Overall I think this season is pretty strong, but this episode and the last really suffered from being a tonal mess and characters making some questionable choices. It seems the more comedic the show goes the harder it is to watch.
The Great/Serious:
Hopper's time in the Russian prison has been the most consistent part of the series. Beautifully shot, strong characters and I love the back and forth between him and Enzo, it's a good underdog/anti-hero combo. Everything feels so authentic.
You also have El's training, which is slowly starting to give us some hints about her past and some good mystery about the program and her father. There's a great eerie 'dreamlike' quality that just puts you on edge.
The satanic panic part is in the serious category as well, but it felt a bit forced. Maybe if it had taken place in a church it wouldn't be such a leap to have all the townspeople buy that DnD is a devil cult that helped Eddie to horrifically murder people.
The pretty good/adventure:
I like the Hawkins 'scoobies', to barrow a phrase from Buffy. They generally have good chemistry/dialog and they're scenes are always fun to watch. They're clue hopping is a bit much, though. Each ending scene in this episode is 'Wait, now we need to go here!" It's a nice contrast to Hopper being stuck in one place but it leads to some very questionable decisions to rush off to their new adventure.
They think a gate, which they need El to close, is at the bottom of the lake and their plan is to...do what exactly? They have absolutely no idea whatsoever, and yet they go out onto the lake and let Steve swim down. Really, with a murderous demon loose, seeing the magnet would be more than enough to convince me. Why swim down and touch it, what did you think was going to happen??? Why bring Eddie with you back to the scene of the crime he's running from? I love the ending sequence but it's undercut by how freaking dumb that was just to get someone into the upside-down.
The questionable/comedic:
Lets start with the FAR lesser of two evils; Joyce, Murry, and Yuri in a madcap comedy or errors. This plotline is a bit tainted from the last episode. There are some scenes I like here and I get what they're going for. It's just that Joyce and Murry are so far out of their wheelhouse it's just hard to believe anything that's happening to them. Hopper is ex-military/police, Joyce is ex-MLM mom and Murry is not much better (although I like his back and forth with Yuri here). You can have a funny show about fish out of water characters, Mr. Bean style. However when you juxtapose that with brutal torture and realistic imprisonment, it just takes me out of the show.
And the worst of the worst, does it really need to be said? The plotline with Mike and friends goes from a jaw-droppingly, deadly shootout, where they burry a dead body, to a whacky Disneyesque ''''comedy'''' that is so manic I don't even fully understand what is happening. It's like watching Goodfellas and someone spliced in scenes from The Garbage Pail Kids. It's is the most baffling writing/direction decision I've ever seen by someone that is clearly talented.
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