2x04 Chapter Four: Will the Wise

[7.7/10] My favorite scenes in this one corresponded to my favorite moments in a lot of episodes -- namely the ones between parents and children. They’re the parts of Stranger Things that feels the most real. It’s striking, for a show steeped in alternate planes of existence and extradimensional threats how genuine a lot of those interactions feel.

That’s chiefly felt in the scenes between Eleven and Hopper. There’s such anger at both of them. Hopper is frustrated that Eleven would put herlse fat risk like that, and especially made that she’d disobey him. It comes from a place of love but also of anger. Eleven, for her part, is a typical teenager, wanting her freedom and not liking being cooped up or told what to do. But more than that, she has a lot of baggage from being kept somewhere and told its for her own good, and it’s painful for her to be separated from the people she cares about

So things get real and they get hurtful. Eleven tells Hopper that he’s like Matthew Modine. Hopper threatens to send ehr back to the lab with “one phone call.” Eleven uses her telekinesis to throw a book at Hopper. Hopper rips out the T.V. connection. It’s tense and emotional, especially when things look like they might have cooled down only for Hopper to again play bad cop with his surrogate daughter.

As cute and endearing as their interactions have been up to this point, this episode is hard to watch for being the negative image of that, a scary look at parent and child pushed to the edge, the usual intergenerational disagreements kicked up a notch when one side of the equation possesses supernatural abilities.

That seems likely to become a deeper schism, when in the act of cleaning up the resulting mess, Eleven finds Hopper’s research file on the “Hawkins Lab” and manages to discover her mother. The scene where she traverses that in-between space to find Irene, and this woman she’s never met but somehow knows emerges from her stupor and utters Eleven’s birth name is startling. Watching her then disappear into smoke, as Eleven cries her young eyes out, is heartbreaking. It’s part and parcel with the open wound and harrowing parental interactions we get here.

That extends to Joyce and Will. Their relationship isn’t combative, just one of concern and fear. Joyce is worried that something has happened to her son, something that’s changing him, scaring him, keeping him from being the boy she once knew. Will, for his part, is suffused with some force he doesn’t understand, one that’s giving him thoughts and feelings he’s not prepared for. The way that Joyce is so supportive and nurturing to her son, while clearly deeply afraid herself, mixed with some shockingly good acting from the young performer who plays Will, conveying not just his deep anxiety over what’s happening to him but the sense of being possessed at times, makes for an emotionally potent set of scenes.

But the less emotional material works well too. Let me be frank -- the fact that Nancy and Jonathan’s plan works is ridiculous. Why the feds would be startled enough by the suggestion that they might tell Barb’s parents what’s really up, but wouldn’t search these two nosy teenagers on the way in or the way out strains credulity.
But I like what happens when they’re in the facility. Once again, Paul Resier nicely walks the line between being a cuddly teddy bear and being frightening and threatening. He is the iron fist in the velvet glove, which makes him a compelling replacement for the MAtthew Modine character -- different in temperament but filling the same role in the show.

To the same end, I like that we get his perspective and motivation here -- decrying what his predecessors did as both a major fuck-up and ethically wrong, but also emphasizing the importance of cleaning up that mess by any means necessary. That means “clearing the weeds” of their bridge to the Upside Down every day, and it means doing the same in terms of the truth, preventing it from getting out, lest the Soviets use it against us somehow, something that plays into that era’s anxieties neatly. It’s still kind of nuts that the teenagers’ plan works, but those scenes do a lot to develop Paul Reiser as both a character and an antagonist.

There’s some good material with the boys too. We get some well-crafted group dynamics, with Lucas resenting Dustin for not showing up in the hunt for Dart, Max resenting Lucas for not sticking up for her when she’s excluded by the rest of the group, and Mike resenting Max for...well...just not being Eleven. It leads to a lot of good scenes where the kids act like kids, in all their internecine glory, and all of them are struggling with what they can and can’t tell one another.

We also get a few more hints on the major arcs/threats from the Upside Down. Hopper uses “Will the Wise” and his “true sight” via a series of crayon pictures to figure out that there are vines containing the atmosphere of the Upside Down emerging from the Lab Building. Of course, he doesn’t test or anything, just starts digging until he dives into one of them, because Hopper’s only plan ever is to Leeroy Jenkins his way through anything.

We also get the big hint that Dart is actually a baby Demogorgon, one that’s graduated from eating nougat to eating Dustin’s mom’s cat. It’s definitely a scary scene, and shows Dustin messing with things beyond his control or understanding. My crazy theory is that the Shadow Monster Will keeps seeing is the mother of the Demogorgons, and part of the anger is not just at the humans messing with her realm, but that they’re killing and/or stealing her babies, which explains why she’s drawn to Will given his connection/possession.

The only other detail of note is that Billy is racist and...maybe gay for Steve? Their scenes together are kind of weird, and I’m not sure where exactly the show’s going with them. So far, Billy has been such a one-note, seemingly abusive asshole that him turning out to be gay, and partially sublimating his anger at having to hide who he is would at least give him another dimension as a character.

Overall, another strong outing from season 2, one bolstered in particular by great performances and well-written scenes between Eleven and Hopper on the one hand, and Joyce and Will on the other.