Stranger Things: Episode 30

30. The Nina Project

Hopper is reunited with Dmitri in the gulag. Murray puts his karate black belt to good use and knocks Yuri out, getting lucky with Joyce in crash landing the plane without dying. Owens’ injured henchman succumbs to his gunshot wounds but not without giving Mike a pen that isn’t working. After burying the body, he finds a note inside the pen with a phone number on it. Calling the number, they hear a war games signal on loop. He tells Will, Jonathan, and Argyle that there’s only one person who might be able to crack it: Dustin’s girlfriend Suzie who lives in Utah. Max draws what she saw in Vecna’s lair. Upon seeing it, Nancy figures out that it is a house. Victor Creel’s house. The gang heads over and they are guided by the flashing lights, confirming that Vecna is indeed nesting in the house, but on the other side. El is taken by Owens to a repurposed ICBM silo in Nevada housing the NINA project. There she is surprised by Brenner who very much alive. She tries to escape but quickly realizes that she needs to train more to regain her powers.

It’s been so long that I can’t even remember what actually happened to Papa Brenner. Didn’t he, like, die or something? In any case, he is very much alive. I kinda hate this predicament they put Eleven in, revisiting her trauma and returning to ground zero to get what she needs. It’s like some sort of sci-fi metaphor for victims having to relive their trauma to save other victims. That’s what the plot requires, though. It’s hard to watch. Anyway, there was no more space in the synopsis section but Chrissy’s BF Master WarJock has now witnessed firsthand that Eddie is not the serial killer, after his friend levitates and becomes a contortionist hovering above them before dropping dead. Is Master WarJock going to be Steve 2.0? Remember season one when Steve was the resident douchebag and then became part of the gang after his epiphany? And I guess this is Stranger Things’ problem all along. There are just too many of them now but the Duffer Brothers won’t kill anyone off. And the runtime is now over an hour on average. How will they handle such a big ensemble?

"I was wrong this whole time. I wasn't cursed. I was the curse." –Hopper

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