Well look who's being super patriotic to cover up the fact that he's destroying the town by colluding with Russians...
It's the mayor, Tru- I mean... Larry... hmmm...
Scoops Troop is still miles down under the mall and unsurprising to no one, they get caught... BUT the teens are good people who send the younger kids out for help but really they are sacrificing themselves to save the kids and I respect it, I have to...
The other teens are at Hopper's cabin arguing over who has agency over Eleven, is it Mike, herself? but really Mike loves her and men think that is the same as being able to control women just automatically...
Alexei is getting Burger King and a strawberry slurpee but he wanted cherry... so Hopper throws him around and out and he decides Strawberry is pretty good compared to getting murdered by his own country for betraying them by getting kidnapped by some Americans
Anyway he loves Woody woodpecker and american food so... he's smart enough to know where his whopper is buttered and it's not in the icy tundra where his life is threatened daily by a nine foot tall man that never smiles...
Steve and Robin get tortured and drugged because these super smart guys in this underground compound can tell they are spies even though they are dressed like Popeye and Pippi Longstocking and are both clearly teenagers.
Dustin and Erica actually save them though which, good for them.
Hopper and Joyce find out that the machine which Alexi calls a "key" is to open a door to the upside down and they call Owens at the fake library and Joyce has to be a "Karen" not wheeler just in the way that she's acting like a "karen" but really also a desperate mom which is understandable and she probably could take over the world if she wanted and I wish she would honestly.
Eleven finds Billy but he's just sitting there staring at the wall like he just realized he has a mullet. But actually it's a trap and they all know it but El sees a box of Lucky Charms and follows the rainbow to an idea to piggyback into his memories like she did her mom last season...
That's what El calls it, not yet, but she will, what do you want me to do?
And Billy knows it and lets her do it, and guys I can't even make jokes because these scenes are incredibly done. She goes through his traumatic past and sees his dad was the A-hole and it's not an excuse but it is the reason Billy is messed up.
And then she gets out of there but not really because the Mind Flayer has to threaten her and everyone else and make a little girl cry. Which makes Billy somewhere deep inside cry and honestly the scene is magical and tragic and I love it. Dacre is incredible, Millie is also as usual and the fact that the show would show a horrible character like Billy having compassion about at least some things is really good and it sucks that some people think this is a redemption because it's not... it's just that people are not ALL bad, even if they are still MOSTLY bad... and it says a lot for how bad the mind flayer is if Billy is not down for what he's doing... it's kind of like Christopher Columbus who was not just evil but was so evil that the colonizers of his day who were pretty bad were like "whoa my guy, you suck!"
Anyway happy indepence day Hawkins, you're about to feel those bombs bursting right up your asses!
