Stranger Things – ‘The Spy’

Two thirds into the second season of Stranger Things, things start to get exciting. ‘The Spy’ is a gripping episode which shows a successful journey from one excellent cliffhanger to another. For most of its duration, the episode is more about the characters than the action. That’s not a problem though, because it’s the characters that make this show so compelling. But, underlying all the character interaction, there’s also a tense and effective build-up as the series heads towards its last third.

A large part of this episode takes place at the Hawkins lab as Will is taken in to be treated and examined after his horrific breakdown at the end of the fifth episode. What this part of the episode manages to recreate is a genuine feeling that Will is in medical care. In other words, there’s a lot of waiting around where doctors talk and not a lot actually happens. This all steadily builds towards the realisation that Will is biologically connected to the tunnels under Hawkins (and the Shadow Monster), something which was already quite apparent anyway.

The real question in that scene is why they both had pyjamas with them…

I couldn’t help but think throughout this episode that Will simply cannot make it out of this season alive. He’s currently on a path towards losing his mind, and killing him seems to be the only way to destroy the Shadow Monster. I find it hard to believe that the government officials at the lab would take Dr Owens seriously (as much as I agree with him) in his refusal to sacrifice Will, due to the urgency of the situation.

Meanwhile the episode takes time to develop its romantic subplots. Jonathon and Nancy finally get together, after a very drawn out sequence of ‘will they, won’t they’. Of course, they do in the end. The real question in that scene is why they both had pyjamas with them seeing as they hadn’t planned to stay the night…

Lucas and Max are also getting closer, with Dustin as the unfortunate loser of the love triangle. But things aren’t all bad for Dustin, who makes an ‘awesome’ new friend in Steve Harrington. This unexpected pairing ends up working really well. With Nancy now off with Jonathon, it was getting to the point where Steve was looking like a slightly pointless character. Now, he’s totally earned his place again, a far cry from the unlikeable character of Season One.

It certainly had me fearing for their lives

He’s also an action hero now. The scene in which the Demogorgons attacked Steve and the kids was the most dramatic part of the episode. It certainly had me fearing for their lives, but in the end they all survived without so much as a scratch. That’s fine taken in isolation, but when a few minutes later we see a group of soldiers instantly killed by the same monsters, it starts to stretch credibility a bit.

But anyway, on the whole this was a tense new instalment of Stranger Things. I barely even noticed that Eleven was absent for this episode, except when Hopper left her a message, though she wasn’t home to hear it. I wonder what she’s up to…