‘Stranger Things’ Season 1 Revisited
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This episode is brought to you by Metro by T-Mobile. Have you heard? Metro lowered their prices and are giving you a five-year price guarantee on talk, text, and data. Oh, and you get a free 5G phone, all with no ID required and no activation fees.

Bring your number. Not available if currently at T-Mobile or with Metro in the past 180 days. Guarantee covers monthly price of on-network talk, text, and 5G data for customers activating on an eligible plan. Exclusions apply. Details at metrobytmobile.com. Greetings, and welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. Joining me today, something's coming...

Something hungry for blood, something hungry for pods. It's Joanna Robinson. Yeah, hungry for blood. That's me. Joe, do you copy? Joe? Joe? Can you read me? Over? Over? Hey, buddy. Hi, pal. Oh, Joanna, we are here to talk about Stranger Things. We are here to revisit Stranger Things Season 1.

but also in doing so to begin our larger Stranger Things rewatch, our months-long march to the final season, to season five. Next month, we will be revisiting season two. In August, we will be revisiting season three. In September and October, that's our plan as of now, we will be revisiting the double volume drop of season four. And then, of course, we will have new pods on all of the season five drops.

thrilled to be back in Hawkins with you, thrilled to be back in the Upside Down with you. I can't wait to revisit this story together. This has been really fun to rewatch this season of the last couple weeks. Absolutely. A joy. A joy. Before we decide today whether to cast protection or fireball, though, some very quick programming reminders about some other stuff that we're covering as well. Next week, Squid Game 3. It is the third and

Final season of Squid Game. So they say, so we think. So we will be back in another Netflix binge next week with a couple episodes on the newest Squid Game season. Meanwhile, over on the Ringiverse, the Midnight Boys. A pew pew. We'll be covering the second drop of Ironheart.

and Jurassic World. They'll be doing both of those next week. Joanna, I'd like to ask you an important question. How can the folks follow along? Oh my gosh, great question. I suggest you subscribe to our pod, House of R, and also to The Ring Reverse. Why not while you're at it? Follow us on social. We're on TikTok. We're on Instagram. We're on Twitter. We're all over the place, so follow us there. You can watch us, of course, on the Spotify app or on YouTube on video. What a delight. What a joy.

There will be some video clips in this pod today. So you might, if you want to gaze upon the adorable children and beleaguered adults of Hawkins, Indiana, you can, you can watch us on, on the video platform of your choosing. You can always email us hobbitsanddragonsatgmail.com. That's right. We got at least one beleaguered adult here today on Zoom as well. I'm a little under the weather. It's both of us.

You're in the bloom of vibrancy and youth. You're slowly dying. I have surgery today. We're doing really, really well. Nothing was going to keep us from this pod, though. God damn it. Joanna. Mallory.

We usually issue a friendly neighborhood spoiler warning, and it's a pretty obvious one today. All of Stranger Things. This is, of course, a season one revisited pod, and so we will be primarily focusing on everything that happens in season one that left a mark on us. However, we want to be clear with folks, this is an...

months-long preview of season five, in essence. We are building toward the final season, and so we will be talking about things from other seasons as well today. Would you say mostly, though, that will be confined to the last couple categories that we're going to hit today? I think that the final categories will be the most prominent, and so if anybody wants to avoid them, we have a couple endgame set up, look-ahead prompts at the end today. I do think some... And then this adds

up being a thing in season three or like this is a through line might naturally come up today. I would say it's probably going to be like a 90% season one and then some other, uh,

you know, harbingers of future doom or young love either as we go. So everyone has been warned, but hopefully if you are watching Stranger Things for the first time, this is a safe and welcoming space. You can also always save the pods and come back when you're caught up. And if you like us are like, wait a minute, the first season of Stranger Things came out nearly one decade ago in the year 2016 in the month of July. It sure did. I need a refresher. Then...

Boy, do we have a pod for you. So here's how we're going to do this today. Because, you know, something that we tend to do in the house of ours is do two to three hour podcasts on one hour of television. When we are instead talking about eight hours of TV in one podcast...

We can't go quite as deep, of course. So we are going to do another favorite thing of ours, which is hit some highlights in category form. We have, much as we did for our Batman Begins pod recently, 20 categories today. It's a lot. It's a lot.

But a lot of them are going to be zippy. I'm so excited because, as usual, we'll be surprising each other with our picks. I'm so excited and genuinely interested to see what level of overlap we have because we covered season four together in real time. We had the pleasure of covering season four together. So we have a sense, certainly, of some of our shared passions. That was several years ago. That was years ago. We've changed as people. Do I remember? As television consumers and as human beings? No. So, you know, we'll see. Yeah.

A lot of surprises await. Okay, Joe, listen, friends don't lie. It's time to pod. Open and snapshot. We just mentioned that we podded about season four together. You also noted that that was many moons ago, many years ago. So just before we dive into season one, it's like a very quick primer, a very quick refresher for anybody who didn't listen to our season four podcast.

first watch pods what is your overall relationship to stranger things yeah so i was definitely at vinny fair when the first season premiered uh i'm sure i told this exact same story on the season four pod but um i have such a strong memory of this which is that uh i got this greeters it was a

time in Netflix's original programming that there wasn't so much content that I couldn't possibly watch all of, you know, so I was watching every single Netflix show that they sent our way. And this was just not on people's radars very much at all. You know, Orange is the New Black was so huge. House of Cards is so huge, but this is just like a silly little Winona Ryder

oddity and Winona Ryder obviously had been in sort of like a massive, you know, she had done Black Swan, but she was like pretty much in like a career decline at the time. It was like a nostalgia oddity. What is, what is this Winona Ryder 80s thing, horror thing? And, um,

And I started watching, and I was just blown away by the first episode. The score, when the SIN score comes in, the font. I got it. Like, just everything. I was just... And I had, I think, kind of recently...

Been watching a bunch of horror classics like Halloween and all this, like sort of filling in some gaps of my classic horror education because horror wasn't like a huge genre in my household growing up. And then I also had these really fond memories of when I was in college and we would stay in Davis for a summer session and it was like really sticky hot outside, like so hot outside. We would watch horror movies sometimes on summer nights when we were there for summer session. And so it just felt like summer.

summer. I felt like, I felt like melted popsicles and, and like screen doors swinging. And like, that's what it felt like to me to watch these first episodes of stranger things. And as much as I've enjoyed the journey, uh,

And I really enjoyed covering season four with you. I think season one is by far the pinnacle of what the show ever was. And again, that's not a huge knock on the other seasons. I just think this was like came out of nowhere, was originally meant to be just like an anthology show. But Netflix was so captivated by what the Duffers had created inside of this set of characters in Hawkins, Indiana. They're like, actually, can you,

build out the mythology of this world. And then the show was like this massive phenomenon and just got so huge beyond anyone's wildest imagination. So yeah, that was my Stranger Things season one experience. How about you? Yeah. I love the show just broadly. It's been a big part of the last nine years of my life. You know, I've rewatched it many times. I really enjoy revisiting it every time. Season one,

It was not a day one, this has dropped as a binge, and I have anticipated it, and I have sat down and carved out eight hours. But that was year one of the Ringer. I will be returning later to some 2016 Ringer discourse about season one of Stranger Things in one of our categories today. Okay, all right. I've gone into the blog archives, so I'm excited to read a couple passages to you. Excellent.

Written by none other than Chris Ryan himself. Stay tuned, folks. If that's not an enticement to stay tuned, I don't know what is. God damn it. But within days, the buzz was genuinely inescapable. It was a true...

sensation, like a true craze. And I also have a very vivid memory of sitting down to watch it for the first time and just being like utterly captivated. I'm so excited to go through the first season with you today and talk about the things that either like maybe stand out anew to us now, revisiting it

I'd like to just say once more, nearly a decade later, they're still making the show nearly a decade later. Many of the child characters are now in their 30s. Yeah. What a time. Well, the kids, so the young kids are now about the age that the older kids were. Were when they started. When they started. And the like original teens are now like 33. Yeah. Wild time. Yeah.

And I've enjoyed to varying degrees every subsequent season. I think my power ranking currently is 1, 4, 3, 2. That sounds right. I'm curious to see if that holds up as we go. I will say, though, 3 is much closer to 4 in my estimation than to 2. I think I'm higher on 3 than most. I have an incredible amount of power.

affection for season three. And that's one of the things I'm actually most excited about in the entire project is getting to season three with you and talking about like being a kid, going to the mall and going to the community pool and stuff. I just like, and of course, Hopper's Hawaiian shirt goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. So you mentioned the viewership, the reception. Let's just quickly contextualize some of that

To the extent that we ever can with a Netflix show where this stuff is like tightly guarded in a black box and is as difficult to access as the upside down unless you have found the mother gate. Per a Variety article from 2016, which was sharing data from Symphony Advanced Media, season one was at the time, at the time, the third most watched Netflix series ever.

To date. That was behind Fuller House and Orange is the New Black. Orange is the New Black season four. Fuller House. Astounding. When I came across it, I was like, that's a thing I forgot existed. Wow. Currently, Netflix keeps a running list of the top ten most viewed seasons. And two Stranger Things seasons are in that top ten per Netflix season four.

checks in at number three and season three checks in at number 10. And I would say that just bodes well for season five. And that's something else that we should kind of in like a big picture way note here. And this was not the case coming out of season one. Coming out of season one, it was just like, when are we getting more? Is this the best thing that is happening? Coming out of season two, which was, you know, a little less warmly received and less beloved, you know, still plenty of affection for it.

we entered a cycle of the run-up in part because of just the massive gaps in time, the waits between seasons of like, are people still going to care about Stranger Things? Do people still want Stranger Things? Is anybody going to watch Stranger Things? And then season three and season four were both also hugely watched, but also well-received and well-liked. And season four was like,

So that's pretty fun. When season five drops, it will have been three and a half years between seasons. And so I think that narrative will be present again, but also like it's the end of one of the biggest shows of the last decade of the Zeitgeist. I don't think after what happened with season four, there is going to be that question with season five. And I think season four, we loved it. We covered it. There was a lot for us to love about it. I also rank it second. But I also think there's this combination of like,

COVID, the emergence of TikTok. Like there were so many TikTok memes about the season. Eddie Munson is like this huge, like social media phenomenon. So I think- Kate Bush rising up the charts. Yeah, exactly. Kate Bush. So I feel like content wise, I think it is a solid, it should have just been one season, but that's fine. Solid split season. Um,

And then circumstantially, I think there was a lot of things that brought eyeballs back to a show that maybe people had, you know, sort of stopped thinking about for a little while. Yeah. Interesting. I'm curious to see how with season five dropping in, not one nor two, but three parcels, all mega-sized as we understand it, not in terms of episode volume, but in terms of the length of every episode. Yeah.

All holidays. A lot of Stranger Things movies to watch on Netflix over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, essentially. And folks, we'll be here to podcast about all of it because we love you. Happy holidays to us. The bad babies. This is a nugget that I found. Who knows what any of this means, again, with Netflix. But I thought this was just, again, something that maybe spoke to...

what you're identifying about that really instantly gripping nature of season one. This was not a show that had to work to build to a mass interest. There's a Washington Post article from so long ago, season one being nearly a decade ago. It's like really throwing me. I'm having all these like, how, my God, how old are we moments lately? I talked about this on our 28 Years Later pod, but listening to Alfie Williams, who's 14, the young star that

show talk about like like what's your obsession pop culture obsession and he was like stranger things I remember when I first started watching that show and I'm like I don't know when that was because he was four when season one came out and like I don't know at what point he was like maybe he was 10 I don't know when he was allowed to watch stranger things but he's just like this thing that's been existing is almost as long as I've been alive and I'm like that's a lot to take in it makes me feel quite

old and as decrepit as our dear season four pal Vecna. Mallory is infirm today and I'm having surgery so we're doing fine. Sounds like a great

So this Washington Post piece was citing some Netflix data that, you know, one of the things that Netflix likes to study and occasionally like plop out into the world is here's the thing we actually will share is when they hook, the hook episode, like when they hook. And the way that they define that is like 70% of the audience that gets to that episode finishes the season. And for season one of Stranger Things, the hook episode was episode two. Basically, if you started the show, you finished it. Yeah.

Which is just like amazing. There's a lot of TV out there and a lot of binge drops, especially in this era. And the fact that people are like, I'm going to finish all eight hours of this and I'm going to do it without complaint and frankly with joy in my heart. What a thing. A lot of TV out there, a lot of binge drop. But again, nine years ago. Yeah.

a much sparser field. It was so much easier to be on top of everything, uh, nine years ago, both as people who talk about television and people who want to like watch all that television. The 450 like screeners in my inbox thing was, was still a minute away. Yeah. Like Disney plus wasn't a thing. Uh, you know, Apple TV plus wasn't a thing. Um,

Prime Video was like barely, it was like Netflix had this chokehold. The streaming wars were, and you know what? Guess what? It still does. Netflix still does, but the streaming wars is a crowded field, truly. Critical response, fan response. Our old pal Rotten Tomatoes, imperfect, deeply flawed metric. Here's what that had to say about Stranger Things season one. 97% on the old tomato meter. Joe, the critics. 96% on the popcorn meter.

the audience score. 76 on Metacritic. People like season one of Stranger Things. They sure did. Let's very quickly prime some of the additional context. You've noted like the Winona Ryder of it all already. Some of this just like who were the key players? So Netflix. Okay, the ability to put something in the world

Bank, to whatever extent any streamer could at that point on a lot of eyeballs, at least knowing a thing was there in the carousel on their home screen, et cetera, right? Just like awareness at scale. The binge drop, of course. And to your summer point, while season one is, of course, set in the fall, set in November, it did come out in the height of summer, mid-July. Some of the other key players in addition to Netflix, the cast.

That combination, that particular Stranger Things alchemy of tapping into like 80s or 90s nostalgia with the adult cast. Not for everyone, but for some. Basically in season one, just Winona. Just Winona. And then it'll build. And then it'll build, yeah. And then the goldmine of finding these young actors who were wonderful are in balance with the adults. Like David Harbour...

my personal favorite and winona ryder have like lead billing on the show

I think it was striking at the time, but it's particularly striking on a rewatch where you're just like, yeah, this actually isn't... It was never intended to be, and it also isn't an execution, skeleton crew, say, a show we love. Right. Where, like, the adults are kind of, other than Judd, like, incidental to the story. They are not actually carrying equal weight. This story, while the children are the heartbeat of it in their relationships, as we'll discuss today, are the heartbeat of it, is really balanced across the kid, teen, and adult character sets. In season one.

one in a remarkable way. And then I think that balance shifts in later seasons. And I think nowhere do you see this more than in something like Karen Wheeler played by Cara Buono being like,

She's so much more present in this season than, you know, I mean, barring her phenomenal turn at the swimming pool later, but like, you know, she's so much, but she's so much more of a character this season than she will be in later seasons. And like, even though Carabona will retain, you know, not recurring, but starring billing going forward, it's just sort of like,

And this happens constantly across, you know, if you watch something, Bill loves to talk about this, but if you watch, like, 90210 or The O.C., like, a lot of those parent characters are so much more of a presence in early seasons. And then the sort of, like, teen stuff swallows the show a bit more. So much so that Cindy and Jim Walsh have to, like, leave the country. But, like, I think that, like, obviously, Joyce and Hopp,

very important. Yeah. But I think the balance starts to tip towards... And, like, critics of the show... It's really been interesting for me to spend some time on the Stranger Things Reddit boards where there's, like,

A small but vocal contingent of people who don't like anything past season one, which is like, you know, your own experience and that's fine. But they're like, oh, then it became like a kid show and all about the ships and all about this, that, and the other thing when season one was really a show for adults that kids happen to be in. And I'm like, I don't really agree with that, but I do agree that the- Nor do I.

That the balance of the equation tipped in future seasons. Just because these kids were so phenomenal, like young kids, you know? Yeah, and there's also – but, like, then that core kid group fractures, like, just in terms of the pairings and people – it's not always, like, the same group together. But also just in terms – for the adult cast, the sheer volume of, like, people they have to make room for really expands. Like, obviously we will have our beloved Bob –

Sam Bowens, Dustin's mom enters. We meet Lucas's parents, et cetera. So there's just like more tonnage. And sadly that comes at the expense a little bit of Karen and, and a character I will be talking about elsewhere today. Ted? Yeah. I've got some Ted content coming for you. Fear not. Joe, this show is made by the Duffer Brothers. Hmm.

Matt and Ross, who now have, after the success of Stranger Things, Upside Down Pictures, this overall deal with Netflix, they will be making more stories set in the stage show that they put on. Have you seen that? I didn't see it, but when I was in New York, there was just like a

all the subways were just sort of, like, papered with the ads for it. It was... It seems fun. I'm sure. If you're a Stranger Things fan, I'm sure that it's a super fun, like, theater experience. Similar, too, I think, like, how people feel about going to see Chris Child. You just, like, want to be in the world longer. And I hear that, like, the stagecraft is very cool, similarly to Chris Child. Do they, like, send...

upside down particles like out into the... I have not seen it. Do they project them on the... I don't know. Bad babies, if you've seen it, let us know. Some other key ingredients just to set the stage here before we dive into our categories. Obvious one, but a big one. 80s nostalgia in every respect. The pop culture homages. Amblin, Kids on Bikes, E.T., The Goonies, Stand By Me. Overtly invoked by our...

Core characters many times, obviously. Nothing could be more central to season one than Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Atari, video game culture, et cetera, on and on and on the list goes. Obviously, the music, the walkie-talkies, all of it. We have a category coming later on the 80s, so we'll talk about some of the aspects of that that gripped us the most. But the show is unmistakably – like, the time frame is not –

incidental to the story, it is unmistakably set in small town USA, Hawkins, Indiana, in the early into, as we build across the seasons now, late. The next final season is going to be set in 87. Exciting. 80s. And the time period is a huge part of that, as are the other things that were happening in the early 80s and throughout the 80s that are present in the character's life and fuel the world. Something I think that's really interesting when you think about Stranger Things, I think about it a lot in terms of

A show, much less popular, but nonetheless, I think, an incredible show, Freaks and Geeks, which only had one season, which launched a bunch of careers, which Andy and I talked about on the Stick the Landing series that we did on Prestige TV, etc. A show that I loved, but a show that was made by people who were teenagers in the 80s.

And so in the 70s into the 80s. And so they were like, this is our lived experience. We are, I am Sam Weir. I played these D&D games, blah, blah, blah. The Duffers were born in like 84 or something like that. And so they weren't teens. They weren't even like the age of the youngest kids in the 80s. This is a show that is reflective of growing up

with 80s pop culture. So it's not like I lived this. It's I saw this on television and this is my idea of it, which there's nothing wrong with that, but it's a different engagement with the time. So when you watch the nerds

of Freaks and Geeks. Again, a show that I love. Like, you're like, oh, these writers just wrote down conversations they actually had in middle and high school and stuff like that. And then when you watch these kids, you're like, this is someone who watched E.T. a lot made this show. And again, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Like, I am...

more the Duffers age than anything else. So like, but this is like nostalgia through the, another lens of like sort of pop culture filter, if that makes sense, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting watching this with Adam because he's a little older than me. And so the, a lot of the core pop culture tenants in the story, he was like, I was at the theater, you know? I was, and I'm like, when I was like in, cause I was born in 86. So I'm also similar age to the, the Duffers. And yeah, I'm like, well, these were just the things that didn't like

elementary school, in middle school, you started to think you understood the world by consuming the things that clearly had been the biggest deal. And that's just really fun. I think the other thing that

You know, we have to say about season one, because whether you talk about it, kind of like the concept, the key ingredients in the cauldron, even just like the first few trailers for it, how it was presented and positioned. The fact that this show in season one, undeniably, and I think still overall,

managed to not just be like a reference factory, not just be a pale pastiche, right? But its own wonderful, fully realized world that incorporated all of these elements of reference or influence as strands in the DNA, but not the totality of the DNA is I think a huge part of why it, why it works and why it's proven lasting. Um,

Anything else you want to say before we dive into our stranger superlatives today, Joanna Robinson? I don't think so. I don't think so. I think, well, I just want to say in addition to all of the pop culture stuff that you've talked about, D&D, Stand By Me, all that sort of stuff like that, there is also this sort of like, and this is something that, um,

this is when I love being friends with someone like Dave Gonzalez, who is like a conspiracy theorist or a scholar of conspiracy theories more like. And so he'll be like, oh, well this is based on this real thing that the government did or this thing that's signed, you know, and like this body in the quarry is this. And so it's like, there's also this sort of governmental conspiracy, satanic panic, like all of that stuff. Yeah.

pulling from the culture as well as the pop culture inside of this exploration of the 80s, which is really good. Yeah, that's a great shout. And that stuff will obviously become more overtly textual in the subsequent seasons. When the Russians get a little bit more involved. Yes, exactly. And when satanic panic is a huge part of a plot line as well. But yeah, it's here from the jump. And then I

I guess the other thing that we haven't noted and will come up later today in a category, but should say in terms of just cementing time of place, the music, I mean, you know, the score, you know, but the needle drops in the score and the way that they work together. It was like, yeah, but that's synth man. That's yeah. It's great. It's great. And also it's one of those things like we've talked about this a lot with star Wars music with the John Williams score and, and other scores that we love as well. But it is one of those things where you could be anywhere, right?

on any day and you could hear it and you would just be ported to a feeling. Yeah. And it's interesting because, so I told you that I was, I was watching it with my, my friend Diana, who's, who's never seen it before, but she's hugely into synth wave and like play synth wave music all the time and like goes to synth wave concerts. And so she's just like, fuck yeah,

And she was like, I think this is, and she like named the exact synth that she thought was playing and stuff like that. And I was like, oh, fantastic. Amazing. This is a different level that I could never operate on. But there, inside of the music world, there has been this massive wave of nostalgia for like the synth 80s, Tangerine Dream sort of like, um,

idea of things. And so, um, that's been really fun too, to like know that that has been exploding in the music world while, um, you know, we're all on our nostalgia kicks, uh, in our various places. So, yeah, truly. I love it. Wow. That's advanced. I'm just like, that's Peter Gabriel, you know, that's,

So I, as you know, I lived in the same house, house with Diana and her ex-boyfriend during COVID. And he kept ordering scents. He just like collected scents. And it was just like a thing during COVID. There were just like constantly scents arriving at the house. And I was just like, this is interesting. This is a, this is a lot. Um,

I don't have to deal with that guy anymore. Bye-bye. All right. Anyway. Great stuff. Okay. It is time for our categories. I don't know what you're picking. You don't know what I'm picking. We have a few clips each that we'll be dotting in as we go. It is time for our Stranger Superlatives. Okay, Joanna. Our first category today is favorite episode. What do you got?

This is actually quite easy for me because, okay, so Stranger Things is a binge drop. I don't know if you're going to agree with me, but Stranger Things is a binge drop. And in most seasons, and we'll see if this remains true upon rewatch, I have a hard time distinguishing episodes. This is like a true binge mash for me. I don't have like the one where, et cetera, except, you know, like Dear Billy. There's like a few sort of standouts. But so for me, it was either the...

or the finale, and I'm going to give it to the premiere because I just think that like, yeah, I just think, you know, and we'll still hear and seeing all the boys together and their D&D campaign and every, you know, like, I mean, I'm ready to bring in Ted Wheeler right now. Just say, I hope you're enjoying your chicken. Ted is like,

An old timer of a line, honestly. It's the best. We get everything in this first episode. It's all here. We get Hopper popping pills. We get everything is happening. Joyce is unraveling already. Everything is already served up to you on a platter. So I'm not surprised that the hook is like in episode two. But honestly, I just think like

I would be curious. So 70% completion rate from episode two. I'd be curious how much lower the completion rate is from episode one because I dare say it's probably not much lower. It might be like 69. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the pilot is just extraordinary. It's really good. So that's my pick. I'm with you. I think that this is one of the best pilots ever. Like, this is just...

not only a fantastically entertaining and gripping hour of TV, but it establishes everything crucial. I mean, the show builds and grows, of course, any successful story does, but it establishes so much right away about the tone, the intent, the mystery, the sense of place, the sense of time, and the character dynamics. Like you said, the fact that we get like the horror moments

At Hawkins Lab, you know, the chase at the beginning, eventually over the course of the episode, Brenner and Co. in their hazmat suits, the glimpse of the Mothergate divides. You're like, what the fuck is happening? You go from that opening Hawkins Lab first glimpse into just understanding immediately the depth of the friendship between these children. Like that first D&D party and the way that their bond is on display. And this is just like...

an expert way of showing us what part of the mission of the show is going to be, which is like incorporating the mythology from these touchstones in real life and making them a part of the story. Um,

And it's, of course, not just in the friend group and with the D&D game. Like, the dynamics at school are established right away, you know, with the mouth breathers, right? Troy, the bullies, the safe haven of AV Club with the Heathkit, Hamshack Radio. Like, all of that is there right away. And then, of course, also right away we understand that

as we do from real life. Like, life is just radically different. Only a few years later, we have our high school characters right away. You know, Steve leaving notes for Nancy, meet him in the bathroom, make it out at school, barb, what's it gonna mean? Nancy has to study, Steve. She studies so many flashcards. Flashcards is really a boy that took me back. Um,

The bickering with the siblings, there's a lot of great family dynamic stuff to highlight as we go today, but season one is really good at breakfast and at dinner, like at the Wheeler family table, you know, Mike and Nancy, everything is just wonderful. And then, you know, the kind of dual mystery of where did Will go and where did Eleven come from? Like, this is just, it's a lot of balls in the air in one episode, and it works wonderfully. I didn't remember whether or not we got Eleven in the very first episode, but we do, you know? And so it's just like, it's...

And the danger of the world and, you know, goopy creatures that we will come back to and all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, it's an astounding hour of television. It's so good. Just because I don't think it'll come up in another category today. Hopper will, to be clear. But, you know, the Hopper intro, which is wonderful. And that part will be coming up later. I do want to shout out.

In the Humper-Joyce scene, because Joyce and Jonathan right away, it's like, where's Will? Yeah. Jonathan's like, yeah. Will's like, Joyce thinks something is wrong immediately. Joyce is at the police station. Goes to the station. Yeah, yeah.

And when Hop is like hand-waving it, and this is another thing that I really love about season one and think is actually kind of amazing about season one, is the duality and combination and blend of like the characters who are open right away to believing something, whether it's something horrible or something extraordinary, and then the characters who are skeptics and have to move from a position of doubt into a position of like a dawning awakening. Everybody's on their own like place on the spectrum there, but it

It's not just a story where everyone right away is like, I believe that something amazing is happening. It's also not a story where nobody believes that. And I think that variance is really crucial. Hop responding to Joyce in the pilot by saying, my mom thought I was on the debate team and I was really, I was just screwing Christy Carpenter in the back of my dad's Oldsmobile. Wonderful stuff. Just historic Hopper intro across multiple scenes. And of course, also a somber Hopper opening in many respects. Yeah.

the electricity sparking and frying the phone, Will's breathing, like, and on the 11 appearance front, because I have the same experience that you do. Like, I've seen the first episode of Stranger Things so many times at this point, and every time I sit down to watch season one again, I'm like, you know, yeah, it'll be interesting to meet Al in episode two. Every

time, no matter how many times I see it, because I think it just feels so rooted around the D&D kiddos. But no, Ella's here like right away and the bare feet and the buzzed hair and the hospital gown alone in the woods. Everything with Benny's is with Ella's

Episode one, so sad. And then, you know, that iconic, the reason that, of course, we all should remember episode one is because it's like an iconic closing of the pilot. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin looking for Will, turning their flashlights and finding Eleven. It's like, I get chills every time still. So it's just great. My runner's up. It was not the finale, actually, though I think the finale's really good. That's another thing about Stranger Things. So many shows in the streaming area are just like,

I'm into this at the beginning and then the finale is dog shit. Yeah, yeah. Stranger Things finales are, like, consistently good. Yeah. I think episodes five and six in the middle of this season are really good. And I was...

Not surprised, but yeah, Flea and the Acrobat and the Monster. I was interested, but not necessarily shocked to see how many of my category picks today came from those episodes. They're meaty and really good. I really like The Bathtub, which is the penultimate as well. That's also great. It's a good season. Good season of TV. Okay.

This next category is one where I suspect we will also have the same pick, but who knows? Because there are a lot of places that you could go with this, including subsets inside of a group who may be all very different picks. Most important relationship. And this is not like objective fact, what is most important to the story, though you could interpret it that way. To you, what is the relationship inside of season one that whips you the most forward? Giving a disclaimer for subjectivity. Um...

Subjectively, I would love for Carlos to play my first clip. Ooh. It wasn't his fault? No. So you're saying he wasn't way out of line? Totally, but so were you. What? And so was Eleven. Oh, give me a break. No, like, you give me a break. All three of you were being a bunch of little assholes. I was the only reasonable one.

That is, of course, our beloved Dustin talking to Mike Wheeler about his rift with Lucas over something that Eleven did. It's Dustin, Will, Lucas, Mike, and Eleven. It is the kiddos. That is also my pick. Okay, great. It is the kiddos. It feels like

a cheat to do that group but like so many things are so important this fight and then the and then later when they go to to lucas's house to talk to lucas about it um this the moment where l um rescues mike from the quarry and chases off the bullies and the three of them dustin and mike and l sort of embracing that little cuddle puddle pile which is an iconic very special image um

Dustin talking about getting there, you know, years after they had all been friends. And he's like, I get it. Lucas is your best friend, right? And I'm just like kind of here a little later. And Mike's like, no. Like, you're my best friend. Will's my best friend. Like, later on, it's supposed to be a little bit more like Will and Mike were the best friends. But like in this season, it's like we are...

A campaign, a group, a unit. And then the tensions around introducing someone new, how Lucas feels threatened and upset by that. And that will happen every time someone new comes in. When Max comes in in season two, who feels threatened by that? So the sort of tenuous balance of young friendships, but...

Those kids and their connections to each other and the way in which L11 is embraced into that group. First, yes, mostly by Mike, who fancies her. But then, like, you know, Dustin, who is like, can you levitate this bloody Falcon? She threw you with her mind! Like, all of this is really cool. So that's my pick. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it has to be the D&D party and then Elle as an incorporated member. I will say, like, my... I almost picked, in part because I will be returning not only to the D&D party, but to a lot of the key aspects of why they are the pick here in other categories. Like, sometimes I try really hard to avoid story beat or thematic overlaps in my pick. It's just, like, impossible with this exercise. It's too important. But I did...

thinking about the emphasis on this group across some of my picks, I did consider strongly here going with Joyce, Jonathan, and Will, just the Byers family, which I think is a real heartbeat of the show as well. But I'll hit them in some other categories. I considered Joyce and Will. Yeah. You know, like Joyce...

knowing that Will was out there and all of that. But that will come up for me again. Yeah, we'll hit it elsewhere for sure. And I will say, like, I love Hopper, obviously. This is such, you know, an important joy season. And of course, Winona Ryder was so important for the show, grabbing people's attention in the first place. Um...

I've never loved Nancy and I've never loved... I like some of the Jonathan and Will stuff, but I've never really loved Jonathan that much. And then they were still figuring Steve out because they did like a sort of seven of eights through this season and reversal on what they wanted to do with Steve. So that's just like a real sort of whiplash turn on a character. So like the older teens...

are just like not my fave in this season. And like eventually when we get to like Robin and the, you know, like other things like, you know, and then of course when they figure Steve out, that is very important to me and all that sort of stuff like that. But in this season, the will they, won't they of like Nancy and Jonathan and all that sort of stuff like that has never gripped me. So that's like kind of a miss for me. But the young kids like,

Hell yes. I'm definitely higher on Jonathan than you. I, of course, now feel compelled to say that I do not condone Jonathan hiding in the woods and taking photos of Nancy changing in Steve's bedroom. Would like to just get that on the record and be clear. That said, I think I have, we talked about this in season four, but I am so moved by the Jonathan-Will bond that that really elevates Jonathan for me quite a bit. But I'll talk a little bit more about Jonathan in another category. Okay.

On the Steve point, yeah, it is amazing to rewatch season one because I consider, like, Hopper's my favorite character. That's House of Arc canon.

Steve is my second favorite character. I think Steve's my favorite character. Steve, Dustin, and Hopper are my top three. I apologize once again for not having a woman in my top three. I don't know what is wrong with me. I think it's like, for me, it's like Steve, Rob, and Dustin is like my perfect choice. Steve and Dustin are just undeniable. And then it's like, yeah, everyone has their personal favorite. You had Rob and then it's like so good. Rob and Dustin's really good. But on the front of the party, like, yeah, I think...

Again, I'll hit some of the other subplots of the party dynamic and other categories. But what a wonderful portrait of young friendship. I mean, this is just amazing. And the way that it ports you back, whether you had a D&D party or not, whatever your version of it was, just like

Who were those formative friends for you, right? Was it your middle school friends? Was it your high school friends? Was it your college friends? Like, whatever. Was it your elementary school friends? Was it someone in your neighborhood who you rode bikes with? Like, there's just something so deeply and beautifully relatable about that idea of the people who you went to school with and you shared a neighborhood with and in the summers you went to the pool with and, like, you lived your lives with these people. Like, that's what it was to be, like, a young kid back in the day and just, like, hop on your bikes and your parents were like, maybe I know where you were. No? No.

Really? This is not my experience. I mean, like, yes, in that, like, my sister and I took our bikes to theater camp every summer and our parents had no idea where we were. Like, yes. But in terms of, like...

I think what's so beautiful about these kids is like finding your people. And not all of us found our people when we were this young. Like I would say it took me until like sophomore year of high school to find like, like I had friends, but I'm not sure I had like friends who I think I was just sort of like, oh, this is what friends are supposed to be, right? Or this is who I'm supposed to be for a really long time. And then I like found my people. So when I think about like

that energy of the D&D campaign, what is that energy like? It's the group of friends I found in high school when we would, like, get together and watch movies and, like, play Trivial Pursuit and stuff like that. But it took me until I kind of had a driver's license or figured that out. Totally. That's what I was saying. Like, maybe it's high school, maybe it's college. Like, whatever time it is in your life, like, when you do find those people, you're like, we have the same interests. We want to... I have, like, very vivid memories of, like, the kids I was biking around with in elementary school or the kids who live behind me in middle school who I spent all this time with are, like, not people who I've

I maybe like Instagram DM a couple of them every now and then. We keep in casual touch some of them, but they're not my, like my best friends are my college friends. Like those are the people who are like most central to my life. But this still just this like kind of surfaces so many powerful memories for me watching this group. I love in particular on this front that moment in chapter two where they have to explain to Eleven that,

what friendship is. And Lucas says a friend is someone, it's this shared effort, which feels so perfect that they're all explaining it together. Lucas says a friend is, and Mike says someone you'd do anything for. And Dustin says you lend them your cool stuff like comic books and trading cards. And then Mike jumps in and they never break a promise. And Lucas says, especially when they're spit. And I was like, spit? And Lucas says a spit swear means you never break your word. It's a

bond. And then Mike says, that's super important because friends, they tell each other things, things that parents don't know. And I love this like idea that the code of friendship is the holy text of their lives. And then to watch it be tested, you know, like you noted to, to, I love that Dustin moment that you played in your clip. I love, um, not only the, the, the

all three of you are being a bunch of little assholes, but like then I love also in chapter six when he's like, do you even remember what happened on the Bloodstone Pass? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We couldn't agree on what path it takes. We split up the party and those trolls, they took us out one by one and it all went to shit and we were all disabled so we stick together no matter what. And then, so like you have the, the,

the pledge and then the challenge and the test and then working your way back to like cementing it. And the way that friendship is so core to like acceptance, their journey of acceptance in all directions. You know, when Elle reveals like,

Mike, I opened the gate. I'm the monster. This is, of course, a series long. Am I the monster or the superhero? Yeah. Through line and tension. And Mike says like, no, you're not the monster. You saved me. Do you understand? You saved me. Like, Elle needs a friend. Just like any member of that party needs a friend sometimes to help you understand who you are, to like work your way through your fears about the world around you or yourself. It's just like beautiful. It's beautiful. And also when Dustin is like,

You have to offer your hand to Lucas. It's law. It's the rule of law. It's the rule of law. Or be banished from the party. Or be banished. You know, like, these ideas, there's, like, these codified rules of their friendship. And, like, we'll get to Barb in a bit in our unpopular opinions about Barb. But, like, you know, there is something there in terms of, like,

Nancy dating Steve, Barb saying, you're going to be so cool. And just sort of that idea of like when those friendships fracture. Yeah, we'll have to find.

I don't think Nancy and Barb would have stayed friends, honestly, even if Barb hadn't been snatched. You know, like, I think they were on different paths in their journey through high school, and that happens. That just happens. Absolutely. It's a great shout, and I love that, like, that goes in all directions, too. In the season, like, maybe someone is moving toward popularity or newfound acceptance, but then there are plenty of moments in the other direction where, like, and this is, again, a through line, Mike, you know, he doesn't... There's that moment where he tells...

L he doesn't want her to think that he's a wasteoid is the word he's, he's embarrassed that he's been bullied and that she might find out. And then like, we build across seasons to like L is the one in that position where she doesn't want Mike to know that kids are picking on her, that they don't accept her. Even though as I'll say, like who would understand better than, better than I would, but like whether even the people closest to you, like,

It's human nature to wonder if you will ever be held in judgment or like if something will be the thing that makes you lose someone. It's just like part of the experience of this is a great coming of age story. And that's part of the experience of like being young and being alive. This idea of showing the messier parts of yourself to other people and how many...

Things inside of Stranger Things are, how many messes are created by people not being willing to share the messier parts themselves with other people, which is just a very human thing. Like what Will hides or what Max hides or what all these people hide from each other because they're afraid to show their messier sides to other people. So friendship. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Our next category, funniest moment.

You know how we're like, let's mix things up and sort of spread things out. No, it's just going to be Dustin again, right? It's just Dustin again. Carlos Lee plays clip. Let's go. Yeah, that's right. You better run. These are

She's our friend and she's crazy. You come back here and she'll kill you. You hear me? She'll kill you, you sons of bitches. She's our friend and she's crazy genuinely gets like a full body laugh from me every single time. I do have some runners up, but I don't want to step on what your pick is. So what's your pick? Mine is one that you have already mentioned today. Carlos, let's hear it. I hope you're enjoying your chicken test. What did I do? I can't. I can't.

how much this makes me laugh every time. I hope you're enjoying your chicken, Ted. I hope you're enjoying your chicken, Ted. And the look, the withering side eye. I hope you're enjoying your chicken, Ted. Ted Wheeler, very little total run time in every season, but always delivers as a completely oblivious...

We should just obey the authorities. Yes. Yes. Here's some other highlights. Just a few of Ted's other gifts this season. This is our government. They're on our side. Nancy with Mike as the kids are all lining. No, no. Absolutely not. This is to Brenner's crew. Our son with a girl. I mean, believe me, if you had a girl sleeping in the house, we'd know about it.

Wouldn't we? Ted never has any idea what is going on. Always believes the wrong thing. And it is just incredible. He is just also so emotionally unavailable and out of touch. In episode four, they believe that Will...

Their son's best friend has died. And that his decaying corpse has been found in the quarry. Karen's like, should we go to him? And Ted's like, come to us when he's ready. You don't think that that would be the moment to go check on your son? Ted is just a consistent comedic highlight for me. I get such a kick out of him. And not to get too... We watched the first two episodes of season two, and I'm really trying not to talk about them at all, but...

when we get the establishing shot of the Wheeler house and it's the Reagan Bush sign, it's just like, yeah, that tracks Ted Wheeler. Ted Wheeler. Big Reagan guy. Oh man. Hit me with some of your runners up. Dustin again. It's Dustin. Dustin to 11. We never would have upset you if we knew you had superpowers. All of his, all of his commentary on the powers is just really good. So great.

Mr. Clark. Yeah. Where exactly are you from? Eleven says the bad place and Dustin says Sweden. Shout out Spotify and our overlords. And then Hop just saying mornings are for coffee and contemplation. I've got that coming in another category. Pretty extraordinary. Yeah, that's my pick. Your most emotional moment. Yeah. This is pretty much, yeah, could be. Could be. Speaking of most emotional moment, Jo, let's swing tones.

From laughter to tears. I am banking on you having...

my tide for first so i went with this one because i really feel like probably you'll have the other one but we'll see i'd be surprised if my pick is is something that you think i picked yeah but maybe but it might mean the thing you're thinking i might have in another category there's a lot of category bleed in this exercise i cheated a little and smashed two little moments together but they're like back-to-back scenes um and it is somewhat an adult well rest in peace um

hamburger guy what's his name Benny Benny recipe is Benny but an adult being nice to Eleven and it's Joyce being nice to Eleven telling her she's brave and then comforting her when she's in the bathtub Carlos Lee plays beautiful and if it ever gets too scary in that place you just let me know it's okay it's okay I got you it's okay I got you it's okay I got you

First of all, like, you know, Joyce has been focusing her mom energy so hard on connecting to Will, you know, at the expense of her relationship with Jonathan to a certain degree. And it's all understandable because she is just like,

at her wit's end trying to figure out what the fuck has happened to her son. So, like, everything Joyce is going through is completely understandable. That she is able... Yes, she is motivated by encouraging Eleven to help her find Will. Yeah. But there is still just this pure mom energy coming from her. And the fact that, like, an adult... Eventually, it will be Hopper and Eleven is, like, you know, such a key relationship. And when she's in the bath...

it's Joyce holding one hand and Hopper holding the other. You know what I mean? So like he is there, but he does sell Eleven out at the end of this season. Let me tell you something. Of all of the like, this really like, I have so many core fundamental character questions about this on a rewatch. That's number one on my list. Yeah. Hopper selling Eleven out. But like,

It just matters so much to me. Rewatching this season, I was like, I can't wait to get to the point when Joyce is nice to Eleven. And also, we've just been watching her go into this, you know, black box space. And, like, it's such a traumatic experience.

for her every time and the way in which like Brenner has perverted this idea of Papa and the way that we like met her mother, Terry, and like how, you know, destroyed she is and all this other stuff like that. And so Joyce just like, you know,

Having her Jodi Comer, I recognize this woman giving birth, like the mama in me recognizing the mama in you, like stuff with Terry and then like showing up for her daughter here. It just matters a lot to me. So, yeah. That's a, I have, that's part of my life.

Logic for a pick in another category. I agree with you. I think that is just so moving and so beautiful in all directions. Joyce being able to nurture and care for a child while searching for her own 11, getting that maternal tenderness that she's never experienced. I love the idea of what you're highlighting about that traumatic and perverted relationship and also space then being like, you go back here and it's still scary, but...

It can be to help. Like, you're not a weapon or a tool. You're safe. You're part of a family. She says, you're safe. You know? And that gives Eleven the resolve to sort of keep going after she's seen something goop out of Barb's mouth, which we'll come back to. Yes. Yes.

Okay, I thought for certain I would know your most emotional moment, but you tell me what it is. My clip is a bridge to my actual pick. It's like set up for my pick. So we'll listen to my clip and then I'll explain what my actual pick is. Carlos, can we hear my most emotional moment set up? Twelve years. Twelve years she's been looking for her. When she shows up at Benny's five nights ago, which means we got a chance. You know what I would give for a chance? You know what I would give?

Okay. So that is Joyce and Hopper, of course. That conversation is from chapter six after they leave the Terry and Becky Ives' home and they're sitting in the car. And that is a way into my pick and also just this core aspect of this core relationship, the relationship between Hopper and Joyce, which, you know, they've known each other for decades. We'll explore that more in future seasons. Um,

Hopper's memories of Sarah, of his daughter. Is this what you thought I was going to pick? Here we go. Great. We're so in sync. Stitched together with Hopper and Joyce searching the upside down for Will. I can watch this 500 times and I will be reduced to a puddle. Like I'm about to start crying right now. When they spot, it's across the episode, but like

The couple most keen and intense moments inside of it, when they spot the stuffed animal at Castle Byers in the Upside Down, and then we flash to the hospital, and Hopper is cradling his dying child in her hospital bed, reading her Anne of Green Gables. Anne of Green Gables! It just makes me feel glad to be alive. The way that David Harbour reads It's Such an Interesting World, like,

threads me. It just shatters me. And then we cut to that shot of him in the stairwell alone, crying. And we know this is his relationship with his wife. Their marriage dissolved in the wake of losing their child. And you start to see already the way that the grief is so heavy in his isolation. And then to build toward, as you mentioned, the CPR. Finding Will, administering CPR, Joyce is like,

Will, it's me. It's your mom. I love you so much. I love you more than anything in the world. Please come back to me. Please wake up. She's like begging him. And, you know, I won't get into all of the specifics on the spoiler front here, but like we build across the season to this, the seasons to this idea of like, what can be your tether? What can be your tether back? That we'll talk about that more as we go. But this idea here of like,

And it's Will's mother's voice, but also it's Hopper refusing to let Joyce suffer the way that he did, the way that he pounds on his chest and is just like, come on, kid. And you can feel how his loss, the way that losing his child, losing Sarah, redefined and reshaped his life. And he just will not allow that to happen for Joyce. And the evolution of the Joyce-Hopper bond, which is other than...

Steve and Dustin, which is the single, like, greatest invention in the history of story to me. I just can't believe they came up with that. It's magic. I can't wait to get to season two to talk about it. Joyce and Hopper are the other most important core relationship in the show to me. And...

That's true across the seasons, but it's so, like, it's so just foundational here, watching it develop and the way that Hopper moves from, like, skeptic to true believer to frontline fighter. The way that his loss and grief and how that has, like, oriented and reoriented his life informs the decisions that he makes in this sequence. The slow, like, drip of what we learn across the seasons building toward Hopper.

you know, these really heavy weighty moments like throughout the show, like in season four, when he's talking about this idea of being a black hole.

Like, we get the beginnings of that here when he says to Marissa, the icon, slight tonal shift here, but like Hopper just like getting laid in the middle of this crisis and clearly being so good in bed that this woman, Marissa, comes out to the cold porch and is like, come warm me up. Let's go. And what is he's like, you ever feel cursed? Like this idea, not just that he has lost something and that is deeply tragic, but that there is a greater pull on his life. Marissa, run. Yeah.

Run so far away from it. Run back to bed for another tonal of the sack. Run so far away from Hopper right now. Which Hopper romantic glimpse is more meaningful to you in season one, this moment with Marissa or a genuinely iconic exchange with the librarian who he ghosted? Or in terms of romantic encounters, is it Mr. Clark convincing a woman to wash the thing with him? Um...

I love the thing. You know, I would happily watch the thing. This woman seemed less excited to watch the thing, you know? Mansplaining about the microwave bubblegum. My guy was trying to get into some microwave bubblegum of his own later that night. Gross. Disgusting. Absolutely vile. As eager, I would say. It's warm. It's wet.

Oh, man. So, yeah, that was my pick. As I guess you knew it would be. Beautiful. Yeah. Great stuff. I'm really glad you picked it because, I mean, yeah, when Joyce earlier in the season says...

that she knows it was Will because she knew his breathing. Wouldn't you know your own kid's breathing? And then like, she sees the look on Hopper's face and she's like, oh, fuck, you know? Yeah. I was, you know, we will have a closed captioning category later. And I considered just putting softball

which is under Hopper when he's like in the stairwell crying his giant body curled up into a ball in the corner of the stairwell. All of the way that is all deployed in the, in the final episode is exquisite stuff. Really good. It's so good. And obviously just crucial fundamental setup for this. Yeah. Incredibly meaningful future with, with Hopper and Eleven. Yeah.

scariest moment. And listen. This is so easy. I was going to say this is hard because there are, for me, no shortage of contenders. Season one is scary. So easy. Is Jonathan Byers taking photos of Nancy Wheeler undressing? Jonathan Byers' absolute creep show taking photos of Nancy Wheeler undressing. I really like Jonathan, but this is so tough. This is so tough. You're like...

This is so bad. Steve is supposed to be this horrible bully. Again, what is canonically true is that the Duffers rewrote Steve's ending of this season. They were going to kill him. He was going to be horrible. There has been some stories that maybe he was going to sexually assault Nancy. There's all this stuff that they were going to do with Steve. But when Steve is like, hey, you creep, and breaks his camera, I'm like...

I'm on Team Steve here. Of course. Yeah. Oh, man. The moment in the red light, like the development room. What are those called? Photography rooms with the red light. I don't know. I'm blank. Dark room. Dark room. Thank you. When Nicole sees them. And then Steve will say this when he's stomping on the camera. He's like, he knows it's wrong. And he does because he's like, he takes it down.

I mean, like, I understand that the kid does not have a dark room at home, but like he developed them at school. It's a no for me. What are we doing? Horrifying. This is worse than anything coming through the wall. Anything gnawing on something else. This is this. Yeah, I can't. I can't challenge the convention. It's a fantastic and inspired pick. Thank you.

I love complex characters, but when I rewatched season one, I'm like, I really like Jonathan and wish he had not done this. Like, I would like this to not have happened. Obviously, they need the photos so that they could spot the Demogorgon behind Barb on the diving board, but even so. He could have taken photos of, like, if he had taken photos earlier of the kids partying down there. Even that is so weird. Even, like, hiding in the bushes to take pictures of your non-friend classmates who were...

shot running beers at a pool party you weren't invited to. It's bad. It's bad. But

If he had stopped there, it would have been in this category. But when Nancy takes her shirt off and the shutter is still clicking, absolutely no. It's not good. But listen, George McFly is a peeping Tom. So, you know, this is just classic 80s shit, I guess. There's a good number of things that fall under classic 80s shit, I guess. Yeah, no doubt. Incredible pick. Might be the pick of the pod. Thanks.

My scariest moment selection is a little bit more conventional. For me, it's a tie between two Demogorgon moments that I genuinely find horrifying and on first watch found like...

I was like, am I going to sleep tonight? And then I was fine. And as we've discussed many times in recent pods, my tolerance for this stuff has gone way up. But in 2016, I was still like, this is upsetting to me. We were still so innocent. Sweet summer child that I was. Hadn't been hardened in the blood vomit mind of 28 years later yet. Yeah, we're that. The initial Demogorgon pursuit of Will in the pilot is terrifying. You have it coming? Is it a Demogorgon?

We'll save that for later. We'll save that for my series later. I'm excited. Tantalizing tease.

The first, like, flash of the light on the bike, the silhouette in the road, the crash running home, the dog, beloved Chester, I'll be mentioning him in another category today, barking, the waiting form outside the window, the sliding of the latch, the phone not working, running out to the shed, tiny little Will Byers. Will is so little. Of all of the kids, Will in season one, you're like, this is a, like, child. And what I love most. Loading a shotgun in the shed.

I know, again, I'm trying not to talk about season two, but the fact that Noah Schnapp, who just took a little longer than the rest of the kids to shop, he's now nine feet tall. But in season two, he's a foot shorter than the rest. He just looks so runty and stunted compared to them. As it should be, he's riddled with slugs and shit. Sweet little thart. The other...

really, I think, effectively scary stretch. And there are a bunch, but the other one that takes the, the, the terror cake for me here is the stretch at the end of episode, uh, chapter five and beginning of chapter six with Jonathan, Nancy, the deer and the Demogorgon in the woods. Um,

The cry of the injured deer and that whole thing, just very upsetting. We've learned when they're training to shoot, Jonathan has this traumatic past with Wani Shocker, forcing him to kill a rabbit. It's all very upsetting. And then Jonathan's bracing to take the gun and put this poor animal out of its misery. And then it is sucked into by a creature of another realm. And the trail of blood, horrifying.

realizing the deer is missing, horrifying. The single most insane, inexplicable thing that any character in the show does to me is Nancy crawling into the mini gate in the tree. We're going to come back to that. What the fuck is Nancy Wheeler doing that's deranged? Without even being like, hey, Jonathan, tie a rope around me or something like that. Yes, I'm going to go in. Make sure you hold my foot. Like, something. And then...

The sight of the Demogorgon feasting on its prey, the first step on a vine that gives us that hive mind activated awareness indicator, like Jonathan hearing Nancy screaming but not being able to find her, it's all just genuinely scary. This is one of those things where I'm like, if I watched this when I was 10, I think I would be fucked up from it. But I was pretty soft. It's a great pick. Yeah.

I have a follow-up. If you had rejected my Jonathan Byers Creepshow one, I would have said... And again, this is inspired actually by watching this with Diana because we know what happens. Yeah. And she didn't. Right. And so when baby Holly goes down the hall into Will's room and the wall starts to move, and she didn't know whether or not this is a show where a

little baby girl is going to get eaten by a wall. And so, you know. And that's a very scary moment. You know? The Holly trauma tracker. I know baby Holly is going to be fine. Well, she's going to need some therapy. That's what I was going to say. We should be maintaining a running list like that moment where, you know, Holly sees Eleven sneaking down the stairs of the dinner table and it's like, as far as Holly knows, this is just an unacknowledged stranger. Yeah.

And then the fucking blinking lights and the wall moving. Let's introduce our season two. Let's do a baby Holly therapy watch. And then we'll track that. I love it. You know what else? Actually, I find this is more upsetting than scary. But like when Hopper cuts open fake Will's body. Yeah. Oh, it's cotton. Pulls out the stuffing. I just when he's first moving the knife. I'm like, this is just a lot. Okay. Okay.

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We can make people happy.

And the epic, a Minecraft movie on Macs. Anything you can imagine is possible. The Disney Plus Hulu Max Bundle. Plans starting at $16.99 a month. All these and more now streaming. Terms apply. Visit DisneyPlusHuluMaxBundle.com for details. Our next category is open to interpretation. This is going to be a fun one. You could go in any number of directions with this. Most electric.

Is it most literal electricity or is it just sort of like adding electricity? A bolt of electricity through a phone could be sexual electricity. Yes. It could be emotional electricity. It could be intellectual stimulation. The lightning bolt of the mind, Joanna. Love it. This is my favorite category. Electricity, of course, is so key to the entire series. The...

This is... I'm going to set up... I have a clip here. I'm going to set it up just because it's maybe not as obvious listening to it. But this is...

Joyce in a cupboard with a handful of Christmas lights trying to make contact with Will. And then the sound you'll hear are the lights glowing as Will responds to her as best he can. Literally electric, but also very emotionally electric. This might pick in another category. I love that we have a lot of the same picks, but in different spots. This is interesting. That's great. Carlos, will you play this, please? Are you here? Okay, good.

I mean... It's a beautiful moment. Again, I don't know if that's the one I should have wasted a clip on, but, like, it's just like... Well, again, as you noted, people can watch, and then they can see. You can watch it. You can watch it light up, but it's just, like, it's actually quite beautiful. Gorgeous. And all the stuff with the Christmas lights is so iconic. That might be tipping where I have it. Oh, okay. Resurfacing. Sure. To you, not to the audience who has no idea what's coming. What's your most electric moment? That's a great pick. Okay. I am going with...

The electricity of the mind. The mind. This is... I don't think this is going to surprise you because I've mentioned this to you before. To this day, four seasons in, we'll see if this holds up. This is going to be a classic. Mal on House of R says, this is my favorite thing. And then 20 other times they say about something unrelated, this is my favorite thing. Right now I'll say, I think this is my favorite Stranger Things moment still. There might be 50 other things that actually knock this off the list as we go, but I just...

No matter how many times I revisit this, it gives me a chill, like, head to toe. Carlos, can we hear it? The Veil of Shadows is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death. No!

A plane out of phase places monsters. It is right next to you and you don't even see it. Dustin, the icon again, coming through with the victory here. He's just the fucking best. That is from chapter five, The Flea and the Acrobatic. Great episode. I will be returning to it in other categories. The kids are trying to piece together what they heard Will say. Dustin, our goat, coming through with a, it's like riddles in the dark.

The best. I will also be coming back to that. Elle still recuperating says upside down and then Mike recalls the prior flipping of the board. And then he flips it again and he says, what if he was there? Meaning Will at his home. What if we just couldn't see him? What if he was on the other side? What if, and he flips the board, this is Hawkins and this is where Will is. The upside down. And Dustin says, like the veil of shadows. And then he gets his D&D book and,

And he reads that above quote, a plane out of phase, a place of monsters. It is right next to you and you don't even see it. That last line, it is right next to you and you don't even see it, is like spine tingling to me. It's just so – what it does that I love, obviously it connects deeply to the core mission of the show to like incorporate these aspects of story into the story that they're making. Yeah.

It is just like, you know what's cool? Imagination, right? And I fucking love that. Yeah. And the way that, again, I think the show so smartly and deftly edited the way that this is intercut with Hopper penetrating, phrasing, deeper and deeper. Yeah. I love, I would like the show to have just a touch more of Hopper penetrating deeper and deeper. That's my personal opinion on it. This is your hope and dream for season five. No.

Oh, yeah. As you know. I actually will be genuinely disappointed if that's not something that we get. Hopper infiltrating Hawkins Lab further and further and just like naming the core element of the show here. We get the upside down label, our party,

working with their wits and their curiosity to puzzle it out and using these pop culture touchstones to explain the world around you just could not be more our shit. Like, it could not be more our shit! I love that. It's so funny.

I was so gratified when they did this because, again, I'm sorry that I have a million stories about this, but it was so fun to watch the season through the eyes of someone who had not seen Stranger Things in the year of our Lord 2025. And Diana kept calling, like Diana who's like, well, has played a lot of D&D as well versus in the world of D&D. Like she was like,

kept calling it like the nether realm the other the like negaverse like she had like all these other and i was like it has a very famous name i think you've heard it she's like i have not heard it i was like i think you've probably i think when you hear it you'll say oh i know that and then she's like nope and i was like you've never heard of the upside down she's like no i was like okay yeah here we are diana's a real one she's a legend she really is

She just lives her life. Great stuff. Yeah, so that's my pick. I just love that moment. It's great. Who better to give it to us than Dustin? Frankly, no one. Okay. Best coming of age moment. This is tied for me. Like, I almost put this in funniest moment. Carlos, will you please play this clip? It's delightful. They'll be like your new parents. And Nancy, she'll be like your new sister. Will you be like my brother? What? No. No.

No. Well, I know. Because it's different. This is my runner-up. Mike being like, not your brother. Mike being like, Game of Thrones isn't on yet. Chill. I am not like your brother. No. You know, and then he'll talk to her about Snowball and he'll lay a smackaroo on her. Like, you know, it'll...

you know they have their little first kiss and it's very it's wonderful it's very cute but him being like no not your brother after having denied to nancy that's right when else that he likes her despite being like pretty so pretty pretty pretty good pretty pretty pretty is um so yeah nancy and mike being like no more secrets and then both immediately lying to each other about their crushes yeah great stuff yeah

um this is a fantastic pick this is my i love the like yeah it's like i know you're not supposed to go with your sisters just to the school dance great stuff school dances i'll say you know what i'm gonna put a bit in it we actually will get we'll get the snowball in season two i'll save i'll save my my school dance thoughts for then um

I love that pick. In general, I think all of the... My pick is very related. And it also connects not only to your pick, but to our shared pick for the most important relationship and just the dynamic and shifting dynamic inside of a core friend group. Yeah.

Dustin explaining to Mike why Lucas is upset with him from chapter six, the monster. This is after Mike's botched apology and Lucas's insistence. He's like, well, I'll shake, but on one condition. Elle's out. And then Lucas has pledged to just go out on his own and look for Will. And then Dustin and Mike are biking. And Dustin...

Sage says, sometimes your total obliviousness just blows my mind. He's your best friend, right? This is the debate that you already talked about about who's best friend. And then Dustin basically is like, none of that matters.

What matters is he's your best friend. Then this girl shows up and starts living in your basement and all you ever want to do is pay attention to her. And then Mike says, that's not true. And Dustin says,

Yes, it is. And you know it. So young friendship in the show, like full stop, the best. But young friendship tested by change is like actually I think my favorite thing about the show. Yeah, it's a coming of age story, right? And like that question of can you make room for something new, whether it's a new person, a new idea, a new interest, without it feeling like it's come at the expense of like

and maybe breaking the soul and sanctity of the original contract is just like an endlessly captivating thing to watch. You called this out earlier, but like the fact that Lucas is the one who is so upset by this here and then he is like, I mean, Dustin too, but Lucas is really like, Mike, make room for Max in season two and is on the other side of it. And Mike's a little bitch about it. Mike just does not handle it well. A little bitch.

that also just feels like all of it's so true to life the way that these things move and shift based on which which seat and spot you occupy in that new thing um and all of this connects toward I'll save the particulars but as you know because we've we talked about it in a backward looking way in season four like one of my favorite moments in the entire show is a moment where Will and Mike kind of discuss this very idea in season three like well what does it mean if this is changing which I just like

melts my heart in season three. That scene just kills me. So just, yeah, I think this is great. And all of this kind of connects, obviously, to the formative friendship stuff that we talked about already today. And it's like, I like this. I like that this group feels like the most important bond in their world and also like a thing that's not always easy. That feels real and true. And I think the show just depicts that beautifully. It's great. Okay. Speaking of our favorite little nerds,

Our next category is the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool award for the nerds, for honoring the nerds. That is, of course, your favorite passage from Almost Famous. I got emotional when I saw that you put this in the notes. It felt like a real friendship moment for us. Yeah, that's what it is. I just love you and I think you're the best. I love you. What is your pick for this category? This is easy for me. Carlos, will you please play this clip?

Great.

You already mentioned Middles in the Dark. You know, we get some Lord of the Rings references throughout. But them calling a road Mirkwood and then just saying that to Hopper before then Mike explaining where actually it is on the map because it's not a real, it's a made up name, Lord of the Rings name they have. And then also just inside of that moment,

Lucas saying it's from Lord of the Rings and Dustin well-actually him and saying it's really, really good. So, yeah. Oh, man. That's a great pick. I love it. This, again, this is a crowded field. There are so many good choices here. I am going with a...

I'm sticking with our party once again, hard not to, but I am going with a Mr. Clark smuggle here. Great. I'm going to hit a couple great, really crucial Mr. Clark moments. Um, Carlos, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to preamble a bit before we get to my clip. Um,

The first one from chapter five, The Flea and the Acrobat, the backdrop of this is Will's funeral, like the funeral luncheon, grim. But our kids are on a quest and they have to ask Mr. Clark for some insights about this.

Evil dimensions. Shadow dimensions. Veil of shadows upside down. Carl Sagan. Cosmos. Other dimensions. Hugh Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation. No, actually, like an evil dimension. The Veil of Shadows. Mr. Clark does not miss a beat in the face of all of this. He picks up a pen. He picks up a paper plate. And he begins to draw. And he says, well, picture an acrobat standing on a tightrope. This is still to this day one of the great scenes in the history of the show. Now the tightrope is our dimension. And our dimension has rules. You can move forward or backward.

But what if right next to our acrobat, there's a flea? Now, the flea can also travel back and forth just like the acrobat, right? Now here's where things get really interesting. The flea can also travel this way, along the side of the rope. He can even go underneath the rope, upside down. Exactly. But we're not the flea.

We're the acrobat. In this metaphor, yes, we're the acrobat. Okay, and then they start to ask questions. Their minds are firing. Can they go upside down? No. Well, how could they maybe get to the upside down? They'd need enough energy to create a tear in time and space. And the way Mr. Clark just punches the pen through the plate as emphasis, you create a doorway. Like a gate? Sure, like a gate. I mean, this is just obviously foundational to how we and the characters will understand the connection between these realms. Yeah.

And then he also like, he tells them, cause they ask, well, what if this already exists? And he says it would disrupt gravity, magnetic fields, our environment. Heck, it might even swallow us up whole. Science is neat, but I'm afraid it's not very forgiving. Uh,

This is crucial season four, quadruple gate. Set up that line. I was like, whoa, revisiting that. And then the other scene that I want to cite in this smuggle bundle here is

is the sensory deprivation tank lesson from chapter seven, the bathtub, the phone call, interrupting the date when he's watching the thing that you mentioned, 10 p.m. on a Saturday, great stuff. And Mr. Clark, who is always happy to entertain a conversation, even he is like, Dustin, it would be great if we could talk about this on Monday. I am talking about melted plastic with a hot woman in my home. I found the one Asian woman in all of Hawkins and I'm showing her the thing. Yeah.

And then we get this exchange. Carlos, can we hear it? You always say we should never stop being curious. So always open any curiosity door we find. Dustin. Why are you keeping this curiosity door locked? Just a top tier bit of manipulation from our favorite, our favorite Dustin. But like that idea, the curiosity voyage, the curiosity door, the fact that our curiosity

our heroes, like our core characters here love to learn. They think school is fun and interesting. They think that their science teacher is a superhero and he proves to be like when they ask him questions, he engages and he indulges and he answers them. And he has fostered an environment where they're encouraged to think critically and ask questions and explore new ideas and like cultivated trust in them to believe in themselves enough to like ask something like

this I just think is amazing. It's just so awesome. It's funny because like I was thinking like how did they get his home phone number and then I was like oh wait they just have a phone book and they could just like look up his phone anyone's phone number in the phone book. What a time. Great stuff. I love this pick. Great pick. The fact that Mr. Clark does the punching through the paper plate move the like interstellar event horizon dark like anytime someone's trying to explain like wormholes or portals this is like a

a key trope and just very memorably used inside of the show. I really love it. So good. So, yeah. Neither of us picked, but we must remark upon it, the joy that all of our beloved nerds get to experience when Eleven makes Troy piss himself. But we can't, we can't get through the pot without noting that. Is that for the nerds? Okay. Yeah.

It's a big moment for them. They're like, Troy pissed himself in front of the whole school. I love when they tell Will when they have the Mary Pippin and Sam jumping on Frodo's bed moment with Will at the end of the season. And they're catching him up on everything and his reactions. And when they're like, Troy pissed himself. And Will's like, what? So good. So good. Okay. Our next category is best moments.

This is so weird. I really struggled with this one. This is the last one I did because not because I had so many options. I was like, surely I'm missing like a profound quote because we've already did like funniest moments. So it's not funniest quote. So it's like, I was trying to find something profound. And I know later seasons definitely have those moments and I'm, and there, they exist here. Maybe you're going to come out with a banger that I'm going to be like, damn, that's what I should have picked. But I'm going to, I'm going

Friends Don't Lie. That's a great one. That's just like the quote of the season. But I really did struggle with this category. What do you have? Friends Don't Lie is core text. I love that one. If I had not picked it for my most electric moment, I would have picked It Is Right Next To You and You Don't Even See It for this. But I went in a different direction. You've already mentioned this.

Carlos, can we hear my pick? Joyce is very upset. Flo, we've discussed this. Mornings are for coffee and contemplation. Coffee and contemplation. Flo. Is that how you make your way through the old ringer offices in the morning? Oh, my God. I wish. Coffees are for pod prep and meetings. Or mornings are for pod prep and meetings. I just love coffee and contemplation as he is like,

Arriving late to work, ready to hand wave the keys of the century in favor of a donut and a hot cup of joe. I have just never, like, swapped him out for more. Like, really, really. Phrasing. Nothing I say, like, I could say anything and it's not going to touch you talking about microwave bubble gum.

Hot plastic microwave bubblegum. Disgusting. Listen, 16 minutes into this season, we have already seen our guy Hop. Well, actually, I'll save what we've seen him doing for the next category. Oh, most memorable visual? Okay. Yeah. Just like no-note stuff from Hopper. Let's get to our next one. It is most memorable visual. What do you have? This is so easy for me. Now, listen. Are there more iconic things? This is all subjectives. Podcasting is subjective.

Is it like the Christmas lights on the alphabet that became iconography, obviously, for the show? But I'm going to give it to Steve Harrington with the baseball bat in the buyer's living room. Great pick. The fact that this was before they decided to last-minute redeem Steve, that Steve is like,

ha, isn't this graffiti funny? And then the next episode's like, you guys are assholes. And I'm like, Steve, you were there with the graffiti. Okay, whatever. Anyway, so late in the day, redemption for Steve. We love a character on an arc. We love a character on an arc, yeah. Steve shows up. He thinks about leaving and then he comes back. He gets the baseball bat. It will become an iconic sort of Steve accessory. This was supposed to be Lonnie. The way this season was written, it was going to be- Can you imagine?

Jonathan and Will's dad, Lonnie, showing up feeling bad about his interaction with Jonathan. And he was going to show up and save Jonathan and Nancy. Feeling bad about trying to turn his dead kid into a payday? The fact that it's Steve is so important. So much better. To everything that happens going forward. Imagine if Lonnie was a key character of the show going forward. Yeah.

So yeah, Steve Harrington with baseball bat in the buyer's living room, which is a light going on and off sort of thing. Absolutely fantastic pick. All right. I'm going to show you mine. Oh, thank you. I have two picks. I would fuck that zombie. Thank you so much for asking. All right. I've got two picks. Here's my first one. Obviously.

Just going to describe it for people at home. It's a hopper, belt open, dad bod on full display, and then the caption says, Inhales and exhales deeply. Shirtless, the pants unbuttoned and unzipped, such an incredible and important touch. Hair tousled, ripping a cig first thing in the morning. Yeah.

It's just absolutely incredible. I love it so much. Again, this is like our introduction to the character. He wakes up. He's in this like trash-drew apartment. He's about to like pop pills and wash them down with a morning beer. Put that trip to the porch. Meaningful and memorable. My co-selection is, as alluded to earlier, from Chapter 3, Holly Jolly. It's what you picked in another category. The use of the lights is...

Yeah. I got it. He's iconic. Like it actually is iconic. This is a recurring visual motif. Um,

the seasons, the way that light will be used to communicate across the realms. But this episode, chapter three in this season, obviously the lights are very key in the finale and elsewhere in the season, but this is kind of the showcase for how this will function. And I love the way it builds. Like Joyce first thinking that Will is talking to her through the flicker of a bulb and then like going to the general store, like Donald, just ring me up, ring me up, Donald.

And then like stringing all of the lights across the ceiling and the walls. And that moment that you mentioned with Holly, like following the blinking lights down the hall toward the wall. And then Joyce alone and the lights glowing and the pup Chester barking and Joyce nestling in the cabinet with this like,

cluster that she thinks is her son and the, you know, the blink once and blink twice and then realizing that that's not sufficient. That's not going to be enough. So she has to paint the letters on the wall to make this little key. And then the right here on the heels of Elle taking Mike and Dustin and Lucas there to be like, Will is here. And we're like, ooh.

And then the run as the lights start to just dance madly and the Demogorgon explodes through the wall. It's just like, it's visually stunning. It's very creative and memorable and just becomes such a core part of the show's visual language. You know, everything from flashlights as vessels to light bright. Like, this is like, just real key text here. It looks fucking awesome.

Am I allowed to introduce a slight well, actually, from the Redditors? Yeah. And it's only this. And I don't mind because, again, when they made season one, they were like, this is an anthology show. And then they were like, oops, we have to make it all connect. So there's some season one stuff that you're like, eh. So one of the things is like... Correct me if I'm misremembering this. But when you're in the upside down... First of all, upside down, Frozen 1983. So that's fine because we're in 1983. But like...

You can like sort of see light and move light, but it's not a one-to-one. So Joyce painting the letters on the wall. Question is like, would, we'll just see like 26 light bulbs. You know what I mean? Like he's not going to see the letters on the wall necessarily. So how does he know how to light up the lights? Yeah.

is a question Reddit's asking that I don't have the answer to. No one on Reddit had the answer to, and so they were just sort of like, yada, yada, hand wave, and that's fine. Interesting. Yeah. I think they slightly tweak the rules in terms of how the communication via light works. The particles of light when you're in the Upside Down in Season 4 is definitely an expansion of that aspect of the lore, for sure. In terms of what is in the right side up manifesting in the...

upside down yeah the frozen in time it's frozen in time on november 6th so this is after that interesting just you know and that's fine not as um troubling to me as hopper being like i'll tell you where 11 is frankly that that's way worse it's way way worse what

Oh, man. Okay, Joanne, our next category is goopiest goop. This was my suggestion, and then I was like, why did I do this to myself? I had to scroll back through everything to look at all the goopy stuff to pick the goopiest goop. But I actually think it's quite easy, and it is the tree gate that Nancy crawls herself through. It is just, to quote Ghostbusters 2, dripping visgoo. It is just like KY jelly o'clock. And that's what they...

actually use in these special effects so i'm not just yeah talking about microwave bubble gum they use ky jelly for this so it's just like she looks at this hollowed out hole in the tree and it's just like actively sliming and then she crawls through all this like me memories and kelp that are like filled with slime like there's some shit we're gonna

I was saving some of the other goopy shit for some of the closed captioning moments, but like, yeah, this is it for me. This is the slimy tree gate situation that Nancy's like, well, that's where I got to go. And then she crawls through and she comes out the other time and her hair is just like smeared in goo. All right. And then when her hand comes back through the gate. Yeah, that's gross. All goopy. Gross. No. Great pick.

I'm going with Elle using her mind to squeeze the brains of Connie and Brenner's other stooges in Chapter 8, The Upside Down. When the blood starts coming out of their eyeballs. Yeah, a very Mountain and the Viper-esque sound effect when it's just like pop. And the subtitle here is, in fact, squelching. Choking. Important. A lot of squelching. A lot of squelching. It's a very squelchy season, yeah. No...

I am going to talk about season four for just a second here, hit fast forward like twice if you don't want to hear it. No psychic warfare at play here as far as we know. Certainly we can see no twisted limbs, but still the bleeding from the eye and the squeezing of the brain, such a direct tie to how Vecna kills that it is troubling. It's notable. It's troubling. It's notable. Okay, this is the one I'm most excited for.

It's the, the internet was wrong about this. AKA, our excuse to talk about Barb. A character who the internet fucking loved. We don't like her. Who we do not. We think her, we think, I mean, listen, did she deserve to die in such a disgusting manner? No. No.

However, she's just so judgmental. And like, I get it. Her feelings are hurt. She feels left behind, like all this sort of stuff like that. I too have been at parties where I feel like I don't belong, like all this sort of stuff like that. But she's so judgmental of Nancy in a way that we just don't like at all. So I'm with you. I have a lot of room in my heart for people who are like,

Is my friend too cool for me now? That's a bad feeling. However, I am mystified by everyone's adoration of Barb, who is just a really bad friend, even though, yes, she's going through it. I stand by... This is where I'll be reading you a passage from a Ringer blog, because I stand by my take, which has been committed to print. Oh, great. There's an article published on TheRinger.com, what a great website, on August 19th, 2016. Wow. Christopher Ryan...

a cherished little bit of Ringer content that sprung to life thanks to a vibrant exchange in Ringer Slack and the Ringer office. And it is titled, Why Did Summit the Ringer Turn on Barb from Stranger Things? I will read an excerpt to you. I will not read the entire thing, but I will read an excerpt. Oh, please. Can I wait? Remember, Chris wrote this. However, three...

However, the reception to Stranger Things is following a familiar arc in American popular culture. Nothing can be loved without also being hated. The counter-revolution is taking place at a new content site called The Ringer. Founded by Bill Simmons, The Ringer specializes in profiling lonely NFL players and celebrating the work of Todd Phillips. I mean, honestly, still true. Yeah.

But within this seemingly benign editorial venture lives a lunatic fringe who target the most beloved Stranger Things character, Barb. Quote,

This is how you know this was almost a decade ago. The sneaker count there. I know. Very small. I was going to be like two, but other than that, the brand is very strong. I'm pretty sure.

pretty consistent i don't think you're really you don't postmate as much anymore do you or is that your number one a lot a lot of door dash in my life but i mix it up the quote continues barb love has seeped through our walls and exploded through our speakers at its high time we lock it in a bear trap beat it with a baseball bat and light it on fire what exactly did barb contribute to this story she failed to shotgun a beer slut shamed her best friend contaminated

pull with her oozing bodily fluids and then fucking died in a tale full of heroes and charmers barb's just another haircut she's the eggo waffle no one toasted the walkie no one turned on i'm right side up people i'm out on barb reactions to ruben's infective mirror

Mirror those of the crowds attending Donald Trump rallies. Perhaps they don't know what they are saying, but they sure are saying it loudly. Danny Chow, a competitive eater and part-time basketball blogger, claimed, quote, I watched 1.5 episodes of Stranger Things waiting for Barb to get iconic. Never happened.

This, okay. There's a whole article waiting for you if you want more. Just delicious, incredible, great work from Chris, great work from you. What a time to be alive. I think part of this might be

Like, you and I share our sort of, like, who gives a shit about Barb. I never got so riled up because I didn't... I was never... Like, I don't know if you watched Stranger Things after the internet had already made a big deal of Barb, which might have been, like, a problem where you're sort of like, why is everyone talking about Barb? She's barely in the show and then she dies and who the fuck cares? And...

I had the displeasure of watching the show and then watching the internet lose their collective mind for no good reason over Barb who gives a shit. So rest in pieces, Barb. We hate you. I just think Barb was so mean to Nancy. I don't think she was like mean. She was just like annoying and like... She's like, don't go upstairs and fuck around with Steve Harrington. I don't know. I didn't like it. This isn't you. This isn't you. Yeah. But it's just like...

I guess I will say this, and this is my worst quality. I enjoyed Stranger Things a lot more before it became like a Barb Eggo meme, which is like what it felt like it became after it really hit the internet. You know what I mean? Yeah. Waffles are delicious, though. Waffles are delicious. Eggo is my favorite. Are they your favorite? You're more team waffle than French toast or pancake? Oh, yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Now I know anything about you that I didn't know before. Leslie Knope and yours truly. Big waffle fanatics. Great stuff. Leslie Knope is a character on another television show. Not from the 80s, but it does bring us to our next category. Favorite pop culture, Thai, influence. Indiana reference. Or that. That would work too. Yeah. The great state of Indiana. Joanna, what is your favorite of all the many choices? Pop culture, Thai, influence, reference, homage, anything. This is really difficult. Yeah, it's hard. There's a lot of options.

But I have to give it to...

the ending moment with Will in the bathroom and the mirror and coughing up a future dart, which is a clear homage to the end of Twin Peaks when Ada Dale Cooper comes back from the Black Lodge and you're like, oh, phew, everything's fine. Our hero's back from this other nether world where he was and everything's fine. And then you find out that he has been infested with evil and he's like, where's Annie? And he's in the bathroom and there's the mirror. He's like, where's Annie? Where's Annie? And you're like, holy

holy shit, Dale Cooper. So you're like, oh my no. So yeah, so a little Twin Peaks-y ending to this. Does Three Musketeers play as crucial of a role in the future of that story? Three Musketeers are gross. Not a fan. And should be ashamed of themselves.

Nougat? Not a fan. I don't mind nougat in a candy bar, but there needs to be more of a balance of other ingredients. Yeah, as an element in a Snickers. It's a ratio. Not as like an entire meal. This is where Dustin loses us, I guess. We'll save it for season two. This is only bad taste. It might be. Yeah, this was super hard because there are so many. That's a great one. I love when you talk Twin Peaks to me. I'll do like... So...

In terms of incorporation, I think we got to give it to D&D, of course, Pivotal. In terms of homage, I'll go with just the E.T. kids on bikes. Blonde wig on 11. Spirit of light blonde wig on 11. Definitely.

But for my favorite just series of references, it's a tie between all the Star Wars stuff and all the Lord of the Rings stuff, but I am going to give it to the Lord of the Rings references because I think they're subtler in a way that I really admire. Obviously, like, Will the Wise is a Rings-inspired wizard. The password to Castle Byers is Radagast.

You already mentioned everything with Mirkwood and the conversation around that. We talked about Riddles in the Dark. It's just, I don't know. It's like so seamlessly stitched into just their actual conversations and the rhythm of their life. And you're like, yeah, these kids love this thing. You know, it's great. Hearing Winona say Radagast is like very strong. Very, very good. It's a treat. I will also say Dustin with the chocolate pudding is, of course, a goodies reference. Will with the...

Tentacle down his throat. Very alien, obviously. Yeah, the alien egg. Also the egg. Yeah, the egg shell that they find. For sure. Firestarter Drew Barrymore for 11, of course. And then the X-Men. Yes. They talk about X-Men issue 134, which is Dark Phoenix. Great stuff. And then we get

later going full Dark Phoenix. So, yeah, it's great. I also love all the movie posters. This is the thing where I'm just like, this is great. Like, there's a Jaws poster, you know, we'll get, like, the thing. Lonnie's like, not appropriate. And when he's looking at what's in Jonathan's room, it's Evil Dead. This is one where Adam is always like, it would be so hard to find

posters at that time. And I'm like, okay, okay. He's really, he's like, he's so hung up on it. And I'm like, it's for me, that's just not a, we used to go to movie theaters. We used to go to movie theaters and wait for them to like take their posters out of the lobby and like you take them home. So there is no way well buyers would have that poster. He's like, yeah. Okay. All right. As usual, you two are aligned. Joanna, our next category is the most potent use.

Of 80s nostalgia. I'm not sure this is right, but it's right for me. So this is what I'm going for, which like, I don't know if you remember this, but in the 80s, maybe the early 90s, maybe, maybe I am misremembering the time, but there were these like little like crumpled dancing Coke cans that you could like that they had like a battery in and they would like crumple and dance and play music.

So when Eleven crumples the Coke can, I decided it was an homage to this thing that my neighbor Max Horowitz had, the crumpled dancing Coke can. Shout out Max Horowitz. Shout out Max Horowitz. Great call. Not the last time that evolution in the world of Coke will prove central to the story. Stay tuned for our new Coke discourse in future seasons and future podcasts. Sounds great. Can't wait. How about you? So I'm going with...

And under this falls the kids on bikes, the walkie-talkie communication system, the basement playdates, et cetera. But I am going out with the umbrella over all of it, which is not contained to the 80s, but feels very 80s when you watch it. Parents never knowing where the fuck their kids are. Oh, yeah. That is the most 80s thing about this show to me. Mike's saying, tell them I left the country and then running out the back door and Karen's being like, what?

I mean, and this will be a thing across seasons. There are stretches in subsequent seasons where these kids are gone for days. I might be introducing in a future... We'll see if it's maybe... Which season? We'll be right. Will it be season two? Maybe season three? Certainly season four. We'll have a like...

hygiene check-in. Oh, when have we showered? Yeah, kids are wearing the same outfits without having cleansed. Oh, that's a real Eddie Munson issue later on. It's concerning. But speaking of clothing, Joanna. Oh, yeah. Who was your fit lord of season one? This is easy.

What is it? It's Lucas. Lucas, he's got an incredible, like, Mallory-coated jacket, right? With the, like, shirling collar, blah, blah, blah. And then when he ties the headband on his head to, like, get ready for battle. Yeah. This kid is, he's got it. Not only does he have great fits, he knows how to accessorize. Of course, the wrist rocket, one of the most essential things.

accessories from you know what this is not relevant to fit our fit lord category but it is making me remember that um i'd be because it reminds me of what lucas carries in his backpack i would be sad if we concluded the pod without noting could have had this in funniest moment when lucas empties out his backpack when they're prepping and he's got like his binoculars and his knife and he's like knife from nam and then dustin empties his and it's snacks

Someone's bringing snacks, man. Nutty bars, bazooka, piss, Smarties, Pringles, Nilla wafers, apple, banana, and trail mix. Knife from Nom. The best. Yeah. I feel like that says some things about Lucas's home life that I would like to know more about. For sure. Definitely. My pick for Fit Lord of Season 1 is Steve the Hare Harrington.

You know, I did not get to gush on this pod as much about Steve as I will in future podcasts where he becomes the most important character in the history of story. Obviously. We're actually going to have to, I think, work hard in season two to not pick Steve and Dustin for like everything. Every category. It's going to be hard. We'll see. You chose like I make no such promises.

Diana, like I told you this, I had to keep so quiet about Steve because Diana's like, this guy sucks. And I'm like, yeah, he sucks. And then we were like two episodes into season two. We haven't watched past that. And I'm like, Steve, pretty, you know, whatever. And she's like, I don't know.

I don't know. He did some shit. And I was like, okay, when is it going to happen? I know she'll turn. I know she will. But I'm just like, I thought by season two, I would get to like, just be more open about this, but I'm still keeping my mouth shut about it. Once he challenges Tommy and Carol about Nancy and then goes to clean the graffiti, even though like when he goes to Jonathan's house, he still kind of slips back into douchebag mode when he's like, your hand's bandaged. Did he hurt you? He's like, okay. But then he comes back.

God damn it. I know. By season two, he's just undeniable. Steve is a classic 80s jock preppy hybrid on the fashion front. You don't like it? I think the hair, obviously the hair evolution crucial. We'll talk about that more in future seasons. But the jacket. It's a big jacket. It's a members only jacket, right? He's just got like over the course of all the seasons, he's like...

I would say that the way Steve dresses both his sneakers and his jackets really foretold the return of certain current fashion trends. The tapered jean is great. Wonderful stuff. It's great stuff. That's an eel drop. This is a tie for me. Like the song of the season is Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash, obviously. Yeah.

But When It's Cold I'd Like to Die by Moby, which plays during the CPR, then flashes to Sarah dying, and then we'll come back on the show in a different season. Yeah. Like to return to Needle Drops. It's a tie for me between those two. I would say the heavyweights are in the season. Inside the season, certainly, should I say or should I go? Yeah.

I do love the way that, like, it plays on the radio when Jonathan's driving to Lonnie's and then we flash back to, like, him introducing Will to that music. That's, like, maybe the scene I like Jonathan the most in. Yeah, it's so... It's wonderful. Yeah, I love them. The way that Will, it's like his...

that he's repeating to himself in the upside down to maintain that tether. It's great. The other one that feels like a heavyweight to me inside of the season, but this is admittedly because of future season knowledge, is when we get heroes at the end of chapter three because that will come back. That's a song, a needle drop that they will return to. But neither is my pick. I am going with Atmosphere, Joy Division, which I think is used wonderfully in chapter four, The Body. Nice.

This is after Hopper has told Joyce and Will that Will has died. Hopper driving away, that shot of Jonathan with his headphones on, crying and mourning and kind of like holding himself in bed and then Joy fetching the axe to assume the position because she does not believe that this is true. And it's just such a haunting, intense song. And it's a perfect choice for that sequence. I think it's really great. Excellent. Excellent pick. If this show had Netflix subtitles, we'd...

But like, not really. We're kind of before the era of the true Flesh Distends Wetly. Nothing tremendous. Flesh Distends Wetly comes from the show. Yes. Comes from season four. So that's when we first started talking about Netflix subtitles. We're, yeah. I will give it to, as you mentioned, there's a lot of squelching. Yeah. Squelching bubbling. That's my pick.

When the slug comes out of Barbara's mouth. Rotting barb. Yeah. That's great. If we get a moment like that in season four, it's like demo slug plug squelching and bubbling and gaping, festering mouth sore. Yeah. We get a bit more evocative later on. Yeah. Great. It kind of had to be squelching, bubbling. Bubbling. Squelching, bubbling. Bubbling really steals it.

Okay, this is where we're going to talk a little bit more explicitly about the future. About what has happened in subsequent seasons and also what might await in season five. So if you don't want to hear that, thanks for being with us today. We'll see you next time. If you've seen all of Stranger Things or you haven't but you don't mind listening, our next category is the most enticing endgame setup on a rewatch. This is more like theory corner than anything else for me. Maybe you have something else, but like

So when Will goes missing in season one, episode one, there is a grandfather clock sound in the background. And I actually don't know if this is one of those things the Duffer brothers went back in and put in because as they said, they've just been like subtly editing the show. Fixing Will's birthday. Yeah, et cetera, et cetera. But here's where I come back to the Demogorgon question. Okay. Instead of a Demogorgon, was it actually Vecna who took Will? Yeah.

This is because unlike the other Barb, the deer, all the dead people in the hallway, Nancy and whatever, Will is not bleeding when he is taken. Like, what is it that attracts this thing to him? We just see a figure, a shadowy figure standing up in silhouette. So was it Vecna chasing Will instead of the Demogorgon? And here are some bits of evidence. Thank you,

You, you absolute net jobs on the Reddit. Um, you mentioned the, the, the lock on the door, the chain on the door sliding off that's telekinesis, which is something that Vecna can do that the Demogorgons cannot do. Right. Um,

This theory that this is the only time Vecna came through before season four, which is why the upside down is stuck in November, 1983. Cause this is when Vecna came through the first and only time before season four. And this idea that Vecna took will because of the profound connection that he felt to him. And so Vecna,

Because this ties into this other question people have of, was Will singing the clash in the Upside Down tied to the way that music has been used later in the series with Kate Bush and other things as like a psychic defense against Vecna? Did Will singing that song keep him alive somehow? Yeah.

And that would be true as a defense to Vecna, but not as true as a defense to the Demogorgon, because Demogorgon doesn't really give a shit if you sing The Clash or Kate Bush or whatever. But that is what saves your mind from Vecna's intrusion. So is this all good? And if it happens, it would be something of a retcon, which I'm not mad about. But it would be interesting to me if Vecna was hunting Will or even sent the Demogorgon after him in the first place.

because Will is special versus this thing is bleeding, this thing is bleeding, this thing is bleeding, et cetera, et cetera. Also the Demogorgon being able to open gates, which is not really a thing that the Demogorgon can do in later seasons. Is this something that Vecna was able to sort of like manifest and help happen? Or is it some, as a result of, of the Demogorgon connecting to L like whatever it is. But I like this idea of,

the vanishing of Will Byers and Will surviving the upside down, being more closely tied to some of the Vecna-centric stuff that we see later. Yeah, I'm a big fan of this theory. And I think that the centrality of Will on the mythology front and the

uh, entwining of the will and 11 stories is so central in seasons one and two. And then like really sidelined in seasons three and four, like will is present, but I mean, in season three, will is like, doesn't have a lot to do. And in season four, it's more about his like journey of identity. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

I feel like the connection between Will and the Upside Down and every aspect of that realm and how Vecna has... Everything that's happening, it kind of has to be a big thing in season five. It just feels like it has to be. So if this reveal or retcon, whichever, helps us along that journey, I think it will be worthwhile. The gate thing is another thing that...

Yeah, based on everything we understand about the psychic magic opening the gates from what Eleven does and then from Vecna's kills in Season 4, I do have questions on a rewatch where I'm like, how are these mini gates? What's going on there exactly? And also, how should we be thinking about that in terms of the closing or opening gates? So I think all of those points are...

are interesting and good. And in general, we just, yeah, we need more of a, a will resurgence on, on that lore front. I think I liked that one a lot. Mine is related in the sense that it is also about Vecna and the intentionality of all of this. I actually have a clip for this. Carlos, can you play it? It's reaching out to you because it wants you. It's calling you. So don't turn away from it this time. I want you to find it.

understand that is of course papa welcome to the chat matthew modine yeah i haven't mentioned him but it's very important quite after what a writer being in this you're like matthew modine is in this too that that was like you know before any of these kids popped off or no one knew who the hell david harbour was yeah this is what made him famous yeah yeah and rightly so rightly so rightly so

So that clip, that's Papa, that's Brenner talking to Eleven in one of the memories we get in Chapter 6, the monster.

In this key sequence at Hawkins Lab, where having previously gone to the sensory deprivation tank and heard this strange sound, Papa sends Eleven back in and has gathered these throngs of assembled to watch and tells Eleven, whatever it is, it can't hurt you, not from here. There's nothing to be frightened of. And then says what we just heard in the clip.

Now, this has always felt big, always felt crucial. Like, it's reaching out to you because it wants you. It's calling you, so don't turn away from it this time. I want you to find and understand. It feels newly, hugely significant after season four, heading into the endgame of season five, knowing what we know now about the history between one and eleven. Between Henry, one, Vecna, whatever we want to call them, and eleven. That eleven sent one to the Upside Down in 79. Mm-hmm.

That everything in there, and this gets to what you were theorizing about, whether it's Vecna or a Demogorgon, that Vecna is deploying this thing we learn about the hive mind, this idea of the spider and reworking the particles of the smoke monster into the spider-esque mind flayer and putting these particles into these creatures and working his control, controlling in this fashion. That El...

found one's army or a soldier in the army by mistake. But is that the case? Because, you know, we have all of these things that we learn across seasons. Like in season three, we have the whole like building it for you, uh, Billy plot with, uh, but the, in terms of the psychic connection, um,

and the opening of the mother gate here, and then the gate spawning psychic kills from Vecna in season four, as he's seeking to like break the dam and, and overtake Hawkins. When Elle bests the Demogorgon in the season one finale and kind of, we get the moldy voldy confetti, um, and the particles are left behind. It just looks so, so, so similar to how she casts Vecna.

through in season four. It's like identical imagery in season four, but in the flashback in the 79 timeframe. And that Papa, this idea that Brenner has, as Elle speculates in season four,

been actually looking for Peter Henry one Vecna the entire time. Watching this scene in this exchange through that lens, I think really like amplifies it. The idea that what happened here wasn't by accident, but was just another step in this twisted shared journey. And that Brenner was actually like, where did he go? I know he's out there. I feel like I'm really excited to see, I think this is their intention is to like really, really,

tighten the net altogether. You've talked a lot about like your time travel theories and stuff like that, but like no matter what, something that

Avengers Endgame does is just like wrap an arm around all of the MCU up to that point and I think there is something there are things that season five of Stranger Things can do to sort of wrap itself all the way around back to season one in a way that I'm really excited for um that brings us to our next category yeah biggest season five question tied to this season

Yeah. This is tough to differentiate the two, but I will say, I guess my question is, after watching the season, where are you on the idea of does Will have to stay in order to close the upside down? Does Will have to stay on the other side? We talked about this a lot when we talked about season four and how we were like,

we don't love the optics of this like lonely gay kid being having to sacrifice himself for everyone else's happiness inside of this world. But like, yeah. Or, or does 11 have to do that? But like this idea that someone has to stay on the other side in order to close the gates forever. Yeah.

Yeah. Is something I've been thinking a lot about in terms of season one, you know? Yeah. It's still on my mind too. Related to another key question of like, are those nosebleeds just going to actually cause a fatal brain hemorrhage at some point? You know, maybe it's, maybe it's easier to stay behind if you're like, sometimes her ears bleeding too, you know? Roy, I'm just about out of blood now. Yeah. This is where I would like to talk about the family dog for a minute. Chester.

What the fuck happened to this dog? Now, I know the actual answer. This has been explained in interviews. David Harbour did not like the dog. They've said it. Okay. I find that distressing, but it's... Everyone has a flaw. It's out there. However, I believe that we are owed a more formal in-universe acknowledgement. And Noah Schnapp saying at a stranger con that they made a grave for Chester is not sufficient. I'm sorry.

This dog is, like, very present in season one, right? Right up to eating the ham and the Christmas Eve dinner. Like, no, no, nothing about the dog after that? Also, Chester, like, throughout the season is always like, Will's right here. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, that, and that's the thing I'm like, did, should we be concerned? Is it the exposure to the open gates? Yeah.

from the upside down that led to Dear Chester's demise. Huff too many particles. You know, like there's one moment in the season when they're about to head through and Joyce, they're like, yeah, it's toxic, suit up. And Joyce is like, my kid's in there. Like the number of times that these characters are exposed to this. It's like, should we be concerned? It's worth asking. I do have a more, two more like actual serious. And these also like your one in the prior category are more like kind of theory, theory corner stuff.

We talked about this in our season four pods a lot as well, but is one, is Vecna going to be revealed as Eleven's genetic father? Because Becky telling Hopper and Joyce that Terry didn't know she was pregnant while part of the MKUltra experiment. Now, as I understand it, I have not read the supplemental novels. Maybe I'll dip a toe in, but I have not read any of them. But as I understand it, there is a...

clarification about who the actual biological father is at some point in one of the novelizations does not feel like the kind of thing to me that could not be changed in the show. The fact that there are in the newspaper clippings all of these pictures of adults who are a part of this experiment and then all of our memories in season four are of these children. And we know that when one, when young Henry became Brenner's

like lab prisoner. He then started a program to try to manifest this power. And I mean, this is like hideous, obviously to think about, but like the idea that he, that Brenner was inseminating these, these,

experiment participants with one's... It's one of your creepier ideas. I just feel like this is going to be the case. I mean, I don't... I don't hate it. Where did their panels come from otherwise? But it is upsetting. They would have to do this really delicately if they did this, obviously. I mean, on the rec conference, there's also the whole, like, when L...

Maybe they explained it and I forgot this, but that in season four flashbacks, Elle can speak like a perfectly normal human being. And then when we meet her in season one, she is...

basically nonverbal. I guess that would be part of the like trauma. Yeah. Just like, just like Elle doesn't remember the massacre. Sure. Something trauma. Yes, exactly. And that, yeah, they have to, that's all part of the Nina awakening and restoring the memories and that like, cause Brenner compares it to like having a stroke where Elle has to get back in touch with her powers, but also just other aspects of like her brain activity. So maybe that's the answer. Sure.

I thought you were going to say the opposite. I thought you were going to say why in season four at Lenora, in the Lenora days, is Eleven still like... We talked about that. I know. We talked about that. Okay, I have another big question. And this is one where I'm like, is this so obvious and I'm just like, would everyone else be like, why are you thinking about this at all? Or is this like the big question? So I honestly can't tell, which is admittedly sort of weird. Okay. But...

I am still wondering. I think the answer could be explained very quickly. But I'm very open to the idea that there's more to learn here. Why Hawkins? Does the connection between the Upside Down and Hawkins predate what happened with Henry Creel in the late 50s? Because Brenner, as I understand it, unless I'm missing something entirely possible...

Brenner was already there because when Henry is like revealing everything to there in that stretch with like the conversation with 11 and the showing taking Nancy through the mind palace and everything,

reveals that his mom reached out to a doctor. And then when the family massacre occurred, Henry's like, I wound up with him anyway. So it was Brenner. So like that establishes, I think, that Brenner was already there at Hawkins Lab. And so then it's like, okay, maybe it all really did just start as this MKUltra-esque psychedelic warfare experimentation. But then my question is why this place? And maybe the answer to that is literally as simple as like small town USA, because like that's a good place to run these government experiments. Yeah, or...

Or, and you'll understand this better once we watch the Buffy, it's a Hellmouth. It's Hawkins, Indiana, and Hellmouth. Even I understand that. Exactly. Yes. And, you know, Becky has that moment with Hopper and Joyce when she's explaining the experiments and says that it was started in the 50s. So that gives us some further timeline clarification. And then, like, there's the question of Vecna's powers. Because whether the...

is Vecna the genetic father of these other experimental children thing is true or not. Those other children are like created in some way and Vecna's not. So like he, the question of did Hawkins amplify and unlock powers and abilities that Henry Creel already had, or did it,

give him powers in some way because it's canon. Henry's like, I, we moved here. We moved from Nevada, I think, to Hawkins, Indiana because, like,

my teachers, our friends, like, everyone thought I was odd, thought I was different. Is it... My interpretation of that is that he already had abilities. He just didn't know how to use them until Hawkins. That was my take. I'm like, he was born with powers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In some way. Okay. That's my understanding. That's your understanding. So that's, like, what seems to be true. So then, it's like, Hawkins is a place that unlocked them. We get that stretch where he's at the Creel house and he starts to, like, move the grandfather clock, time travel, and everything with the spiders, et cetera. Um...

So is the veil between worlds thin there? And that was what allowed him to sort of like learn to harness his abilities. But then why is Brenner there? Does he know that in some way? I just have all these questions. Is it just like, the answer is kind of like a confluence of circumstances and events or...

Okay. Stranger Things versions of Hellmouth. I feel like we have to get like an explicit answer to this, right? Let's continue to ask these questions as we move forward throughout the season. We're just asking questions. We're just asking questions. Did Dustin have enough snacks in the backpack and is Hawkins a Hellmouth? Equally important. Equally important. Season MVP. You get to pick two.

A child and an adult. This is easy. Is it? I mean, the kid one. Yeah. The kid is Millie Bobby Brown. Do you think so? I do, actually. Wow! Just because... I know. Like, I love Dustin. My pick is Dustin. Of course. But, like, Gayden's amazing. But, like...

Millie Bobby Brown comes out of nowhere. And again, I think similar to Spike in 28 Years Later, which we talked about earlier this week, like so much hinges on this performance. And like hinges on all the kids, but like really hinges on, and like her, the depth of like, Gaten is amazing and charismatic and all that stuff like that, but like the depth of what

asked to do in terms of like the emotion and the trauma and stuff like that and she was like so young and came out of nowhere and I just I just remember coming out of this being like oh my god this kid is going to be the biggest star in the world and like you know jury's still out on what's going to happen to the career of Millie Bobby Brown but I do enjoy those very famous person though I do enjoy those Enola Holmes movies so yeah there you go

That's a great pick. I love that. Yeah, I almost think you could pick any of the kids. Like, they're all, they're just fantastic. My pick is Dustin. I really wanted to not pick Dustin because I think I'm going to have a hard time not picking Dustin or Steve every season for my MVP in the kid-teen category. I do think I know one season where I will do something else. I know that in season four, Will will tell Mike that he's the heart, that he's the heart of the party, but Dustin is the heart of the show, and it's like kind of that simple.

That was like my least favorite thing that happened in season four of Stranger Things. You were like offended by that. I was like personally offended. I don't know what was going on with me that I was so upset about that. I was just remembering that. When I was doing this rewatch, I was like, why did you get so mad about that? How weird. Okay. My adult. Yeah. Even though this is Winona's season, my adult is David Harbour. Dude, this is a shock to me. Yeah? That's not my pick. Who's your pick?

my pick is Joyce yeah Winona I mean it's Winona Ryder season but that's because I will be picking Hopper in every future season I just think that like what David Harbour brings in the final episode is just like transcendent it is amazing I honestly this was one where I was genuinely like I can't pick him all four seasons I have to do something different here and I think

might I pick the peanut butter smuggler or Murray in a future season? Like, I guess maybe, but yeah, I think that I, I mean, as you know, Sean Astin, you know what I mean? Bob's coming. So superhero Bob, superhero Bob. Um, listen, I'll happily hand David Harbor the trophy. No arguments here. He, I, you know how I feel about him. I think he's just like mesmerizing. He's so good. Very special and quite dreamy. Uh, I don't think the season works if Joyce isn't,

a successful character. Absolutely true. I think, I guess, you can define MVP however you want. Yeah. I think I came into this show knowing what Winona Ryder could do and not knowing David Harper at all. For sure. So I think that's why I weighted it sort of David Harper. Totally. I think for, yeah, that's a great point. I think for, less about the performance and more about the character, like, I think that the number of people Joyce has

Yeah. Has like a central relationship with that's like a emotional heartbeat of the show. I can do character in future seasons. Okay. Actor is definitely David Harbour for me. That's not... No question. Yeah. For... On the character front for Joyce, we already... We hit Joyce and Will. We hit Joyce and Eleven. I will hit Joyce and Jonathan very quickly here because we haven't really done that. I think that the like...

grieving parent who's kind of treated their old single parent who's like treated their older kid as a co-parent and then there's like a real journey of like John they're holding each other to account but also supporting each other and that's hard to do like the argument on the street that everybody watches on Main Street is like so upsetting I love that scene and it's like very and then like building toward Joyce um you know saying in chapter seven like what does this thing took you to and then thinking about Jonathan like

Oh, right. You're also, like, my boy and my son, and I don't want to lose you either. And, like, the way that she says this is not yours to fix alone, you act like you're alone in the world, but you're not. You're not alone. It just is, like, beautiful. And then, yeah, I think, like, the scenes with Lonnie are really good. Like, the...

And seeing Joyce through the eyes of other people in Hawkins, the fact that she's like, I just don't care what this town thinks of me. I care about my kids and the people I love. And then, yeah, like, just Joyce and Hop, heartbeat of the show. So, Joyce has so much screen time and so much story weight on her shoulders that, like— This is her season more than any other season. That's true. Yeah.

Did we do it? We spent like the moment to toast her. We did. Was there anything that you thought would come up today that didn't? I don't think so. I think we really didn't. I think we got it all. Yeah. I really think we got it all. Even Hopper ghosting on the librarian, we managed to mention. Great stuff. All right. Cannot wait to do this again next month for season two and to keep it going from there. Thank you to our Dungeons & Dragons wool party today. Carlos Chiriboga. John Richter.

Arjuna Ramgopal and Jomia Deneram. We will see you all, I mean, next week for Squid Game. And next month for Horse Racing. And next month in The Upside Down. Bye.