Stranger Things React

"The Body"

Jim Hopper explains to Joyce Byers that her son fell into Sattler Quarry by accident and drowned after finding his body, but Joyce is adamant that he is alive.

"And I'm sorry I ever doubted you." Jim whispers to Joyce.

Joyce tries to explain Will communicating with her through her lights and the Demogorgon emerging from the wall, but there is no evidence to support this. Trying to calm her, Hopper tells her that after the death of his daughter Sara, he often saw her and heard her voice.

Everyone remained quest at this. Eleven looked to her dad. He rarely even mentioned her so this was all news to her.

He encourages her to look at Will's body at the morgue the next day. After he leaves, Joyce grabs an axe from the shed and sits on her couch, staring at the wall and waiting for the Demogorgon to return. Mike Wheeler sits despondent in his basement while Eleven fiddles with his Supercom. He again lambasts her for convincing him that Will was alive until Will's voice, singing "Should I Stay or Should I Go" comes through the radio and Eleven's nose bleeds.

"God..." Someone mutters. Will gives a smile to Eleven and then his brother who looked teary.

Mike convinces his mother to let him stay home and contacts Lucas Sinclair, ordering him to come over and bring Dustin Henderson. Jonathan Byers wakes his sleeping mother (who she initially sees as Will) to take her to the morgue. Hopper is told the usual morgue worker was stopped from doing Will's autopsy, and that a state worker did it for him.

"Great so basically the state is a lying piece of shi-" Eddie mutters.

Steve just looks at him for a moment.

"I thought we already knew that?"

Jonathan and Hopper discuss Joyce's mental state, both believing she will tough her way through it as Joyce storms out, insisting that the body on the table is not her son. Jonathan argues with her in public, where she insists that he is still alive. Nancy Wheeler tells Steve Harrington about her findings in his backyard, but he is more concerned about getting in trouble with his parents, to her disgust.

"Dude you really were a prick back then huh." Dustin mutters.

Using her powers again, Eleven broadcasts Will's frightened crying in front of the boys. Mike and Dustin believe her, but Lucas is adamant that Will is dead.

"Sorry guys." Lucas says to El and Will. "I just didn't want to hope.."

Mike and Dustin realize they may be able to talk to Will if they use Hawkins Middle's A.V. club radio, and they put Eleven in a wig and one of Nancy's old dresses, which a stunned Mike blurts out that she looks "pretty" in.

"I suppose it was for a good cause but next time please don't just scavenge through my room." Nancy lectures Mike.

A soldier named Shepard is led into Hawkins National Laboratory's lower levels, where Martin Brenner watches as he steps through the fissure on the wall. Nancy is called to sit with Karen and talk to Phil Callahan and Calvin Powell about Barb Holland's disappearance. She recounts the events of the evening minus the part where she and Steve had sex.

Barb looks down to the floor. Her parents sat 2 rows away and looked longingly at her but she didn't want to go to them. She knew she would only cry. That was why she didn't sit with Nancy either. It was too painful for all of them and she knew that she probably wouldn't stay around after this so she didn't want them to get attached or used to her again. It would only hurt them more in the long run.

Hopper interrogates local coroner Gary, who explains that several state workers forced him out while they brought in Will's body. As the kids converge on the A.V. room, Scott Clarke stops them, confused as to why they are not attending Will's memorial service in the gym and curious about Eleven. The boys pass her off as "Eleanor", a relative of Mike's, and Clarke takes the four to the gym.

"Honestly you're so bad at lying that I'm surprised you even finished that encounter without being called out." Robin snickered.

Mr Clarke looks amused. "despite my high knowledge, I was never good for noticing when someone lied. I can teach all about anything physics but if you told me to compare the different of someone lying and telling the truth, I could not tell you."

Nancy and Karen argue over her lying to the police, and she storms up to her room. Taking out Jonathan's picture of Barb, she reassembles it and notices a dark figure standing behind her.

"It's the ugly thing that took Will!" Someone shouted out.

"The- what was it, the demog-"

"Demogorgon." Lucas answers. Eleven pulls a face at this assumption.

Inside the fissure, Shepard describes his surroundings as "eroded" and "covered in blood" before realizing there is something stalking him. As he screams to be pulled out, his line suddenly goes slack, and the scientists reel in his empty, bloody connector.

"Lovely..." Someone mutters sarcastically.

Mike notices Troy Walsh and James Dante mocking Will during the service and publicly confronts them. When Troy makes another comment about Will's sexuality, Mike shoves him to the ground. Eleven stops Troy from attacking Mike by freezing him in place and making him wet his pants in front of the crowd.

"Ha she really did do it!" One of the officers muttered.

"Lets all be honest, he didn't deserve that!" Torys Father responded.

Are you sure tho...

Nancy approaches Jonathan while he examines coffins for Will. She shows him the reassembled picture and he recounts seeing Barb vanish, as well as his mother's account of the Demogorgon in the wall. Hopper follows David O'Bannon, the state trooper that found Will's body, to a bar. When O'Bannon becomes annoyed with Hopper's questioning and leaves, Hopper beats him behind the bar and gets him to confess that finding the body was staged.

"Damn.."

Hopper notices a car watching them and O'Bannon warns him that he will get them both killed. The car and O'Bannon both flee.

"Clearly not. Because I'm still here." Hopper mumbles jokingly.

Joyce attempts to get Will to communicate with her by playing "Should I Stay or Should I Go" on repeat. As Eleven sits down at the A.V. radio, she has a flashback to Brenner running a test in which she has to locate a nearby man with her powers and repeat the phrases he is reading, but she instead broadcasts his speech through a nearby loudspeaker, leaving Brenner impressed.

"Woah..."

As Joyce hears Will calling out for her, the boys hear it on the radio as well. Joyce tears open her wallpaper to see Will behind a fleshy membrane, warning her that "it's coming", and that where he is is "like home, but so dark and empty." The membrane turns back into stone wall and closes up, and Joyce axes through it to find there is nothing inside it, to her confusion. The radio catches fire and the boys carry a drained Eleven out of the school.

"I still don't understand how you weren't caught..." Nancy questions. Eddie snickers at this.

Jonathan and Nancy brighten and enlarge the photo in Hawkins High's photo lab. While they wait, Nancy notes that Jonathan likes to observe people rather than talk to them, and he states that people often don't say what they mean and taking a picture at the right moment can capture what they try to communicate. Nancy asks what she was saying in the picture of her about to have sex. Before he can answer, the photo develops and they very clearly see the Demogorgon. Hopper breaks into the morgue and cuts into Will's body, finding that it is filled with stuffing.

"That's sick..."

Lonnie Byers arrives to find Joyce distraught, and she embraces him. Hopper drives to the edge of Hawkins Lab and prepares to open the fence with bolt cutters.

"Risking it there, Jim." Murray lifts an eyebrow.