What I’m Watching: Stranger Things

Stranger Things: Season 2, Episode 8 “Chapter Eight: The Mind Flayer” (B+)

Well, this easily has to be the most action-packed episode of this show yet, and it also delivered a major casualty for one of our series regulars. Mike was smart to come up with the idea to make Will sleep since he was a spy and knew where they were, and Joyce asking him who she was proved that he wasn’t the Will that they knew. Making sure that he didn’t know where he was and spending time appealing to his human nature while he tapped out messages to them was cool, and I was most excited to see everyone together. We now know that Dr. Owens was one of the good ones despite his nefarious origins, staying behind to make sure that everyone could get out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, the gregarious, brave Bob didn’t make it out alive, ducking into the closet to find Joyce waiting for him before the demagorgon pounced on him and then shared him with the others so that they could rip him apart. There were some good classic friend conversations in this episode, like how Dustin and Lucas both broke the rule of law and how Max thought that Eleven must have been really awesome. Fortunately, we just had to wait until the end of the hour for a demagorgon to be thrown into the house where Nancy, Steve, and Lucas were waiting with their gun, bat, and slingshot, respectively, to see that the newly-restyled Eleven was back and ready to team up with our powerless friends to take back Hawkins from these invading creatures.