An unlikely hero steps forward when a deadly development puts the Hawkins lab on lockdown, trapping Will and several others inside.An unlikely hero steps forward when a deadly development puts the Hawkins lab on lockdown, trapping Will and several others inside.An unlikely hero steps forward when a deadly development puts the Hawkins lab on lockdown, trapping Will and several others inside.
- Karen Wheeler
- (credit only)
- Radar Tech
- (as Helen Abell)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDacre Montgomery lobbied the Duffer brothers (Matt Duffer & Ross Duffer) for the scene between Billy and his father, Neil Hargrove (Will Chase), saying that "I can't just play bad, because nobody's just bad."
- GoofsBASIC was a real programming language which was highly popular back in the 1980s. But the acronym stands for "Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code," the important word here being "beginner." It was a simple, human-readable programming language that even complete novices could master quickly. No programmer would ever have considered writing security or any other mission-critical code, least of all for a secret government scientific laboratory, in BASIC. They'd have used COBOL or FORTRAN or even PASCAL.
- Quotes
Mike Wheeler: [to Will; tearfully] Do you remember the first day that we met? It was... it was the first day of kindergarten. I knew nobody. I had no friends... and I just felt so alone and so scared but I saw you on the swings and you were alone too. You were just swinging by yourself and I just walked up to you and I asked... I asked if you wanted to be my friend. And you said yes. You said yes. It was the best thing I've ever done.
- ConnectionsFeatured in MsMojo: Top 10 Most Satisfying TV Reunions (2018)
To my relief, "Chapter Eight: The Mind Flayer" was. While not one of the best episodes of 'Stranger Things' overall it is still very good and a huge improvement over the previous episode (which wouldn't have taken a whole lot of doing to be honest). There is one big flaw, but all the usual good things are here and they are done brilliantly. Unlike the previous episode, things felt like they were advancing and it didn't feel like filler where one questions the point.
"Chapter Eight: The Mind Flayer's" only big problem was the nonsensical and pretty tasteless ending that was a bit of a slap in the face.
A shame because the rest of "Chapter Eight: The Mind Flayer" is so good and it is saddening that an episode that was mostly absolutely excellent for most of its duration went down to a still strong very good episode down to that. Plenty to admire here. The acting is excellent, especially Sean Astin providing some of his best acting in years. The character chemistry is riveting and developed beautifully, nothing slowing the momentum or coming over as time wasting.
Expectedly, "Chapter Eight: The Mind Flayer" looks terrific. Very stylish and atmospheric, with some truly beautiful images that one can't believe such high quality comes from a Netflix show. Not to mention the highly impressive special effects that put a good deal of big budget films in recent years to shame. The music has a wonderful 80s nostalgic vibe while also being quite haunting, enhancing the atmosphere beautifully.
Writing is thought-probing and has a lot of brains and heart. As always with 'Stranger Things', it has more than one tone (humour, mystery, horror, drama etc.) and it never feels unbalanced or muddled in this regard. The episode clearly knew what it wanted to be and wanted to do and did so incredibly well. Like most of the season (the previous season too), "Chapter Eight: The Mind Flayer" is darkly suspenseful, poignant (Joyce is very affectingly written without being melodramatic), nostalgic and at points amusing.
Very good episode all in all. 8/10.
- TheLittleSongbird
- Jan 25, 2022
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Filming locations
- 6501 Church Street Douglasville, Georgia, USA(on location)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime47 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix