‘Stranger Things’ season 1, episode 4 review: Is Will really dead? Nancy and Jonathan dig for answers
Was it really Will’s body that was pulled out of that lake on the last episode of “Stranger Things”? Mike, Lucas, Dustin are convinced that it is, but this is “Stranger Things”, so it’s possible that it’s not Will – or at least that’s the stance we are taking right now. And who could blame us? There is so much darkness and despair circling everyone that we just want to see someone get a win.
According to Hopper the body is Will’s and he’s gone over to tell Joyce, but she’s convinced that it’s not him. Joyce has told Hopper her whole story about the lights and the monster and he tells her that she’s just too deep into her grief right now to see the truth. He suggests that she goes to the morgue to see Will for herself. After seeing the body she is convinced that it’s not Will. Hopper digs deeper finding out that State police came in and took over Will’s body, even did the autopsy so no local police ever touched the body. When Hopper starts to ask questions of the state police, he finds that things aren’t adding up, like why they were told not to let anyone get close to Will’s body. Hopper breaks into the morgue and sees that Will’s body hasn’t been autopsied at all. In fact it’s not even a real body, it’s basically a mannequin made up to look like Will filled with stuffing. Hopper is ready to get some answers from the Hawkins lab, but this time he’s not asking, he’s breaking in.
Mike is taking out his grief on Eleven, that is until she finds Will singing on the walkie talkie. Mike, Lucas, Dustin bring Eleven to school to use their teacher’s radio equipment to boost the signal in hopes of speaking to Will again. When using the school’s radio, the kids can hear Will talking to his mom at the same time that Joyce makes contact with him at home. When Joyce rips down her wall paper there is a mucus film in the wall and she can see Will on the other side. He’s alive! Now she just has to figure out how to get to him.
Nancy talks to the police and after they check out Steve’s house and find nothing in the woods they tell her that Barbara probably just ran away. With no one listening to her, Nancy goes back to her room and tapes together the ripped up picture that Jonathan took of Barbara the night she went missing and sees a blurry figure standing behind her at the pool. Later, Nancy meets up with Jonathan to talk about what’s been going on and what she saw in his photos. When Nancy tells him about seeing a “man without a face” he realizes that what his mom has been saying may not be so crazy after all.
The pieces are starting to come together for our main characters that something is definitely amiss. Hopper has made the connection to the Hawkin’s lab, so hopefully he can find out more through them, but we expect to see Nancy, Jonathan and Joyce working together in her home to find Barbara and Will since that’s where most of the communication has happened. And What about Lonnie showing up? Is he going to buy into all of this or is he just going to be a problem? We love that this show spends the fist half of the episodes answering questions from last week and the second half of the episode creating new ones. Episode grade: B
Now that we are at the half way point for “Stranger Things” season 1, share your opinion with us in the box below and tell us what you want to see happen?