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thegayhimbo · 2 months ago

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Stranger Things (1x04): “The Body” Review

A big reason why these reviews take a while to write (and are lengthy in nature) has to do with not just analyzing the characters and the overall story (both pertaining to how they unfold in each episode, and what elements might factor into season 5), but also looking into references and inspirations from various movies, other TV shows, and 80s media that can be found in the structure of Stranger Things. Some references are simply shout-outs with little to no plot relevance, but there are others where it's clear the Duffer Brothers intentionally wove them into the show. This was even was planned from the beginning when they pitched the Montauk Script (which carried over to Stranger Things):

Some of these references are given brief nods to in season 1, but play a bigger role in later seasons.

Take John Carpenter’s The Thing and The Fog for instance. Both have been cited as inspirations for season 1, and plot elements from those movies are present in subtle ways: The Fog's titular supernatural element was initial inspiration for pairing fog with the presence of the Demogorgon in the original Montauk script. Likewise, The Thing’s arc of MacReady and Childs being at each other’s throats during the crisis at the Antarctica base parallels the conflict between Mike and Lucas in this season (as mentioned in my review of the first episode).

However, both of these movies and their significance to Stranger Things arguably have better connections in future seasons. The element of ethereally fog is something seen in season 2, with it being present when the Demodogs attack military personnel in the tunnels at the Mind Flayer's direction, and later in season 3 with Billy’s vision of the Upside Down. Likewise, The Thing’s themes of body horror and people being assimilated by an abomination are interwoven into season 3’s Meat Flayer arc.

So when it comes to these reviews, it’s about striking a balance between acknowledging what references and inspirations are relevant for the given episode being analyzed, and which ones are going to be important to talk about later down the line.

Two such references get brief homages in this episode: The Shining and Videodrome.

The parallels between Joyce Byers and Jack Torrance from The Shining are obvious, and I’ll let the visuals speak for themselves.

Both Jack and Joyce are respectively in an inhospitable environment with malevolent beings trying to drive them insane, resulting in both their mental and physical health deteriorating. Both of them also use an axe as a weapon. This is where the similarities end though. Unlike Joyce, who actively resists the gaslighting the Upside Down inflicts on her, Jack succumbs to his madness and starts taking directions from the spirits at the Overlook Hotel who want him to murder his family. Even the context for the scenes above are different: Jack is breaking down the door to butcher his wife, whereas Joyce is breaking through the wall to try and rescue Will. In regards to the characters relationship with their families, Joyce arguably shares more similarities with Wendy Torrance in that both are loving and supportive mothers to their sons, but also resourceful and willing to fight back when in danger. Contrast that to Jack’s cold and resentful attitude towards his family, as well as his inability to take responsibility for his behavior, all of which eventually explodes into homicidal rage on his part. Joyce may have a dark side, but it’s one that’s directed at those who try to hurt her family and loved ones.

In fact, with the number of similarities I've seen between Jack Torrance and Billy Hargrove, and how Dacre Montgomery mentioned the Duffer Brothers based part of Billy’s character on Jack, I’ll be talking more about The Shining’s relevance to the show when I review seasons 2 and 3.

There’s also the Videodrome homage when Will and Joyce communicate through the wall with a flesh-like barrier preventing them from reaching one another.

This is in reference to a scene from Videodrome when the main character, Max Renn (played by James Woods), hallucinates a woman named Nicki Brand (whom Max briefly had an affair with before she went to work on the mysterious Videodrome project and never came back) appearing on his TV, with the TV itself taking on flesh-like qualities as it seduces Max:

Both scenes play with perception and reality for both Max and Joyce. In Joyce’s case, she has enough self-assurance to believe what she’s seeing when she communicates with Will, and it only drives her resolve to rescue him. In Max’s case……..it’s a lot more complicated, and involves a convoluted conspiracy he’s forced to unravel.

Just like with The Shining, Videodrome’s themes and story (particularly its connection to the body horror genre) play a bigger role in Season 3, and will be discussed more in-depth when that season is covered.

With that being said, let’s look at each of the stories present in this episode:

Part 1: Hopper and Joyce

There is a tenderness to the Joyce/Hopper scenes at the beginning that I appreciate. He’s careful not to entirely dismiss Joyce’s belief that Will is alive, he doesn’t belittle her by assuming she’s crazy like so many other characters are doing, and he assures Jonathan later that Joyce is tougher than people give her credit for. Which is true, and proves itself time and again in the later seasons. She may not understand what’s going on around her yet, but she’s secure enough in herself to know she was communicating with Will, that he isn’t dead, and there are things about the situation around her that don’t add up. It’s a similar feeling Hopper’s had since Episode 2 when he found Benny’s corpse, and it only gets confirmed in this episode when he discovers the truth about Will's fake body.

And this is where the parallel between their story and the movie that inspired it comes into play:

The Duffer Brothers have been specific in interviews about how a movie called Prisoners inspired the premise of the show, and by extension Hopper and Joyce’s characters.

For those who aren’t aware of this movie’s plot, Prisoners is a 2013 crime thriller, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Detective Loki and Hugh Jackman as Keller Dover, centering around the disappearance of two girls in Pennsylvania during Thanksgiving, and the desperate attempts of the police and the parents to find them. One of the girls is the daughter of Keller, who becomes convinced that a certain suspect named Alex Jones, who had been in the area where the girls disappeared and attempted to flee when police found him, is behind the kidnappings. This only gets reinforced when Keller confronts Alex in the parking lot of the police station, and the man cryptically says “They didn’t cry until I left them.” However, since Keller’s the only one who heard it whereas the police did not (with Alex later denying having said anything when questioned by Detective Loki), Alex is freed because of the lack of evidence against him. What follows are two interconnected stories: Detective Loki’s attempts to track down the girls and find the kidnappers, and Keller’s subsequent kidnapping and torture of Alex to get information about where his daughter is and how Alex is connected to her disappearance.

Unlike other references and inspirations, Stranger Things doesn’t pay direct homage to Prisoners, and yet this movie is entwined into the DNA of season 1. I know Clue (1985) has been cited for how the atmosphere and cinematography were structured for this season, and while I believe that’s true to some extent (the scenes with Mike and the Party at the school in this episode, and the quirky and campy way they’re filmed in spite of the horrific circumstances for these characters, comes to mind), the tone of Stranger Things derives itself from Prisoners, and there are certain shots in this movie (to say nothing about the lighting and cold overcast setting in a small town) that I wouldn’t be surprised factored into how the Duffer Brothers arranged for these episodes to be filmed. Prisoners is a DARK movie. I would even go as far as to compare it to crime thrillers like Seven and The Silence of the Lambs. The movie isn’t as explicitly gory as those two, but it is disturbing, and features a heinous villain with a nihilistic mindset similar to Vecna. And both this movie and season 1 of the show are based on a similar premise: A kid is kidnapped, and their parent and the police are desperately trying to find them before it’s too late. Take out the science fiction elements of Stranger Things, and the main story becomes grounded the same way Prisoners is.

Just like with how the Duffer Brothers made comparisons between Roy Neary from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Joyce, Keller’s character in Prisoners also has similarities to Joyce. Both are parents whose child is kidnapped, and both go to extreme means of getting them back, no matter what the cost. In Keller’s case, it leads to him making morally questionable (and outright illegal) decisions that cause the audience to feel conflicted about whether his actions are justified. In Joyce’s case, it’s less about moral ambiguity, and more about whether she is correct in her assertions about Will being alive, or if this is all in her mind. The closest we get to moral ambiguity is the argument Joyce and Jonathan have downtown after she storms out of the morgue.

Prisoners also had a similar scenario with Keller and his son, Ralph (who shares some similarities to Jonathan) where they get into an argument about how they’re both dealing with the situation. The difference is Keller shoulders Ralph with the responsibility of watching over his mother while he disappears to interrogate/torture Alex, whereas Joyce isn’t asking Jonathan to shoulder any responsibility on her behalf because she doesn’t truly believe Will is dead. Jonathan FEELS like he needs to take the reins for the family because of how unreasonable Joyce’s behavior appears on the surface (somewhat like Ralph’s dilemma where he believes his dad is going out to get drunk and is kept in the dark about what Keller is really doing), and in any other circumstances, he’d be right to do so. However, Jonathan doesn’t have the perspective the audience does (at least not yet) of knowing what Joyce knows. And unlike Keller, where there’s a serious question about whether his vigilantism is causing more harm than good to the investigation, we know that Joyce ignoring the insinuations of everyone around her about Will being dead is the only way she’s going to get him back.

Then there’s Detective Loki’s connection to Hopper: Both are cops who appear aloof, but are more perceptive and pick up clues and cues that others miss. Detective Loki, for instance, doesn’t disbelieve Keller’s claims about what Alex told him, but he also doesn’t have the jurisdiction to hold Alex, and has enough foresight to realize Keller will fixate on Alex once he's released, and demands that his Police Chief keep a watch over where Alex lives. Unfortunately, because they don’t have the resources and are already spending what they have trying to locate the missing girls, that doesn’t happen, and Keller takes advantage of the lack of police presence to kidnap Alex. Loki comes to suspect Keller is behind Alex’s disappearance when it’s brought to his attention, but he’s also dealing with the investigation into the missing girls, and also doesn’t have any evidence to charge Keller yet, so he’s forced to press forward with what his job allows him to do (at least until Keller inadvertently becomes a person of interest, and unintentionally leads him to where Alex is being kept).

In Hopper’s case, he’s in a similar situation to Loki where he’s pursuing the leads he’s given while also dealing with Joyce’s current behavior (though at least with Joyce, nothing she’s done up to this point has been illegal the way it was with Keller). There is more history between Hopper and Joyce that allows them to be open and vulnerable with each other, in stark contrast to Keller and Loki who barely knew one another and were constantly at odds despite having the same goal of finding the kids.

As for their methods, while Loki does make every attempt to follow procedures, the one time he engages in police brutality with a suspect (who was in possession of clothing from the missing girls), it ends badly and almost derails the case. That doesn’t happen with Hopper in this episode:

I almost find it comical how many fans got their knickers in a twist over Hopper’s use of police brutality and unethical behavior in season 3 when that’s EXACTLY the kind of behavior he was engaging in during season 1. Two state troopers beaten up, desecrating a corpse (which turned out to be fake), and ending this episode with breaking and entering into a government facility.

Fan opinions always seem to be a contradiction: People complain about moral ambiguity and shades of grey in characters (wait until I talk about Steve as we near the end of Season 1, or even Kali/Eight from season 2, and the way fans initially reacted towards those two) and will either whine about it being “bad writing” or “out-of-character” or “not realistic” or straight up dismissing any nuance or complexity presented in the character’s behavior. Then, when the show moves away from that because of fan complaints, you hear a whole barrage of new criticisms about ‘simplifying’ the story and characters. 🙄

Let’s get something out of the way right now: Stranger Things has ALWAYS had morally ambiguous characters who have acted in ways that are either criminal or make them unlikable. Moral Purity doesn’t exist on this show, and the fact is characters have said and done things that have been hurtful and mean-spirited. There will be always room for debate about whether lines have been crossed, and whether you can look past how characters have acted before. Lord knows I have my share of characters I despise (Billy, Angela, Brenner, etc) whom I will not let off the hook for their behavior under any circumstances (especially when these characters flat-out refuse to take responsibility for how their actions have hurt others). At the same time though, I have little patience for the pearl-clutching this fandom engages in when it comes to the main characters doing things that are wrong or morally questionable.

In Hopper’s case, this was a character written with heavy shades of grey who was always going to act in ways that would cause the audience to raise an eyebrow. Some people might have problems with this. I am not one of them. Hopper has never been my favorite character on the show, and I’ve had my own issues with how he’s been written (especially in season 3), but stuff like his beating of Steve O’Bannon (the state trooper who “found” Will’s body and turned out to be in the pocket of Hawkins Lab) or even his attack on Mayor Kline in season 3 doesn’t bother me. I could not care less about the injuries he inflicted on them.

Speaking of moral grayness, let’s talk about one of the inspirations for Hopper’s character and his costume design: Bernard Osterman from the Sam Peckinpah movie The Osterman Weekend:

The Osterman Weekend is an espionage thriller centered around a television journalist named John Tanner (played by Rutger Hauer) recruited into a CIA operation by Agent Laurence Fassett (played by John Hurt) who tells Tanner that his close friends are Russian agents from an organization called Omega. One of those friends is Bernard Osterman, a television producer. Believing they can get more information about Omega if they get one of Tanner’s friends to turn on the others, Fassett arranges for Tanner to host his traditional “Osterman Weekend” gathering at his house with his friends, all while creating a tense situation to inspire one of said friends to confide in Tanner and give the CIA the information they want.

Contrary to what the premise might suggest, this is a BAD MOVIE. The Eight Deadly Words (I don’t care what happens to these characters) are in full effect here, and the movie itself is a mess. The story is needlessly convoluted, there’s a plethora of plot-holes that don’t add up, certain shots in this movie come off like they were filmed for a sleazy 80s porno, and it features an incredibly stupid twist that causes the entire movie to fall apart in the last act. I had little patience for the film the first time I watched it, and even though I viewed it again to take notes on Osterman’s character, I would not recommend it (not even as a "So-Bad-It's-Good" kind of movie). Even having legendary actors like John Hurt and Rutger Hauer couldn’t save this turd.

In regards to Bernard Osterman’s character (who looks eerily like Hopper from season 3), while he isn’t likable, he’s probably one of the few characters in the movie I did NOT have as big of a problem with. I see his similarities to Hopper, both in how they observe their environment, the people around them, and the situations they find themselves in. Like Hopper, Osterman’s good at hand-to-hand combat, and is even shown training early in the movie in martial arts (which allows him to evade the CIA when they target him later in the movie). He’s also quick to see through Tanner’s deception, similar to how quickly Hopper catches on to the state trooper business and the suspicious circumstances with how Will’s body was found. Unlike Tanner’s other friends, who turn hostile towards Tanner and his family, Osterman keeps his cool and only reacts when Tanner attacks him. Even then, he doesn’t kill Tanner (as Tanner expected him to) and demands an explanation about what Tanner is doing. As it turns out in the twist, Osterman has nothing to do with the Soviets, and his biggest crime was tax evasion via a Swiss Bank Account. When he finds out the main villain set him and Tanner up, he aids Tanner in helping to take the villain down and rescue Tanner's family who are being held hostage.

Osterman is a grey character who engages in morally dubious actions, but just like Hopper, he is loyal to his friends, and is the kind of person you’d want in your corner when the going gets tough. Craig T. Nelson, who plays Osterman, manages to elevate the character in an otherwise terrible script. And unlike other characters, whose motivations and personalities are all over the place, Osterman is one of the few characters to remain consistent, which at least makes him bearable.

As for Hopper………..we’ll discuss more about the direction his character went in season 3 when I cover that. For this episode though, I didn’t have any problems with him.

Part 2: Nancy and Jonathan

I’ll start this off by saying I’m one of those rare breed of fans who has shipped Jancy since season 1 AND likes Steve (or at least I grew to like him past season 1). Contrary to what my reviews might suggest, I preferred it when Steve and Nancy separated in season 2 and both pursued their own respective arcs. I’ve also maintained that Jonathan and Nancy not only had more chemistry as a couple, but also could relate better to one another without worrying about social stigmas and have more common ground regarding their upbringings and the fact their younger siblings (Mike and Will) are close friends.

I am curious if season 1 is really the first time Nancy and Jonathan truly interacted. Given that Will and Mike were inseparable from a young age, and were frequently visiting each other’s houses (as well as how Karen and Joyce seem to have a close friendship), I’d have to image Nancy and Jonathan’s paths crossed more than a couple of times. The fact Nancy felt comfortable enough to talk with Jonathan two episodes ago to offer condolences over Will’s disappearance (despite the presence of Tommy, Carol, and Steve in the background) gives the impression they’ve at least made awkward small talk in the past, but it hasn’t been until now that they’ve really gotten to know one another.

I’ve seen people speculate Nancy had a crush on Jonathan before she ever met Steve, but it initially didn’t go anywhere because of Jonathan’s reluctance to talk to people, his closed-off personality (which he admits to having in the next episode), and being more focused on providing for the family. I can see that. I can also see how that likely factored into why it took a while (season 2) before these two really ended up in a romantic relationship, with Jonathan dealing with what he needed to deal with, and Nancy continuing to live her own life.

Last episode started the ball rolling, but this episode is where Jancy really took off. Even without Nancy’s fears that something horrible happened to Barbara, it was clear from the camera-breaking incident that Nancy wasn’t happy about what Steve did, and the conversation she has with Jonathan in the dark room implies she would have preferred to talk to Jonathan first about why he took the photos before she jumped to conclusions. Contrary to what some fans have said about the narration glossing over the ethical implications of what Jonathan did, I can understand why Nancy would give Jonathan the benefit of the doubt regarding the photos, especially with the close relationship the Wheeler and Byers families have because of Mike and Will. To his credit, Jonathan does apologize for it, and I think it’s clear to anyone with a brain who isn’t reading this situation in bad-faith that Jonathan’s intentions weren’t malicious.

It also helps that Jonathan is the only person who listens to Nancy in this episode. When Nancy brings up Barbara’s disappearance to Steve, his reaction is self-absorbed, being more concerned about getting in trouble for the pool party than about what happened to Barbara. Granted, Steve doesn’t know at this point about the Demogorgon or the Upside Down, and likely came to the same incorrect conclusion that Powell and Callahan did about Barbara running off, but it’s not surprising Nancy is unimpressed and frustrated with his reaction. Add in the later probing that the cops and her mom do into the circumstances regarding Barbara’s disappearance (with all the implied victim-blaming of Nancy sleeping with Steve to accompany it), and it’s small wonder that she storms off after calling it all “bullshit” (the exact word she would later use to describe her relationship with Steve in season 2).

Also, that alley where Steve and Nancy have the argument about Barbara in this episode is the same one where Steve breaks it off with Nancy in season 2 after the Halloween Party. Keep that in mind because I will specifically reference this location (and how both scenes are filmed) when I cover the circumstances of their breakup.

Poor Jonathan goes through the wringer in this episode, from believing his brother was dead, to dealing with his mom’s apparent irrational behavior, to preparing for Will's funeral all on his own. To be clear: I don’t blame Joyce or Jonathan for how either of them reacted during their fight downtown. The show does a great job demonstrating each person’s perspective. From Jonathan’s view, Joyce’s behavior DOES look unhinged, like she’s struggling to accept the idea that Will is dead despite the presence of a body, and it doesn’t help that he feels alone and unsupported in his grief while he's once again having to act as man of the family. However, because we the audience have been following Joyce’s story and seen the things she’s seen, we know she isn’t crazy, and she’s pushing back against being told to accept the lie regarding Will’s fate. Unfortunately, she can’t communicate that with Jonathan in a way he understands, and the result is he feels abandoned and is forced to cope on his own.

So it’s a relief when Nancy comes to him, even if she’s initially doing it to get clarification on what happened to Barbara. He finally has someone who’s listening to him, and Nancy throws him a lifeline by not only validating Joyce’s story about the figure she’s been seeing, but also giving him hope that Will was still alive. He even returns that by giving her hope that Barbara might be alive as well (even if we know that she isn’t).

Also, the entire time Nancy, Jonathan, and Joyce were describing what the Demogorgon looked like…………

…….was I the only one who was reminded of the creepypasta Slenderman?

I know the phenomenon of Slenderman was after the time period Stranger Things is set in (2009 is when the Slenderman mythos was first introduced), but I can’t help but notice similarities between Slenderman and the Demogorgon: Both monsters are described as tall thin humanoid figures with no faces who are responsible for the disappearance of people who cross their path. Both cause electronics to go haywire and become distorted whenever they’re nearby. Both have (so far) been glimpsed briefly by people, or even appear in blurred pictures (see the photos above) but manage to evade detection (at least for the moment). Difference is while Slenderman wore a suit and only seemed to target children and teenagers, the Demogorgon has no qualms about going after adults. And while the Demogorgon is a wild animal being controlled by a malevolent entity (The Mind Flayer), Slenderman was the malevolent entity who could drive other people into doing his bidding.

In addition to the chemistry Nancy and Jonathan share as a couple, Jancy in many ways can attribute its popularity not only to the idea of teens investigating paranormal occurrences, but also to how the relationship calls back to famous teen detectives novels like Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. Even TV shows like Eerie Indiana, Archie’s Weird Mysteries, and Lockwood & Co. understood this, and feature premises center around kids and teens investigating horror-esque mysteries and constantly having to evade danger while also juggling relationships and friendships.

I know the Stranger Things spin-off will likely focus on different characters, but if they were going to subvert expectations and center it on characters from this show, I wouldn’t mind seeing a spin-off of Nancy and Jonathan leaving Hawkins to investigate other mysteries, urban legends, and horror-related phenomenon around the world. Imagine how they would have dealt with Slenderman if they had encountered it, or the kinds of stories you'd get from the pairing of an investigative journalist and her intrepid photographer. :)

Part 3: The Kids (Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and El)

For anyone curious about whether I’d ever bring up Stephen King’s Firestarter and its connection to this show, I am planning to talk more about it when I cover seasons 2 and 4 since there are plot points from that story that tie better into those seasons. I will say there are multiple nods to it in season 1, with the premise of a girl with dangerous powers being hunted by the government at the center of both the show and the Stephen King story, and even in the scene where the Heathkit Ham Shack radio catches fire when El uses it to channel Will and let the others know he’s still alive.

For the most part, the scenes featuring the kids are the lighter part of this episode. Contrary to what Mike initially thought, El didn’t technically lie about where Will was. He is at the Byers house, albeit in the Upside Down. Just like Nancy gives hope to Jonathan about Will being alive, El does the same thing for Mike. She isn’t prepared to lead them into the Upside Down, and for good reason: She knows about the monsters lurking there, that Mike and his friends will get eaten up and spat back out by the Demogorgon if they encounter it (which almost happens in the season finale), and she’s worried that she might not be able to properly deal with this monster, even with her powers.

I wonder how much of El’s powers are limited because of her age and the energy she uses (similar to how Henry/One/Vecna was drained after killing his mom and sister) and how much of those limitations are because of past trauma. She’s still blocking out everything about Henry/One/Vecna so far, but considering her frightened reaction to contacting the Demogorgon, how much of that is because of the Demogorgon itself, or because she could somehow sense Henry/One/Vecna presence within the Demogorgon (and he could sense her back)?

There is a recurring theme of El being cruelly put down by others for being perceived as weak (Angela, Two, etc) or for not doing what they want her to do (Brenner, Vecna, the military), but when she does exert power, it scares those people badly enough that they try to regain control by suppressing her further. In all those cases, it goes horribly wrong for those people. It reminds me of what happens in Firestarter to the government agents at The Shop who try to manipulate and control Charlie’s pyrokinetic abilities, only for her to cut loose at the very end and burn her captors. If El can overcome the mental blocks put on her mind, both by others around her and by herself, she could become unstoppable, like Jean Grey/Phoenix from X-Men. One specific example that comes to mind is what happens in X Men #134 (the comic mentioned in the first episode that Will races Dustin for) when Jean takes back control from Mastermind and fully embraces the Phoenix persona:

I did appreciate the subtle nod to Clue (1985) in this episode, especially in regards to the suspicious way the kids act at the school when they pretend to be sad for Mr. Clarke’s convenience and are very unconvincing about it. That’s also including Dustin and Lucas showing El how she’s supposed to cry:

Just…….the way the kids act here reminds me of how the guests from that movie behaved when the cop shows up and they’re all trying to cover up the 3 murders that have already taken place. It’s people trying to not make their behavior look suspect, and it’s hilarious:

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Also, the dress El wears to the school was designed to be based off the Polly Flinders clothes that were popular in the 1970s, as noted in the behind-the-scenes companion book Worlds Turned Upside Down:

The mandated assembly for Will went about as well as anyone would expect it to. I don’t completely disagree with Lucas and Mike about most of the people there not giving a shit, but with the exceptions of Troy and James, some of the kids there looked indifferent at best but weren't being cruel about it, and I wonder how much of that is more based on being required to be there. There was Jennifer Hayes (i.e. the same girl from the Montauk Script whom Mike had a crush on before the Duffer Brothers changed that and cut her part out of the Pilot) crying at Will’s funeral in the next episode, so I’d have to imagine there were kids outside of the Party who didn’t hold any ill feelings towards Will and were sad over his death (even if they didn’t express it at the assembly).

Speaking of Troy and James, Mike’s confrontation with them was a long-time coming, and I’m not surprised Troy’s disgusting and homophobic comments about Will spurred Mike into finally fighting back (with help from El). The scene was reminiscent of Let Me In, and its Swedish predecessor Let The Right One In, where the main character in both movies, who’s spent most of the time getting targeted by bullies while he passively accepts the abuse, is finally inspired to hit back after encountering a vampire child named Eli/Abby who encourages him to stand up for himself. Even the bully from Let Me In has many similar physical and personality traits to Troy (though both characters are not portrayed by the same actor).

It's interesting rewatching this scene because of how much it parallels El’s confrontation with Angela at Rink-O-Mania in season 4. Unlike Angela, who seemed to have the full backing of everyone there to humiliate El, no one else aside from James is stepping in on Troy’s behalf. He and James are the only ones who are openly snickering about Will’s death during the assembly whereas everyone else is silent. The impression I get is, unlike Angela, Troy and James are low on the totem-pole of popularity (an impression that’s reinforced in the graphic novel The Bully), and they are just as much outcasts among their peers as Mike, Lucas, and Dustin are. Their way of dealing with this reality is to punch down at people like Mike, whom they assume will passively take the abuse, in order to give themselves the feeling of superiority in being “above” someone in the social hierarchy. However, just like when Angela was stupid enough to mock Hopper’s death to El’s face, and how that was the final straw that caused El to strike back hard, Mike finally reached his limit with their comments about Will, and the rest is history. Only difference is while everyone rushed to coddle Angela when the brat was bleeding and crying on the floor, no one is offering sympathy to Troy for his humiliation. Not that I feel bad for either of them. They both deserved it.

Part 4: (Brenner)

It was already obvious from the previous episode that Brenner's pursuit of science was more important than the lives of his employees (something that contrasts with Dr. Kurama from Elfen Lied), but given the revelation in season 4 that he’d been using El to try and locate Henry/One/Vecna in the dimension she sent him to, the scene of Brenner sending Shepard through the Gate makes his actions look even worse in hindsight. It’s already bad enough that a monster is on the loose (which Brenner undoubtedly knows about given the scientist who was killed by it in the first episode), but if he actually believed Henry/One/Vecna (someone who’s already demonstrated multiple ways to mutilate humans with his powers) was on the other side, and he’s sending an ordinary person with no ability to fight back if they encounter Henry/One/Vecna, that’s just despicable. The fact Brenner can do this while safely behind a control panel while Shepard has no guaranteed safety except for a cable (which does nothing to help him in the end) only demonstrates how much of a dirty coward he is.

It's ironic how the suits Brenner wears in season 1 were influenced by the suits Cary Grant’s character, Roger Thornhill, wears in the Alfred Hitchcock movie North by Northwest, considering the fundamental differences between Roger and Brenner. Roger is an everyman who, through a case of mistaken identity, is roped into a conspiracy where he’s targeted by those who believe he’s a secret agent for the United States Intelligence Agency. Brenner meanwhile is a government employee, one of the overarching villains of the show, and the one who set off the chain of events that has caused so much grief for the main characters. Roger spends the movie trying to evade being captured or killed, and gradually grows a spine in the process where he isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Brenner meanwhile is the kind of person who directs others to get their hands dirty first, all while coldly manipulating them like a puppet on strings. And while Roger undergoes character development, Brenner never does, and later dies under the delusional belief that he did nothing wrong. In fact, there’s an argument to be had Brenner shares more in common with the antagonist of North by Northwest, Philip Vandamm, and the callous way he disposes of people in pursuit of his own agenda.

Final Thoughts: Song Choices

There is one prominent song featured at the beginning of this episode following Hopper and Joyce's talk, when Joyce gets the axe from the shed and Jonathan is mourning Will in his room: "Atmosphere" by Joy Division.

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Like "Hazy Shade of Winter" by The Bangles, "Atmosphere" has a very eerie quality to it that's intertwined with a melancholic feeling of life moving on. Whereas "Hazy Shade of Winter" was about time passing in general and the regrets that can come with it, "Atmosphere" focuses on grief and trying to move past it. Peter Hook, the bassist for Joy Division, even admitted this was the kind of song that got played at funerals often. Considering where this song is placed in the episode, its lyrics almost serve as an ominous warning ("Don't walk away, In silence. See the danger, Always danger") that Will's fate isn't sealed yet, and there's something darker looming on the horizon for the characters.

On a final note to lighten the mood, here’s a Funko Pop Demogorgon for your entertainment:

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