Netflix dropped all eight episodes of the first season ofStranger Thingson July 15.
There are two recaps per page, so feel free to dig in and read along while you watch.
We’ll be updating as we watch, so be sure to check back and refresh.
Credit: Netflix
The series premiere opens on a laboratory isolated in the woods in Hawkins, Indiana, in 1983.
A man in a lab coat runs down a dark hallway, frantically pushing buttons for the elevator.
He’s pulled up and we never see him again.
That sends Will and Dustin biking home.
He hears something in the distance and scrambles home, but something’s still chasing him.
The lights flicker, a growl is heard, and Will disappears.
That’s the setup for the rest of the series.
Will Byers vanishes during a night of many power outages across Hawkins.
This is Hawkins after all, a quiet, sleepy town.
Benny feeds her and tries to make conversation, but she’s elusive.
She has a tattoo of the number 11 on her arm, and says that’s her name.
I think we’ve got a lab experiment on our hands.
The woman who shows up kills Benny and a number of agents go after Eleven, but she escapes.
In the final moments the action really picks up.
She says she can hear Will breathing, but it’s hard to confirm.
Eleven doesn’t want help though.
Back at Michael’s house Eleven sees a picture of the boys and points to Will.
She knows him; perhaps she saw him in the woods before he vanished.
Just before Michael can ask more questions though his mom comes home.
Michael quickly comes to comfort her though, and it’s clear that Eleven trusts him.
Kids are missing, cooks are dead in restaurants, and nobody knows what’s going on.
Stranger things, indeed.
Before that happens, and while the boys are at school, Eleven explores the house.
She takes a look around Nancy’s room and watches a little TV.
Totally weird, right?
Chapter Four: The Body
Oh, well this is interesting.
Everything might not be what it seems when it comes to finding Will’s body in the quarry.
Maybe, just maybe, he’s still alive.
The evidence keeps piling up in fact.
He’s singing the same song from The Clash that Jonathan introduced him to.
Instead, some guys from “state” took over.
That sounds pretty fishy to me.
He doesn’t really get any info though.
Instead, he gets killed, and all the scientists get is an understanding that the situation is dangerous.
Nancy sees the monster in the photo Jonathan took of Barb.
When she tells Jonathan, he recognizes the description as the same one his mother gave.
He knocks out a guard reading a Stephen King book and finds his way in.
He pulls out Will’s body and cuts into it.
What does he find?
Stuffing, like what you’d find in a teddy bear.
Yeah, things are fishy.
As he tells Joyce later: she was right all along.
That’s where they believe Will is.
A flashback reveals she knows all too well the dangers of the “upside down.”
It knocks him right out.
When he wakes up and storms off, Eleven is gone too.
The boys may not have found the gate, but it looks like Nancy did.
They’re just about to put it out of its misery when it gets yanked away by something unseen.
The two get split up and Nancy finds a tree covered in that same monster goo from the lab.
To make matters worse, Steven catches a glimpse of the two of them in her bedroom.
Thankfully, teenage boys are really rational and calm, right?
That leaves Dustin and Michael to go looking for Eleven on their own.
Eleven, as it turns out, is wandering around town, not sure what to do.
When Dustin and Michael see the damage, they know she must be close.
Sure enough, Eleven encounters them at just the right time.
Those bullies manage to find Michael and Dustin in the woods and chase them to the quarry.
She then throws away the one bully and breaks the other’s arm before telling them to run.
Eleven is reunited with Michael and Dustin, and everything is looking up.
Well, there’s also Brenner’s shady agents following them, but still…
Her sister relays the details, though, even if she doesn’t believe them.
Sounds like Eleven to me.
With only two episodes left, the search for Will Byers is really heating up.
Sure enough, those worker vans pull up outside Mike’s house.
He gathers Nancy, Jonathan, and Joyce, and they all use a walkie-talkie to reach out.
That’s her term for the sensory-deprivation chamber used in the Hawkins laboratory.
That means a kiddie pool, lots of water, and 1,500 pounds of salt.
Sure enough, the chamber works and Eleven is able to get to the other side.
Barb is dead from the looks of it, a gross, slimy bug-thing crawling out of her mouth.
She’s the polar opposite of Brenner.
They’re captured as soon as they arrive, but that doesn’t mean the mission’s a failure.
Nancy and Jonathan go to the police station and steal back the supplies they bought to kill the monster.
A big confrontation is on the way in the season finale.
It can’t be that simple, can it?
Well, not exactly.
Meanwhile, at the Byers house, Jonathan and Nancy are preparing to take down the monster.
The monster comes through the roof and goes after them.
Back in the Upside Down, Hopper and Joyce findAlien-esque eggs and a destroyed Castle Byers.
Things aren’t looking good for Will.
David Harbour is incredible here, and throughout the series.
His pained cries of “c’mon, kid!”
when he’s giving CPR just killed me.
Thankfully, Will lives.
The whole inter-dimensional conflict comes to a head at the middle school.
That allows Eleven and the boys to get away from Brenner, but the monster comes for them.
Lucas tries his best to take it down with his Wrist Rocket, but it’s not working.
The only person who can kill it is Eleven.
She uses her powers to slam it up against a wall and trap it.
Then, there’s only one outcome, and it slowly dawns on the boys.
“Goodbye Mike,” she says as she uses her mind to destroy the monster, and herself.
They were supposed to go to the Snowball dance together!
Flash forward to one month later.
But not everything is exactly as it seems.
Hopper is seen putting Eggos and some leftover police station food in a box in the woods.
More than that though, the threat of the Upside Down might not be gone for good.
Right before dinner Will goes into the bathroom and coughs up an alien slug.
The lights flicker and Will catches a glimpse of the Upside Down.
Then he heads back to the table as if everything’s normal.
Here’s hoping there’s a second season, becauseStranger Thingshas certainly set itself up for another great ride.
