parenting as well with Jonathan making breakfast and working extra shifts to make ends meet.

We shift to the three D&D players coming to middle school.  We introduce the two bullies who form their own personal monsters, who make fun of Dustin because of his cleidocranial displasia. But Mike makes an interesting comment, saying that it's like a super power.  As I've felt in other situations, I don't think this was merely casual dialogue and that particular line probably means something to the writers.

Meanwhile, over at the high school, we begin to set the social landscape with Nancy in transition between being mostly unnoticed and now becoming the girlfriend of the rich and popular Steve.  Barbara, her best friend, is an interested spectator from the sidelines, as Nancy meets Steve in the bathroom and sets up a rendezvous for later that night.  A recurring element of Nancy's character is that of being caught between two worlds, and of being able to transition between them.  Between the world of the Boys in middle school and high school, between the world of Barb and of Steve, and later between this world and the Upside Down.  We will see that she is one of four to ever make that trip safely.

Hopper finally makes it to work, and it is unexpectedly revealed that he isn't just some police officer, but is in fact the Chief of Police for the Town of Hawkins.  Why I think this is interesting is that it sets up the pattern for Hopper, that there is far more to him than we realize, than is apparent from just looking at him.  Joyce Byers is in his office, reporting her missing son.  The exchange between them seems to reveal that Joyce and Hopper have some history.  This isn't the formal and awkward meeting between strangers, but there is some obvious familiarity between them.

Joyce says, " Look, he's not like you, Hopper.  He's not like me.  He's not like most. ... Kid's they're mean.  They make fun of him, they call him names. They laugh at him, at his clothes."
Hopper:   His clothes?  What's wrong with his clothes?
Joyce:  I don't know.  Does that matter?
Hopper:  ... Maybe
Joyce:   Look,  He's a sensitive kid.

With any dialogue like this, my instinct is to take it very literally.   His mother, Joyce, is very clearly stating that there is something different about Will.  Possibly in the same way that there is something different about Eleven.

I haven't figured out why Hopper had latched on to the mention of clothes.  Possibly it is a reference to the fact that Eleven had a particular relationship to clothes throughout this story.  Joyce could be describing Eleven and her meeting with the boys in the same way that the D&D game foreshadowed what happened to Will.  Initially, they laugh at her, and call her Weirdo.  Even though she is dressed in funny clothes, Eleven - like Will - is a good person.   Does that matter, the story asks.  And the writers answer, Maybe.

 We also pick up from this conversation that Will's father lives in Indianapolis and that Hopper has only been working in Hawkins for 4 years.

The scene shifts to Hawkins Labs, as official government vehicles arrive in the compound and the occupants are met by Dr Brenner.  They don quarantine suits, arm themselves with machine guns, and enter the room where the breach occurred.  This is the same elevator where the technician was eaten the day before..  As they walk down the hallway, we see the motes floating in the air, signalling the Upside Down. Scratches on the wall, and bubbling residual ectoplasm seem to indicate the passage of the monster.  They locate the breach, which is grown over with vines or tentacles, stretching outward to cover a gateway or portal.

Govt Man:  Is this where it came from?
Dr Brenner:  Yes
Govt Man:  And the girl?
Brenner:  She can't have gone far.

We see "the girl" herself in the next frame, barefoot, and dressed in a hospital gown; the funny clothes Joyce mentioned.  She sneaks into a diner and steals french fries, because she is obviously starving.  The question here is, why is she so hungry?  If she has only that evening escaped from the Lab are we suggesting that they don't feed her in there?  She's not just hungry for breakfast; she's wolfing down french fries, and later a hamburger, like she hasn't eaten for several days.  My suspicion is that she had something to do with the escape of the monster from Hawkins Labs, that using her mental powers makes her hungry, though we never get a clear explanation of what actually happened that night at the lab.

Back at middle school, Mike, Dustin and Lucas introduce us to the science teacher who we see will be a resource for all things unexplained.  He shows them a newly arrived HAM radio set but is  interrupted by the school principal who has Chief Hopper with him, trying to get some information about Will.

 Meanwhile Joyce and Jonathan are also out looking for him at his fort in the woods. But the jump cut is not to the present day but to a memory of when Joyce found Will there earlier.  We can see the closeness of their relationship.  In the present day, however, Castle Byers is empty and Joyce is becoming increasingly desperate. As Joyce walks away, the curtains that had hung loosely a moment before flap and flutter in the wind, almost frantically, but Joyce has already turned her back and does not notice.  I suspect that this was Will's first attempt to communicate with his mother from the Upside Down.


Back at the diner, the owner feeds Eleven a hamburger and attempts to find out something about her. What's chilling is that El seems to be very wary of all adults, and particularly these kinds of conversations.  She flinches visibly when Benny mentions making a deal with her.  After Benny notices the tattoo on her arm,  she eventually points to herself and says, "Eleven".  Benny calls social services while El eats, and in the first demonstration of her powers, stops the annoying electric fan with the power of her mind.

Hopper and his deputies travel out to the road that Mike and Lucas told him was Will's normal path home.  Again, Hopper is seen taking some kind of prescription medicine, when he finds Will's bike down off the road.

Nearby, the scene shifts to a room full of people listening to headsets which appear to be monitoring all the phone conversations that are happening in Hawkins.  The implication is that everyone in Hawkins has been bugged and are under audio surveillance and that this is being done by the Hawkins Lab.

At home, Joyce is becoming increasingly agitated calling her ex-husband when Hopper drives up with Will's bike.  He begins to look around and discovers the shed in the backyard.  He notices the box of bullets, and also that a gun is missing from the wall, but at that moment, the light in the shed goes out

What does Hopper find so fascinating here?

Hopper appears to notice something in a corner and picks up a flashlight, but all we see are some sleeping bags, a cardboard box and some wood.  He gets so absorbed in investigating this corner that almost seems to go into a trance and fails to hear someone calling for him.  Was this moment just an example of his laser-like focus, was he lost in a memory  We never learn what he was looking for because he was disturbed by one of his officers and the moment is broken. Hopper orders the officers to organize a search party of volunteers.

Wild Speculation:  my own interpretation is that something happened here in the garage that marked a turning point in Hopper's investigation of Will Byers' disappearance.  Up until this point, he was still of the opinion that Will had run away, or was off having a personal adventure, something that would be put right in a few hours.  After those few minutes in the shed, Hopper was convinced that the boy was in serious trouble and that a town wide mobilization was necessary to conduct a search.  Yes, the finding of the abandoned bike was a first step, and the realization that Will was scared enough to take a rifle. 

But I feel like something happened in those moments when the light went out and he was searching in the dark with a flashlight, something that triggered a memory or brought a flash of insight that he was dealing with a much larger and more dangerous issue.  On a symbolic level, this is an iconic image of Chief Hopper as a character:  alone in the dark, searching for something with a flashlight.  This is a role that Hopper continues to play throughout the rest of the chapters.

That Evening

The scene shifts to the Wheeler residence where the family is eating dinner.  Mike is agitated because Will hasn't been found, while Nancy is angling to be allowed to visit Barb for studying, though her real intention is to meet Steve.  Again we see Mrs Wheeler in charge of the household, while Ted, the father, is basically ignoring it.  But she does seem to be overreacting to the situation.

Mrs Wheeler:  Am I speaking Chinese in this house?  Until we know that Will is OK, no one leaves.

After Nancy storms off, the Mr Wheeler says to Mike:
Ted:  You see Michael?  You see what happens?
Mike:  What happens when what?  I'm the only one acting normal here!

Not only is Mike absolutely correct, but again he is foreshadowing the way that Joyce Byers will begin to feel in her search for her son.  While her behavior appears increasingly erratic and her mind seems unhinged, everything that she says throughout the next chapter is absolutely true and she, in fact, is acting with complete rationality.  We see it here symbolically with Mike, and then the larger parallel with Joyce.

Wild Speculation:  I also see something else in this scene that is completely lacking in foundation but is built out of innuendo and fantasy.  I see the father reacting in a particular way that suggests that you shouldn't rock the boat, you shouldn't get involved, you shouldn't take a stand or stick out in any way.  I suspect that Ted and even Karen Wheeler, know something about what happened eleven years ago, and what Ted learned from that traumatic incident he is attempting to pass on to his son Mike.

I suspect that by complying and keeping his head down that he saved his own son from something monstrous back then, and that it crippled his authority as head of the house ever since.  And I think that Karen Wheeler knows something about this capitulation on Ted's part, eleven years ago, and that she is deeply angry about it and angry with him, and she desperately wants to protect her own children because she thinks she has an inkling about what is going on in the woods outside Hawkins and she is terrified of it. This is the source of her apparent over-reaction. Again, this is all Wild Speculation

Out in the woods, Chief Hopper is leading the search for Will  It is long past dark, and the science teacher that we saw earlier with the boys and the HAM radio introduces himself to Hopper, "I don't think we've met.  Scott Clark." he extends his hand which Hopper shakes.

Hopper:  I always had a distaste for science
Clark:  Ah, maybe you had a bad teacher.
Hopper:  yeah, Miss Ratliff was a piece of work
Clark:  Ratliff?   You bet... She's still kicking around, believe it or not.
Hopper:  Oh I believe it.  Mummies never die, so they tell me.

What's interesting about this exchange is that it confirms something that we suspected from his conversation with Joyce.  Hopper went to school here in Hawkins.  This is Hopper's home town.

Hopper:  Sara, my daughter.  ...Galaxies, the universe, and what not, she always understood all that stuff.  I always figured there was enough going on down here, I never needed to look elsewhere.
Clark: Your daughter, what grade is she?  Maybe I'll get her in my class.
Hopper:  No, she uh... She lives with her mom in the city.
...
Unnamed Woman:  She died  few years back.
Clark: Sorry?
Woman:  His kid.

So what is happening with Hopper?  Why did he tell Clark that story about her daughter still being alive and living with her mother when it is common knowledge that she has died? Is it that he can't bring himself to face the truth, or is there more to the story?  And while we're thinking about Hop's daughter, consider that Hopper is referring to a girl that died over four years ago.  If we assume for a moment that Sara would be eleven if she were still alive, this means that Sara understood concepts like galaxies and the universe well enough to impress an adult like her father, when she was 6 or 7 years old.  That is certainly a precocious child. 

Wild speculation:  Hopper professes that he "always had a distaste for science."  I think that Hopper had a bad experience with science, something that caused him to mistrust it.  And it wasn't merely science's inability to save the life of his daughter. I think his use of the "always" is more inclusive than that.  Possibly that he was forced to work with scientific technology and his experiences were negative.

Back in their rooms, Mike calls Lucas on their walkie-talkies.  While Mike is sneaking out to meet Lucas, Steve is sneaking into Nancy's bedroom window.

Benny is washing up in the diner at the end of the day while Eleven is still eating, ice cream this time.

Social services knocks on the front door but it quickly becomes apparent that they are the troglodytes from Hawkins Lab in disguise when the nice lady shoots Benny in the back.  Eleven tries to run but two men come in the back door, cutting off her escape.  We shift to the front of the diner for a moment and when we come back, the two men are dead on the floor and eleven has escaped into the night.

Out in the woods, the storm that the newscaster promised has finally arrived and Justin, Lucas, and Mike are out in the rain.  Nancy is in her bedroom with Steve, but surprisingly they are actually studying chemistry.  Steve tries to move this more physical stuff but they step back from the brink.

Meanwhile Joyce and her son Jonathan are looking over pictures of Will, trying to find some for the Lost posters. Jonathan is overcome by his feelings of guilt and Joyce absolves him of blame.

Joyce Byers:  No. You can't do that to yourself.  This was not your fault; do you hear me? He is close.  I know it.  I feel it.  In my heart.  You have to trust me on this, OK?

Remember that everything that Joyce says is completely true and accurate.  Will is close and Jonathan should trust his mother on this.  Joyce is a Cassandra-like figure; she knows the truth but is fated never to be believed.

At that moment, the phone rings and Joyce rushes to answer.  All she can hear is static and the sound of someone taking gasping breaths on the other end.  Despite the confusing sounds, Joyce identifies it as Will moments before a static discharge arcs from the phone, shocking her and destroying it.

 Joyce:  It was him, I know it was his breathing, I know it was his breathing.

Walking in the woods, the three boys are completely drenched by the soaking rain and Dustin wants to turn back.
Dustin: Did you ever think that Will went missing because he ran into something bad?  And we're going in the exact same spot where he was last seen,  and we have no weapons or anything.
Mike:  Dustin, shut up.
Dustin: I'm just staying, does that seem smart to your?
Mike:  Shut up!

And at that moment, the three boys turn and find Eleven, soaked by the rain.

Voyager Review

The problems of Voyager are basically threefold:

First:  the character of Captain Janeway failed to materialize in any meaningful way.  Her dramatic potential was reduced to throwing a temper tantrum when her crew disobeyed her, which they seemed to do constantly.  Neither Kirk nor Picard had to struggle with such contrary bridge officers.

Rather than a strong leader, Janeway always seemed to be an insecure micromanger who hated to be questioned.  She didn't trust any of her senior officers and looked at every contrary idea as a challenge or a betrayal.  The writers apparently felt that these confrontations made Janeway appear stronger, but in my opinion actually weakened the character.

I can recall a couple of occasions where Data actually disobeyed Picard's orders, and in the end Picard commended him for independent thinking.  This made Data, and the audience, feel more confident and comfortable following Picard as a leader.  Picard turned it into a moment for reflection and empowering independent action.  Janeway would have immediately made it personal and confrontational, turning it into a "my way or the highway" situation.  Her call was the last word, and she had to make every call.

A clear example came when Tuvok felt that Janeway was not in a position diplomatically to make the proper choice for the good of the ship, but that it was his duty as her friend and senior officer to make that choice for her.  And he was absolutely correct about that assessment, as Janeway herself acknowledges.  Nevertheless, he still got the "betrayal" speech, and was made to promise, like a bad boy, never to do it again.

When we finally introduced Seven of Nine, we found a way to explore her more nurturing and maternal side, and Janeway's character was improved immensely.  After that point, she was able to take a more supportive view of B'Elanna, began to have dinners with Chakotay, began to embrace the humanity of the Doctor, and a host of other subtle improvements.  If we could have had this Captain Janeway in the first season, the overall experience of the show would have been considerably improved.

Second:  None of the original cast developed any meaningful competencies.  Yes, they all had superficial personality traits:  Tuvok's deadpan, Kim's bumbling good nature, Chakotay's charming whipped puppy.  But once you got past that, many of these characters (Harry Kim, Chakotay, Janeway, Tuvok, Neelix) lacked any real core competencies.  Quick, think of a problem where the most qualified person to solve it is Harry "Can't Get A Lock" Kim.  What, exactly, does Chakotay bring to the table beyond his affable good nature and avuncular rapport with the crew?

Those characters that were given actual competencies (B'Elanna Torres, Tom Paris) were used in such a one-note fashion that they ultimately became boring.  "Set a course, Tom."   "Yes, Ma'aaaamm"   Tuvok had his mind meld, and Chakotay had his vision quest and once we'd done a couple things with them, the extent of their characters was explored.

In contrast, the Doctor and Seven were both characterized by their competencies.  In much the same way that Dr. McCoy was a highly skilled doctor and exobiologist, The Doctor could always be written into a scene to heal the injured or the sick, to analyze foreign DNA, to scan for microbes, when dealing with computer-based intelligences, or non-biological sentience.  This gave the writers an easy avenue to turn to when things needed to happen.  Contrast the Doctor with, say, Harry or Chakotay; the writers had to struggle to find a reason to write these characters into the plot, unless it was to receive a withering retort from Seven or Janeway.

Similarly Seven, with her Borg background and implants, was nearly omni-competent in whatever technological thing the writers needed to employ to move the story along.  Receiving transmissions halfway across the quadrant through subspace?  Seven can do it without blinking an eye - just say the word "implants".  Need to cure an intractable disease:  "nanites".   Searching for a needle in the haystack that is the Delta quadrant?  "Astrometrics lab".  In fact, Seven's character was singlehandedly able to supplant Tuvok and his logic, Harry and his sensors, and B'Elanna and the entire engineering section.  B'Elanna was called upon to describe problems, Seven brought solutions. 

The problem is not that the characters of Seven and the Doctor were too powerful, it was that the original characters weren't powerful enough.  When a story needed to be told, they didn't have any tools to bring to the problem.  Their interesting backgrounds didn't empower them in ways that were helpful to Voyager or to the writers.

Harry, as Operations officer, should have been a constant source of ideas, insights, and information, including sensors and long range scans.  Harry was portrayed as a top-of-his-class Academy graduate and an advanced engineer who designed shuttles. Tuvok was a full-blooded Vulcan who had lived over a hundred years and explored multiple careers before this particular mission.  Tuvok, as Tactical officer, should have been a constant source of military tactics, with an arsenal of weapons at his disposal, constantly seeking to improve them, strengthen the shields, and extend their tactical capabilities.

Chakotay was a charismatic and powerful leader who was able to hold together a Maquis rebel cell whose members were driven by hate and despair and a thirst for vengeance, and not only kept them alive but directed them to strike at a much larger Cardassian military force with so much success that the Federation targeted him specifically for capture.  Chakotay should have had the members of the Maquis retain some aspect of their uniforms as a symbol of their identity and his authority.  He should have had red shirts willing to risk their lives on his order and to die for a cause he believed in.

I believe that the writers just didn't know how to make these positions an integral part of their narrative.  More damagingly, I think that Tuvok and the others suffered from Worf syndrome, where the most powerful hand to hand fighter on the ship failed to win a single meaningful battle throughout his career on the Enterprise.  The writers had determined that Voyager wouldn't be a show about space battles, and Tuvok's position was a necessary casualty.  They were so insecure about Janeway as the first female Star Trek captain that they couldn't allow strong male characters around her.

Rather than embracing these characters as heroes, we preferred to think of them as everyday folk trapped in a starship and doing their best.

The third problem with Voyager was that it reduced its male characters to flat stereotypes.  It became obvious that Voyager would be a show about strong female lead characters, with Janeway, Torres, and Kes being far more developed and given far more screen time than the other main characters.  This became even more pronounced with the introduction of Seven of Nine and even Naomi Wildman.

In contrast, Tuvok remained the Dad, Chakotay was the older lothario, Paris was the young buck, Harry was the naive youngling, and Neelix was the clown - all established positions on the boyfriend hierarchy. These roles were far more important to the interaction of the characters than their actual assignments and competencies on the ship.  And because these roles were more important, they limited the ways that the characters could be used in plots, and how they could develop over the course of the show.  As writer/producer Brannon Braga said of Harry Kim, "Well, somebody's gotta be the ensign."  Similarly, somebody has to be the Older Romantic lead.  We can't have Chakotay grow out of that into something with more depth.

The Vanishing of Will Byers, Act 1. ST: 1

Synopsis

An opening billboard places the setting:  November 6th, 1983,  Hawkins, Indiana

The story opens at Hawkins National Lab where something has obviously gone wrong. Long metal hallways, heavy steel pressure doors,  the lights flicker continuously: Suddenly, the door bursts open, alarms are sounding, and a man in a lab coat is running at top speed down a long hallway toward an elevator, obviously terrified and constantly looking over his shoulder. He is grabbed and carried offscreen by something we cannot see.

In this pilot episode we find a group of four boys playing Dungeons and Dragons.  These four friends, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and Mike, will form the core group that the story follows.
"Something is coming... something hungry for blood."  Mike is the game master and his speech here is prescient of all that will take place.  "That didn't come from the troglodytes.  No, that came from something else....   BOOM! The Demogorgon!" We have already seen evidence of the Demogorgon at Hawkins Lab.

"Will, your action!"  This chapter is all about Will.  The party begins to argue about whether to cast fire ball or a protection spell. (Reflecting the conflict later that will tear the boys apart.)  In the growing chaos, Will (apparently a magic user) shouts "Fireball!" and impulsively hurls the dice which tumble onto the floor.

"Where did it go? "  "I don't know"  "Where is it?"  "I don't know!"  Although the characters are searching for the dice, the writers are prefiguring the search for the lost Will.  This mad scramble in Mike's basement is the same feeling that the writers are trying to create among the searchers for Will Byers. 

At this moment Mike's mom appears at the top of the stairs and tells them it's time to quit.  In this brief exchange, we see that the mother runs the family and the father is mostly disengaged, messing with the television.  This gives us a glimpse of something that Jonathan and Nancy will talk about in the woods much later, the familial dysfunctionality of the Wheeler household.

"Oh, I got it!  Does a seven count?"
"Did Mike see it?"  Will shakes his head no.
"Then it doesn't count."

Before the boys break up for the night, we have a brief scene to introduce Nancy Wheeler, a high school student on the phone with her best friend Barb.  She has begun seeing a rich and popular boy, Steve, and is taking a few dangerous steps into the world of dating.  She closes the door in Dustin's face when he offers her the last slice of pizza.  To the core group, Nancy is an outsider, not one of them.

In fact, by taking this step, Nancy is closing the door to many things: predominantly her childhood, her family, her innocence - a time in her life when an extra slice of pizza was all she had to worry about.  I think it is also interesting that it is Dustin, who has a developmental issue with his teeth, that is the object of symbolic rejection.  Dustin occupies the same emotional space for her that Jonathan does, an outsider, not one of the beautiful, social people that she aspires to associate with.

As Will is leaving, he confesses to Mike:
"It was a seven.  The roll... it was a seven.  The demogorgon, it got me."  And we are about to see in the next scene exactly what it means when Will rolls a seven against a Demogorgon.  But at the same time we see the power of friendship.  As Mike will tell Eleven later, "Friends don't lie."  Will considers Mike to be a true friend and accepts the consequences of the truth.  The lights flicker as Will rides away.

Stranger Things

The fascination inherent in the phenomenon of Stranger Things is in the things that we Don't know as much as the things that we Do Know.  The mastery in this storytelling is in explaining only what is necessary and leaving out what doesn't need to be explained.

The fascinating thing about this storytelling style is that every element is consciously constructed.  We can readily see that in the meticulous re-creation of the 1980's environment.  And that same care and attention is brought to the events and dialogue as well. Each scene has something to say, not only about what's happening at the moment, but also about the larger story.

The implication, then, is this:  Everything matters:

1. Parallels matter.  It is no accident when things follows similar patterns and structures.  Strong parallels are not coincidences. 
2. Dialogue matters.  If it seems as though something is being referred to, it probably is.  If you're listening to the characters talking about something in front of them and you suddenly realize that they really could be talking about something else entirely, the writers probably are.
3. Symbols matter. How something looks, what it represents, is often just as important as what it physically is.

I also think that there is a danger of carrying analysis too far;  attempting to make things too weird so that they lose their grounding in the carefully constructed '80s reality.  There are plenty of hidden meanings in the work itself without straying too far into pure speculation.  The value of a idea is in how closely it is grounded in the source work.  So we have things that are clearly stated, things that are implied that lead us to speculation, and things that are only hinted at that lead us to wild speculation.

If I lack even the barest hint, but are relying on statements like, "The story doesn't rule it out,"  that is when I know I am straying too far.   I'm writing the story as I would like it to be, rather than what was actually written.  Which in the case of some stories can be a valuable thing, too.

So what is it that we Do Know?

• Hawkins is a small town in Indiana with a government research facility somewhere on its outskirts.  That facility, Hawkins National Laboratory, is where Dr. Brenner has been experimenting on Eleven.  This is a fully staffed facility, with surveillance, security, and army trucks full of personnel, who also use repair vans (we saw as many as 6 of these, and possibly more) to avoid being conspicuous while observing the town of Hawkins.  These agents and soldiers are authorized to use deadly force, as we saw when the female agent killed Benny the diner owner who was giving Eleven shelter after her escape.
• Eleven is a young girl (probably 11-12 years old) who has been raised at the Hawkins Laboratory by Dr. Brenner, who she calls Papa.  She has the number 011 tattooed on her arm. She has mental powers that allow her to move things with her mind.  We saw her crush a soda can, levitate cars, and snap the necks of people chasing her.  She also has the ability to mentally cross over to the Upside-Down and observe things there, including the monster.  At some point, she escaped from the government lab and does not want to go back.
• Hawkins Laboratory has an open gate to the Upside-Down.  This is another dimension that parallels the Real World, but is cast in shadows with perpetually falling snow/floating dust.  The monster lives there, along with potentially other things.  No one that the lab has sent to investigate the Upside-Down has returned alive, until they allowed Hopper to retrieve Will.
• The gate in Hawkins Lab is not the only portal to the Upside-Down.  Nancy Byers was able to access it through a hole she found among the roots of a tree.  In addition, the monster was able to break into the Real World through the walls of the Byer's house.
• Hopper and Joyce went to visit Terry Ives.  Terry voluntarily joined a government program with Dr Brenner called MKUltra.  The government was researching the effects of LSD and other drugs on humans.  During this experimentation with drugs, Terry discovered that she was pregnant. Later in the pregnancy, Terry miscarried and the baby, whom she named Jane, died.  She, however, claimed that the government and Dr. Brennan stole her baby, and she unsuccessfully sued them to get the child back.  She was declared insane and eventually lapsed into a non-responsive state. 
• Speculation: There is a strong suggestion that Eleven is Terry's daughter.  We are fairly sure that the experiments performed on Terry weren't limited to LSD.  It is also likely that part of the experiment was for the purpose of creating a "gifted" child like Eleven.  In other words, Eleven's special powers are the result of this government experimentation.  It is even possible that this was the purpose of the experiment all along.
• Eleven's tattoo suggests that she has been numbered by the government in a way to depersonalize and keep track of her.  This suggests that there were ten other children who were also part of this government program.  The location of these other children is also a mystery.  They could simply be dead, previous failures of the experiment.  They could be alive at other MKUltra laboratories like the one at Hawkins. 
• Wild Speculation:  It is even possible that they exist outside the lab system and are being observed in their native environment.  For example, Will could be another product of Brenner's MK Ultra program.  He is about the same age, and his mother Joyce has a life history that parallels Terry's; with a history of mental health issues for which she has received therapy.  She is currently displaying the kinds of distress and apparent paranoia that seemed to trouble Terry when she was trying to recover her child.  In Joyce's case, we know that everything that she said, no matter how wild-sounding, was absolutely true.
• So if Will is a possibility, what about Dustin and Lucas?
• We also know that Chief Hopper had a daughter about the same time as both Joyce and Terry.  Like Terry's daughter, Hopper's daughter Sarah apparently died, an event that left an indelible psychological mark on Hopper.  Now we also know that the government is relatively skilled at faking someone's death and were willing to use that to try to fake the death of Will, manufacturing a false body for the funeral.  It is entirely possible that Sarah's death was faked as well and that she was brought into the program.
• Hopper is presented as a Big City detective who needed a change of environment after the traumatic death of his daughter Sarah, and so he moved to the small peaceful town of Hawkins to escape the chaos of city life.But Hopper on several occasions has demonstrated greater than normal physical ability and understanding, easily taking out a sucurity guard at the front gate and the chief of security inside the building with only his bare hands.  In addition he has been especially glib in his ability to talk his way around officials and government channels.  This suggests to me that he is possibly something more than a City cop, and his life before Hawkins was more involved than we have learned so far.  I'm thinking something along the lines of Special Forces.  
• Special Forces volunteers were involved in the early experimentation with amphetamines to try to improve their performance in combat, so he could have been an unwitting participant in the CIA drug experiments as well.

Story Types: Redemption

The Redemption story type follows a morally bad or evil character through a transformation into a good character.  Changing a bad character into a good one can be a formidable task, however, and not one that an audience can easily accept.  A redemption story often follows identifiable milestones that allow the audience to buy into the transformation. On the other hand,  the blacker the character is at the beginning of the story, the greater the sense of accomplishment when he is redeemed at the end.

The Presentation:  we are introduced to this character and it is detailed in no uncertain terms that they are evil to some degree.  We may take some time to explore just how evil they are, through one or more opportunities to kick puppies. We may be given a display of the power that these evil or amoral actions give the character, but also show how these decisions affect other characters, often in ways that aren't clear to the protagonist.

We may also explore the philosophy that the heroes use to justify their actions ("...are there no workhouses?" or "A shark's gotta eat") and often the story challenges the validity or reveals the inadequacy of these premises.   These characters aren't misunderstood, or making the best of a bad situation, they are making bad choices that negatively affect others, and the story gives us an opportunity to see it clearly.

For Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, we see how he treats his clerk, Bob Cratchett and may even understand the logic of his extremely frugal work ethic. But we also see the effect his choices are having on the entire Cratchett family, and how Tiny Tim's health is a result of Scrooge's miserly tendencies.

The History:  The story may then give us some background on why the character became this way.  This may be accomplished through scenes from his past, or we may examine the pressures he is put under that tempted him to the dark side.  The story might explore the terrible conditions he endured that shaped his philosophy. This justification doesn't excuse his evil choices, but it does illuminate the point where he went wrong, where he made his mistake.  Very often, the point of redemption creates a similar situation, only this time the hero makes the correct choice to start his upward journey.

Similarly, there is often a petitioner, someone who knows him; perhaps someone who he is attached to who comes to him in the throes of his evil and admonishes him to make better choices.  This person is always rejected early on in the story, although the words said here may be something he recalls during his redemption sequence that creates that moment of clarity where he decides to change his ways.

For Scrooge, the mission of the Ghost of Christmas Past is to show Scrooge where he began to value money over human interaction through his childhood. 

Confrontation:   The redemption process very often happens in the midst of the hero plotting his greatest atrocity, while he's in the very act of evil for which we all revile him.

Sometimes, it is at the moment that he is at his worst that the hero is confronted with someone doing something good and it causes him to doubt his perspective and change his outlook on life.  This may come when his plan has nearly succeeded, and yet people remain good in spite of it, or it may be when his plan has catastrophically failed and he has been caught in the midst of it, yet people still show him mercy.

For example, Scrooge is shown the gratitude of Bob Cratchett, offering a toast to Scrooge as the supplier of the Christmas dinner, despite his wife's hesitation, and Bob's poor circumstances.

Alternatively, the hero may get a glimpse of the emptiness of his future, often by looking at the hollow "success" of someone else like himself.  This undoubtedly happened to Scrooge with Christmas Future, but also in the form of Marley's ghost as well.

Transformation:  This is his statement of his changed nature.  The opportunity to show that he has a different outlook.  This is the moment where he makes the correct choice instead of his previous wrong one.  Or it is where he confesses the inadequacy of his philosophy and replaces it with a more moral one.

When Scrooges calls down to the boy in the street on Christmas morning, a boy he would normally give no courtesy or respect to, we can see the change in his outlook.

Atonement:  The story often gives the transformed hero a chance to make up in some small way for all the evil that he had done when he was a villain.  This is the concept of Paying for his Crimes. The payment extracted is usually commensurate with the scope of the evil he has committed.  For a particularly bad character this might be the ultimate self-sacrifice as when Darth Vader sacrifices himself to destroy the Emperor and save Luke.

It could also be a chance for the villain to use the evil capabilities that we saw demonstrated in the Presentation turned around and used to help rather than harm, for example when Scrooge uses his financial powers to help Bob Cratchett's family.

Projection:  At the conclusion of the atonement, the story often gives us a glimpse of what the reformed hero's life will be like in the future.  It may be a "Happily ever after" story, or the character may not be able to shake off their old ways entirely, though their core philosophy has been substantially altered.

Typically, redemption stories are not merely localized to only benefiting the redeemed, but are presented as larger-than-life transformations that benefit the society around them.  Ebenezer Scrooge not only made his own life a happier one, but also served as an example to others in his vocation.

It is also possible that the characters are living out some portion of their own redemption story, which serves as a motivation for their own actions in another hero's larger tale.

Examples:  A Christmas Carol, Darth Vader in  Return of the Jedi, Vindicator Maraad in Warlords of Draenor, Mr. Reese, Mr Finch, and Det. Fusco in Person of Interest,  Boromir in The Lord of the Rings, Tony Stark, Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, Snape in Deathly Hallows et al., Eustace in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Angel and Spike in Angel, Eliot Spencer in Leverage, Maj. Houlihan and Maj. Winchester in MASH.

Story Types: Enlightenment

Definition:
An Enlightenment story type starts from a place of confusion and misunderstanding.  By exploring, investigating, conversing the heroes eventually gain wisdom, dispel confusion, and attain enlightenment, often leaving the characters better off than when they started.

The heroes often start out with an incomplete or incorrect pictures and may proceed to make bad decisions, which will make things worse for everyone else, and may increase their own confusion. After their initial missteps, the heroes begin to put together the pieces, and may even become alarmed at how wrong they were initially and how far their confusion has spread to others. This alarm may lead them to impulsive actions and additional poor decisions, causing fresh confusion to be injected into the situation with new characters drawn into the net.  This cycle may repeat, each time leading to greater distress.

Eventually, often as a result of a heroic act or event facilitated by diligence and patience, or brilliant insight, or a benevolent act such as forgiveness, the heroes will reach an epiphany and begin to see the truth and dispel the confusion. With clearer understanding of the confusion, the heroes then set about correcting all the difficulty that they caused.

This epiphany also may confer an insight into deeper truths about their lives. Things that they didn't realize were out of balance in their lives may suddenly become much better as deeper mysteries are brought to light.  The lives of the characters don't merely return to the status quo before the misunderstanding, but will actually improve and achieve a higher state of happiness, a higher state of enlightenment.

Modern comedies, particularly romantic comedies, often are Enlightenment stories.  The humor springs from purposeful misunderstanding and the ridiculous situations that arise from it.  Shakespeare's comedies were full of disguise and hidden or mistaken identity which is ultimately revealed after a point has been made and a lesson has been learned.

Unexpectedly, detective and mystery stories often fall into this type as well.  The detective enters a scene marred by confusion and disarray.   Through patience and inquiry, but not without some early missteps and red herrings,  the hero eventually is able to untangle the confusion and restore society  to order.

Components:
Heroes: Unlike other story types that focus on a single protagonist, Enlightenment stories often have multiple protagonists creating intertwined webs of confusion.  For Comedies, that could be the two partners in a relationship, or multiple relationships that are often intertwined.  For mysteries, there could be the detective and the victim, or the detective and the villain, or the detective and his foil, or the detective an his agent: creating and dispelling the darkness.

Setting: The setting is often unusual in some way; often in a way that increases the chance of misunderstanding.  The heroes may initially have difficulty navigating through the setting long before they have any hope of addressing the misunderstanding.

Expect green worlds and fantasy-like environments where rules are turned on their heads and normal societal conventions don't apply.  Servants become equal to their masters, and strict rules of behavior are abandoned.   This may actually facilitate an understanding that could never be achieved if social niceties were to be preserved.  For modern stories, look for tropical resorts, cruise ships, or larger-than-life big cities.  Alternatively, the fantasy world could be a dark, film-noir setting, or could cross class boundaries either to glamorous high society, or a remote subsistence existence.  

Conflict and Development:  the conflict is often simple, initially, but becomes exponentially more complicated as the story progresses.  This may be as a result of the characters' misguided efforts to extricate themselves from the situation, or it could be that the apparently superficial problem is revealed to be increasingly complex as the story develops.

Conflicts revolve around balance;  something is out of balance in the natural or social order and must be put right.  There is a sense that the problem that the main characters are struggling with is representative of a larger assault on society.  The problem may even have grown out of a inherent social problem; the solution will not only restore the heroes but also repair the larger breech as well.  In some stories, the heroes may not be fully restored but the restoration of the larger societal issue justifies their actions.

Resolution:  Resolutions are often sudden and sometimes come from an unexpected quarter.  The problem may become so intricate that it appears impossible to resolve, until some master-stroke untangles it. However, the resolution usually grows from seeds planted earlier in the story.  The solution often grows from the information gathered along the way

With enlightenment stories, the resolution can be quite abrupt.  Once the solution is gained, there is little left to develop, often because the most satisfying solutions bring all the threads together into one comprehensive resolution, after which there is little left to discuss.

On the other hand, the enlightenment resolution may often precede a physical resolution, which will take on the characteristics of a Struggle story type.  This does not convert the entire story to a struggle.

Examples: 
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a classic enlightenment story.
Rather than following a single heroic protagonist, multiple heroes are caught in an increasing web of confusion, including the two young couples, Titania and Oberon, and Theseus and Hippolyta. While each of these couples don't have equal stature in the story, they each become entangled in some way and require extrication.

The setting, in typical fashion, starts in ancient Greece, and from there moves into a greenworld of the enchanted forest, the realm of faeries.  And, as Helena remarks, undergoes the typical casting aside of normal social rules: "Run where you will, the story will be changed: Apollo flees and Daphne holds the chase. The dove pursues the griffin."  Helena herself realizes that everything has been turned upside down.  And this is true even for the faeries, with Oberon and Titania at odds with each other and servant Puck uses his enchantment on Queen Titania showing an inversion of the regal hierarchy.

The conflict seems simple at the beginning, a typical love triangle where a girl loves a boy who loves someone else.  But as Puck becomes involved, we see these complications multiply.  Even as he ostensibly tries to "correct"  the situation, he makes things worse.

Oberon to Puck: This is thy negligence!

But even as we see the young lovers caught up in Puck's mischief, we also see the unnatural authority that a father has over his daughter, and we see the struggles between the king and queen of Faerie, each of which has a hand in the current conflict.

The resolution is also typically abrupt, with Puck fixing it all, and Theseus giving approval.  The result is marriages all round the next day.  What cupid has put wrong, Oberon can put right, and what Athenian law has allowed, Athenian law in the form of Theseus can correct.

At the end of the story, we return to Athens and through the wedding celebration see that everything has been put right not only with our own society but also that of Faerie.



Move over, Darling.   Doris Day, James Garner.   Doris Day, as Mrs. Arden is lost at sea when her plane crashes.  After 5 years on a deserted island, she is rescued by the navy and returns to Los Angeles to discover that her husband has just re-married.  He finds it awkward to tell his new bride the news.

Mr. Arden:  Look, I'll explain.  It's really a very simple situation.  You see, my wife... my bride..."
Mrs. Arden:  What my husband is trying to tell you is that he has two wives"
Manager: I don't care if he has 10 wives.  While he is in this hotel, he will have only one wife:  his first wife.   His second wife?
Mr Arden:  You're confused.
Manager:  Yes!
Mr Arden:  Look I can explain...
Mrs Arden:  You do that, darling...  First to him, and then to her.

After being on a deserted island for 5 years, Mrs Arden is initially confused by the society she returns to, from the cost of a pay phone, to meeting her own children who don't recognize her, to finding that her husband has re-married.  On top of all this, her husband seems to have a great deal of trouble informing his new bride that she really hasn't married him as she thought she had.  This leaves Mrs Arden in even greater confusion, with suspicions that her husband doesn't really love her any longer.

Mr Arden achieves his own confusion in the juxtaposition of his happiness at seeing his lost wife, with his hesitance of causing pain and unhappiness to his new wife, a person for whom he has genuine feelings.  The bride on the night of her honeymoon is confused in turn by her new husband's sudden aloofness.  In Mr. Arden's hesitance to hurt anyone, he instead makes everything much worse for everyone.

Later, Mrs. Arden reveals that she wasn't entirely alone on that deserted island, but there was a man there with her.  Then, things begin to get complicated.  And there's a car chase.


Twelfth Night. Viola is shipwrecked on a desolate shore, believing her twin brother to have been killed in the crash.  Disguising herself as a man, she is employed by the local Duke to woo the Lady Olivia, who falls in love with Viola instead.  Later, her brother, rescued by a sailor, reappears to take Viola's place as the object of Olivia's affections, leaving her free to return to her true persona and wed the duke.

Viola: My master loves her dearly,

And I, poor monster, fond as much on him,

And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.

What will become of this?
...
 “O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t'untie.”

"That's what I like about you, Roger.  No matter what calamity befalls your fellow man, you're still able to laugh about it."

"Eat...  You need strength to suffer."