REVIEW: Stranger Things, Episode 102
The second episode of Stranger Things is entitled “Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street” and while everyone continues to look for Will, Mike and the others seem to find clues to his whereabouts through Eleven.
The episode begins with Mike, Dustin and Lucas trying to find out what they are going to do with Eleven. Mike really wants to help her, but Dustin and Lucas, especially Lucas, don’t like her very much and they just want to tell their parents about her so they can go back to look for Will. But Eleven doesn’t want any parents knowing about her, so that plan goes to the trash. Even though they didn’t actually start with the right foot, this was the beginning of a great friendship and we start to see that in this episode, especially the friendship between Mike and Eleven, and I have to say that I love them all. These kids are really talented and definitely bring some great things to these characters.
In this episode, we also started to understand Will’s situation a lit bit better, but not too much of course. Eleven recognized Will from a photo, so everyone became eager to found out how she knew him. When asked where he was, Eleven turned the Dungeons and Dragons board upside down and said that that’s where he is, adding that Will is hiding from the Demogorgon. This obviously didn’t make much sense for the gang, but it was enough to freak them out, but of course not enough to make them give up. They will do whatever they have to in order to find Will, no matter how many Demogorgons they have to face. And that is exactly the strength of their friendship.
Meanwhile we got to continue to see Joyce’s struggle with everything and everyone. Of course that seeing your child dead must be a horrible experience, but just losing sight of him, not having any idea where he is or what happened to him must be worse. Winona Ryder does a really amazing job portraying Joyce and even though we started to see that in the pilot, it is much clearer now that she is an amazing actress. A desperate mother will do anything she can to find her lost son, so that is exactly what we are going to see her do this season.
It is obvious from the beginning of the episode that Joyce is devastated and that is even clearer in that amazing scene at the supermarket when she goes to buy a new phone. This scene was really incredible to watch, because it really made me feel the despair and misery that Joyce was experiencing. After waiting all day by the phone, Will called again, and this time he even spoke, only one word, “Mom”, but that was enough to make Joyce a lit bit happier. But it was only after the phone fried again that stranger things started happening. The lights flickered, Will’s radio started turning on and off by itself and something started to come out of the walls. Stranger Things really started to welcome the audience to all kinds of weird in just this one scene.
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But it became clear that Hawking’s inhabitants aren’t the only ones trying to find Will, because those weird scientists(?) are too. When Joyce left to the supermarket they started scanning her house and it seemed like they found something in the same place Will disappeared. We also found out in a shocking revelation that a man who seems to be one of the bosses is Eleven’s father. That I really didn’t see coming. Usually parents chicken out when it comes to making their children lad rats (even parents who usually do that to other children), but this one clearly didn’t get the memo.
Lastly, we also saw Nancy and her “friends” at Steve’s party. In this night Steve finally got what he wanted from the beginning, he simply didn’t know that Jonathan was taking pictures (which definitely crosses the line of weirdness). It was also in this party that a smaller character made major, Barb, disappeared, being this the beginning of a controversial subject. Not controversial in Stranger Thing’s world, but in ours, and all because of Jimmy Fallon.
This episode was really amazing, as all episodes of this show will be. All scenes were great, but as I said, I especially loved the scenes with Joyce. It is really incredible to watch her struggle not to go crazy while trying to find her son. I am giving this episode an 8.8/10.
But if you think this episode was full of strange thing get ready because in the next episode (“Chapter Three: Holly, Jolly”) things will get even stranger.