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.