November 20, 2025 • 20 mins
To help prepare us for the journey back to Hawkins to defeat Vecna ONCE AND FOR ALL, Jason and Rosie are recapping the fourth season of Netlfix’s Stranger Things.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning. Today's episode contains spoilers for Stranger Things Season four,
which we are recapping to get you ready for season five,
the final season Stranger Things. Oh my name is Jason
(00:24):
Concepcion and I'm Rosie Night and welcome back to extro
Vision of the podcast where we dive to your favorite shows, movies, college, fun,
country comedy from our back Guys, we're ready with your
episodes a.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Week plus plus those before we jump into our Stranger
Things season four recap. A quick production note this holiday season,
we will be sharing a couple of shorter stocking stuffer
episodes with you. With so many great shows, movies, tv
books coming out these next few months, these episodes will
help us cover some extra content we wouldn't be able
to get to on our normal episodes, So stay tuned
(00:56):
for our stocking stuffers starting the week of Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
But first let's get into it. Stranger Things Season four recap.
We open in nineteen eighty six Hawkins, Indiana. We're back
in Hawkins, Indiana, and once again Hawkins, Indiana is going
through it. The season opens, though with a flashback to
nineteen seventy nine inside the laboratory of doctor Martin Brenner
his government lab where he is experimenting on psychically gifted children, including,
(01:25):
of course, our favorite Eleven. Brenner begins his morning routine
the same way I guess he always does before he
begins experimenting on kids. But when he arrives at the
lab with the alarm sounding, he finds everybody's dead. There's
just like blood smeared everywhere except for one survivor, and
(01:45):
it is Eleven, and she is smeared with blood, and
you're left to wonder, did she do this?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Did she do this?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Cut to the present Eleven, now not covered in blood
and living in California, powerless, trying to be normal, and
has been adopted by Joyce Buyers, the relentlessly determined single
mother played by none other than Wenona Ryder, who wants
tore open dimensions to rescue her son Will. Joyce has
moved our family West for a new start. Will, her quiet,
sensitive younger son who feels the upside down still watching him,
(02:16):
and Jonathan, her older, aimless but loyal son, now spending
most of his time with his new best friend, Argyle,
a gentle and perpetually high pizza delivery guy and probably
my favorite character. On the show.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yes he's very good. We go to California with Will,
Jonathan Mike during spring break. Mike Wheeler still with Eleven,
though they're doing it long distance. The group then you know,
the group of kids Idealistic leader flies from Hawkins to
visit his girlfriend. Eleven is trying to be like everything's great,
(02:47):
everything's normal, Like I'm having a great time here. It's good,
but it's not true. She's getting bullied all the time,
particularly by angela popular classmate who like just makes fun
of her hair, her clothes, the way she talks everything.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
At the roller and Angela stages of public humiliation, tricking
Eleven into the spotlight and laughing as the milkshakes flats
across her face. Furious and humiliated, Eleven lashes out, hitting
Angela in the face with a roller skate before storming
away and tears that's right.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
You loved it when you first saw it.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
You love it you.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Soon afterwards, the government agents arrive, but it's two different
competing government agencies. One group is led by doctor Sam Owens,
a scientist who once worked alongside Hopper, who wants to
protect Eleven and help her get her powers back, and
another faction commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel Sullivan, who thinks
At eleven is behind the Hawkins murders, which we'll get
(03:46):
to in a second, and must be neutralized. Owen's team
reaches her first, They get her out. They take her
to Project Nina, a secret Nevada lab where Owens has
resurrected her former mentor, Doctuz what He's back, the man
who raised her in keptivity.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
We're going to take a quick break and we'll be
right back. And we're back, okay. So now we get
(04:24):
to the other side of the story, and the one
that I believe was most beloved by Stranger Things, Yes fans,
which is Hawkins, the Hellfire Club, and the First Death.
Let's talk about it back in Hawkins, the other half
of our story begins. Dustin Henderson, the group's enthusiastic Tinkra,
has joined a Dungeons and Dragons club called the hell
Fire Club. Nice ex men reference there with Mike Wheeler
(04:47):
and Lucas Sinclair, the athlete of the group who is
now trying to balance his new basketball friends and cool
life with his old nerdy crew. The group's leader is
Eddie Munson, a rebellious metal head senior known for his
arrythma guitasso, loves complete disregardful authority and the fact that
he looks forty five. Sorry Joseph Quinn.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
During a basketball game, Lucas scores the winning the winning
basket while his old friends play Dungeons and Dragons across town.
And this captures the kind of split, the normal split
I think that kids who are growing up and go
through that same night, Sweet Nervous cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham, the
(05:33):
girlfriend of Hawkins High basketball star Jason Carver, begins having
terrible upside down style haucinations about her dead mom and
ronning walls and all this stuff, and she's just trying
to find a way out of this. She goes to
Eddie Tovie drugs, but before she can go back and
(05:55):
even use the drugs, she's like lifted into the air
by some unseen force and her body is contorted and
her limbs are broken. Her eyes go white, and she
dies violently in Eddie Wnson's trailer.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
The next day, Hawkins is in chaos. Please surround Eddie's home.
The town blames him, and the kids no bad. It's
very much inspired by the West Memphis three and this
kind of notion of satanic panic. So Nancy Wheler, Mike's
older sister, is now a gun toting, badass reporter for
the school newspaper. I love this character term for her
(06:32):
begins investigating Chrissy's death at the school newspaper insane. I
love it. Her research leads her to unsettling connections and
echoes of other supernatural events.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Weckna emerges within days. More Hawkins teens are dying in
this similar horrifying ways. Fred Benson, Nancy's fellow reporter at
the school paper, and Patrick McKinney, a member of Lucas's
basketball team, all experience trauma guilt related hallucinations before dying
(07:03):
in this horrific like limb twisting way. The group our
heroes named the killer Vecna after a D and D villain,
and they realize that he feeds and prays on pain, trauma, guilt,
on these kind of scars that never heal.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, very interesting how much D and D law they
do use in this show. I wonder what the licensing
aspects of that were or whether it was kind of
fair usage. But very interesting. Max Mayfield, Lucas's ex girlfriend,
and the skeptical redhead of the group, remember she moved
to town with Billy in season three, becomes Veckna's next
target since her stepbrother Billy died saving her at star
(07:43):
coourt More just an incredible format some of a Big
Billy's stand. Max has shut everyone out. Drowning in guilt,
she writes goodbye letters to her friends, accepting her fate.
But when the group learns that music can act as
a lifeline, that a person's favorite song can tether them
to reality, they fight back. In one of the show's
most iconic sequences, Max faces Vecna and his hellish mindscape
(08:05):
as Kate Bush is running up that hill, blasts through
her headphones. She sprints towards the light, tearing herself free.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
It truly became like the song of the next few months.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I think she made more money. I think Kate Bush
made more money because of Stranger Right. We love Kate Bush.
I love this for her, And yeah, I think I
love that you mentioned this is so iconic because I
think it is actually the scene of the show. Like
I think, if you think you're it now, they don't
think about the kids on bikes. I still see in
(08:41):
La people with Max style character kind of lifted up
in front of their house during Halloween. Yeah, great stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
We go to Russia and a plot line that seems
totally from Marvel's Black Widow movie Across the World. Joyce
Buyers receives a strange package in the mail, a Russian
nesting doll with a hidden note claiming that Jim Hopper,
former Hawkins police chief, now presumed dead David Harber got
(09:12):
his own problems going on. We'll talk about that some
other time. Presumed dead after the Starcart Mall incident is
actually alive. Joyce teams up with her friend Murray Bowman,
the paranoid conspiracy theorist and Russian language expert, to investigate.
The two fly to Alaska to me to smuggler named Yuri,
who promises that he can get them into the Soviet prison.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
And oh my gosh, that's a terrible plan. Sounds like
one and it's going to inside that prison. We join
hop Pop by the way, Yeah, David Hobba does have problems,
but I'm also a hopa hate. I just need you
guys to know it's double double ended. I wrote an
articalacchif notist. I felt like Season three season four, like
his arc with l was just not grey. I'm really
glad she lives with joy So he's gaunt, scared, scarred,
(09:58):
and hopeless in a Russian prison. He's fighting to survive
the brutal labor essentially like a gulag, and is later
a caged Domagorgan is unleashed for the god's amusement. You
know when you really loved that, guys, when you saw
it in Star Wars, when Luke fought against the monster
in the basement to enjoy Jabba, to entertain Jab of
(10:21):
the Hut, And now we see it for the god's
amusement in the prison. Eventually, Joyce and Murray do outsmart
Yuri infiltrate the base and rescue Hopper in a tearful
reunion that closes one of the show's longest emotional loops.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Project Nina in the Nevada Desert, Project Nina forces eleven
to relive various repressed memories through sensory deprivation Altered States
Anyone the movie Altered States Anyway. Inside these visions, she's
back in her childhood at the lab, where she befriends
a soft book and orderly named Peter Ballard. Becomes, but
(10:58):
Pete's not what he seems. He's actually Henry Kreole, the
son of Victor Crele, the man Nancy is currently investigating
in Hawkins related to all the deaths. Henry was doctor
Brenner's first test subject, called the One. His telekinetic abilities
turned violent. He slaughtered his family, was captured by Brenner,
(11:19):
and eventually grew resentful of the other children who were
part of the experiment.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
We'll be right back after a quick break.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
And we're back in nineteen seventy nine. We won, and
this is a huge reveal, basically kind of the kind
of reveal I would have assumed we got in season five,
so I was very interested. We got it. Hey, we
lun that Henry was the one who manipulated young al
Coaxingcots to remove a tracking chip from his neck, which
was actually a power suppressor. Freed, he kills everyone in
the lab because he is being abused by Dr Branner
(12:08):
as all of them are eleven, fights him, and with
a final burst of power, banishes him through a tear.
In reality, the tear became the gateway to the upside down,
and Henry became veckner Its first monster. This revelation restores
Eleven's confidence and reignites her powers like the Studio Ghibli
movie Kikeys Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
While Eleven is underground, the Hawkins group digs deeper. Nancy
and Robin Buckley, Steve's witty, socially awkward coworker from family
video Love Her, Love Her, bluff their way into Penhurst
Asylum to interview Victor Creole, the blind, broken man who
once survived something similar to what's going on now in Hawkins.
(12:51):
He tells them he was haunted by visions of his
dead family until a familiar song snapped him out of
the trance. Whoa proof music can save Vecna's victims, and
also another strand connecting this case to what's going now.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Meanwhile, Steve Harrington, reformed ex jock and self appointed babysitter
of the group, one of the greatest character changes from
its bully. It's a hero, absolutely unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
He's too handsome and talented.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Get him out. You got to get him in there.
Man Dustin Lucas, Max and Erica Sinclair, Lucas's younger sister
and the group's sharpest strategist, who is also one of
my favorite characters. In the show, they go to track
the portal activity at Lovers Lake. Steve dives to investigate
strange lights between the water and is yanked into the
upside down. Robin, Nancy, and Eddie follow him through, where
(13:44):
they fight off swarms of flying demo bats and discover
that each Vecna murder has opened up a new gate
connecting their world to the other oh No on the
West coast.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Back in the desert, Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle on
the coordinates to project Nina and race to find Eleven.
Along the way, Will admits that he's struggling with his
feelings for Mike, a mix of love, jealousy, and longing
that he can't finally send that is part of him.
They find Elle in time for her to escape the base,
(14:18):
and it provides a makeshift sensory tank and a surferboard
pizza parlor, submersion in saltwater, and armed with the with
sheer will power, she projects her consciousness across space to
help her friends in Hawkins.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Iconic I mean love that astral projection, absolutely insane choice,
Vecna's plan, and the battle for Hawkins. By the finale,
all story lines converge. The heroes reveal Vecna's murders weren't random,
Realizing that each gate death did open a gate between
Hawkins and the upside Down. With four victims, the world
will mudge. The team launches a three front plan and Hawkins, Nancy, Steve, Robin, Eddie,
(14:57):
and Dustin arm up and infiltrate the upside Down creole house,
while Lucas, Max, and Erica stake out the real one
to draw Vecna in. In Nevada, eleven enters Max's mind
to confront Vekna from inside the dreamscape, and in Russia, Hopa, Joyce,
and Murray returned to the prison to kill the captive
monsters and weaken Vecna's hive mind connection. Do you feel,
(15:19):
Jason like they only added evil Russians using these monsters
because evil Americans are also using.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Ellie Munson accuse murder?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
You know?
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Guy on the on the fringes of Houck and Society
to its unexpected hero when he shreds Metallica's Master of
Puppets on his electric guitar in order to distract the
demo bats. When Dustin is like you gotta get out
of here side, Eddie's like, no, not this time, and
he dies on his feet, shredding, buying his friends a
(15:54):
chance for victory. Upstairs in the creole, added Jason Carver,
still convinced the Hellfire Club Worsh's worship of the Devil,
attacks Lucas the ground split's open, killing Jason instantly sorry,
Jason as sorry. Final gator erupts, you're wrong, and what
a way to be proved wrong?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Well, a way to be proved wrong? Inside Max is mine.
Vecna nearly wins, breaking her limbs, blinding her and stopping
her heart, but Eleven refuses to let her go, reviving
her body just as Mike shouts his long delayed I
love you, should have been and I love you from
Eleven to Max. But sure, the combined attacks eleven psychic
battle and the Hawking Team's Molotov assault and hop a
(16:33):
strike against them. A Gordon had Russia finally weaken Beck.
Now his body burns, and when the smoke clears, he's gone.
The victory comes at a price. Mike's Max survives, but
she's in a coma, her future uncertain. Hawkins itself has
been torn open.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
We'll find out what happens to Max when her contract
is either renewed or.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Not the aftermath.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Two days later, the town reels from like earthquakes that
are striking Dustin breaks the news of Eddie's death. Eddie's
uncle who mourns, uh, you know, a guy who everyone
still thinks is like a mass murderer. Robin reconnects with Vicky,
her band crush at a Hawkins relief camp, the Gangreen
Knights with Eleven, Will, Mike, Jonathan and Argyle, and finally
(17:21):
in the woods, Eleven walks to the rebuilt Hopper cabin
where her adopted father steps through the door.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Alive, no devil, quiet, emotional embrace and reunion that many
people love, but that Rosie doesn't like.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I did not love. I was not a much more
complex sheen.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
As it has emerged in recent days that that what's
the actor's name?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Oh, yes, Milly Bobby Brown.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Bobby Brown filed some sort of complaint against David.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Harbor in the non They they made some sort of
bully They made sure to say it was not a
sexual complaint, but it was a bullying and harassment complaint.
And yes, guys, In twenty nineteen, ahead of time, as
always as a hater, I wrote an article that was
published at twelve am. I'm guessing that was when the
show came out in twenty nineteen, season three called we
(18:20):
need to talk about Chief Hopper, and it's about how
he's an abusive father guy. So go read that. That
was kind of fun stuff I was writing about in
twenty nineteen. Jason, how do they do season five finale
of Stranger Things when the whole town is torn up?
Are we getting another big time jump? Are the kids
twenty five? Now? What's happening? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I wonder if we do. I wonder. I think we
might get in a big time jump. And I think
also that as we saw in season four, you can
you know, only one third of the story took place
in Hawkins, So I think we're going to see that.
I think we're going to see the story continue to
expand even as it shrinks, and become the final battle
(19:01):
with Vecna, which I think will become a battle to
both defeat Vecna but also redeem Max as a child
who was exploited and abused. On the next episodes of
Extra Vision, we're diving into the Running Man and the
Chair Company. That's it for this episode of the actual
listening bye x ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sepsion
(19:29):
and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Our supervising producer is Abuzafar.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Our producers are Common, Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wag.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi.
Our disc called moderate, though
Warning. Today's episode contains spoilers for Stranger Things Season four,
which we are recapping to get you ready for season five,
the final season Stranger Things. Oh my name is Jason
(00:24):
Concepcion and I'm Rosie Night and welcome back to extro
Vision of the podcast where we dive to your favorite shows, movies, college, fun,
country comedy from our back Guys, we're ready with your
episodes a.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Week plus plus those before we jump into our Stranger
Things season four recap. A quick production note this holiday season,
we will be sharing a couple of shorter stocking stuffer
episodes with you. With so many great shows, movies, tv
books coming out these next few months, these episodes will
help us cover some extra content we wouldn't be able
to get to on our normal episodes, So stay tuned
(00:56):
for our stocking stuffers starting the week of Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
But first let's get into it. Stranger Things Season four recap.
We open in nineteen eighty six Hawkins, Indiana. We're back
in Hawkins, Indiana, and once again Hawkins, Indiana is going
through it. The season opens, though with a flashback to
nineteen seventy nine inside the laboratory of doctor Martin Brenner
his government lab where he is experimenting on psychically gifted children, including,
(01:25):
of course, our favorite Eleven. Brenner begins his morning routine
the same way I guess he always does before he
begins experimenting on kids. But when he arrives at the
lab with the alarm sounding, he finds everybody's dead. There's
just like blood smeared everywhere except for one survivor, and
(01:45):
it is Eleven, and she is smeared with blood, and
you're left to wonder, did she do this?
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Did she do this?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Cut to the present Eleven, now not covered in blood
and living in California, powerless, trying to be normal, and
has been adopted by Joyce Buyers, the relentlessly determined single
mother played by none other than Wenona Ryder, who wants
tore open dimensions to rescue her son Will. Joyce has
moved our family West for a new start. Will, her quiet,
sensitive younger son who feels the upside down still watching him,
(02:16):
and Jonathan, her older, aimless but loyal son, now spending
most of his time with his new best friend, Argyle,
a gentle and perpetually high pizza delivery guy and probably
my favorite character. On the show.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yes he's very good. We go to California with Will,
Jonathan Mike during spring break. Mike Wheeler still with Eleven,
though they're doing it long distance. The group then you know,
the group of kids Idealistic leader flies from Hawkins to
visit his girlfriend. Eleven is trying to be like everything's great,
(02:47):
everything's normal, Like I'm having a great time here. It's good,
but it's not true. She's getting bullied all the time,
particularly by angela popular classmate who like just makes fun
of her hair, her clothes, the way she talks everything.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
At the roller and Angela stages of public humiliation, tricking
Eleven into the spotlight and laughing as the milkshakes flats
across her face. Furious and humiliated, Eleven lashes out, hitting
Angela in the face with a roller skate before storming
away and tears that's right.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
You loved it when you first saw it.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
You love it you.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Soon afterwards, the government agents arrive, but it's two different
competing government agencies. One group is led by doctor Sam Owens,
a scientist who once worked alongside Hopper, who wants to
protect Eleven and help her get her powers back, and
another faction commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel Sullivan, who thinks
At eleven is behind the Hawkins murders, which we'll get
(03:46):
to in a second, and must be neutralized. Owen's team
reaches her first, They get her out. They take her
to Project Nina, a secret Nevada lab where Owens has
resurrected her former mentor, Doctuz what He's back, the man
who raised her in keptivity.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
We're going to take a quick break and we'll be
right back. And we're back, okay. So now we get
(04:24):
to the other side of the story, and the one
that I believe was most beloved by Stranger Things, Yes fans,
which is Hawkins, the Hellfire Club, and the First Death.
Let's talk about it back in Hawkins, the other half
of our story begins. Dustin Henderson, the group's enthusiastic Tinkra,
has joined a Dungeons and Dragons club called the hell
Fire Club. Nice ex men reference there with Mike Wheeler
(04:47):
and Lucas Sinclair, the athlete of the group who is
now trying to balance his new basketball friends and cool
life with his old nerdy crew. The group's leader is
Eddie Munson, a rebellious metal head senior known for his
arrythma guitasso, loves complete disregardful authority and the fact that
he looks forty five. Sorry Joseph Quinn.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
During a basketball game, Lucas scores the winning the winning
basket while his old friends play Dungeons and Dragons across town.
And this captures the kind of split, the normal split
I think that kids who are growing up and go
through that same night, Sweet Nervous cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham, the
(05:33):
girlfriend of Hawkins High basketball star Jason Carver, begins having
terrible upside down style haucinations about her dead mom and
ronning walls and all this stuff, and she's just trying
to find a way out of this. She goes to
Eddie Tovie drugs, but before she can go back and
(05:55):
even use the drugs, she's like lifted into the air
by some unseen force and her body is contorted and
her limbs are broken. Her eyes go white, and she
dies violently in Eddie Wnson's trailer.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
The next day, Hawkins is in chaos. Please surround Eddie's home.
The town blames him, and the kids no bad. It's
very much inspired by the West Memphis three and this
kind of notion of satanic panic. So Nancy Wheler, Mike's
older sister, is now a gun toting, badass reporter for
the school newspaper. I love this character term for her
(06:32):
begins investigating Chrissy's death at the school newspaper insane. I
love it. Her research leads her to unsettling connections and
echoes of other supernatural events.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Weckna emerges within days. More Hawkins teens are dying in
this similar horrifying ways. Fred Benson, Nancy's fellow reporter at
the school paper, and Patrick McKinney, a member of Lucas's
basketball team, all experience trauma guilt related hallucinations before dying
(07:03):
in this horrific like limb twisting way. The group our
heroes named the killer Vecna after a D and D villain,
and they realize that he feeds and prays on pain, trauma, guilt,
on these kind of scars that never heal.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, very interesting how much D and D law they
do use in this show. I wonder what the licensing
aspects of that were or whether it was kind of
fair usage. But very interesting. Max Mayfield, Lucas's ex girlfriend,
and the skeptical redhead of the group, remember she moved
to town with Billy in season three, becomes Veckna's next
target since her stepbrother Billy died saving her at star
(07:43):
coourt More just an incredible format some of a Big
Billy's stand. Max has shut everyone out. Drowning in guilt,
she writes goodbye letters to her friends, accepting her fate.
But when the group learns that music can act as
a lifeline, that a person's favorite song can tether them
to reality, they fight back. In one of the show's
most iconic sequences, Max faces Vecna and his hellish mindscape
(08:05):
as Kate Bush is running up that hill, blasts through
her headphones. She sprints towards the light, tearing herself free.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
It truly became like the song of the next few months.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I think she made more money. I think Kate Bush
made more money because of Stranger Right. We love Kate Bush.
I love this for her, And yeah, I think I
love that you mentioned this is so iconic because I
think it is actually the scene of the show. Like
I think, if you think you're it now, they don't
think about the kids on bikes. I still see in
(08:41):
La people with Max style character kind of lifted up
in front of their house during Halloween. Yeah, great stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
We go to Russia and a plot line that seems
totally from Marvel's Black Widow movie Across the World. Joyce
Buyers receives a strange package in the mail, a Russian
nesting doll with a hidden note claiming that Jim Hopper,
former Hawkins police chief, now presumed dead David Harber got
(09:12):
his own problems going on. We'll talk about that some
other time. Presumed dead after the Starcart Mall incident is
actually alive. Joyce teams up with her friend Murray Bowman,
the paranoid conspiracy theorist and Russian language expert, to investigate.
The two fly to Alaska to me to smuggler named Yuri,
who promises that he can get them into the Soviet prison.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
And oh my gosh, that's a terrible plan. Sounds like
one and it's going to inside that prison. We join
hop Pop by the way, Yeah, David Hobba does have problems,
but I'm also a hopa hate. I just need you
guys to know it's double double ended. I wrote an
articalacchif notist. I felt like Season three season four, like
his arc with l was just not grey. I'm really
glad she lives with joy So he's gaunt, scared, scarred,
(09:58):
and hopeless in a Russian prison. He's fighting to survive
the brutal labor essentially like a gulag, and is later
a caged Domagorgan is unleashed for the god's amusement. You
know when you really loved that, guys, when you saw
it in Star Wars, when Luke fought against the monster
in the basement to enjoy Jabba, to entertain Jab of
(10:21):
the Hut, And now we see it for the god's
amusement in the prison. Eventually, Joyce and Murray do outsmart
Yuri infiltrate the base and rescue Hopper in a tearful
reunion that closes one of the show's longest emotional loops.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Project Nina in the Nevada Desert, Project Nina forces eleven
to relive various repressed memories through sensory deprivation Altered States
Anyone the movie Altered States Anyway. Inside these visions, she's
back in her childhood at the lab, where she befriends
a soft book and orderly named Peter Ballard. Becomes, but
(10:58):
Pete's not what he seems. He's actually Henry Kreole, the
son of Victor Crele, the man Nancy is currently investigating
in Hawkins related to all the deaths. Henry was doctor
Brenner's first test subject, called the One. His telekinetic abilities
turned violent. He slaughtered his family, was captured by Brenner,
(11:19):
and eventually grew resentful of the other children who were
part of the experiment.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
We'll be right back after a quick break.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
And we're back in nineteen seventy nine. We won, and
this is a huge reveal, basically kind of the kind
of reveal I would have assumed we got in season five,
so I was very interested. We got it. Hey, we
lun that Henry was the one who manipulated young al
Coaxingcots to remove a tracking chip from his neck, which
was actually a power suppressor. Freed, he kills everyone in
the lab because he is being abused by Dr Branner
(12:08):
as all of them are eleven, fights him, and with
a final burst of power, banishes him through a tear.
In reality, the tear became the gateway to the upside down,
and Henry became veckner Its first monster. This revelation restores
Eleven's confidence and reignites her powers like the Studio Ghibli
movie Kikeys Yes.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
While Eleven is underground, the Hawkins group digs deeper. Nancy
and Robin Buckley, Steve's witty, socially awkward coworker from family
video Love Her, Love Her, bluff their way into Penhurst
Asylum to interview Victor Creole, the blind, broken man who
once survived something similar to what's going on now in Hawkins.
(12:51):
He tells them he was haunted by visions of his
dead family until a familiar song snapped him out of
the trance. Whoa proof music can save Vecna's victims, and
also another strand connecting this case to what's going now.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Meanwhile, Steve Harrington, reformed ex jock and self appointed babysitter
of the group, one of the greatest character changes from
its bully. It's a hero, absolutely unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
He's too handsome and talented.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Get him out. You got to get him in there.
Man Dustin Lucas, Max and Erica Sinclair, Lucas's younger sister
and the group's sharpest strategist, who is also one of
my favorite characters. In the show, they go to track
the portal activity at Lovers Lake. Steve dives to investigate
strange lights between the water and is yanked into the
upside down. Robin, Nancy, and Eddie follow him through, where
(13:44):
they fight off swarms of flying demo bats and discover
that each Vecna murder has opened up a new gate
connecting their world to the other oh No on the
West coast.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Back in the desert, Mike, Will, Jonathan, and Argyle on
the coordinates to project Nina and race to find Eleven.
Along the way, Will admits that he's struggling with his
feelings for Mike, a mix of love, jealousy, and longing
that he can't finally send that is part of him.
They find Elle in time for her to escape the base,
(14:18):
and it provides a makeshift sensory tank and a surferboard
pizza parlor, submersion in saltwater, and armed with the with
sheer will power, she projects her consciousness across space to
help her friends in Hawkins.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Iconic I mean love that astral projection, absolutely insane choice,
Vecna's plan, and the battle for Hawkins. By the finale,
all story lines converge. The heroes reveal Vecna's murders weren't random,
Realizing that each gate death did open a gate between
Hawkins and the upside Down. With four victims, the world
will mudge. The team launches a three front plan and Hawkins, Nancy, Steve, Robin, Eddie,
(14:57):
and Dustin arm up and infiltrate the upside Down creole house,
while Lucas, Max, and Erica stake out the real one
to draw Vecna in. In Nevada, eleven enters Max's mind
to confront Vekna from inside the dreamscape, and in Russia, Hopa, Joyce,
and Murray returned to the prison to kill the captive
monsters and weaken Vecna's hive mind connection. Do you feel,
(15:19):
Jason like they only added evil Russians using these monsters
because evil Americans are also using.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Ellie Munson accuse murder?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
You know?
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Guy on the on the fringes of Houck and Society
to its unexpected hero when he shreds Metallica's Master of
Puppets on his electric guitar in order to distract the
demo bats. When Dustin is like you gotta get out
of here side, Eddie's like, no, not this time, and
he dies on his feet, shredding, buying his friends a
(15:54):
chance for victory. Upstairs in the creole, added Jason Carver,
still convinced the Hellfire Club Worsh's worship of the Devil,
attacks Lucas the ground split's open, killing Jason instantly sorry,
Jason as sorry. Final gator erupts, you're wrong, and what
a way to be proved wrong?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Well, a way to be proved wrong? Inside Max is mine.
Vecna nearly wins, breaking her limbs, blinding her and stopping
her heart, but Eleven refuses to let her go, reviving
her body just as Mike shouts his long delayed I
love you, should have been and I love you from
Eleven to Max. But sure, the combined attacks eleven psychic
battle and the Hawking Team's Molotov assault and hop a
(16:33):
strike against them. A Gordon had Russia finally weaken Beck.
Now his body burns, and when the smoke clears, he's gone.
The victory comes at a price. Mike's Max survives, but
she's in a coma, her future uncertain. Hawkins itself has
been torn open.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
We'll find out what happens to Max when her contract
is either renewed or.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Not the aftermath.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Two days later, the town reels from like earthquakes that
are striking Dustin breaks the news of Eddie's death. Eddie's
uncle who mourns, uh, you know, a guy who everyone
still thinks is like a mass murderer. Robin reconnects with Vicky,
her band crush at a Hawkins relief camp, the Gangreen
Knights with Eleven, Will, Mike, Jonathan and Argyle, and finally
(17:21):
in the woods, Eleven walks to the rebuilt Hopper cabin
where her adopted father steps through the door.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Alive, no devil, quiet, emotional embrace and reunion that many
people love, but that Rosie doesn't like.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I did not love. I was not a much more
complex sheen.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
As it has emerged in recent days that that what's
the actor's name?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Oh, yes, Milly Bobby Brown.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Bobby Brown filed some sort of complaint against David.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Harbor in the non They they made some sort of
bully They made sure to say it was not a
sexual complaint, but it was a bullying and harassment complaint.
And yes, guys, In twenty nineteen, ahead of time, as
always as a hater, I wrote an article that was
published at twelve am. I'm guessing that was when the
show came out in twenty nineteen, season three called we
(18:20):
need to talk about Chief Hopper, and it's about how
he's an abusive father guy. So go read that. That
was kind of fun stuff I was writing about in
twenty nineteen. Jason, how do they do season five finale
of Stranger Things when the whole town is torn up?
Are we getting another big time jump? Are the kids
twenty five? Now? What's happening? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I wonder if we do. I wonder. I think we
might get in a big time jump. And I think
also that as we saw in season four, you can
you know, only one third of the story took place
in Hawkins, So I think we're going to see that.
I think we're going to see the story continue to
expand even as it shrinks, and become the final battle
(19:01):
with Vecna, which I think will become a battle to
both defeat Vecna but also redeem Max as a child
who was exploited and abused. On the next episodes of
Extra Vision, we're diving into the Running Man and the
Chair Company. That's it for this episode of the actual
listening bye x ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sepsion
(19:29):
and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Our supervising producer is Abuzafar.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Our producers are Common, Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wag.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi.
Our disc called moderate, though
Hosts And Creators
Jason Concepcion
Rosie Knight
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