Things in the town of Hawkins may never be the same again. With Will Byers going missing, the entire town is out looking for the young man, but still have nothing to show for it. While following his latest lead, Chief Hopper gets a call to check out what happened at Benny’s Diner. Seeing his friend has committed suicide, Hopper is able to get a witness to come down to the station to see if Benny had been acting strange over the past week. With no signs of strangeness from Benny, the witness did see a little boy trying to steal from Benny, but was kind of certain that it was not the Byers kid.  With a new place to search, Hopper and his gang of volunteers are on the hunt once again.

Joyce is beside herself and needs time to try and find her son. When getting a strange phone call and only hearing breathing on the other side, she knows that it was Will, but nobody is willing to believe her. With the receiver being zapped out on the old phone, Joyce is forced to go back into town and get a new one, along with enough money to make ends meet until she finds her son. Keeping the phone near her, Joyce gets another call with breathing on the other end, but this time Will is actually able to come through and call for his mom. With the receiver zapped out again, the lights around the house start to act up and the stereo in Will’s room kicks on. With nobody there, Joyce believes that it her boy, but is in for a surprise...since someone else is in there with her.
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While his mother is having problems, Jonathan is doing what he can to find his little brother. Stopping by the school and putting up a missing poster, he is approached by Nancy and offered an apology. Not saying much, Jonathan goes on with his day and to his next stop, his father’s home. Confronting his dad, Jonathan does not believe that Will is there, but is left with something to think about. As his father would love to see his boys, the boys have been trained to hate him, but it might not be his fault for the break up. I can see this getting brought up in the next episode, since there is talk about Hopper and Joyce having a little relationship.

After finding the little girl in the woods, Mike, Lucas and Dustin have to decide what to do with her. As it is too late already and they would get in trouble if their parents knew they were out looking for Will, Mike makes up a little fort for her to stay in. With a plan to get the parents involved in the morning, everything goes well, but when Mike tries to convince his new friend Eleven that it will be ok, she shows him what she knows of the adults. With bad people after her, she cannot have her whereabouts known, or else she will be going back to the lab that she is happy to have escaped from. As Mike plays hooky from school, he shows ‘El’ all of the stuff around the house, but when she sees a picture of Will, she has an idea about what has happened to the missing boy. When Lucas and Dustin come back to the house after school, they are not happy with Mike’s idea about keeping the girl, but when they see that she can move things with her mind, they may not have a choice. 
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Still not a big fan of this storyline, but it actually produced something. Nancy gets invited to Steve’s house while his parents are out of town. Being able to go out after dark, Nancy gets her friend Barbara to go with her. Seeing that her friend is not acting like herself, Barbara needs to keep an eye on Nancy to make sure she does not fall under Steve’s naughty spell and gives it up before she wants to. But Barbara is sent away as Nancy will do what she wants and does not need a mother figure around her. So Barbara sits at the pool and waits for Nancy to finish up to give her a ride, but the cut Barbara got earlier is still seeping and a drop of it in the pool has excited something from the shadows, maybe the same something that took Will.

Okay, I am hooked. I need to know what the heck this creature is that is lurking in the woods and what it is doing with its victims. I like the investigation work in this episode, as no stone will be left unturned in the search for Will, and while the police have their lead, the boys have one of their own if they can get Eleven to talk. Eleven is like a child that is soaking in everything around her, being able to use the words that she hears, it is refreshing when she asks for a meaning behind it, you never see that in a show or movie. I am still waiting to find out what Dr. Brenner and his team have released on the town, as you can see that Eleven is able to move things with her mind, the ‘boy’ that was released must be much worse.  I don’t even know what I want to see next as there is something in Joyce’s house, Eleven might be able to form a complete sentence, Barbara being taken by the beast?  They are all there, I need to make it through this fast, the anticipation is killing me.

Since I am always on the lookout for something new to come across my plate that will interest me, I got a notification from Netflix that they had something new coming out. an original show called Stranger Things. Now when reading the initial description about this show, it did not capture my attention at all, a single mother tries to cope with the loss of her son, but after getting a little bit deeper into the descriptions and Sci-Fi and Horror being listed as some of the genres it falls into, I decided to give it a watch.  As this is a new series, I know that I will have to give it a chance, but I have no expectations as of yet, since there is little known about it at this time.

After a ten hour session of playing ‘The Hobbit’ in Mike’s basement, all of the boys are sent home.  While Lucas lives a different direction, Will and Dustin decide to race back home. After getting separated, Will sees something strange in the middle of the road and swerves to miss it, crashing his bike. Running home to get away from whatever is following him, Will finds that he is all alone and must handle the situation on his own.  When he is ready for whatever is chasing him to make it through the door, he finds that he is unprepared for what is about to happen to him. In the morning, Joyce and her older boy Jonathan are working in the kitchen when she finds out that Will is missing. Calling Mike’s mother to find out if he slept over, she finds out that he should have been home around 8pm the previous night.  In a panic, Joyce turns to the police to have them find her boy before something happens to him. Not knowing what else to do, Joyce and Jonathan search around Will’s clubhouse to see if he could be hanging around there, but finding nothing, the single mother will need to wait and see what the police are able to find.

Hearing that their friend might be missing, Mike, Dustin and Lucas go about their normal school day, but when they are questioned by the police, they know that something is up. Even though the boys are willing to help, Chief Hopper does not want the boys investigating on their own, especially if there is a predator out there that could hurt the boys. Not being convinced that the police know what is going on, or can find their friend, the boys grab their flashlights and walkie-talkies and head out to where Will’s bike was found. Not knowing what they are looking for in the dark and stormy night, they find something that will lead to more questions and answers.

Doctor Martin Brenner has been called to the lab to see what happened the night before.  As the lab is a mess, and both inhabitants are missing, he knows that they will need to be found and the little girl should be the easiest to locate. As the girl has made her way through the woods, she stumbles upon Benny and his dinner.  Seeing food, she is able to get something to eat, but gets caught in the act.  Benny tries to talk to the little girl and only finds out that her name is Eleven and she does not say much else than that. When child services shows up to take the young girl, Eleven sees that she is being hunted and has the power to escape. Making her way back into the woods, away from harm, she is surprised when she runs into a gang of boys who do not have a clue what to even say. 

Not a bad opening episode to the series, you get to know everyone pretty quickly and see what their motivations are. The Joyce and Jonathan relationship is extremely strong for the mother and son pair, I can see that playing into the story more as the series goes on. I like Chief Hopper who is in charge of the police and wants to find Will before something bad happens to the kid. He seems to have a different style when it comes to investigating, but when he finds what he is looking for, he knows that it is time to move. The boys, Mike, Dustin and Lucas are all pretty much classified at school as dorks, but they would not change a thing since they seem to embrace it.  Mike’s sister Nancy has a new boyfriend, one of the most popular guys in school, and I am not sure why this will play into the story, but I am sure that it will not end well for either of them.  When seeing what the government is willing to do to find the little girl Eleven, I wonder what they will do when they find the bigger creature that escaped, that we assume took Will. With strange power outages and a kid with a special power of her own, this is a very intriguing story and now I need to find out what happens next.

The finest horror stories out there know that the only proper way to tell their respective tale and truly satisfy the audience is through balance by giving us plenty of scares and plenty of time to catch our breath. This constant rollercoaster ride of peaks and valleys allows for an incredible experience and as time goes on, it's clear that Outcast has mastered this type of storytelling in record time.

But this week's episode decided it was time to add a new wrinkle to the fold. While 'The Road Before Us' truly served as that 'breather' episode, designed to pull us away from all the wild things that have been going on in Rome, WV; in the sneakiest of fashion, the show was quick to find places to jump start our hearts with a few strategically placed scares as well. But more importantly, rather than sit idly by and give us the dreaded filler episode, which is what one might expect from a 'valley' episode, this story treated us to a few answers to some burning questions we've all been wondering about and as an added bonus, the show's newfound uncomfortable atmosphere, where that sense of danger and uncertainty permeates every waking moment of the series, only managed to get worse. 

That last little tidbit came by way of continuing last week's storyline, revolving around Reverend Anderson and his exorcisms turning out to be utter failures. As the hour unfolded we learned that in essence, without Kyle, every single person he tried to cleanse of evil still holds the demon deep within and their lives are going downhill because of it. It made for an interesting crisis of conscience for the good Reverend since essentially everything he has been fighting for has been a waste of time since they aren't quite cured and well, it's creepy to know that the evil within these people is laying dormant, waiting for a chance to come forth once again and that led to the reveal that something is coming called 'The Merge' and clearly Sydney is some kind of leader to these demons.  

However, despite the creepy nature of this episode, there was some light that managed to shine through all the darkness. Last week Kyle was gravely concerned that his ex wife was still under the influence of this powerful force and that his daughter was in danger and well, for most of the episode, it sure seemed that way. But a tender moment where she was able to safely touch Kyle revealed she isn't possessed, simply broken psychologically over what happened in her home and well, her lack of memory of that fateful night is something Kyle is still trying to protect her from, even if it costs him another shot at happiness with his wife and child. It's a bold move on Kyle's part, but it's clear after hearing more ominous words from a demon regarding his role in this whole mess that he fully understands that his silence on the matter will help protect his family until this nightmare is over.

What exactly that nightmare is, we still don't quite know, but the fact that the show gives us just enough to go off of, in such foreboding fashion, almost puts the viewer in a place where...perhaps we don't quite want to know, and that dread makes it okay to keep the truth in the shadows for now. But in the meantime, at least we were treated to the show's real first happy ending since we know Kyle's wife and daughter are safe, but it won't be long before the ugly returns. After all, Sydney clearly has some plan in mind for Kyle and there are still dark forces working behind the scenes in Rome since the police chief is trying his damndest to get his best friend to open up about what went on in that shed. This story just keeps getting juicer every single week, can't wait to see what next week has in store for us...until then.