Episode 7

Open with a flashback of Henry as a child after he’s been infected by the Mind Flayer. Following the murder of his mother and sister and framing his father for it, Henry is taken by a group of men in suits to Dr. Brenner—this begins a series of flashbacks across this episode, which will give us further insight into Henry and his relationship with Brenner, particularly with how Brenner was heavily responsible for encouraging Henry’s growing psychosis through his abusive upbringing. Some of these flashbacks are set in Brenner’s house, tying it into the location within the Upside Down that Vecna has chosen as his new lair—a place that has emotional significance to him.

This is information that the Stranger Things stage-play apparently gave, but in my LSV (Less Shitty Version) we’re going to put this information—which is crucial to understanding the show—in the actual show, in a format that everyone has access to. (I find it baffling that the canon version not only referenced, but relied on, information that only a few thousand people could access. In my LSV, it’s all here… minus Henry somehow going to high school with Joyce and Hopper because… what?)

Cut to where episode 6 left off—the party is surrounded by an army of demos that fell from the sky, summoned by Vecna. Will feels the Mind Flayer trying to coerce him to join the hive mind, but he resists. While he’s distracted, the demos attack. The party retreats—but Will, Joyce and Murray are separated from Nancy and Jonathan.

Meanwhile, El and Kali are nearly at Vecna’s location, and see what’s happening there. But before they can rush into the fight, Hopper shows up, and his attempts to talk to her turn into another argument. He doesn’t want her to kill Vecna, not with all that hate in her heart, not even while all their friends are in danger, but he can’t get this through to her. However, their argument is cut off when demos ambush them.

At Hawkins Lab, the soldiers are about to enter, and Erica and Argyle aren’t sure what to do. They were left a gun, so Erica yells at Argyle to shoot it. He tries, not aiming for anyone, and doesn’t hit them, but the soldiers quickly retreat and set up a perimeter, thinking that the entire party is holed up in there. Dr. Kay tries to radio the squad at the hospital to kill Max, but no one answers. Frustrated but undeterred, she and Akers begin creating an infiltration plan.

Holed up somewhere with Hopper and Kali, El ignores Hopper and begins attacking Vecna’s mind. Kali helps, and so does Will—even though they’re separated, he can sense this happening, and tries to help.

By this point, it’s become clear that the psychics no longer need the sensory deprivation tanks to use remote viewing or to enter each others’ heads. This is explained by the Mind Flayer’s influence on them having grown so powerful due to their increasingly close proximity to it, that all of the psychics have grown stronger: El, Kali and Will… but also Vecna.

Holly, who has been trying to convince Derek and the other children that Henry is evil (like in the canon) is now a captive, and Henry has them convinced that they’re saving the world by opening the other gate. El, Kali and Will show up in the Creel house, and after a struggle they’re able to show the children the truth… but Vecna, with the aid of the Mind Flayer, is too powerful for the three of them to beat.

With El and Kali now in a trance, Hopper is left alone to hold off the demos. The situation is becoming worse and worse, and he’s getting desperate.

In the Upside Down version of Hawkins Lab, Dustin is going through stacks and stacks of notes while Steve sits around, bored and angry. When he finds out on the radio what’s happening, he tries to go to help, but Dustin furiously insists that Steve stays here. This eventually leads to the moment, just like in the canon, when Dustin breaks down and reveals that after Eddie died and then Mike, he’s gotten so goddamn scared of losing anyone else. It’s why he doesn’t want Steve to go anywhere, because Dustin can’t lose him, too. This scene would keep very much in line with what we saw in the canon, because it was a heart-wrenching, beautiful moment. And just like in the canon, it ends with Dustin and Steve making up.

Meanwhile Robin, Lucas, Vickie, Karen Wheeler and a still-comatose Max have driven off from the hospital. Karen, barely able to speak from her episode 1 injuries, is still able to ask about her family. After a tense few moments, Robin and Lucas tell her that Holly is missing, but Nancy and everyone else are going to find her. Karen asks about Mike and Ted, becoming more insistent and distraught about it until they finally tell her the truth: her son and her husband are dead. Karen sits there, tearing up, not even able to cry because of her torn-up throat.

They’re closing in on Hawkins Lab, but are suddenly boxed in on the road by military vehicles. Soldiers pull them out of the car, but don’t arrest them… instead, they bring the group to their commander, who we the audience don’t see, but who Lucas seems to recognize, in amazement.

Dustin finally finds the evidence he needs amid all of the scientists’ old files, a theory that they’d been working on. He shows Steve, coming to the conclusion that the Upside Down isn’t a separate dimension: it’s a wormhole.

Just as with the canon, this wormhole is meant to link our world to the Abyss, a distant planet inhabited by the Mind Flayer. For whatever reason, it wants to come into our world, and it’s using Vecna to make that happen. That’s why the demos came falling from the sky, because the Abyss is above, and our world below. But the wormhole needs to be open from both ends to work—wide enough, at least, for the Mind Flayer to make it through. The other gate connects the Abyss to the Upside Down, and it’s actually been open this whole time, just not open enough. Vecna… he’s widening it.

To make it large enough for the Mind Flayer to pass through.

And the Upside Down is already connected to Hawkins again… because the party reopened it.

The sky is growing even more fiery and violent and chaotic. Nancy and Jonathan have holed up somewhere, completely surrounded by the demos but unable to escape—and it seems like they’re doomed. This is when they have a conversation similar to the one in the canon’s glue-room, however in that version they apparently broke up. In my LSV, they instead have a conversation about where their relationship went wrong, about how they didn’t communicate and work hard enough or know what the hell they were doing, about how the long-distance hurt it, and how Jonathan kept acting like he wasn’t good enough even though he already had her, but also about how Nancy was too intense and not understanding enough. As the demos are about to burst in, they finally agree: they still love each other, but not like lovers. At least they can die together, though, as friends.

Led by Kay and Akers, the soldiers rush into Hawkins Lab, quickly subduing Erica and Argyle.

Joyce and Murray have been keeping Will safe while he’s in a trance, hiding… until the demos find them. Joyce, clinging to Will, is about to be killed by a demodog when Murray is able to swoop in and kill it, saving them. But his Murray-style gloating is suddenly cut off. Joyce gapes. Murray looks down. A demogorgon claw is sticking out through his stomach.

The demogorgon picks him up and throws him out of the way. It then turns onto Joyce and Will.

Inside of Henry’s mind El, Kali, Will are finally able to hold him back by using the children like Vecna planned to—but to help fight him. However, El senses that Hopper is surrounded by demos, unable to hold them off any longer, already injured from multiple slashes and bites. He shouts for El to come back to him, or they’re all going to die. El almost does, but then she remembers Mike, ripped apart by the demos, dead because of Vecna. Her rage redoubles, and she pushes against Henry, having linked herself and the others so tightly under her control that Kali and Will can’t leave to save Hopper and Joyce. Will begs for El to stop, but she won’t—Hopper begs for her to wake up, but she ignores him. She almost has Henry, he’s at her mercy, and he’s flashing back to their fight (from season 4) as well as to Brenner’s abuses. He begs the Mind Flayer to help him, to save him—but it simply watches, and waits.

The demos break through and overwhelm Hopper. One slashes him across the chest. As he falls, another one slashes him in the back. The demos converge on him.

El is overwhelmed by horror and panic. She drops the connection, all of it, coming back to herself as does Kali next to her, and Will with Joyce, as well as Holly and Derek and the other children around Vecna. This sends a tremendous ripple through Henry’s mind, so great that it breaks Max free—and she wakes from her coma, in Lucas’ arms.

Will uses his powers to kill the demogorgon looming over him and Joyce. The other demos scatter, disoriented by the effects of Vecna’s fracturing mind. They leave Nancy and Jonathan alone, as well. Joyce races to where Murray was thrown… but he’s already dead.

El wakes to find herself surrounded by demogorgons, which are busy slashing Hopper apart. She kills them all instantly, throwing them aside in pieces. She races to Hopper, who has been ripped open, shredded. He has enough life left in him to grab onto El, just as Mike did, exactly as Mike did. But he tries to comfort her as she cries and apologizes, she’s so sorry for having left him like this, but even now he tells her (while coughing up blood) that it’s okay, he wouldn’t want it any other way. He tells her not to let this consume her, to let the hole in her shrink. Crying so hard she can’t speak, El can only nod.

Hopper tells her that he loves her, then dies.

Click here for episode 8

Image credit:

• Poster: mikeshouts.com