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.
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?
No comments:
Post a Comment