Welcome back for the tenth installment of the Summer TV Binge of Stranger Things, looking back at season two, episode two, released October 27, 2017:
“Chapter Two: Trick or Treat, Freak”
Written and directed by the Duffer Bros.
It’s Halloween, and the boys are all dressed up and ready to go trick or treating. Eleven suggests going out in disguise too, but Hopper still feels it’s unsafe; he promises to come home early so they can spend the holiday together, but he gets sidetracked by the growing infestation in the fields. Nancy and Steve attend a party, where she gets drunk and admits she doesn’t love him anymore.
1. GHOSTBUSTERS!
This is the episode where the boys go to school as the Ghostbusters, believing they’re having a costume day like the previous year, and Mike and Lucas get into a racially charged argument over both of them wearing a Peter Venkman (Bill Murray’s character) name tag: Lucas says he never agreed to come as Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), and after Mike comes to a spirited defense of the character, Lucas asks why he isn’t Winston. I think if there’s anything serious we can take away from this hilarious exchange, it’s that it should be OK for white kids to cosplay as non-white characters, as long as they’re not wearing blackface or anything like that. Either that, or just sow your own names on those uniforms.
2. What Happened to Eleven? Stay Tuned
Hate to keep laboring the point, but Stranger Things 2 really does feel like an eight-hour film: the cold open starts showing what happened to Eleven during the past year, beginning with her waking up in the Upside Down’s version of the school, and trying to return to Mike, only to flee because his home is surrounded by the feds. (Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard are noticeably older here than in season one, but kids do grow up fast.) Two more flashbacks show how she survived in the forest in the middle of winter, but we don’t see Hopper finding her, which is a decision that would not have happened on a weekly series.
The inclusion of these flashbacks is justified by Mike sharing with Will that he feels like he can still feel El’s presence, after his best friend has another “flashback” to the Upside Down: because we saw in the cold open that she really was outside his house after her “death,” it’s another strong clue that Will’s visions of the enormous, Alien-styled shadow monster aren’t just waking nightmares brought on by his traumatic experience. At the end of the episode, El uses her TV to reenter the Void, and Mike senses her again before dismissing his feelings, demonstrating that the kids are becoming too skeptical for their own good.
3. The Two Men in Joyce’s Life
Joyce becomes concerned by a drawing Will made of the smoke monster, which she shares with Hopper. While at her house, the two share cigarettes, and remember getting into trouble for smoking at school. It’s the first major hint that the duo have some romantic feelings for each other, but Joyce is in a relationship with Bob, who is a thoroughly cool, if corny guy: as Will points out, he’s a much nicer man than his dad.
While the boys are out for the evening, Bob suggests relocating from Hawkins to his parents’ old home in Maine. Hopper and Bob basically represent the two paths Joyce could take, of staying or leaving Hawkins, ideally away from the trauma of Will’s disappearance and the growing threat of the Upside Down’s return, yet Hopper seems like the more appropriate partner for her — I can’t help but wonder if dating Bob was a subconscious decision on her part to move on and pretend everything’s fine.
4. Meanwhile, Nancy Stops Playing Pretend
Nancy’s grief and inability to tell Barb’s parents the truth about her death causes her to get drunk and embarrass herself at the Halloween party. While cleaning up, Nancy angrily admits she hates lying, and calls her relationship with Steve “bullshit.” She basically explains she feels their relationship was the reason Barb was attacked, and that he reminds her too much of that, demonstrating rekindling their romance was an attempt to pretend everything was normal. A crestfallen Steve just leaves, meaning Jonathan — a latecomer to the party — has to drive her back home safely, which reinforces that he wasn’t a good boyfriend.
Continued below5. Billy the Bad Brother
Max’s brother Billy gets more screentime after his introduction in the first chapter, and he’s shown to be an incredibly aggressive asshole, threatening not to pick her up from school if she’s late again. Max utters under her breath that she blames Billy for them moving to Hawkins, but he hears her, and threatens to run over Lucas, Mike and Dustin if she doesn’t apologize. Two things about this thread: firstly, I saw The Lost Boys for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and it dawned on me Kiefer Sutherland’s villain David Powers probably inspired Billy. Secondly, at the end of the episode, after Max joins the boys trick or treating, Dustin mutters the phrase “tubular” — if that’s not a giveaway that Max and her brother are from California, I don’t know what is.
Other Things:
– I hinted at this a little last time when bringing up the reds in the Upside Down, but the cinematography in season two feels so much more saturated and infernal: the Duffers were clearly making the most of the show’s popularity.
– Eleven suggesting to dress up as a ghost is another great nod to E.T., when the alien was smuggled out of the house with a similar costume during Halloween. It’s funny as well that she wanted to be a ghost, while the boys are the Ghostbusters.
– Seeing Finn Wolfhard in a Ghostbusters costume again makes his casting in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and the trailers’ Stranger Things vibes, even more peculiar: you have to wonder what present day Mike would make of it.
– You can really hear Millie Bobby Brown’s British accent when Eleven mimics the woman on TV saying “aghast.”
– The transition from Bob opening the door for trick or treaters, to the boys on their own candy collecting spree, was very clever.
– Lucas’s little sister Erica makes her first appearance in this episode, calling her brother a nerd for dressing up at school.
– It’s good Netflix has enough money to afford playing Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters” over the end credits.
See you all next week for “Chapter Three: The Pollywog.”
