Episode 3

The party’s overarching goals for episodes 3 and 4 are to save the children and close the gate. They split up for this, which I’m not going to cover in much detail (since this is a rough outline) except to say that we can generally keep the canon events with Derek and his family—in spirit, at least. But instead of kidnapping his family, the party winds up protecting them from demogorgons. Then, they ask for Derek’s help.

Which is a good time to talk about Derek.

I think he was a decent character in the canon, but his motivations weren’t made clear enough. Some slight adjustments make it work, though. Derek starts off as a bully, and too quickly becomes too willing to risk his life helping a bunch of strangers; his character radically changes out of nowhere. However, if in the LSV (my Less-Shitty Version) we see him being treated poorly by his family—if his parents talk down to him, and an older sibling bullies him like he bullies kids his own age—then we see that, really, he’s a lonely, neglected, emotionally abused kid.

This kid is then suddenly saved from a monster by a group of other kids, some of them his age (who could be the friends he’s never had), some older (like surrogate older siblings) and even a few adults (who are nicer to him than his own parents are). Nobody has cared about him like this before, and so it’s no wonder that he’d become incredibly loyal to them.

In short, the party gives Derek permission to be the kind (albeit awkward) person he’s always wanted to be. The awkwardness takes on a new component besides being funny, if we realize it’s because Derek has never been able to be this open with others, so he’s not quite sure how to do it right.

And even though Murray’s kind of a useless character by this point, I feel like one or two interactions between him and Derek would be pretty funny.

Also, in the earlier part of this episode, Robin talks with Steve about Vickie calling her. With Steve pushing her toward it, as well as with how she sees Will mourning Mike, Robin realizes that they could all die at any time anyway… so she decides to just do it. She’s able to get Vickie on the radio again, and tells her how she feels—awkward and stumbling, Robin-style. Vickie, also awkward and stumbling, admits the same. They don’t know what to do about it yet, but they tell each other that they’ll figure that out soon, once all of this is over. Robin then tells Will that she did it, and how well it went. This is another development that pushes Will toward coming out, later.

Speaking of Will, by this point he’s struggling with visions from Vecna and the Mind Flayer, which is nothing new… but this time it’s getting bad, horrific, building up more and more as Vecna tries tempting him to join the children in opening the gate. This confuses Will, as well as the rest of the party when he tells them, because the Hawkins gate is already open. What other gate is Vecna talking about?

The party members on kid-saving duty head out: Steve (because he’s the babysitter), Will, Joyce, Jonathan, Lucas, Robin, Erica and Argyle.

Meanwhile, Holly’s arc inside of Henry’s mind is unfolding much the same as it did in the canon, with her pretending to still believe his lies. As the kidnapped children start to enter the mansion-headspace, Holly subtly works against Henry by trying to show the others the truth… which they don’t accept.

However, everyone who isn’t focused on saving the remaining children in Hawkins is working on a plan to close the gate. Since her declaration of revenge at the end of the previous episode, El is back… determined and intense, and quiet with a seething rage. She tells them that they can close the gate. She just needs to get there.

The problem is that the gate, in the middle of downtown Hawkins, is surrounded by demos—far too many for them to get through on their own. So, Hopper spends part of this episode convincing Chief Powell and many of the remaining townspeople to help (which allows us to see some of the other recurring characters again, like Mr. Clarke). Finally, enough people get on board and form up an armed force, led by Hopper and Powell.

However, Hopper takes a moment to do something else. He’s found an old business card in the wreckage of the cabin, and makes a distress call to the number listed on it… in a scene reminiscent of a call he’d made to this number one other time, back in season 2.

Unlike last time, however, nobody answers. But Hopper’s able to leave a message, in which he says that he doesn’t know what their status is, if there’s even anybody left to hear this after what happened in the desert. But he says that another gate’s opened, and Hawkins needs help—they need the calvary.

Nancy’s on the gate force as well, because she’s ferocious, entering full Rambo Nancy mode. (And seeing this, Hopper doesn’t try to talk her out of going.) Like El, she’s out for revenge for Mike’s death (and for her father’s). Although she doesn’t know how they’re going to get Holly back if the gate is closed, she trusts that they’ll figure that out next.

Meanwhile, some of the jocks from the previous season are in the civilian fighting force. They’ve realized just how wrong they were to follow Jason, and so before the battle they apologize to Dustin, Lucas and Will over the Hellfire stuff. Lucas and Will accept their apology, but Dustin, pissed off, tells them to apologize to Eddie—except they can’t, can they? Because he died trying to save the town, including these assholes, who’d treated him like shit his whole life. Dustin tells them that they aren’t forgiven, and storms off.

The attack on the gate commences—the people of Hawkins against the demos, fighting to free their town from this occupying force. 

However, they don’t last very long—even more demos come pouring out of the gate, and it seems that they’re doomed. People are getting overwhelmed and fleeing, many of them killed left and right—including some of the jocks, the ones who apologized and who Dustin refused to forgive. He watches them die, screaming and horrified, alongside so many other people.

Then a new force arrives.

All at once helicopters, armored vehicles, soldiers and even tanks roll into Hawkins and rapidly push the demos back into the base—the military has shown up.

Yep, we’re still doing the military stuff, because that’s such a core component of Stranger Things. The canon screwed it up, but I’ll try to do something better here.

We still get Linda Hamilton because, c’mon, it’s Linda Hamilton. Thus, Dr. Kay remains the big boss, as per the canon, with Lt. Colonel Jack Sullivan—

—as second in command, because it turns out he’s been answering to her the entire time. We’ll learn either here in episode 3, or early into episode 4, that Dr. Kay is one of the leaders of this faction of the government. Remember in season 4, when it was mentioned that the government has factions that are engaged in a literal shadow war? Yeah, we’re bringing that back and doing way more with it. Soon.

Also, we’re still going to have Lt. Robert Akers—

So, the military swoops into Hawkins, led by Sullivan. Nancy asks Hopper if this is who he meant by the calvary. Hopper, seeing the soldiers arresting townspeople (and even shooting a few who don’t immediately surrender), says that no, it isn’t, not exactly… hopefully not.

El tries to fight back against the soldiers, but finds herself suddenly trapped in a hellish, crippling vision of Hawkins, the town burning, with everyone she loves suffering, and Mike dying in front of her all over again as he accuses her of letting him die. We cut to El in the real world, freaking out, hallucinating, until Akers reaches her and sticks her with a syringe full of knockout drug.

Once the town is secure, Kay shows up, giving orders to Sullivan. She’s accompanied by another character, who El catches a glimpse of right before passing out. This is the person responsible for her hallucination, and is taking orders from Kay and Sullivan. A person who calls El, “Sister.”

Click here for episode 4

Image credits:

• Poster: mikeshouts.com
• Sullivan – strangerthingsfandom.com
• Akers – thedirect.com
• Kali – screenrant.com