Stranger Things: Episode 9

9. MADMAX

Pittsburgh, 1984. A group of juvenile delinquents rob a house during Halloween. A car chase with the police ends in a tunnel where one of them makes the structure collapse with her mind. Will and his friends go to the arcade one night and are curious to know who MADMAX is, breaking the top scores in all the games there. They speculate that it might be Maxine (Sadie Sink), their new skater girl classmate who just moved in from California. Will gets a flash and is briefly transported back to the Upside Down. He is taken to regular counseling sessions at a laboratory, but his episodes are dismissed as post-traumatic stress. The doctor is revealed to be part of the same organization Brenner belonged to, the same one still investigating the Upside Down. Nancy and Steve visit Barbs' family and have dinner with them. She is still racked with guilt about what happened to her friend. Hopper drives through the forest and makes it back to his wooden house for dinner, castigated by Eleven for being late.

Whip it. Whip it good! The gang is back, and so is the nostalgic soundtrack and Mama Wheeler's Farrah Fawcett hairstyle. Welcome back to the 80's! Making out in the warehouse. Kinky, Mama Byers. But it's good to see Winona Ryder not hysterical this time around. At least, not yet. Oh ok, there you go she is hysterical again. Well, I do feel bad for Will. Everyone thinks he's weird. You know that feeling of having to go through something major in your life but can't tell anyone because nobody can understand? And you are not even emo. Major news! Eleven is alive!!! We are left to wonder, though, as to why she is being kept there in secret. Is it all about the arrangement Hopper made with the organization at the end of Season 1? But I guess the more exciting news is that there is another one just like her, older and seemingly using her powers for personal gain. The question is, how many of them are out there, really? This new girl is Number 8, meaning there are two more in between and more before them, right?

"Who would you rather be friends with, Bowie or Kenny Rogers?" –Jonathan

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