Stranger ThingsSeason 4’s “Chapter Three: The Monster and the Superhero” shows the kids in their element: El (Millie Bobby Brown) is taking the fate of the world in her hands yet again, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Steve (Joe Keery), and the gang are teaming up to figure out how the hell to take down a slimy dark wizard monster, and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Argyle (Eduardo Franco) are struggling to keep up with simple dinner conversation under the haze of that sweet, sweet Purple Palm Tree Delight.
The episode opens with new character Lt. Colonel Sullivan (Sherman Augustus), who pays an official visit to Dr. Samuel Owens (Paul Reiser),who is now living in Ruth, Nevada. Sullivan is committed to ridding Hawkins of evil once and for all, which, unfortunately, he thinks can all be traced back to El, “Brenner’s little pet.” He says that Dr. Brenner trained El for this exact thing – remote assassination. Dr. Owens insists that El is dead, but even after they do a thorough search of his entire house and find nothing, Sullivan will not be deterred.
In California, Jonathan, Argyle, El, Will (Noah Schnapp), and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) are on their way back from the skating rink. An extremely stoned Jonathan and Argyle try to make El feel better by saying that’s why they make those wheels out of soft plastic: just in case someone gets “schmacked!” (Everyone needs a friend like Argyle.) They arrive at the Byers house and are surprised to see Murray (Brett Gelman) is there, making them a family dinner of risotto. He claims he was on his way to meet a client and just so happened to remember: the Byers live around here! Joyce (Winona Ryder) tells him she wishes he could stay longer, but she has that “business trip” in Alaska tomorrow. Will is confused because she never mentioned it until now, while Jonathan, on the other hand, is so high he confuses the wine for olive oil. Argyle tries to cover for him (because poor, sweet Joyce somehow doesn’t realize her son has been enjoying some of those “smelly plants”) and tells them he’s just tired because they had a long night at the skating rink where some girl got schmacked by a roller skate, but she’s going to be fine. Mike, who has been sulking since they left the rink (like the unsupportive boyfriend he is – El should dump his ass again), snarkily replies “she didn’t look fine.” El looks at him, hurt, and storms out of the room.
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The next morning, Mike brings El her Eggos from the breakfast table when she doesn’t come down to eat. She is in her room fixing her diorama of her and Hop’s (David Harbour) cabin. He sits on her bed, and they have a long-overdue talk. Mike asks her why she didn’t tell him what was really going on in California. He’s been bullied his whole life, so he knows what it’s like. El tells him he can’t understand because sheisdifferent. She doesn’t belong here, or anywhere. Everyone looks at her like she’s a monster, including him. When Mike protests, El says he looked at her back at the rink like he was scared of her. Not only that, she points out, but he can’t even tell her that he loves her anymore. He can’t even write it in a letter. She pulls out a stack of letters and angrily flips through each one – they all read “FromMike.” Mike insists that she knows how he feels about her, and he can’t let these “mouthbreathers” ruin them. They are nobodies, andsheis a superhero. El shakes her head, and tells him “not anymore.”
Because El hasn’t suffered enough this morning, the cops show up at her door with a warrant. They arrest her for the great roller skate incident of 1986 and shove her in the back of their cop car, while Mike, Will, and Jonathan watch in stunned panic. Unfortunately for them, Joyce is already on the plane with Murray, about to take off for her “business trip,” so there is nothing they can do but sit and wait while El gets questioned by the police. The cops tell El she doesn’t seem too upset about what she did to Angela (Elodie Grace Orkin), who apparently has a grade two concussion. When they ask her if she wanted to kill Angela, El replies that she “doesn’t know.” (Just between us, it’s okay if you did, El. She’s the worst.) They fingerprint her and stick her in a van to send her off to a juvenile delinquent center. On their way, they are stopped by a federal agent who says they’ll take it from here. Owens steps out of the car and greets a surprised El with, “Hey, kiddo.”
Owens takes El to a diner and gives her the lowdown. A war is coming to Hawkins (again). El has fought this evil before and won, but it’s like a virus: every time it returns, it comes back stronger, smarter, and deadlier. El’s friends in Hawkins are in the eye of the storm, and this isStranger Things, so Eleven is obviously their only hope of survival. He tells El that there are people who believe she is the cause, but he believes that she is the cure. He developed a program that has the potential to restore her abilities and maybe even make them stronger than they were before. However, he knows that El has spent her whole life being told what to do by men like him, so it is her choice now if she wants to go with him. El agrees, obviously, because she is a badass whom the world doesn’t deserve.
In Russia, Hop is working on the railroad when he brazenly talks back to Enzo (Tom Wlaschiha), who drags him off for “punishment.” Once they are out of sight, Enzo updates Hop and tells him that he heard from Joyce and that she will be arriving in Alaska tomorrow. It is up to Hop to find a way to make it to the plane to meet her there for the exchange. Hopper asks Enzo if he is absolutelysurethey can trust his pilot, this supposed smuggler extraordinaire Yuri. Enzo reminds him they are literally doing a jailbreak, so, you know, beggars can’t be choosers.
Hop bribes another prisoner with his meal to break his leg chains with a sledgehammer while they are on the tracks. The prisoner looks at him skeptically, calls him a “crazy American,” but agrees. Later after Hop unwraps his feet, it becomes clear he wasn’t asking for him to break the chains but to break his ankles enough so that he can just barely slip the chains over his horribly injured feet. (If Hop doesn’t get to reunite with El after all of this, theDuffer Brothershave to pay for our subsequent therapy appointments.)
In Hawkins, Vecna is meditating and zeroing in on his next victim: Patrick (Myles Truitt), one of Lucas’s teammates. Patrick, wincing at a sudden headache, is in the car with Jason (Mason Dye) and his boys, including a reluctant Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), hunting for Eddie. They stop at a house where Eddie’s bandmates and fellow Hellfire club members are practicing in the garage, and Jason starts beating up Gareth (Gwydion Lashlee-Walton), who finally tells them Dustin Henderson might know where Eddie is because he’s been calling around looking for him. They pull up to Dustin’s house, which is empty, and Lucas sneaks through the window of Dustin’s room to walkie him and forewarn him. Jason and the rest of the team catch Lucas, and he quickly lies and tells them he found a clue that could point them to where Eddie is. He leads them to Hopper’s cabin and abandons them when they aren’t looking.
Meanwhile, Dustin, Max (Sadie Sink), Robin (Maya Hawke), and Steve visit Eddie at Reefer Rick’s and deliver the bad news, which is that everyone is pretty convinced that he killed Chrissy (Grace Van Dien). The good news is, Dustin says, his name hasn’t gone public so that gives them time to do the totally simple task of finding Vecna and proving Eddie’s innocence. The gang tries to comfort a panicked Eddie by reminding him that this is not their first rodeo, although they used to have a girl with superpowers to help them out, but now they don’t, so they’re still in the “brainstorming phase.” While they are talking, they see a bunch of cop cars speed by. They quickly hop in Steve’s car and follow them to the scene of Vecna’s latest crime, the road outside the trailer park where poor Fred’s (Logan Riley Bruner) body lies twisted and mangled. A shaken Nancy (Natalia Dyer), who is talking to the cops, looks so relieved to see them.
They catch Nancy up on what they know. They realize that Chrissy and Fred acted strangely before their deaths and wonder if they might have seen Vecna before he killed them, like how a predator stalks its prey. Max remembers how Chrissy was coming out of the counselor’s office the other day, which means maybe Ms. Kelly (Regina Ting Chen) knows something that could help them. Steve and Dustin drop Max off at Ms. Kelly’s where she pretends she needed an impromptu “home” session, while Nancy and Robin go to the public library to follow a lead that Nancy calls a “shot in the dark.”
Nancy fills Robin in on her Victor Creel theory but also seems inexplicably annoyed with her; Robin, in turn, picks up on the weird tension and asks if it has anything to do with Steve, whom she insists is only a friend, with a capital “P” for platonic. (Steve/Nancy shippers are rising this season, it looks like.) While looking through the basement archives, they come across an old article fromThe Weekly Watcher– a small press that writes about UFOs and Bigfoot and other “otherworldly” sightings. The article shares Victor Creel’s side of the story. Victor claimed that his house was haunted by an ancient demon. His family hired a priest to do an exorcism, which not only failed but also made the demon angry, so it killed his family in retribution, leaving Victor alive as punishment. What if this demon, Nancy and Robin realize, was Vecna?
At Ms. Kelly’s house, Max tries and fails to subtly get Ms. Kelly to tell her what Chrissy said to her during their sessions. Luckily, Max is able to snatch her office keys when she isn’t looking, so she, Dustin, and Steve hightail it to school before she notices and break into her office files. While they are reading through Ms. Kelly’s notes, a look of realization slowly passes over Max’s face. Ms. Kelly wrote that Fred and Chrissy were both suffering from headaches, nosebleeds, nightmares, and past trauma – all of which Max has been suffering from herself. Right on schedule, she hears the chime of the clock and Vecna’s gravelly, drawn-out voice calling out to her. She slowly walks down the school hallway and sees a clock inside the wall. Once again, Vecna calls out to her, and the camera zooms in on him charging up with his creepy-crawly tentacles. His eyes flash open, and the episode abruptly ends.
