REVIEW: Stranger Things, Episode 105
Stranger Things continues to get stranger with episode 5 entitled “Chapter Five: “The Flea and the Acrobat”, and in it, we finally find out where Will is.
With the arrival of Lonnie in the last episode, things take a break from crazy at Joyce’s house, and they start arranging the funeral. But of course that no one really likes Lonnie, especially Jonathan who is very far from happy that he is back, probably knowing that he is preparing something. From what I understand, Lonnie was never really around, especially not in the last few years, and when he was he used to take the kids to do whatever he wanted, instead of actually trying to do something they like. Bottom-line: he sucks as a father, but I was a bit happy to find out that he doesn’t suck as much as to miss his own son’s funeral. But then of course he was able to disappoint again. Lonnie came back, not really for Will’s funeral, but to get his hands in the insurance money they will receive. After finding this, Joyce immediately kicks him out of the house, while Lonnie says she is also far from being the perfect mother. Of course that this is true, Joyce is obviously not perfect, no one is, but at least she is around and she cares and she tries her best, which is a lot more than Lonnie can say for himself.
What is worse about all this, is that Lonnie actually made Joyce think she is crazy, and that she imagined the monster, the lights, seeing Will, everything. Fortunately, there is now another person who knows what is going on. Or better, Hopper doesn’t really know what is going on, but at least he knows that Joyce was right: Will’s body was fake, which means that he might still be alive. And this is exactly what he told Joyce.
Meanwhile, Mike, Dustin and Lucas start to understand where Will is, because of something Eleven said in a previous episode. Will is exactly in the same place where they all are, in Hawkins, but not the Hawkins they live in. That is when they realize that he is in another dimension. Like home, but dark and empty. Will is in the Upside Down. They decide to ask their teacher how they could enter that dimension, and he says they would have to create a huge amount of energy, an amount so big, that it can’t be created. Even though he seemed to be right about everything else, Mr. Clark is wrong about that last part because we know that there is a portal in the Hawkins Lab. The gang proved to be smart, maybe smarter than Mr. Clark, and realized that the compasses aren’t showing the actual north, but they are pointing at the gate, because of the electromagnetic energy that is creates. But Eleven doesn’t like this idea at all, because she knows there is a monster in the other dimension, so she messes with the compasses and they can’t find it. Lucas gets really upset and eventually leaves the group. After him, Eleven disappears too.
There really seems to be a lot of myths about very strange things invented by both Americans and Russians during the cold war, and we learn in this episode that the Upside Down was one of them. Well, actually, no one created that dimension, it simply exists, what the scientists created was a portal to enter it, allowing them to spy on the Russians, since someone in the Upside Down can see the real world, but the people in the real world can’t see them. Of course every time people mess with something they don’t understand, eventually things get out of control, so welcome to Stranger Things.
After finding out about the monster in the last episode, Jonathan and Nancy go to the woods to try to find it, which seems like a terrible idea. Even though they have a gun, they don’t know how to use it, but even if they did, what if a bullet isn’t enough to take it down? I guess it is safe to say they didn’t think this through, but it was still nice to see them bond. I will say that Jonathan seems like a much nicer match to Nancy, than moron Steve. In the end of the episode it seemed like the portal in the Lab isn’t the only one in Hawkins, because Nancy entered the Upside Down through a tree.
This was another great episode. It was very satisfying seeing Joyce kick Lonnie out, seeing her realize she was right and also seeing Nancy and Jonathan bond. It was also great to see the gang split up. It was hard, because they make a great team, but what I mean is that it was great seeing once again that these young actors are really talented. I am giving this episode an 8.9/10.
Next episode is entitled “Chapter Six: The Monster”, so we should expect to see the Demogorgon a lot more.