'Stranger Things' Recap - 'Chapter Five: The Flea and the Acrobat'

Written by Scott Edwards

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR RISK...

After seeing that Will’s body is fake, Hopper breaks into Hawkins Lab to find out what is really going on in the facility. Being able to force his way past the guards, Hopper stands face to face with the entity that is terrorizing his town, but before he can get his hands on it, he is drugged and placed back in his trailer. Knowing that some sort of cover-up is in place, Hopper franticly searches his house for listening devices and when he finally locates one, he knows that they are watching him. When his deputies come to talk to him about a couple more hunters that have gone missing, Hopper knows exactly where his search will have to go to next, but first he needs to go and see Joyce and let her know that she was right.
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Joyce gets an unexpected visit from her ex-husband Lonnie. Trying to comfort her, Lonnie tries his hardest to make her believe that everything that has been happening is all in her head. Seeing his father again, Jonathan tries to strong arm him out, but with Will’s funeral coming up, Lonnie will not leave. As Joyce calms down and accepts that Will is dead, she does not speak to anyone at the funeral and with Lonnie in the house, she knows he is there to help, that is until she finds out the real reason why Lonnie has come home in the first place.

Being able to find a common area where all of the people have been disappearing, Jonathan is ready to hunt for the creature that terrified his mother. With Nancy wanting to come along, the two are ready to search for Will and Barbara and if they come up against the creature, they only have one option, to kill it. Walking through the woods, the two restart their conversation that started in the dark room of why Jonathan likes to take pictures of people. Trying to explain himself only gets Nancy more frustrated, but Jonathan knows that he is right and lays into the girl with all that he has learned over the years. Speechless, Nancy continues to search the area and finds a deer that is suffering on the ground. Wanting to put it out of its misery, the deer is dragged away by an unseen force and when the two try to tack it down, they get separated. When Nancy finds an opening in an old tree, she thinks little about it and crawls through, but when she sees the creature on the other side, she tries to escape, but being all alone, the portal closes without a trace.

Knowing that their friend is not dead, Mike, Lucas and Dustin are still forced to attend his funeral. As all of the people are in mourning about the loss of the boy, the three know that Will is out there somewhere. As Eleven told them about the Upside Down world and the boys are able to put it into perspective with their game, but if this is a real place, they will need help in getting there. Talking to their teacher, the boys are able to make up a new plan for their hunt, but they will need Eleven’s help to make it happen. As Dustin is noticing something strange with his compass, he shares the information with the others, but they do not seem to understand. With a new magnetic field somewhere in town, all the boys have to do is follow the signal, but Eleven does not want them to find what they are looking for since it is where the Bad People are, along with a portal to another dimension. 

This is my favorite episode to date, mostly because of Joyce and her changes. Being convinced that Will being alive is all in her head, she starts to accept it as reality, but when Hopper comes to share his findings with the grieving mother and tells her she is right, she pops back out of it. The Nancy and Jonathan relationship is seeming to grow, but whenever Jonathan opens his mouth, it seems to make the girl upset, especially since she knows he is right. Putting herself in the Upside Down world, Nancy will need to find a way to escape with her life and that will prove to be difficult since nobody that we know of it has done so. The boys are getting fed up with Eleven’s tricks as she will not lead them to the gateway to the other side. I would hate to see Mike and Lucas call off their friendship over the girl, but when her power is used against Lucas, he may never want to come back to the group. Trying to convince his friends that Eleven is using them, it may be lead to the biggest fracture in the show, the loss of Eleven. I cannot wait for the next episode since we will be in the Upside Down world and I want to know everything about this place, including what the creature really is.

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