#dracula season 2025

[see-arcane]

Welcome to Dracula Season 2025!

We're only a few weeks shy of May and our journey with Jonathan into the Carpathians. As we prepare for another helping of paprika hendl and ensuing horror, let's refresh with some of the Dracula-adjacent goodies that have accumulated over the last year...

1. Dracula Daily

The Substack that started it all. Dracula Daily was started by Matt Kirkland in 2021, though it took off in the Tumblr book club in 2022. Since then, we’ve turned Dracula Season, the period between May 3 and November 7, into a months-long undead extravaganza of memes, literary analysis, and overdue love for Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula as the fantastic gothic gift it is. With the simplified format of putting the book’s entries in chronological order, each one emailed out on the same date they were written, we’re forced to live on the same calendar and waiting game as the characters. Whether you’re a new reader or a returning bookworm, welcome to Castle Dracula!

Dracula Daily Substack: Link

2. The Holmwood Foundation

Fresh from crowdfunding and wrapping up production of its first season, The Holmwood Foundation, @theholmwoodfoundation on Tumblr, is an indie podcast coming around the corner with a genuinely unique take on a supernatural sequel to the events of Dracula…which didn’t end quite how Bram Stoker’s in-universe novel depicted. The first episode is out, featuring a pair of unlucky archivists—what horror podcast is complete without them?—the ghosts of Jonathan and Mina Harker, Dracula’s severed head, and a hiking trip across the moors to escape some shambling undead horrors. Give the preview and its miscellaneous teasers a listen if you want a taste of contemporary revenant scares (and to listen to the world’s most irate descendant of the Harkers pop a blood vessel).

The Holmwood Foundation homepage: Link

Podcast episodes and side content: Link

3. Dracula: 2004

Another indie audio drama trying to crowdfund its way out of the coffin! Not only an adaptation of Dracula, but one set just a short step into the 21st century, @starstrider-productions' Dracula: 2004 wants to tell the story of our beloved Victorian vampire targets-turned-slayers in an era of flip phones, Dictaphones, and found footage-tinted horror. To judge by the summary and extremely promising character bios for our refreshed cast, it’s going to be a one-of-a-kind listen. But only if we can get them to their goal! By the time I post this, they’ll have less than 20 days left to cover the production cost.

If you want to drag this beautiful undead carcass into the moonlight, please chip into their campaign if you can and share it with your fellow Dracula lovers and horror podcast enthusiasts! The smallest tier is £10 GBP, ($13 for my fellow ‘murricans), and every bit helps.  

Indiegogo crowdfunding page: Link

4. Re: Dracula, Re: Carmilla, (Coming Soon: Re: Frankenstein!)

Giving an undead rebirth to the original Dracula Daily format, the podcast Re: Dracula turns the same chronological date-by-date read of the novel an audio drama twist. It’s made of professional voice acting, soundscaping, and has its own soundtrack! This thing is also replete with many a meme and interview as the garlic garnish on top. Give it a listen if you haven’t already and check out their Tumblr, @re-dracula.

Likewise, you need to check out their most recent projects. Re: Carmilla, which gives Sheridan le Fanu’s Carmilla its own supple and sinuous sapphic treatment, and the upcoming Re: Frankenstein, currently on the hunt for voice actors to fill the roles of Mary Shelley’s gothic opus, Frankenstein. Everyone say thank you to this cast and crew for feeding us the overdue classic supernatural theatre feast we’ve been waiting on for actual centuries.

Re: Dracula: Link

Re: Carmilla: Link

Re: Frankenstein (Casting Call!): Link

5. The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk

You want the Drac Attack Pack (plus a surviving Quincey Morris) with the Harkers happily married and questionably human? You want Irene Norton née Adler treated with respect and allowed to actually have her chosen romance with Godfrey Norton that was half the damn point of “A Scandal in Bohemia,” along with appearances from a certain consulting detective and his doctorial companion? You want Dr. Jekyll as an upstanding scientist on the brink of some unsavory new changes? You want Wells’ Invisible Man being cantankerous and developing friendships against his will? You want sundry forces of mortal and supernatural peril roiling up from under the foundations of Victorian era literature like an eerie eldritch smoke? Then The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk is the comic for you!

An ongoing webcomic, fresh from its second story arc—a certain submarine, a bastard of a marksman, and an uncanny gothic villainess are involved—LXGF brings together a huge crossover cast of everyone’s favorite characters from the Classics section. Started by the amazing @mayhemchicken and posted on @lxgentlefolkcomic, this series is a love letter to beloved Victorian era lit that actually understands, acknowledges, and loves the books and their canons! What a concept! Alan.

Tumblr: Link

Comic: Link

Non-Canon Silliness: Link

Fanfiction: Link

6. Blood of My Blood (and Other Gorgeous Gothic Dramas of the Ibrithir-Was-Here Universe)

 I’ve made a lot of amazing friends since Dracula Season became my favorite time of the year (read: most of it). Many of those friends have been brain-meltingly talented and creative in the works they’ve made based in or inspired by Dracula and adjacent works. But one of the best in terms of artful storytelling has to be @ibrithir-was-here.

Me and other scribblers and spit-ballers tripped and fell into what began as a dark Dracula Bad Ending improv, everyone chasing after each other with ‘Yes, and—,’ additions to a vampiric domestic horror story. That’s turned into a full 100+ chapter tale with its concluding climax just now about to hit its zenith. That story is Blood of My Blood, an incredibly fun and fiendish gothic what-if? One in which we answer the questions:

What if things took a grim turn in the climax at Transylvania? What if half our heroes died and Mina turned, with a child already growing in her undead womb? What if Jonathan threw himself on the twisted ‘mercy’ of Dracula to protect his family, trading his servitude, sanity, blood, and participation in an intimately worrying series of mind games with his new master? What if young Quincey Harker was raised in this warped castle and then, at the cusp of manhood, was sent out into the world to learn the buried truths of his family? What if Dracula was none too thrilled about his adopted heir leaving the nest, and took grisly measures to bring him back..?

The answers have been written and lushly illustrated for the past year and change, ripe with romances, revenges, bloodshed, and one of the most gloriously fucked up family dynamics you’ve ever seen in a gothic drama.

…And if you’re in the mood for another flavor of the latter, Ibrithir has also cooked up a pile of sinister samples to indulge in.

(n)Ever Loved, a take on the origins of the ‘Weird Sisters’ before they were munching kids meals.

The Wretched Family, an AU in which Frankenstein’s Creature saved the little girl from the river a moment too late, and coerces Victor into reviving her drowned body as a Creature like himself.

A Cruel Love, giving a spotlight to a possible history of Countess Mircalla and how love played a part in her undeath and the demise of her first smitten paramour.

Second Stanza, a certain Opera Ghost returns to haunt Christine and Raoul’s son, supposedly as a guardian—whether the boy likes it or not.

Rosemary is for Remembrance, in which a young artist grapples with the bloody shadow of a man who shares her face. A long dead hedonist by the name of Dorian Gray…

Go give them all a read!

Blood of My Blood: Link

(n)Ever Loved: Link

The Wretched Family: Link 1, Link 2

A Cruel Love: Link 1, Link 2

Second Stanza: Link

Rosemary is for Remembrance: Link

7. Dracula’s Guest the Comic

Want a glimpse of what Jonathan Harker may have gotten up to prior to reaching Castle Dracula? Well, take a look at the comic adaptation of Stoker’s, “Dracula Guest,” by @isablooo! It features our good friend Mr. Harker, some sightseeing, and more than the usual bloodsuckers out for his neck.

Comic: Link

8. Dracula Beyond Stoker Press

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I wish I had an anthology dedicated entirely to stories about one or more specific characters of Dracula?” Me too! And Dracula Beyond Stoker Press is here to deliver. Their most recent issue coming out is about our good friend Jonathan Harker—already preordered my copy!—with Mina Harker’s issue accepting story and cover art submissions starting May 1, 2025. DBS Press already has an amazing store full of paperback zines and merch to go through for other characters and general Dracula-flavored goodies. Go give them and the submission guidelines a gander.   

Dracula Beyond Stoker Press: Link

9. Harker (and Other Arcane Horrors)

Harker is my work-in-progress, a novel expanding on the experiences of Jonathan Harker which we never get to see between his and the others’ journal entries in Dracula. It also adds some creative and menacing fleshing out for just how and why Jonathan Harker changed on October 3rd—and perhaps explains what exactly he changed into.

As of now, I am well over twenty chapters in, with over 750 pages written. In the draft, Mina is only just now about to read Jonathan’s journal for the first time. This thing is massive. And I’ve been releasing preview chapters since last Dracula Season! The latest of which is due to drop very soon.

Until then, there’s also an abundance of other horrors I’ve scribbled up in the interim. Some serial, some self-contained, and one in the form of a published novella, The Vampyres, which concerns some undead bastards of classic lit caught under the blade of a very practiced psychopomp. There are a couple preview chapters up to skim too!

Hope you enjoy the read.

Harker (Tumblr): Link

Harker (Substack): Link

Substack (General): Link

The Vampyres: eBook Paperback

[REDACTED – Surprise en route April 18th]

10. What Manner of Man (and Another Gothic Queer Nightmare)

@stjohnstarling has completed one tale of queer horror, romance, and erotica, and is hard at work on the next story. The first was What Manner of Man, a novel with some borrowed blood from Dracula and a wonderful twist on an intense relationship that forms between a priest and a vampire. This book is now completed on the Substack and as an eBook! His next work in progress: A Companion in Vice, building off the patchwork anatomy of Frankenstein.

What Manner of Man (Substack): Link

What Manner of Man (eBook): Link

A Companion in Vice (Summary): Link

11. Project Gutenberg

An online library of countless classic public domain works. Get on it, bookworms!

Dracula - Link

Carmilla - Link

Sheridan le Fanu collection - Link

12. The Internet Archive

As the name says, it’s an archive. It preserves damn near everything, including my favorite ballet…

Dracula Ballet by Michael Pink – Link

13. Romancing the Gothic - My Wild Heart Bleeds

Carmilla fans, storytellers, and scholars, this one is for you. My Wild Heart Bleeds is set to be an anthology dedicated entirely to Sheridan le Fanu’s Carmilla, including commentaries, original works, international and historic perspectives, discussions of adaptations and works inspired by the story… And you have the chance to contribute to it! Regarding submissions, the page says:

Abstracts of 3-400 words and a bio of 2-250 words should be sent to the editors Dr. Sam Hirst and Simon Bacon by June 30th 2025. Chapter of between 5-6000 words will be required by July 2026. We also welcome original creative pieces (artwork, short stories [up to 1,500 words], flash-fiction, poetry, etc) that are inspired by and/or critically engage with ‘Carmilla’ or themes mentioned above. Abstracts or queries should be set to: mywildheartbleeds@gmail.com

My Wild Heart Bleeds: Link

BONUS

@cry-ptidd – Blessed us with getting to see the Dracula cast in Hellsing style and showing us why Kohta Hirano didn’t dare to have them in the manga: The Harkers are simply too badass when canonical. (And the Suitors would be too stylish.)

@bluecatwriter – Expanding from Dracula fic to Carmilla fic. Smut abounds.

Poetry – For bonus gothic vampire reference material:

“Lenore” by Gottfried August Bürger, translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Link

“Christabel” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Link

Libby the Library App (Sign Up! Support Your Libraries!) - Link

Dracula Season 2024

All the Dracula Season goodies compiled last year: Link

[theholmwoodfoundation]

Welcome to the Holmwood Foundation

Sanguis Vita Est

The Holmwood Foundation is a Found Footage Horror-Fiction Podcast created by Fio Trethewey @fiotrethewey (Big Finish: Gallifrey War Room, 18th Wall Productions) and Georgia Cook @georgiacooked (Big Finish: The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles, Gallifrey War Room, BBC Books, The Dracula Daily Sketch Collection). It is a modern day sequel to the gothic novel Dracula. 

What is the Holmwood Foundation about?

Our story follows Jeremy Larkin (Played by Sean Carlsen) and Maddie Townsend (Played by Rebecca Root), two co-workers at the mysterious Holmwood Foundation, as they are possessed by the ghosts of Jonathan and Mina Harker, and embark on a road trip across the country in an effort to achieve their ghost's wishes: to stop Dracula once and for all. This is a story about identity and self discovery, family loyalty and devotion, all wrapped around a nightmare of a road trip with a rejuvenating severed head, incredibly sincere Victorian ghosts, and an analogue recorder. (Content Warnings for blood, horror themes and possession)

Where can we listen to The Holmwood Foundation?

Find our pilot episode on Acast, here:

Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, we are currently working hard on season one, which we hope to drop bi-weekly in Spring/early Summer 2025. Follow along for further updates as production progresses!

Who are the Cast and Crew?

In our pilot episode: Across the Moors, we have:

Rebecca Root as Maddie Townsend and Mina Harker, and Sean Carlsen as Jeremy Larkin and Jonathan Harker.

Other voice talents include:

Samuel Clemens as Arthur Jones Becky Wright as Thrall & Phone Voice Jessica Carroll as Newsreader Luke Kondor as Robert Swales and featuring Attila Puskas as Dracula

Joining our crew we have Samuel Clemens as Director, Katharine Armitage as our Script Editor and Benji Clifford as our Sound Engineer and Designer

In Season One, we will also be joined by:

Basil Waite as Tom Van Helsing Michelle Kelly as Henri Martin Andrew Biss as Jonathan Harker 3rd Jackie Calistaah as Elena David Ault as Dr Timothy Lake Candace Marie as Magdalena Swift Robyn Holdaway as Cam Karim Kronfli as Dave Anusia Battersby as Francesca Royale Lou Sutcliffe as Collins Flloyd Kennedy as Fay Townsend/Lucille Young Alasdair Stuart as Farmer Andy Dan Tyrie as Security Officer Elliott Crossley as Extraction Officer Alex Galdwin and Jonathon Carley as Francis

Extra Content:

Between now and season one's release, we will slowly be sharing small pieces of related content related to the Holmwood Foundation. These might be emails, or obituaries, maybe even interviews. Follow the links below to find all of that content together:

Extract List - Updated as of 30/03/25

Tags: Frequently Asked Questions Production Updates OOC Answered Asks Extracts Foundation Emails Holmwood Foundation Art

Social Media Links here: https://linktr.ee/theholmwoodfoundation

[boombox-fuckboy]

2025 Bandcamp Friday Fiction Podcast Catalogue

Bandcamp Friday means artists on Bandcamp get more out of your purchases. Support your favourite fiction podcasters and get some crisp audio in the process.

Dates

(Starts at midnight, runs all day)

Friday, March 7th (UTC-08:00)

Friday, May 2nd (UTC-07:00)

Friday, August 1st (UTC-07:00)

Friday, September 5th (UTC-07:00)

Friday, October 3rd (UTC-07:00)

Friday, December 5th (UTC-08:00)

Fiction Podcasts

Anamnesis (Full Audio Drama + Soundtrack)

Awake (Full Show)

Camlann (Season 1)

The Dungeon Economic Model (The Complete Series)

Folxlore (Part 1 • Part 2)

Generation Crossing (Full Narrative Album)

Inn Between (Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3)

Old Gods of Appalachia (Season 1 • Season 3)

Sidequesting (Season 1 • Season 2)

The Tower (Part I • Part II • Part III)

What Will Be Here

Podcast Specials

The Deca Tapes (Puzzle Box)

The Dungeon Economic Model (Halloween Special)

Leaving Corvat (TEMPLE OF SLEEP)

Welcome To Night Vale (Live Shows: Condos • The Debate • The Librarian • The Investigators • Ghost Stories • All Hail • A Spy in the Desert • The Haunting of Night Vale)

Where The Stars Fell (The Christmas Chronicle)

Podcast Music

The Adventure Zone

Aftershocks (Soundtrack)

Alice Isn't Dead (Music From)

All My Fantasy Children

Among The Stars and Bones (OST)

ars PARADOXICA (When I'm Not Here • Electric River (End Theme))

The Ballard of Anne & Mary (Soundtrack)

The Big Loop (OST: FML • The Fugue )

Camlann (Keep the Fires Burning: The Original Soundtrack)

The Deca Tapes (OST)

The Department of Variance of Somewhere, Ohio (OST: Season One • Season Two)

Dreamboy (Silent Night, Holy Night)

The Dungeon Economic Model (Royal Musical Accompaniment • Chill Beats to Build Profitable Dungeons To)

Eeler's Choice (OST)

The Fall of the House of Sunshine

Folxlore (Music To Dance With Your Inner Demons To)

Friends At The Table

Gospels of the Flood (Soundtrack)

Greater Boston (Soundtrack, Seasons 1-3)

The Grotto (Soundtrack)

Hello From The Hallowoods (Starcrossed Gods OST)

It Makes A Sound (Wim Farros: The Attic Tape)

Kane and Feels (OST: Volume 1 • Volume 2)

Lake Clarity (OST)

Leaving Corvat (Re-mastered soundtrack)

Liars & Leeches

The Lost Cat Podcast (Musical Features)

Malevolent

Midnight Radio (OST)

Mockery Manor (The Music Of: Season One • Season Two • Season Three • A Midwinter Night's Dream)

Neoscum

Nowhere, On Air

Old Gods of Appalachia (What is Sung Under The Mountain Vol. 1 • The Land Unknown (Theme) • The Bride • Familiar & Beloved)

Our Fair City

The Pasithea Powder (Theme • Mary Ann • Odysseus)

The Penumbra Podcast

The Polybius Conspiracy (OST)

Re: Dracula (Concept Album)

ROGUEMAKER (Soundtrack)

Rogue Runners (OST)

Skyjacks (Call of the Sky)

Station Blue (OST)

The Strange Case of Starship Iris

This Planet Needs a Name (Albums: The Nameless Songs - Landing - Growing - Shifting)

The Tower (Original Score: Part I • Part II • Part III)

Unplaced (Soundtrack)

Unseen (Soundtrack)

Where The Stars Fell

WOE.BEGONE

Wolf 359 (OST: Volume One • Volume Two • Volume Three)

Zero Hours

Additions encouraged.

[thealieninhiding]

The Katie McGrath Archives (WIP)

A repository of my ongoing digital archeology & archival work please contact me if you have anything to contribute and buy me a coffee if you value my content

Updates

(last updated 2025-01-14)

2025-01-14

Scans:

2008-10 InStyle (LQ)

2009 DRAMA Magazine (LQ)

2009-10 The Sunday Times Style (Ireland)

2010-10 Tatler

2010-12 InStyle

2011-02 Instyle (LQ)

2011-07 Tatler (LQ)

2011-10 Sunday Independent

2012-03-14 Sci-FiNow

2012-03-23 The Lady Magazine

2024-07-03

Scans:

2014-02-07 London Times - Dracula sets

Audio:

(Un)likeminded 2x02 How to Survive The Apocalypse

2024-05-24

Video:

2017 Katie McGrath interview [CW|KMcGsource]

2017 Supergirl Season 3 Sweet dreams (are made of this) Music Video

2017 CW SDCC Promo Supergirl and Arrow

2019-01-01 The CW Promo Open To All

2021-04-25 Supergirl Season 6 Katie McGrath Lena Luthor

2021-09-15 Supergirl Season 6 Katie McGrath Reflecting on Supergirl

2024-05-22

Audio:

Interview - 2009-07-17 Katie McGrath Mr Media interview

Interview - 2009-10-15 Geek Syndicate Merlin BTS special

Video:

BTS - 2008-10-08 Blue Peter Merlin BTS

Events - 2009 TV Choice Awards Digital Spy interview

Events - Getty Videos of 2009 TV Choice Awards, 2010 Merlin Series 3 launch, 2011 W.E. premiere, 2017 King Arthur Premiere

2024-05-17

Archived interviews

2008-12-07 Tribune Magazine - What Katie Did

2011-10-14 What's on TV - Merlin's Katie McGrath- 'Bad girls have more fun!'

2012-12-03 Fanhattan Blog - Colin Morgan, Katie McGrath and Bradley James on Season 5 and The Series Finale

2018-08-01 The TV Junkies - Supergirl SDCC 2018 Interviews- Lena’s Impractical Lab Outfits, the Return of Reporter Kara and a More Grounded Season 4

Audio

HHush samples

Interview - 2009-2011 Sci-fi Talk rewind merlin the series specials episode 1

Interview - 2011? Merlin S4 Sci-fi talk byte katie mcgrath on morgana

Interview - 2013 BBC Radio 1xtra part 1 & part 2

(Un)likeminded 1x02 While You Were Dreaming

Trees a crowd- Irish folklore segment

Magazine scans

2008-09-20 Radio Times

2009-06-08 TV Week (Aus)

2010-09-05 Sunday Express

2010-09-30 Totally Merlin Magazine

2011-12 Total Film

2012-03-14 Sci-Fi Now

2012-10-06 Radio Times

2013-04-06 Irish independent

2013-09-02 Marie-Claire (UK)

2013-12 Instyle

2013-12 Total Film

Video:

Fans - 2012-04-16 Merlin4 [carlospyrrhus]

Fans - 2017-08-30 Supergirl cast together on set [Joyce Law]

Interview - 2009-09-?? Merlin S2 audio interview with Katie McGrath [BJsRealm] part 1

Interview - 2010-09-06 Merlin Series 3 - BBC Radio 1xtra Interview with Angel Coulby & Katie McGrath [BJsrealm]

Interview - 2011-10-14 Merlin S4 Colin Morgan, Eoin Macken Katie McGrath on The Late Late Show

Interview - 2012-07-15 Colin Morgan and Katie McGrath at SDCC 2012 - innerSPACE [merlinnetwork2]

Interview - 2012-07-18 Katie McGrath Talks Merlin At Comic Con 2012 [ThinkHeroTV]

Interview - 2012-10-25 BBC Radio 1 Breakfast - Colin & Katie part 1 & part 2 [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2012-12-03 Merlin S5 Katie McGrath interview international press day [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2012-12-03 Colin, Bradley, Katie phone interview [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2013-11-09 Katie McGrath on BBC One Saturday Kitchen [BJsRealm]

Interview - 2019-07-22 ENTREVISTA SUPERGIRL Elenco fala sobre a nova temporada [Warner Channel Brasil]

Interview - 2019-07-23 Melissa Benoist Teases Directing An Episode Of 'Supergirl' [ET Canada]

Interview - 2020-02-21 ‘Supergirl’ Celebrates 100th Episode [ET Canada]

Panels - 2011-07-28 Merlin Comic Con 2011 Panel [ThinkHeroTV]

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things (2x02): “Trick or Treat, Freak” Review

If you haven't yet, be sure to check out my other reviews:

Stranger Things Episode Reviews:

Season 1:

The Vanishing of Will Byers

The Weirdo on Maple Street

Holly Jolly

The Body

The Flea and the Acrobat

The Monster

The Bathtub

The Upside Down

Season 2:

MADMAX

Stranger Things Play:

Stranger Things The First Shadow

It’s March 22nd, 2025. Happy Birthday Will! 🥳🎂🍾 I wish it was under better circumstances.

Assuming Will survives season 5 and lives a happy life once the show ends, he will officially be 54 years old as of today. Hopefully, if the Duffer Brothers are smart, they’ll write in a scene for season 5 with the characters celebrating Will’s birthday after the whole Birthdaygate fiasco from season 4.

In regards to this episode, Halloween has always been a mixed bag for me (no pun intended). I’ve had fun and memorable ones (like from last year) and I’ve had ones that were awful (like the year before that). A lot of it had to do with the people involved. There are those who get into the spirit of Halloween without being nasty or unkind, and know where the lines are between acceptable vs unacceptable behavior. And then there are the assholes who take Halloween as carte blanche to get away with as much shitty behavior as they want to (Billy, Tommy, the Zimmerman brothers who briefly harass Will in this episode, etc). The latter group takes away any fun with the holiday, and I’ve had my experiences with people like that. Sadly, Will, Jonathan, and Steve appear to be in the same boat as me in that regard, though I haven’t yet developed into Jonathan “I’m going as a guy who hates parties” Byers.

This episode does a great job capturing the good and bad aspects of Halloween, and contains some neat movie references via the costumes (Dracula, Flashdance, Footloose, Animal House, Risky Business, Friday the 13th, Ghostbusters, John Carpenter’s Halloween, The Karate Kid, etc). It also has creepy and unsettling imagery combined with humorous moments, just like how the spirit of Halloween is supposed to be FUNNY and SCARY at the same time.

More importantly: Rewatching, specifically with Vecna and the Mind Flayer in mind from season 4 and The First Shadow, puts certain moments from this episode in a different perspective. Considering that the Duffer Brothers were already planning for this show to span 4-5 seasons by the time season 2 was about to premiere, it’s a safe bet to say this was intentional on their part. Certain scenes and tidbits of information that were dropped may have seemed inconsequential when season 2 first aired, but arguably have more relevance when you factor in later seasons and the play. I would even go as far to say that they will likely have an impact in season 5 as well.

I know I haven’t warned people before in previous reviews, but I’m going to here: This review will be SPOILER HEAVY for The First Shadow, particularly in regards to Henry/One/Vecna, his connection to the Mind Flayer, and his parallels with certain characters. Some of this will be analysis, and some of this will contain speculations for season 5. You’ve been warned.

Part 1: Will’s connection to the Mind Flayer (and his parallels with Vecna)

I know I’m not the first fan who’s noted parallels between Vecna and Will. Both Noah Schnapp and Jamie Campbell Bower have also discussed the connection both characters share, including the idea that there’s unfinished business that will likely drive the conflict for most of season 5.

For now, let’s explore with what parallels have been presented: Both Will and Vecna have been described as “sensitive” by their parents (or at least Victor Creel thought his son was), both were outcasts, both have a love for drawing, both are unique individuals who feel oppressed by the attempts of society to mold them into something they are not, both have an attraction to someone in an era where their love for that person would be deemed “unacceptable” by the norms established as well as the prevalent bigotry in those decades (Will’s attraction to Mike in the 80s, and Henry/One/Vecna’s attraction to Patty Newby in the 50s), both of them have been to the Upside Down and encountered the Mind Flayer, and both have come back altered in some way.

In Henry’s case, The First Shadow reveals that, prior to moving to Hawkins, Henry lived in Rachel, Nevada. This was also the location where Brenner was heading the Nevada Experiment at the time, with the end goal of trying to recreate what happened to the USS Eldridge when it disappeared into the Upside Down in 1943. One day, Henry was playing in the caves when he encountered a rogue scientist from the Nevada Experiment who had stolen key technology from Brenner. This technology transported both Henry and the scientist into the Upside Down. The scientist was killed, but Henry was in the Upside Down for 12 hours where he saw various monsters and encountered the Mind Flayer. He was eventually able to return to this world, but following his trip to another dimension, his blood was altered (which is how he got his psionic abilities), and he had a connection to the Mind Flayer that would haunt him for the remainder of his life.

In my review for The First Shadow, I questioned the idea of whether Will’s blood was altered as well during his week in the Upside Down, due to his exposure to the Mind Flayer. Given the visions (or episodes) he was having BEFORE the Mind Flayer infected him with its black particles in the next episode, and the connection the two continue to share AFTER season 2, it would make sense if that was the case. The other question is whether Will has any psionic abilities like Henry had once he escaped the Upside Down. The whole reason Brenner was able to create “special kids” like El and Kali was because he used Henry’s altered blood to do so. Assuming Will’s blood has been altered as well, why hasn’t he shown any special abilities outside of his connection to the Mind Flayer and his “true sight” (as Mike calls it in the next episode)? Are those specific powers dormant for right now? Is the Mind Flayer using its connection to somehow suppress them? Or is the connection to the Mind Flayer just the extent of Will’s abilities, and he has no other powers beyond that?

It's interesting to see the Mind Flayer’s fixation on both Will and Henry, and how they compare and contrast with one another. Both kids get terrifying visions of the Mind Flayer and other hallucinations. In Will’s case, these visions come off more like it’s trying to scare him; to let Will know there’s no escape. The same can be said for Henry, with the difference being it was also corrupting Henry with these visions by chipping away at his personality and nudging him to embrace his negative emotions and the darker aspects of his powers. The Mind Flayer knew Henry’s personality flaws, insecurities, and fears, and it worked hard during the play to exploit them to full effect. Worst of all: It succeeded. There’s a BIG DIFFERENCE between the Henry Creel we meet in 1959, who was shy, awkward, and still had some kind of conscious underneath, vs the cold calculating sociopath we encounter at Hawkins Lab in 1979.

In Will’s case, while the visions are terrifying, they don’t seem to be designed to twist Will into becoming evil. In fact, at no point can I recall the Mind Flayer acting as the Devil on Will’s shoulder the same way it did with Henry in the play. God knows there are plenty of things the Mind Flayer could exploit in Will’s life, from the bullying Will’s experienced, to the fact he’s a gay teenager forced to suppress his identity in homophobic 80s Hawkins, to the fear that he’ll never be accepted for who he is, to the sheer amount of cruelty, stupidity, and unfairness that exists in the world that would overwhelm anyone (as we are seeing with certain individuals in today’s culture). Instead, it goes for brutal force in assaulting Will with its particles in the next episode. Like it has to strong-arm Will to get control of him instead of tempting or manipulating Will into committing vile acts with his own agency.

All of this begs the question as to why? I will talk more about Will’s possession story as it develops, but I don’t completely buy the idea that the Mind Flayer needed Will as a spy, especially when it had Vecna (who has the same ability to remote view as El does). It clearly wants Will for something, and I find it telling that both Will and Henry survived whereas others did not: The crew of the USS Eldridge in 1943 were slaughtered when the ship briefly transported to the Upside Down, with Brenner’s father later dying after he told his son what he experienced. The scientist who also got transported with Henry to the Upside Down perished, whereas Henry lived. Even in season 1, Will is really the only survivor of those who were taken by the Demogorgon. Barbara, the two hunters in the woods, and the two Hawkins Lab scientists were killed off almost immediately, as if the Mind Flayer had no real use for them, except either as Demogorgon food or to use their bodies to make future Demogorgons (as it did with Barbara).

In Henry’s case, the Mind Flayer was molding him to become a weapon it could use. Dustin wasn’t far off in suggesting Vecna was its “Five Star General.” I’m reminded of The Witch King of Angmar, or even Saruman from The Lord of the Rings: Both are dangerous individuals with great power who cause death and destruction across Middle Earth (with Saruman and Vecna even sharing the same trait of pettiness), but at the end of the day, they are merely puppets Sauron can use to further his agenda of enslaving the world. Vecna comes off the same way: For all his proclamations to El about remaking the world into something beautiful, these are delusions. He is merely a tool for the Mind Flayer, and the moment he is no longer useful is the moment the Mind Flayer will dispose of him.

Maybe that’s why Will got targeted: The Mind Flayer could be looking to replace Vecna by bringing in new blood, so to speak. Like what Emperor Palpatine tries to do in the original Star Wars trilogy with replacing Vader by tempting Luke to the Dark Side.

But that just brings me back to my original point: There is no temptation for Will like there was for Vecna. Part of what made Henry/One/Vecna’s descent into villainy so horrifying wasn’t just the Mind Flayer’s influence, but the fact Henry had choices through all of his tribulations. He wasn’t violently possessed by the Mind Flayer’s black particles the same way Will was in the next episode, or even Billy and the Flayed from season 3. Instead, it was a consistent degradation of Henry’s personality while the Mind Flayer played on his fears and insecurities to get Henry to commit vile acts and exercise his powers under the guise it would give him some kind of mastery over his life. Henry grew up resentful of being forced to “conform” to the 50s idea of normalcy while people in his life constantly treated him like he was broken. His powers, as frightening as they were to him at the time, were a liberation as much as a curse. A way for him to get some kind of control and push back against the oppressiveness he felt around him. However, at the end of the day, the Mind Flayer was still pulling the strings from behind-the-scenes, and Henry’s surrender to its influence not only cost him his agency, but also his freedom. He spent 20 years locked up in Hawkins Lab as Brenner’s prisoner, and getting banished to the Upside Down later didn’t truly free him: He just returned to the source of all his problems, and has gotten WORSE.

I wonder if the Mind Flayer realized it couldn’t engage in the slow corruption of Will like it did with Henry all those years ago (either because Will’s negative traits weren’t as severe as Henry’s, or it realized Will would be more resistant to that) and that’s why it violently assaulted Will with the black particles and forcibly tried to assimilate his consciousness into the hive mind. It also may have been experimenting since this is the first time it could possess another human with the black particles that was its form (which Henry/One/Vecna was responsible for giving it). If so, there’s a lot it didn’t factor in, like how maladaptive it would be to Earth’s environment and heat temperatures, or how its host could turn the tables on them. But like any scientist going through an experiment, it learned. And the next time it comes after Will (which I’m sure it’s going to do in season 5), it will try a different approach if it's smart.

Will admits to Mike that his visions come off like a View-Master caught between two slides, which I think works as an interesting metaphor not just for Will, but also for El and Vecna. All three characters are caught in-between two worlds (this world and the Upside Down) where they feel like they’re being pulled in both directions, yet simultaneously rejected by both worlds at the same time. The way each character reacts to this dilemma is telling: In Henry/One/Vecna’s case, he has completely abandoned his human origins and embraced the Upside Down as his true home (even as he continues to reside in a twisted version of the Creel House from his childhood). In El’s case, she’s veered back and forth between the two (though she hasn’t ever considered the Upside Down to be her home), and while she has found friends and a family, she still hasn’t found the sense of belonging that she craves in this world. In Will’s case, while he desires to remain rooted in this world, the Upside Down is working overtime to pull him in to its hive mind. The comic book The Other Side (which came out after season 2) plays with this idea when it features this hallucination Will has following his capture by the Demogorgon:

I’ve suggested this before in a previous review, but I wonder if Will and El’s arcs in season 5 will be about trying to find a reconciliation between the Upside Down and their world. I don’t believe the Mind Flayer or Vecna will survive past season 5 since they’ve been established as the root causes for the evil inflicted on the characters, but I also think an alternative to the complete annihilation of the Upside Down could be healing it, or fixing something within that is broken, allowing both Will and El to find peace. The core theme of this show centers on the characters accepting themselves for who they are, warts and all, and part of that acceptance involves finding a balance between the different worlds (both literal and metaphorical) that these characters come from. They could go the route of destruction, but thematically, I would argue it would be antithetical to the show’s message. That’s what Vecna is currently doing: He could never reconcile the part of his human self with the part of him formed in the Upside Down when he was transported there all those years ago. As a result of being torn apart by both worlds, he has settled on one (the Upside Down) as his identity while working to destroy this world and sever all his past ties to it. This is presented in the show as Vecna’s anger and self-hatred taking things to the extreme. If Will and El intend to take a different path from the one Vecna is on, they will have to go with an alternative beyond simple destruction. Nor can they just close the Gate again with the threat still there like they’ve done for the past few seasons. There’s a reckoning that needs to happen, one that will likely result in a permanent change to the world, its characters, and the Upside Down, but will ultimately be for the better.

Speaking of Will and El, a constant that I noticed in their stories this episode center around Mike: When both are in the Upside Down (El after her battle with the Demogorgon, and Will with his vision of the Mind Flayer), the first thing they do is call for Mike. In a way, Mike acts as an anchor for both characters. It’s Mike that wakes Will up from his vision (and may have even prevented the Mind Flayer from possessing Will in that moment), and it’s Mike’s house that El goes to once she crawls out of the Upside Down.

While this is heartwarming, it does make me worried for Mike in season 5. Putting aside how one of the episode titles for season 5 is “The Vanishing of ***** Wheeler” (with either Mike or Holly being likely candidates), I’ve suggested the theory that Vecna may come after Mike as a means of hurting both Will and El. I know fans will likely reject the idea of Mike being killed off (Although who knows? The Duffer Brothers could always surprise us.), but if Vecna is serious about breaking El and Will’s morale, targeting Mike would be high up on his list. Mike is their anchor, and if Vecna breaks that, it’s going to have devastating consequences for both Will and El.

Finally, in regards to Will and Mike’s interactions in this episode, I enjoyed them, even if the circumstances behind them were bittersweet. I took note in the last review about how Mike was giving Will the space he needed without being intrusive or infantilizing Will, and we see it pay off here after Mike takes Will to his place and Will finally opens up about what’s going on with him. Will knows Mike can’t do anything about his situation, but it’s nice to have someone who understands where he’s coming from without fretting or ringing their hands about his health. The same can be said when Mike opens about still missing El, and Will listens without any judgment or condescending suggestions to “get over it.” The Duffer Brothers admitted in Beyond Stranger Things that a key theme behind Mike and Will’s pairing this season was both characters were frozen from what happened the previous year, and were trying to lift each other up. Mike and Will have spent months feeling like they have no one to fall back on, which means they’re falling back on each other for support.

In a very loose way, Will and Mike’s dynamic reminds me of the dynamic between Marshall Teller and Simon Holmes from Eerie, Indiana. Both kids are in a town where weird and supernatural occurrences happen on a constant basis (to the point it’s hard to trust anyone or anything) and they both have to rely on each other for trust, stability, and support as a result. Marshall has taken Simon under his wing (especially given Simon’s living situation) and part of Marshall’s drive during the show is rooted in helping others while solving mysteries and combating malevolent forces. Mike in many ways mirrors Marshall with that motivation, and just like with Marshall’s concern for Simon, Mike doesn’t want Will getting swallowed by the horrors around him.

Part 2: Eleven (and her parallels with Vecna)

Just as quickly as El returned to the source (the Upside Down), she was just as quick to get out. Did anyone else notice that she coughed up liquid when she woke up in the Upside Down, similar to what happened to Barbara in season 1 when she got taken? Almost like being submerged underwater, except there is no water in that dimension. 🤔 When Barbara was taken, I assumed at the time the liquid she coughed up was from the pool water in Steve’s backyard since the Demogorgon attacked her there. Seeing that the same thing happened to El here, I’m not so sure about that anymore.

The scene with El using her powers to create a bigger hole in the wall to escape was nice foreshadowing to her using that same power to close the Gate in the season finale. In hindsight, it also acts as further foreshadowing for the overall reveal about El’s abilities being connected to the Upside Down. The ease with which the membrane-like hole collapses to fit her size contrasts with some of the instances in this world where it appears like she has to use more energy and force, as if the Upside Down responds more naturally to her abilities than this world does.

One thing I’m curious about is the hole continuing to be there following the Demogorgon’s destruction. In “The Flea and the Acrobat,” we saw the hole in the tree Nancy crawled through beginning to close and eventually shutting for good just as Jonathan pulled Nancy out. Likewise, during the instances when the Demogorgon tore through Joyce’s walls, the walls would reassemble themselves almost instantaneously. Even when Joyce communicated with Will in “The Body,” it was only for a brief moment before the fleshy wall began closing up. So why didn’t the hole the Demogorgon created at the Middle School close up already? Was it just that violent and visceral of a tear (similar to what El did when she opened the Gate for the first time) that it took longer to heal?

And then there’s Vecna and the Mind Flayer: One question I’ve always had whenever I rewatch season 2 now is if they knew El was alive at this point. I’d have to imagine they didn’t. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they have sent every Upside Down monster they controlled to either capture or kill El (especially as the Gate was beginning to expand underground)? I’d even say Vecna would have made the journey himself into the real world to finish El off as revenge for what she did to him four years ago. He had the ability to remote view, so this isn’t like he couldn’t have located El during the year between seasons 1 and 2 if he wanted to. The only explanations that come to mind is that either they thought El perished when she and the Demogorgon dissolved at the Middle School, or they were waiting for the right opportunity to strike (and waited too long as a result).

There are plenty of references and inspirations for Hopper and El’s story that I intend to cover in future reviews, but I want to focus on the ones present in this episode.

There are two obvious references for the ghost costume El wears: The first is John Carpenter’s Halloween (with Max dressing up as Michael Myers later in the episode) when Lynda believes her boyfriend Bob is playing a joke on her:

The second (and the one I first thought of when I saw this scene) is E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, when the kids disguise E.T. and try to pass him off as Gertie.

In both cases, those characters get away with the disguise, with others none the wiser. I can see why El would think it would be a good cover, and I can’t blame her for wanting Hopper to go along with it: She’s been cooped up in that cabin for close to a year, and while I believe she appreciates having a home, that doesn’t mean she is happy about being confined to one limited location.

And I get where Hopper is coming from in regards to her safety and it being a risk, but at the same time, it’s not enough anymore if El is starting to feel trapped, nor does it help that he completely forgets his promise later in the episode and misses the deadline. I know Hopper teaches the word “compromise” to El in this episode, but she actually is the one who offers a compromise to Hopper before she even knows the word: She disguises herself as a ghost to emphasize that she could go Trick-or-Treating without being spotted, with the implication that Hopper would come along and watch from his sheriff’s car (under the guise of watching over the safety of other Trick-or-Treaters out there). It ties into something I’ve been emphasizing about El for a long time (especially towards certain fans who made disgustingly ableist remarks about El int he past): Just because El doesn’t have the words doesn’t mean she can’t understand concepts or is ignorant of them.

This leads me into the next reference when Hopper is late and El watches Frankenstein to pass the time. When they showed the scene with the little girl, Maria, befriending the Monster, I wondered if El related more to the girl or to the Monster. Or maybe even both. In that particular scene from the movie, after the Monster escaped Dr. Henry Frankestein’s lab, it wanders off into the German countryside where it encounters the girl, who shows him the flowers she collects and how they float on the water. Initially, the Monster is delighted by the flowers (even cracking a smile) and throws them in the water like Maria does. But when the flowers run out, he ends up tossing the girl into the water, causing her to drown.

The sad thing is the way the scene is framed gives the impression that the Monster was under the assumption the girl would float just like the flowers. His distressed reaction to her drowning indicates his intention wasn’t to kill her. The movie itself plays with the idea of whether the Monster was evil from its creation (especially since it has the brain of a corrupt criminal) or if his circumstances drove him down a dark path. While the Monster does kill people, the first two deaths (Fritz and Dr. Waldman) could arguably constitute self-defense since they intended harm to him, and Maria’s death (which kickstarts the angry mob that goes after the Monster) was framed as manslaughter as opposed to cold-blooded murder.

In El’s case, that question has been in her mind for a while: Whether she’s the monster or not. She’s had that fear since season 1 when she opened the Gate, and it resurfaces in season 4 after her experiences in Lenora and her confrontation with Angela.*

*(On a personal note, I will go to my grave insisting Angela got exactly what she deserved and should be grateful El didn’t take it further, especially after Angela was such a sadistic brat and a vile human being).

Even though the movie is the obvious reference here, I couldn’t help but think of Mary Shelly’s book and how it applies to Stranger Things as well. I remember reading Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus in high school, and finding it much more interesting and complex than the Universal Pictures movie. While Boris Karloff’s version of the Monster will always be iconic, I’ll admit I found the Monster more frightening in the book: Instead of slow and lumbering, the Monster has super speed and strength. Instead of being a dumb brute, the Monster is dangerously intelligent. Instead of communicating in grunts and screams, the Monster can speak clearly and understands language. He can also read, and gets through the entirety of John Milton’s Paradise Lost at one point (even comparing himself to the fallen angel, Lucifer, when he’s attempting to paint himself as tragic to Dr. Frankenstein).

The biggest kicker though: Instead of killing in self-defense or on accident, the monster from the book is a lot more malicious, and purposefully murders despite understanding how morally wrong that is. Granted, there are factors that drove him to that point, from being abandoned by his creator, Victor Frankenstein (who comes off deeply unsympathetic for his refusal to take responsibility for his creation, as well as keeping everyone else in the dark about the Monster while it kills innocent people), to being rejected by humans for its hideous appearance, to having its actions in saving a girl from the river being interpreted as him intending harm to her and getting shot at by the girl’s father as a result (contrast that with how the movie played the scene between the Monster and the girl). At the same time, it makes it harder to sympathize with the Monster the way one might be able to with the movie’s version. The characters in the books are messy and flawed, and the point of the book isn’t just about exploring the themes regarding what makes someone evil, but also about the process of creation and the responsibility that comes with it.

I see the book’s version of the Monster mirroring aspects of Henry/One/Vecna, and even El to a certain degree. Despite everything he does later in the book, deep down, the Monster craved acceptance and wanted to spend life with another sentient creature like itself. It’s why he bonds with the blind old man at the cottage (before his family drives the Monster away), and it’s why he later insists that Dr. Frankenstein make him a female companion. Likewise, Henry in The First Shadow, even while the Mind Flayer works to corrupt him, desires those same things as well, which leads to his relationship with Patty Newby as she’s one of the only people in Hawkins who can understand him (and visa versa). Unfortunately, that isn’t enough to cancel out Henry’s worst qualities, and with all the negative circumstances in his life (including Brenner’s manipulations), he eventually succumbs to the darkness within him. By the same token, El looks for the same acceptance, not just with her friends and family, but from the world. Just like the Monster though, she’s been hunted and ostracized, and whether that will eventually cease remains to be seen. In spite of lashing out at Angela (which, given how deeply cruel and evil Angela was towards her, El's actions weren't completely devoid of understandable context), El does comprehend morality, and doesn’t get any sadistic pleasure in hurting others, not even in anger the same way Vecna and Billy do.

In the case of this season, El is trapped in the middle. She has found some kind of acceptance from Hopper, but their relationship isn’t perfect (and will be tested in later episodes), and it still doesn’t cancel out that she’s currently being hunted and has no clue where her life is going from here, or if her circumstances are ever going to change. When things aren’t okay and continue to remain the same for an extended period of time, it’s going to inevitably cause problems. El is already beginning to make her frustrations known about her situation (and how she feels powerless to change it despite having powers that, from her perspective, should allow her to) and it’s going to force her to question if this life is what she really wants, or if she’d be better off in the world looking after herself.

Part 3: Billy (and his slight parallels with Vecna)

There are two ways I intend to cover Billy’s character in these reviews: From a practical standpoint (i.e. his character’s contribution to the mytharc, his parallels with certain characters, etc), and from a personal perspective.

While I still hate that moment in the car between Billy and Max (for obvious reasons I’ll cover in a minute), it’s interesting rewatching this scene again having seen The First Shadow. The conversation in the car heavily implied that, despite his attempts to pass blame onto Max, Billy had done something which caused the family to move to Hawkins. Runaway Max reveals what this was: During her time in San Diego, Max had a best friend named Nate she used to hang out with. Billy at this point had already scared off Max’s other friends (Eddie and Ben) to isolate her, but Nate was still with her at the time. One day, when they were constructing a bike ramp, Billy showed up, and proceeded to be an asshole to them.  When Nate told him to leave them alone, Billy proceeded to intentionally break Nate’s arm. It was serious enough the paramedics had to be called, and Billy intimidated Max into keeping silent about what happened. Nate lied to the paramedics on Max's behalf, but in the process, it permanently wrecked his relationship with Max and drove him away.

Unfortunately for Billy, his cruelty worked a little too well. Billy had been out of control for a while now (including setting fire to a dead cat and getting sick pleasure from doing so), and the incident with Nate was the final straw for Neil and Susan. They decided a fresh start was needed, which is what prompted the move to Hawkins. Billy, of course, viciously blames Max for all of this, because God forbid he actually takes any responsibility for his behavior 🙄.  

The First Shadow did something similar with Henry/One/Vecna: The whole reason the Creels moved from Rachel, Nevada to Hawkins, Indiana, was because of an incident between Henry and another child that left said child in a wheelchair. We never find out the particulars surrounding this incident, or whether Henry intentionally attacked the kid or if it was an accident (as Henry didn’t have complete control of his powers at that time). The theme, however, remains the same: Family moves for a “fresh start,” which is really about the fact they have a problematic kid who is acting out and making life difficult for everyone, and the only thing the move does is build up resentment in said kid while the problems in the family go unaddressed. The differences are that Billy’s father was the abuser (both physically and emotionally) whereas Henry’s mother took on that role in being emotionally abusive to him. And while Henry still had some semblance of humanity and a consciousness left when he moved to Hawkins, Billy has long since abandoned that and we are seeing him at his absolute worst here.

There’s also how both of them are deeply angry individuals lashing out at the world. The big difference is that, while Billy’s anger is hot and more overt, Henry’s anger is colder and more contained. In a way, it makes Henry/One/Vecna a lot scarier than Billy. There are people like Billy who think exploding at everyone will frighten them into compliance, but there comes a point where it’s just predictable as it is repetitive, which causes his bursts of rage to lose their impact. Vecna’s rage, on the other hand, is anger that has been weaponized in such a way that he almost appears calm on the surface, like he’s in control and not showing the lack of restraint Billy does. Given he’s spent 20 years as Brenner's prisoner, he’s had plenty of time to learn that kind of self-control. In some ways, I’m reminded of The Red Queen and Queen of Hearts (two characters who are often mistaken as the same despite their different personalities) from the Alice in Wonderland Novels, and how Lewis Carroll described them: “I pictured to myself the Queen of Hearts as a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion – a blind and aimless Fury. The Red Queen I pictured as a Fury, but of another type; her passion must be cold and calm.” The Queen of Hearts is a character I’ve always found to be childish, petulant, and using her rage to bully people into going along with her agenda. The only reason she was dangerous is because she was in a position of power to order your head chopped off if you displeased her. Otherwise, she had as much brains as the Mad Hatter, and would fall to pieces the same way Trump would if his power and money were taken away from him. The Red Queen on the other hand was a lot more unnerving because of how her “cold and calm” attitude made her unpredictable, intelligent, and cunning. She is someone you didn’t want to cross.

Moving past the practical and onto the personal, I make no secret that I despise Billy. Putting aside how deeply nasty, hateful, cruel, and repulsive he is (all within that car scene with Max no less), I can testify that I have dealt with people in the past who’ve behaved like this, which factors heavily into how negatively I view his character. I have been on the receiving end of people who’ve used their rage to annihilate anyone in their way, to say nothing about these people constantly project their issues onto others. This isn’t exclusive to Billy either: When I get to season 4, I’m going to have a field day covering Angela.

The result, after having put up with this kind of bullshit for most of my life, is me being firm in certain convictions: I don’t like bullies. I don’t like abusers. And I have zero patience for people who make excuses for either of those groups.

There are plenty of personal stories from my childhood and my time at church (which is one of many reasons I quit and will not go back), but there was an unpleasant experience I had a few months ago that not only came to mind when I was watching Billy’s exchange with Max in the car, but also was something that re-awoke a bunch of trauma that had been dormant for a while now.

Long story short: I got targeted by a malicious user on here (who has since had their account nuked by @/staff) that had taken reblogs and posts of mine out-of-context in a deliberate bad-faith attempt to make it seem like I was saying something I wasn’t. There were other people as well that this creep was targeting, and they later created a List that resulted in certain users getting harassed. @stillhidden can verify this, but when I found out about what they were doing, I privately messaged several mutuals who had been following me to warn them about what was going on so they could block this asshole, including those mutuals that had been targeted by this individual. I should mention (and @stillhidden can verify this as well) that I’ve done this before in other cases, but only with mutuals I've followed and who follow me since there's an established relationship there. Usually, these people let me know they block the person after I give them the info, and that’s that. I don’t pursue it any further, and I don't make a public spectacle about it either. If any of these mutuals had messaged me to let me know they didn't want these warnings, I would have stopped immediately. With one of the mutuals who’d been following me since last year (we’ll refer to them as X), they had gotten targeted as well, and I messaged them about it. My intention was to warn them so they could block this person. Nothing else. Apparently, there was a rule with them I was unaware of (which they had never told me about either) where X had asked people not to do that. So after I privately messaged them via DM, they blew up at me the same way Billy did with Max in the car, acting like I should have known about that rule in the first place, and accused me of purposefully exposing them to negativity. It was ugly and hostile, and left me feeling bad about what happened. I apologized to X, and later donated money to their Ko-Fi after they put out a post claiming they needed money for bills to smooth things over. They seemed to appreciate it, but also continued to act like I had committed some perceived slight against them, which was off-putting. They also didn’t give a damn I was still being targeted by the person I was trying to warn them about. No skin off their teeth, as far as they were concerned.

Two days afterwards, I blocked X (for reasons I'm not going to get into besides this incident), and haven’t spoken to them since. I don’t wish any ill on them, but at the same time, I want nothing to do with them. People will probably patronize me about how I should have handled this better, or that I just should not have said anything at all, and in hindsight, I wish I’d never interacted with this person. They could have just told me “Please don’t message me about this stuff” without being vicious about it, and I would have complied. It has resulted in me being a lot more restrictive about who I privately message now because I don’t ever want a repeat of that situation again. The whole incident brought back a wave of trauma regarding people projecting their issues onto me during my life, or making bad-faith assumptions about me, or accusing me of being “negative” or “argumentative” or whatever, all while they hypocritically proceeded to be as vicious as they pleased.

I even talked about one of these individuals in my Rebel Robin review: u/Daze_Confuse. He was a former Reddit user and a real piece-of-work who got his kicks out of baiting people, constantly put others down in mean-spirited ways (and then claimed it was a joke if the moderators got involved), and was a deeply nasty person who hypocritically pretended to be against bullying 😒. To say I was happy when his account got permanently suspended (which is a rarity on Reddit these days) is an understatement. He embodied Billy’s sadistic cruelty and refusal to take responsibility to a tee.

In fact, that’s what really gets under my skin about Billy’s treatment of Max and his attempts to run Mike, Dustin, and Lucas off the road: Putting aside how vile of a joke that is (especially if one of those boys had fallen off at the wrong moment and either cracked their skulls, broken their necks, or else got run over by Billy’s car), it’s the sheer entitlement on his part to behave like this that’s repulsive. It’s the same type of entitlement Angela would demonstrate in season 4 when she was bullying El. These are individuals who act like they have some kind of privilege to project their issues onto people without giving a shit about the trauma they’re inflicting. Not only do they know perfectly well that what they’re doing is cruel, they also know it's wrong and just don’t care because they they have convinced themselves that their behavior is justified. How am I supposed to empathize with that?

What’s grotesque is seeing fans who unironically defend Billy’s behavior here, from victim-blaming Max to downplaying the severity of what he tried to do to Mike, Lucas, and Dustin. I get there’s a lack of maturity in this fandom (particularly with people who stan for Billy because he’s hot and see him as a character that they can project themselves onto), but damn I really wish people would grow the hell up already.

By the way, for those wondering what was going through Max’s head during this scene, it was horrifying from her perspective:

I don’t give a rat’s ass how many fans want to claim “LOL Billy was just joking, stop taking it seriously.” If Max was scared enough to the point she had to intervene with the wheel because of what Billy was doing…………that is damning in regards to how it reflects on Billy. A theme readers are about to find out real fast with these reviews is I’m not mincing my words about Billy’s abusive behavior, or my lack of patience for the stupid abuse apologies fans have made for his character in the past (or are continuing to make in the present).

Part 4: The Adults (Hopper, Joyce, Bob)

Hopper and El’s dynamic I will analyze more in the later reviews, but out of all the people El could have been taken in by, it makes sense it would be Hopper. Not just because he was previously a father and has some experience raising a kid (barring Joyce), but because he is the LAST PERSON anyone would suspect of harboring El at this point. He’s the one who gave up El’s location to Brenner in exchange for rescuing Will (which almost resulted in El’s capture by Brenner’s men), he’s a part of law enforcement (meaning he has a better grasp of all the backdoors and loopholes around government surveillance), he has a lot to lose if he was ever caught aiding El (which includes how other people, especially Joyce, were reliant on him to keep the uneasy peace between the town and the Lab), and he had the whole arrangement with Hawkins Lab and government agents over how they’d proceed keeping the Upside Down out of the public eye. I’m sure they probably bugged Hopper’s trailer again the same way they bugged Mike’s House (and presumably Will, Dustin, and Lucas’s houses), but it doesn’t matter since he’s barely there anymore, to say nothing about how his reputation as a drunken, drug-addict means people likely assume he’s out on a bender somewhere when he can’t be found at the trailer. And he’s smart enough to use Morse Code instead of a traditional telephone. It’s the perfect cover.

I liked seeing Hopper try to reassure Joyce over Will’s picture of the Mind Flayer and explain why he’d lie about it (because Will doesn’t want his mom to keep fretting over him), as well as how they’re all experiencing trauma and can’t go back to the way things were. In hindsight though, Joyce had the right idea that these weren’t just “episodes,” but were actually real on Will’s part. She has the same intuition Mike does about knowing something’s going on with Will, with the big difference being Will is better able to open up to Mike for the reasons I've previously laid out. Should Will have been honest with Joyce about the Mind Flayer picture? Sure. However, I get why he lied, and in the grand scheme of things, I don’t know if telling her would have stopped Will from being possessed in the next episode.

Hearing Hopper allude to his time in Vietnam and how men he knew came back with PTSD from that war makes me realize that, aside from Hopper’s talk with Dmitri/Enzo in season 4, the show has never explored what Hopper’s experiences were like in Vietnam. The closest we get is in the tie-in novel Darkness on the Edge of Town where he describes it as “ancient history” and “like part of some other person’s life.” He doesn’t consider it a personal trauma, but there’s the implication that he’s desensitized himself to the horrors of what happened over there. If anything, the trauma and PTSD Hopper exhibits (besides his encounter with the Upside Down and Hawkins Lab) has more to do with Sara’s death (as we see when he keeps having flashbacks in the season 1 finale while looking for Will in the Upside Down). Even when he’s talking with Dmitri/Enzo about mixing “Agent Orange,” it’s almost in a detached manner. It isn’t until he mentions Sara and how his exposure to chemicals led to her developing cancer that Hopper become emotional. We know Sara will be coming back in season 5 (either in a flashback, a vision, or a hallucination), but I’m curious if the show intends to explore more about Hopper’s past in Vietnam. The BTS photos for season 5 allude to the idea that a war is about to break out in Hawkins between the military and the Upside Down, and that aspect of Hopper's character could become relevant to that conflict in some way.

David Harbour in Beyond Stranger Things pointed out similarities between Joyce and Hopper’s dynamic and the one shared between the characters of Jake Gittes and Evelyn Cross-Mulwray (played by Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway) in Chinatown. The film’s even referred to in this episode by Callahan when Eugene shows up to the police station to complain about his dead crops/pumpkins and how the rot (which he believes is sabotage from Merrill) hit all the farm areas the night before (Jack O’Dell, Pete Freeling, Rick Neary the Christensens, etc). I can see parallels between the couples, with Hopper and Jake being men of their times (Jake being a 1930s hard-boiled detective with politically incorrect attributes vs Hopper embodying the hyper-masculine 1980s cowboy cop) forced into investigating something that first appears inconsequential (Hopper initially looking into what appears to be a case of rotting pumpkins vs Jake being hired to investigate a possible case of spousal cheating) only for that case to be the tip of the iceberg into a massive conspiracy (The Mind Flayer’s planned invasion of Hawkins via the tunnels vs Jake uncovering how irrigation water during a drought in Los Angeles is being dumped into the ocean, causing farm crops to die and forcing farmers off their land so it can be bought cheap and the villain can then build a reservoir to profit from all of it). On top of that, both men are in a relationship with a traumatized woman (Joyce from the disappearance of her son and the events of last year vs Evelyn from the rape and abuse she’s suffered under her father) who works with them to uncover the conspiracy and put a stop to it. The difference is while Hopper and Joyce succeed (at least for this season) ……………..let’s just say there’s a reason the phrase “Forget it Jake. It’s Chinatown” became an infamous quote from that movie.

I get that Chinatown won’t appeal to many newcomers (not helped by the fact it’s directed by Roman Polanski), but I will say that the film sadly feels relevant given the current political climate, and its themes of how corrupt rich people can get away with their crimes because the social system enables them to do so.

In any case, even though Joyce is currently in a relationship with Bob, it’s pretty obvious Hopper still has feelings for her, with that attraction being there in The First Shadow as well. I still liked Bob and Joyce’s relationship, however brief it was, but I guess it was a given the show always pushed for Hopper and Joyce as early as season 1. I did appreciate how the story of them sharing cigarettes between fifth and sixth period in high school got brought back for the season finale when they’re smoking outside the Snow Ball.

Speaking of Bob, his scene of dancing with Joyce and suggesting they move out of Hawkins together was bittersweet in hindsight. Not just because of Bob’s death, but because when Joyce finally did move at the end of season 3, it was after she had lost both Bob and Hopper (or so she thought with Hopper at the time) and was shown to be just as stressed and overworked in Lenora as she was here. Like I’ve been saying with Henry/One/Vecna, Billy, Max, and El, moving to a new location doesn’t mean your old problems automatically go away. There will always be places like Hawkins in the world (Lenora being one such example) with its unpleasantries and nasty people to accompany that.

In any case, I would have liked to meet Bob’s parents in Maine, especially given the events of The First Shadow and Patty Newby’s role in the play. Who knows? Assuming the Duffer Brothers plan to incorporate story elements from the play into season 5, we may still meet them. At the very least, we’ll get to see their reaction to what happened to their son and adopted daughter if they do.

Part 5: Teen Halloween

You know that phrase Lucy utters from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown? “A person should always choose a costume, which is in direct contrast to their own personality.” That phrase kept repeating in my head while watching this episode.

There are certain characters who go with that philosophy: Bob dressing as blood-sucking Dracula despite not being a leech to Joyce the way Lonnie was. Carol and Nicole dressing up as Alex Owens from Flashdance and Ariel Moore from Footloose, despite sharing NOTHING in common with the characters from those movies (Alex and Ariel had flaws, but were decent people compared to how nasty and unpleasant Carol and Nicole are). Nancy dressing up as Lana, Joel Goodsen's love interest from the movie Risky Business, despite having long fallen out of love with Steve and barely having anything to do with his story following the next episode. Max dressing up as Michael Myers for Halloween despite having a heart under her outwardly indifferent persona. Even her reasons for picking Myers (as detailed in Runaway Max) have a whole layer to them:

“I’d picked Michael Myers for Halloween because he had no weaknesses. He never moved fast, but he still caught up to you every time. He was impossibly strong – you couldn’t overpower him and you couldn’t outrun him. He was unstoppable.” (41) “Michael Myers was the kind of monster I was most afraid of because he was real.” (41)

There is the scariness of Max's abusive situation with Billy and Neil combined with her desire not to feel week or vulnerable. She has no desire to take on the pure evil qualities Myers has, but she does want that invulnerable feeling of not being afraid anymore the way Myers appears detached from all emotions and almost everything around him.

On the opposite side, we have teens dressed as other movie characters with personal similarities to themselves. In this case, the boys went with the Ghostbusters crew to great effect. Putting aside how the Ghostbusters deal with supernatural phenomenon and end-of-the-world scenarios (Gozer) the same way the boys deal with the threat of the Upside Down (The Mind Flayer), the characters from that movie that they choose are spot on. Ironically, Finn Wolfhard (Mike) would later go to star in the sequels Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.

I know there’s the argument between Lucas and Mike over who’s Venkman, but I think the show leaned towards the idea of Lucas being more like Winston in how pragmatic and loyal both of them are to their respective friends. It’s even confirmed in Beyond Stranger Things that Lucas’s line about Judgment Day in the episode “The Mind Flayer” was referencing Winston’s line from the first movie. In any case, my unpopular opinion is I like Winston better than Venkman, but that's just me.

Tommy is dressed as Johnny Lawrence from The Karate Kid, which………is accurate. Both of them are hot-headed bullies. In Tommy’s case though, he knows his behavior is vile (without the same Freudian Excuse Johnny would later be given in Cobra Kai), and he just doesn’t give a crap. And while Johnny has some kind of standards from the movie (even genuinely congratulating Daniel when he won the tournament), the same can’t be said for Tommy. He has dropped Steve quicker than a hot-potato and is lining up to kiss Billy’s ass. Putting aside how blatantly obvious it is that Tommy's made zero effort to try to reconcile with Steve (which showcases just how shallow and one-sided his entire relationship with Steve was), it’s honestly pathetic he’s still vying for Steve’s attention despite pretending not to care.

Speaking of Steve, he is dressed Joel Goodsen from Risky Business. I’ve talked a little before about this movie in previous reviews, but this season is where the parallels between Joel and Steve really take off: Both characters are put into a position of having to take responsibility once things go wrong in their lives. In Joel’s case, it’s being forced to make money quickly to pay for repairs to his parents car (and later buy back all the furniture from Lana’s pimp, Guido) after the shenanigans Joel and Lana engage in cause problems and nearly wreck Joel’s future. In Steve’s case, it’s being forced to come to terms with the fact Nancy has moved on from him, but also forming a new friendship with Dustin while becoming the Party’s protector in the process. There are shenanigans involved with Steve’s attempts to be the older brother/babysitter, but they’re more rooted in selflessness compared to Joel’s self-centered motivations, which helps elevate Steve’s character.

It's funny how fans seem to fixate on that scene with Steve and Billy pictured above because I always found that eyeroll-inducing. Contrary to the fanon interpretation of some great rivalry between Billy and Steve for King of Hawkins High School, this always came off as one-sided projection on Billy’s part which Steve couldn’t have cared less about at that point. I never took the look he gives Billy in the picture above to mean “Bring it on” so much as “Go project your issues onto someone else, dude.” It’s even reflected in how Steve behaves at the party: He’s trying to watch over Nancy as she’s quickly growing intoxicated, and unsuccessfully tries to get her to slow down on the drinking. He doesn’t give a shit about Billy being the new “Keg King.”

Steve and Nancy’s scenes in this episode were difficult to get through. I’ve said before that Barbara’s death hangs like a black cloud over their relationship, and this episode emphasizes that hard: The voice-over with Barbara and the last thing Nancy ever said to her, and Nancy blaming both herself and Steve for Barbara’s death (albeit when she’s drunk). There’s an ugly sense that the guilt Nancy feels has warped into resentment towards herself and Steve, and now she views that moment of sex between them as something abominable, like it never should have happened. She probably feels the same way about her entire relationship with Steve at this point.

I said in the previous review that I get where both Steve and Nancy are coming from in regards to Barbara, and that is true: Nancy is right that there needed to be closure, not just for herself, but for Barbara's parents. And regardless of whether Brenner and his cronies were gone from Hawkins Lab, that place was still complicit in Barbara’s death and faking her disappearance, and never got held accountable for it. I don’t know what would have happened if Nancy, Jonathan, and Murray had not put together the story to expose the Lab once the Gate was closed, but places like that were already reeking with corruption and secrets. Even if Dr. Owens appeared to be in charge, that didn’t mean there weren’t others there (especially Owens superiors) with their own agendas, or that the Lab wouldn’t have restarted its illegal experiments if it was deemed to be in the interest of U.S. security.

At the same time though, Steve’s concerns weren’t invalid. There are so many ways exposing the truth to Barbara’s parents could have gone horribly wrong, and it’s a miracle that it didn’t for Nancy and Jonathan. I’m sure at this point Steve’s been filled in on everything that's happened, including the circumstances around Benny’s death, which adds another layer of his fear towards the Government. Forget about putting them in jail, or destroying their families lives: What happens if they go for the extreme option of killing them and faking it to look like a suicide? That’s also including the paranoia he feels about being watched (as evident when he goes for the blinds while talking with Nancy in the Library).

I think Nancy was hoping Steve would swallow his fear and take a leap of faith with her in this regard. You can see the look of hurt and disappointment on her face when he didn’t (excellent job to Natalia Dyer for conveying that in her performance), and instead insisted on going to the Halloween Party to pretend everything was normal:

I know there are fans who call it cowardice on Steve’s part. I see it more as she’s in a different place than he is right now in his character development. We know Steve isn’t a coward (as we saw in the season 1 finale), but he also isn’t in a place of wanting to take on that load of responsibility and all that it entails. This isn’t something Nancy can force him to do either. He has to want that by his own choice.

This is a big reason why I was glad when Steve and Nancy broke up, no matter how bitter it was. It’s also why I maintain having Steve partner up with Dustin was the smartest thing the Duffer Brothers ever did. Not only did it allow for much needed growth for Steve in being responsible for other people, but it also proved he could have that character development without it being exclusively tied to Nancy, or hinging on whether Steve ever got back together with Nancy. For all the complaining I see about how “It isn’t the female character’s responsibility to act as the wind beneath the wings of the male character,” people seem to overlook how Steve’s story this season subverted that trope. Even though Steve doesn’t get back together with Nancy, he still chooses to be a better person and NOT because he thinks it’ll win him the girl either.

On a final note in relation to Steve, Joe Keery gave a great performance in this episode. That scene where his voice breaks in the restroom with Nancy, and it finally hits him like a ton of bricks that Nancy doesn’t love him, is heartbreaking. You can hear his voice crack when he utters the line “Like we’re in love?” and damn does it hit hard.

Up until this point, Steve assumed the problems they were having had to do with Barbara’s death. Now it’s finally dawning on him that Nancy either has fallen out of love, or never loved him when they tried to restart their relationship. Her heart already belongs to Jonathan.

Speaking of Jonathan, they do a lot of call-backs to his character from season 1 in this episode: Jonathan making breakfast while Joyce is worried about where Will is. Acting like the fun other brother to Will and allowing him to go Trick-or-Treating without supervision. Working with a camera (with a little help from Bob). Showing up to a party (which he was invited to this time) with the implication that despite appearing aloof, he wants to have the same fun as everyone else is having. Observing Nancy from a distance, with his attraction to her being pretty obvious to the audience. And ultimately being the one to take Nancy home (though Jonathan claims to Nancy in the next episode it was at Steve’s insistence) and making sure she gets to bed safely. It’s like history repeating itself for Jonathan, except with slightly different beats this time. It’s almost like the universe saying “Hey, here’s a second chance for a relationship with the girl you love. Take it.”

I mentioned in my review of “The Flea and the Acrobat” that a flaw I see in Jonathan’s character is his tendency to project his issues onto people, and that shows up a little with how he complains about Bob to Will in the car. I get that Lonnie did a number on him, Joyce, and Will, to the point that he has trust issues, but I wish he had given Bob a chance the same way Joyce and Will did. This isn’t like Bob wasn’t trying to bond with Jonathan (like when he’s showing Jonathan how to work the video camera), or that Bob belittled his interests the same way Lonnie did. I don’t know if the show ever gives an exact time for how long Joyce and Bob had been dating at this point, but I’d have to assume it was for a significant enough period that the Byers were acquainted with him and had to have realized that Bob was nothing like Lonnie. It’s especially sad since, after the next episode, Jonathan goes off with Nancy on their quest to take down Hawkins Lab, meaning there wouldn’t be any more opportunities for Bob and Jonathan to get to know one another after this. While the show emphasizes the impact Bob’s death had on Joyce, and the comic Tomb of Ybwen does the same for Will, we never get to explore whether Bob’s death had any impact on Jonathan. It comes off as a missed opportunity.

Part 6: Miscellaneous

Ordinarily, I’m not a fan of love triangles because of all the contrived and petty bullshit that surrounds them, but this one between Dustin, Max, and Lucas was endearing. It’s painfully obvious to Max (but also amusing to her at the same time) that Dustin and Lucas have never talked to girls before, and in any other conversation, their attempts at appealing to Max would have just been weird and off-putting. Instead, she's charmed, and it helps they’re earnest in wanting Max to be a part of their group, which is something Max appreciates.

I will talk more about Mike’s attitude towards Max in the next episode, but while I don’t agree with it, I do think there is context behind his behavior that shouldn’t be dismissed like it has been in the past. For what it’s worth, I find it telling that even though he has a problem with Max Trick-or-Treating with them, he never cites Billy nearly running them off the road with his car earlier (while Max was with him) as a reason for why she shouldn’t be with them. He’s unhappy about what's going on, but he isn’t petty enough to try and stop Lucas, Dustin, and Max from doing what they're doing right now.

I did enjoy the characters trying out different accents. El mimicking "People are going to be aghast" from watching TV (you can hear Millie Bobby Brown's British accent slip through a little during that scene), and Dustin and Lucas attempts to imitate a surfer when they're saying "totally tubular."

Last, but not least, there’s Dustin finding D’Art in the trash can. Technically, D’Art was already there in the first episode, but I consider this his official introduction. This is a story I remember enjoying when I first saw the show, and I’m excited to cover it in my reviews.

Part 7: Conclusion - Song Choices

“Monster Mash” by Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett and “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr. are pretty self-explanatory for why they were chosen. The former fits in with the theme of Halloween, and the latter ties to the Ghostbusters costumes the boys wear.

One Halloween song that they included in the trailer for season 2, but not in the season itself, was Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” That’s always been one of my Top 5 favorite Halloween songs, and I was disappointed when it didn’t make an appearance in this episode.

Next song is “Wango Tango” by Ted Nugent, which plays when Billy picks up Max and later starts verbally abusing her in the car while they’re speeding down the road.

I am not putting up a link to this song because I’m not interested in giving it any coverage beyond talking about its relevance to this scene. I get how the lyrics tie into how sleazy and shitty of a person Billy is (especially in regards to his views on girls, whom he compares to cows in this episode), as well as emphasizing how Billy’s the embodiment of toxic masculinity, but damn it doesn't make this song any more pleasant to listen to. I hate this song. I hate the beat. I hate the lyrics. I hate the music. I hate the fact Ted Nugent (who’s a racist, anti-Ukrainian, antisemitic, avid Trump supporter, who may have also committed statutory rape if his song “Jailbait” is anything to go on) likely got royalties from this. One of the lines from this song is literally “Yeah, you look so good, baby, I'm startin to drool all over myself.” 😒 Do I really need to explain this? Or how it applies to Billy? I’m usually accepting of the Duffer Brothers song choices, but this one has me side-eyeing them hard.

Next song is “Blackout” by Swing Set.

This plays when Jonathan is driving Will to go Trick-or-Treating with his friends. Just like “Hazy Shade of Winter” and “Nocturnal Me,” there’s an eerie and haunting quality to the song, which describes a blackout (which could either interpreted both literally or figuratively) and the theme of needing someone to hold onto in the darkness. (“And you're lonely tonight. And you need someone, someone to hold on. Living in darkness, looking for light (Oh). And there's nothing left, nothing's in sight.”) The song applies literally to Will later when he has his vision in the Upside Down, experiencing a kind of “blackout,” with Mike being the one who pulls him out of it and Will holding onto him. One could argue the same happens for Nancy when she blacks out from intoxication, and Jonathan is the one who takes her home and puts her to bed (with Nancy even calling his name).

Next song is Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil,” which can be heard at the Halloween Party during the Keg drinking contest.

This song has an interesting history of people associating it with Satanism, and it doesn’t help that Motley Crue’s band members were on their worst behavior during the time they released this album. To say the song and the band were controversial is an understatement.

In any case, the song fits with the theme of how out-of-control and animalistic Billy is, and it calls back to something Max says about Billy in Runaway Max: “Billy liked chaos better.”

The last song featured at the Halloween Party (but not the last for this episode) is “Girls on Film” by Duran Duran, when Jonathan arrives at the party, and has his conversation with Samantha (who’s dressed as a band member from KISS).

Am I the only one who sees this song as a precursor to Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi”? Both songs deal with dehumanization that comes with celebrity status and public spectacle. Duran Duran admitted that “Girls on Film” was meant to explore “the dark side of glitz and glamour” with Sunsent Boulevard being cited as an inspiration for the song. Likewise, “Paparazzi” explores that theme of understanding the toxicity associated with fame and glamour (represented by the titular paparazzi) yet still craving it and wanting to make it your own.

In the case of this song, while no one is filming at the Halloween Party (at least not from what we’re seeing), we do see a public spectacle with Nancy getting drunk and the fight she has with Steve. Given the way the rumor mill works in Hawkins, I’m dead sure people at the party will take the fight out-of-context to dehumanize Nancy or Steve or both of them. They've already established how shallow people are in that town.

Finally, to end on a slightly more positive note, the last song is “Islands in the Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. This plays when Bob and Joyce dance together on Halloween.

The lyrics provide a sense of comfort during this scene (“You do something to me that I can't explain. Hold me closer and I feel no pain. Every beat of my heart. We got something going on.”)  Even Bob’s suggestion to move to Maine with Joyce conveys the sense that even if they did move, it would be okay because they have each other (“Sail away with me to another world. And we rely on each other, From one lover to another.”). It's harsher in hindsight, knowing what’s going to happen to Bob, but it does convey the hope that Joyce is able to love again after her previous marriage, and that one day things will work out for her.

To finish the review, here is the Party dressed for Halloween:

[emtmercy]

Listening to TAZ for the first time in 2025

Not the famous season tho it’s taz b Dracula

[tozettastone]

are you big on tv? do you have any shows you keep up with?

Nooo... I'm not much of a TV person, I'm sorry. I like to have something to watch while working out, and if I get sick or sometimes if I can't sleep. I've actually really tried to find stuff to get into this year, if only to give me more fandom blocks to play with! But so far I keep looking for TV shows to watch and then getting bored and disappointed about them, honestly. I wish there was something grabbing my attention lately.

Generally I look for things that are romantic (as an artistic descriptor, I don't require that they specifically contain romantic relationships) and have fun surreal, gothic, fantasy or mild horror vibes.

Between the start of December 2024 and March 2025 I've had a look at...

I saw the first episode of the 3-episode Dracula TV series from 2020 (the one by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat) but its mix of "balls to the wall fully camp zombie undead" and "serious gothic horror aesthetic" was a juxtaposition that I felt confused the delivery and didn't really work for me. It had some cool body horror moments, though, and might work for someone else.

I watched season 4 of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime, which is part 5, "Vento Aureo" (season 4 is part 5 — thanks, everyone, good job, very helpful). It was a delightfully surreal little story. I would not recommend it to anyone who needs a series to make sense from scene to scene because it isn't very committed to that. But the themes and characters were so fun! I also love the character designs, they're very... alt fashion inspired? I guess? It was good. It was not without its own flaws, but, like, same. ┐⁠(⁠‘⁠～⁠`⁠;⁠)⁠┌

I saw the 2022 film "The Pale Blue Eye" starring Christian Bale. It's a period thriller about a retired detective teaming up with Edgar Allan Poe to solve some murders. It's based on a book. While it was fun, it did not have a very coherent plot, and some aspects I felt were vastly overexplained (perhaps in compensation), but the vibes were immaculate and the delivery was fun. I would recommend it for watching while crafting or something like that.

I watched the first 5 episodes of Trinity Blood. It's an early 00s shoujo series about a post-armageddon Earth featuring a fully armed Vatican and a bunch of space vampires. I enjoyed the concepts, but the delivery didn't suit me so I stopped watching it.

I watched the first 3½ episodes of Love Between Fairy and Devil, a 36-episode Chinese series based on a fantasy book. I described it to a friend as "The Dark Lord Sauron becomes magically fixated on a wide-eyed girl who acts like a toddler, is bad at everything, and doesn't believe he is the dark lord." And I was amused by the toddler girl / dark lord vibes for a few episodes but I got bored of it pretty fast. Maybe for the romantasy people who don't mind a slightly pathetic heroine?

I watched the entire 2023 Onmyouji series, which was only 13 episodes long. I quite liked this one and now I'm a Seimei/Hiromasa shipper. The animation in this isn't to the standard you might expect for a 2020s series and I feel like the execution isn't actually awesome, but the setting, the plots of individual episodes, and the characters were its strengths.

I'm 2½ episodes into The Tale of the Nine-Tailed, a 2020 South Korean fantasy drama. The premise is sort of convoluted, but it has held my interest because I find the female lead — a supernatural investigative journalist searching for clues as to her parents' murder/disappearance — interesting. It's got kind of a horror vibe in some places. So far fun, but I'm only 2½ episodes in, and I've ignored it for a week, oops.

That's it, anon. I kind of wish I was better at this game!

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Thursday, January 9-Friday, January 10, Part 2

Kathy: Ewww! Who left their gum here? Buffy: Gum gnome?

~~Living Conditions~~

[Reviews & Recaps]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 5x21 & 5x22 REACTION | "The Weight of the World" & "The Gift" by The Horror Bandwagon

Buffy The Vampire Slayer 6x20 Villains Reaction by Jules Reacts

Buffy The Vampire Slayer "WHAT'S MY LINE?: PART 2" S2E10 (REACTION!!!) by JerBear Reacts

*AM I..... TEAM HOLTZ?!* ANGEL 3x08 REACTION l Quickening by domi e.

'Halloween' (2x06) | Buffy The Vampire Slayer | with special guest Girth Brooks! by Up The Buff!

Podcast: ANGEL 1.11 - Somnambulist by Buffy the Vampire Straya

Podcast: ANGEL 1.10 - Parting Gifts by Buffy the Vampire Straya

Publication: “Buffy vs. Dracula” – Revisiting Buffy’s Subversive Dracula Episode 25 Years Later via Bloody Disgusting

[Recs & In Search Of]

A Fanfic question [Looking for works posted on MZP-TV] by eevol76vamp

[Community Announcements]

James Marsters Unable to Attend FAN EXPO New Orleans 2025 by dontkillspike

[Fandom Discussions]

zeroing in on how spike behaves [in Seeing Red] by lesbianmarrow

I’m remembering why season 6 is so hard to watch; I hate watching Buffy be abusive. by rhisardthewizard

Holy shit, did Mr Trick just...verbally confirm that Sunnydale is an all-white town? by thornfield13713

it's kind of funny, and also really sad, that you can always tell when one of these Angel dreams is a dream by thornfield13713

[Buffy and Faith's first meeting] by

[Faith vs Buffy, how slaying feels] by

As much as I love seaon 5 I can't shake the feeling they dropped the ball with Ben's story by abadbadbrujah

[Joyce sympathy] by thornfield13713

[Buffy, Faith, and slayerdom] by

I really like After Life by coraniaid

Soul vs no soul by multiple authors

3x04 does Xander get any blame? by multiple authors

I guess she didn't anticipate this aging poorly by multiple authors

Who are the most righteous Buffyverse characters according to you? by multiple authors

What are some impressive things the Buffyverse writers were able to do that you think are underrated? by multiple authors

Rank the Angel Seasons by multiple authors

Buffy’s Mom by multiple authors

Hank Summers should've been killed off by multiple authors

I'm so glad I watched this show dude by multiple authors

Rewatching after 18 years, can't believe how good it still is by multiple authors

I support Clem's dietary choices. by multiple authors

S7E17 Lies my ParenTs Told Me by multiple authors

I just love Angel so much by multiple authors

Your top ten unpopular opinions by multiple authors

Rewatching as an adult by multiple authors

"The Killer in Me" imo is the only legit bad episode of Buffy by multiple authors

One of Buffy’s more underrated act of compassion in my opinion by multiple authors

How many times a day did David Boreanaz have to shave?! by multiple authors

Angel saving Xander from Faith by multiple authors

buffy vernacular by multiple authors

Would Faith and Buffy had respected Wesley as their Watcher if they had the Wesley from Angel Season 2? by multiple authors

Cordelia should have discovered Angel when he returned from Hell in Season 3 instead of Buffy by multiple authors

I just finished the show for the first time ever and wanted to share some of my opinions ( I loved the show) by multiple authors

How would Doyle have interacted with other characters? by multiple authors

"RED MEAT" Iowa Flag by multiple authors

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Publication: The Canceled Buffy Spinoff Better Than Angel via Giant Freakin Robot

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[bunnydracula]

watching iwtv in 2024 thoughts: i love a dracula!

between seasons 2025 thoughts: louis would get her body done and armand would be so jealpus

[inklingofadream]

Ink's 2024 Fic

We all survived another year, and with another year comes a new wrap-up to become my pinned post! Exact word count is tricky this year because of how AO3 counts published works you just go back and edit, but to the best of my reckoning in 2024 I wrote 96,424 words.That's an 86.417% decrease from last year, shocker.

2024 has been turbulent. We went from "I can't believe Mom has to have a root canal 5 days after major surgery" to "I'm so glad the root canal happened exactly when it did" in a matter of weeks. That was in March. The ENTIRE year has been like that. All this to say, if at any point in 2024 I didn't respond to you, stopped responding, or completely forgot something else important, it was probably because something was on fire. Nothing personal, just chaos.

That's also why I don't have a whole lot of commentary about a lot of what I wrote, compared to past years. This year, it was all TMA, and spread across 9 distinct works.

I'm listing my longest ongoings last to give the shorter ones the space to breathe. Completion status, word count, and any standout relationships are listed, but check the tags and warnings on AO3 for full details. The rest of the descriptions here are a mix of summary, excerpts, and liner notes.

from spite- 600, complete, Martin/Elias; I read The Bloody Chamber as my yearly court-mandated pre-Dracula season vampire book, and "The Erl-King" grabbed hold of my brain and said it was Martin's turn to be romantically menaced by Elias. It hasn't entirely let go, to be honest, and very well may inspire future melancholy iterations on the same ship in the future.

Martin is a sheet of ice, and Jonah's hand at his waist, his chin on his shoulder, twin flames that threaten to melt him. Jonah smiles by Martin's ear as though he heard the thought; it isn't difficult for him to circumvent the silent treatment, if it pleases him. "Look."

from what has been broken- 14k, WIP, Jon&Gerry; Last year I wrote a fic about Trevor and Julia just Keeping a very much alive Gerry and then kidnapping Jon from the Circus. This continuation is... mostly hurt at the moment, admittedly. The comfort is coming, I promise!

The Vampire Saga Route 1- 80k, 8 works, Jon/Martin, Georgie/Melanie; The most recent fic in Route 1 is actually a Christmas special Sutton wrote. Christmas special aside, this is the version where the vampire!Martin dilemma was solved with the power of friendship and everything is great forever. No misunderstandings and no ominous dangling plot threads, promise. 🥰🤞

The Vampire Saga Route 2- 43k, 8 works, Jon/Martin, Tim&Danny, Jon/Elias; Sasha tried very hard to resolve this version with the power of friendship 😔

The Archivist and the Adventurer- 45k, 10 works, Jon/Martin; My fae au got an eensy update this year! More importantly, the update introduced Gerry! If you're new, this au is technically complete- right now I'm adding oneshot chapters that take place in the main plot's happily ever after. With Gerry! More Gerry in 2025, hopefully! I want this thing out of my drafts!

Little Archive- 93k, WIP, Jon&Gerry, Jon&Beholding; Egregiously neglected this year, tbh. I swear, in 2025 I'm getting the next Plot Development out into the world. You guys will like this one, promise. For real promise, it's delightful.

Beneath the Stains of Time- 128k, WIP, Jon&Daisy; I really wanted to finish this one this year, but alas. In recompense, the entire outline as it currently sits on my whiteboard:

47J 48S-a 49Ml-b 50J-e 51T- h 52E- g 53D Never

sitting pretty on the throne, nothing more i want (except to be alone)- 225k, WIP, Jon/Beholding, Jon/Jonah, Jon/freedom; Also nearing the end! I didn't actually think I was going to get it done this year after about March, so I'm less bugged I didn't.

The First Annual Archive Team Group Getaway To Put Jon In His Place- 76k, WIP, Jon/Tim/Martin/Sasha, Georgie/Melanie; This au gets bigger every time I turn my back. It will be getting no additional installments until I finish the main fic. So now I just have to. Finish it.

[miimo96]

Marvel Rivals UPDATE:

So after a while I finally started getting good at Marvel rivals and can kinda basically play the game at this point, and is it just me or has the game gotten really TOUGH, my god it was NOT like this when I started, tho that's probably because I've been sick and therefore haven't had time to play/ hone my skills, however I can confidently say that I have gotten really good, so much so that I've basically reached LV 14 believe it or not, I haven't tried Ranked/ competitive yet so I don't know how that will go but I'm pretty sure that I'll be alright, ESPECIALLY since I've gotten REALLY good with my 2 Mains now ^^

Yep that's right I'm a Moon Knight and Cloak and dagger main now, and I'm not just saying that because they're really easy to play with, I'm ACTUALLY really good with both of them and before you ask, No, I don't only use cloak when I'm playing cloak and dagger, I actually use both and play my part in the team, if anything I'm mainly stuck on Dagger because people keep DYING! Like damn am I the only healer in the group? because it Sure FEELS LIKE IT SOMETIMES!! Anyway yeah they're pretty fun to use, now moon knight is a different story, if I got good range I'm basically effing invincible yet somehow not MVP at times, which I don't understand because if it weren't for me, MY TEAM WOULD NOT WIN half of the time! Like We could be getting Squad wiped by a whole Scarlett witch and Winter soldier but if I'm there and have GOOD aim that day, yeah it's GG's because best believe those damn Moonerrangs are coming Straight for your head, and don't even think of trying to sneak me with Spider man because I WILL club you to death. Yeah those are basically my 2 favorites to play with and I'm SO glad that they have a team Special together because that's helped me in SO MANY ways it's not funny, I do play with other characters like Star lord, squirrel girl, Punisher and even Jeff at times but for the most part, yeah it's definitely Moon knight and cloak and dagger 4 SURE, and speaking of FOUR

Yes I have been aware that Marvel's 1st family is finally coming to Rivals and OMG not only do the character designs look great (especially Sue my WORD 😍 ) but also I love that we are getting new skins, new maps, new modes, and basically new EVERYTHING, bro Midtown looks so effing cool from what I've seen in the trailers and I love how the theme of this season is basically Vampires, I didn't get to collect any of the damn comic books from season 0 so best believe I will TRY to get them for this 1, and really hope we either get to fight Dracula and doom or at least get them as playable characters because DAMN do they look good, not to mention Dracula owes my boy Moon knight $5 I NEED to see some dialogue with that PLEASE! ^w^ Wow between this and the fact that they're movie comes out this year, 2025 has been the year for fantastic four so far, yeah I totally can't wait for this, anyway that's just a small little update regarding my Marvel rivals journey for you all, like I said previously if you're interested in playing just hit me and we can probably Squad wipe together if ya want but other than that, Yeah I'm REALLY enjoying this game now, totally can't wait to see what comes next, Next up: Ranking, okay bye y'all ^^

[see-arcane]

This is how I feel every time Dracula Daily is at the horizon: https://youtu.be/aWiXwCTAzBs?si=lltwsjykzhkApFGp (... I think this one needs an english translation).

Oh, that is a good vampire vibe (silly flavor)

My brain always goes straight to:

[theholmwoodfoundation]

THE HOLMWOOD FOUNDATION: EPISODE 1.5 (Minisode)

While we work hard on the rest of Season One, please enjoy this minisode from The Holmwood Foundation.

DJ Dave presents: UK Spooky And Strange

Starring:

Karim Kronfli as Dave, Jessica Carroll as Ruby, Robyn Holdaway as Finn, Elliott Crossley as Lachlan.

Written by Georgia Cook and Fio Trethewey. Direction by Sam Clemens, Sound Editing by Benji Clifford.

TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE HERE

What Is The Holmwood Foundation? The Holmwood Foundation follows Jeremy Larkin (Played by Sean Carlsen) and Maddie Townsend (Played by Rebecca Root), two co-workers at the mysterious Holmwood Foundation, as they are possessed by the ghosts of Jonathan and Mina Harker, and embark on a road trip across the country in an effort to achieve their ghost's wishes: to stop Dracula once and for all.

Episodes 2-7 dropping late Spring/Early Summer 2025

[draculathedansemacabre]

Tomorrow at 8:00 PM! Gabriel is doing the last creator commentary for Dracula: The Danse Macabre's first season. Tune into his Patreon at 8:00 PM Eastern to hear him go through Episode 4, The Bride of Dracula!

Topics include:

The basement

Changes to the structure of novel's last act

Dracula's backstory

Cruelty in characters

Mirrors and reflections

The future of DTDM

Want to tune in but not sure if you want to sign up to contribute a monthly donation? Remember, Gabriel's Patreon offers a free trial so you can check things out and see if you want to sign up long-term!

[keepingupwithjakubgierszal]

Kuba’s filmography 🎥

2009

Wszystko co kocham/All That I Love – dir. Jacek Borcuch

2010

Milion dolarów/Million Dollars – dir. Janusz Kondratiuk

2011


Sala samobójców/Suicide Room – dir. Jan Komasa

2012


Nieulotne/Lasting – dir. Jacek Borcuch
Yuma – reż. Piotr Mularuk

2013


Der Teufel mit den drei goldenen Haaren – dir. Maria von Heland
Finsterworld – dir. Franke Finsterwalder
Moralność pani Dulskiej/The Morality of Mrs. Dulska – dir. Marcin Wrona
Pamiętnik pani Hanki/Miss Hanka’s Diary – dir. Borys Lankosz – tv theatre
The Fold – dir. John Jencks

2014


Dracula Untold – dir. Gary Shore

2015


Amazonia – dir. Bodo Kox – theatre tv
Córki dancingu/ The Lure – dir. Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Hiszpanka/Influence – dir. Łukasz Barczyk
Performer – dir. Maciej Sobieszczański, Łukasz Ronduda
Crossing lines (season 3) – dir. Edward Allen Bernero, Rola Bauer

2017


Pomiędzy Słowami/Beyond words – dir. Urszula Antoniak
Najlepszy/Breaking The Limits – dir. Łukasz Palkowski
Pokot/Spoor – dir. Agnieszka Holland, Kasia Adamik
PolandJa – dir. Cyprian T. Olencki
Zgoda/The Reconciliation – dir. Maciej Sobieszczański

2018


Chyłka. Zaginięcie (tv series) – dir. Łukasz Palkowski
Das boot (ep. 3 &4) – dir. Johannes W. Betz

2019


Chyłka. Kasacja (tv series) – dir. Łukasz Palkowski, Marek Wróbel
Powrót Birbanta. Rekonstrukcja/Return of the Reveller – dir. Piotr Szczepańsk

2020

Chyłka. Rewizja (tv series) – dir. Łukasz Palkowski, Marek Wróbel

2021


Chyłka. Oskarżenie (tv series) – dir. Łukasz Palkowski, Marek Wróbel
Najmro. Kocha, kradnie, szanuje/The Getaway King – dir. Mateusz Rakowicz
Chyłka. Inwigilacja (tv series) – dir. Łukasz Palkowski, Marek Wróbel

2022

Vamos a la playa - dir. Bettina Blümner
Zadra/Splinter – dir. Grzegorz Mołda

2023


Doppelgänger. Sobowtór/Doppelgänger. The Double – dir. Jan Holoubek

2024

Ultima Thule – dir. Klaudiusz Chrostowski
Biała odwaga/The White Courage – dir. Marcin Koszałka

Kolory Zła. Czerwień/The Colours of Evil. Red - dir. Adrian Panek

Simona Kossak - dir. Adrian Panek

✨UPCOMING✨

Pojedynek/The Duel - dir. Łukasz Palkowski

Przez ścianę/Through the Wall - dir. Maciej Sobieszczański

Langer - tv series based on the novel by Remigiusz Mróz - dir. Łukasz Palkowski ~ premiering spring 2025 on Skyshowtime PL

Kolory Zła: Czerń/Colors of Evil. Black - the project has been confirmed but further info TBA

🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬🎬

TO BE UPDATED! ✨ NEW PROJECTS TO COME SOON ✨ STAY TUNED 😊

[ronintheatrecollabrative]

Ronin Theatre Co presents the Arizona Premiere of “A Klingon Hamlet” by William Shakespeare opens May 22nd at the Irish Cultural Center and McClelland Library 1106 N Central Ave, Phoenix, Arizona 85004

(Phoenix, Ariz.) Ronin Theatre Collaborative presents a classic play by a William Shakespeare, with a sci-fi twist. A "Hamlet" that no one has seen before.

"You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.”- Chancellor Gorkon (played by David Warner, utters this iconic line in the series sixth motion picture "Star Trek The Undiscovered Country". What was a joke about Soviet propaganda during the Cold War, has become the inspiration for a new adaptation of Shakespeare's most famous play.

Adapting the piece, has been the work of director Keath Hall & assistant E.C. Darling Bond. Both bring their love of the Bard & Star Trek to fore in a production that will be equally enjoyable to all fans of Shakespeare or Star Trek. "If we can see Hamlet as a singing lion, then why not a brooding Klingon?" quipped Darling-Bond.

Patrons of Ronin will recognize familiar favorites in the cast, alongside new faces in the cast. Keath Hall as Hamlet. CD Macaulay as the Ghost. Wes Martin as Claudius. Amy Searcy as Gertrude. Kate Haas as Ophelia. EC Darling-Bond as Horatio. Debra Lyman as Polonius. Jonathan Gonzales as Laertes. Marco Monacchio as Rosencrantz. Ben Donell as Guildenstern and Fight Choreographer. Stage Manager Therese Cudmore; Costumes Joshua Morris: Sound Chris McKenna.

Director and the Hamlet of this production, Keath Hall, will say adieu to running Ronin Theatre Company after this production closes in June. He will be assuming command as the new artistic director of Southwest Shakespeare Company. Ronin Theatre Company will then be under the purview of company co-founder, Cody Goulder.

“A Klingon Hamlet” will run its first weekend at Irish Cultural Center & Mckelland Library from May 22nd to May 25th. Located at 1106 N Central Ave, Phoenix Az 85004.

The play will then transfer for a weekend of performances at The Beaver Street Theatre in Flagstaff May 31st - June 1st. Located at 11 Beaver St. #2 Flagstaff Az 86001

A panel consisting of the cast and crew will be a highlight at Phoenix Fan Fusion June 6th through 8th.

The last two weekends of performances, June 20th to June 29th, will be staged at the new Stage Left Productions space at 5930 West Greenway Rd, Suite 1a, Glendale Az 85306

Evening performances on Friday and Saturday at 7pm with matinee shows on Saturday and Sunday at 2pm.

Tickets are $35 and available at https://www.azirish.org/ronin-theatre/

Reservations are encouraged. Box office and ticketing info:

info@ronintheatre.com

Following “A KLINGON HAMLET” Ronin’s 2025 Season will continue with “FAT MEN IN YOGA PANTS” by Ben Corbett.

JULY 11th through the 13th at The Irish Cultural Center in downtown Phoenix.

Tickets: https://www.azirish.org/ronin-theatre/

About Ronin Theatre Collaborative

Established in 2020, Ronin Theatre Co. has produced productions of HENRY V, PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD, TAMING OF THE SHREW, MADE IN AMERICA by Richard Warren, Samuel Beckett’s WAITING FOR GODOT, DRACULA IN TOMBSTONE, TWELFTH NIGHT, THE LONESOME WEST and VENUS IN FUR, CORIOLANUS For more information, visit www.ronintheatre.com and 'Like' www.facebook.com/ronintheatreco.