When Stanger Things is firing on all cylinders (which so far has been pretty much all the time) it genuinely proves to be something of a thrilling experience. There’s something about the moment in the show when every single character has their own things going on as each of them works their way through their own seperate section of the problem at hand that just kicks ass and once as season has gotten up the momentum, it’s pretty hard to stop. However, where season 1 saw a select few from Hawkins chip away at a single sci-fi conspiracy from various different angles, Stranger Things 2 not only has a chunk of its cast pick at a new(ish) threat, but dome others are continuing to attack dangling threads still left over from a year ago. The result is now a sprawling, epic ensemble that’s spread itself all over the place like the creeping vines that’s recently been discovered winding their ways through a network of tunnels that now exist beneath town. We’re at full speed now and it’s time once again to witness the Stranger Things balancing act in all it’s glory. Flashbacks, mindmelds, monster catching, life or death races against time – revel in its magnificence.
OK, so we’ve got a lot to pack into this synopsis, so hold on tight. The last time we saw Hopper, he was digging up one of those rotting pumpkin patches on a hunch that proved to be bang on the money. The corruption that’s been affecting all those crops has been coming from some very Upside-Downish looking vines that’s spreading out for miles under Hawkins, but as this seems to be some form of fucked up terraforming, Hopper soon succumbs to the alien atmosphere. Meanwhile, Will, now connected to the cloud monster by an act of possession now realises thanks to Mike that he can spy on the creature’s thoughts and soon has a vision of Hopper in deep, vine relayed shit. Enter Joyce’s boyfriend Bob whose love of puzzles means that he deciphers Will’s complex maze of interlocking scribblings to point out that it’s actually a map of Hawkins. Using Bob’s smarts to figure out exact where Will’s vision puts Hopper, they all speed out to save the day before the police chief is choked to death by evil vines.
Elsewhere, after covering up the death of his mother’s cat, Dustin realises that he has to contain a partially grown Dart (now revealed to be an infant Demogorgon) in the basement, but when trying to pin down literally anyone else to help, the only one he can find in a pinch is Steve Harrington. Speaking of Harrington, his ex-girlfriend Nancy is still on her mission with Jonathan to expose the misdeeds of Hawkins Labs to the world and find themselves taking their evidence to Murray Bauman, a private detective slash conspiracy theorist who tries to figure out how to make what he’s learned more palatable to the masses.
Speaking of giving up secrets, Lucas finally tells Max about everything that happened a year ago only for her to only partially believe what she’s being told, but while the threat of her abusive step brother Billy is ever present, Eleven continues her quest to find her mother with tragic results. Goddamn, that’s a lot of ground to cover!
I simply just do not have adequate space to properly go into exactly why everything works do well on a micro level, so you’re just going to have to believe me when I say that the balancing act that Stranger Things 2 is currently pulling off is honestly world class. It’s fast, it’s furious, it covers material that spreads over the entirely of the precious twelve episodes and at no point do you feel lost, even when the script is battering you over the head with repeated callbacks to former side-plots or throwing phrases at you such as “now-memories”. The reason for this is that even though each character is not much more than a frenzied cypher that’s throwing out exposition as they go, at no point does the episode forget the importance of little character moments that stop the ensemble from still remaining three dimensional people. Be it Dustin’s exasperated outburst at Mike’s genuinely useless father to Lucas finally revealing Hawkins’ secrets to Max as an act of friendship, the episode doubles down on ensuring that the characters we’ve fallen in love with remain exactly that while the plot whizzes by at top speed.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised at how well Dig Dug handles it material as the episode was, in actual fact, directed by none other than Andrew Stanton, one of the leading lights at Pixar who directed Finding Nemo and Wall•E. When realising this, it’s no surprise that the episode manages to combine furious incident with measured character beats that even goes so far to include Lucas’ sister Erica being something of a memorable tryant and Dustin’s mother being gaslight by her own son that her recently eaten cat is alive and well. In fact, if Stanton had been able to squeeze even smidge of the character work he displays here into his notorious bomb, John Carter, he might managed to get the rest of the proposed franchise off the ground.
Anyway, while the episode skillfully veers from Hopper’s subterranean, claustrophobic chills, to Nancy and Jonathan trying to negotiate politics in order to bring Hawkins Labs crashing down, the episode also knows to pump the breaks when handling the more tender aspects of the episode. Going back over the tragic events that befell Terry and Becky Ives, Eleven uses her telepathic mojo to not only witness her own birth and subsequent abduction by Dr. Brenner, but she witnesses first hand the lengths Terry went to try and get her back. However, going to Hawkins Lab and pulling a gun only got poor Terry a session of electroshock therapy and it’s yet another body blow for Eleven who is rapidly seeing her faith in everything collapse as she rapidly feels more alone in this cruel world than ever.
Of course, we could get through an episode without something predictably terrible happening to Will, which is made all the more sad as young master Byers was actually managing to gain some sense of worth. Sharing you brain with a smoke monster from another world sounds pretty shitty, but Mike (who seems to have gotten his asshole phase) suggests that if Will can see what the creature is thinking, that makes him a super-spy who can help them out manuver their supernatural enemy. In fact, the giant map that Will has created not only helps locate Hopper, but it’s a neat reimagining of the Christmas light remodeling Joyce did to her home last season. However, after goons from Hawkins Lab arrive thanks to Dr Owens actually heeding Hopper’s earlier warnings, the burning of those creepy vine, their destruction suddenly cause Will incredible pain because – well, because God obviously hates Will Byers.
A perfect example of what Stranger Things does best, Dig Dug not only moves the plot and the characters forward with authority, it also skillfully casts an eye back over its own continuity to help the show now feel truly epic. The fact that season 2 has managed to hit such heights as early as the halfway point makes me wonder how much bigger things are going to get, but as of right now, the show is a juggernaut that seems unstoppable.
Upside-damn!
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