The military base of Hawkins in Stranger Things: the locked-down town of 1987
Universe · Hawkins · 1987
Roadblocks, a doctor, a truck. In this article: the quarantine, the base and its entrances, who is in command and what is ordered about Eleven, the lab on the other side, the assaults, and what the base becomes when it is opened. At the end, the lock has cracks.
In the fall of 1987, Hawkins is locked down. The army holds the roadblocks, the population believes in a natural phenomenon, and a base becomes the gate that some people are going to force from the inside.
The essentials
- The time: fall 1987, military quarantine
- November 3: the town is already locked down, the population believes in a natural phenomenon
- The scientific command: Dr. Kay, priority on Eleven
- On site on November 6: Kay and Lieutenant Akers, Sullivan burned
- The opening: Erica and Mr. Clarke let Murray's truck through
- On the other side: the lab, melted rooms, soldiers caught in the walls
Contents
The town locked down, fall 1987
Fall 1987 puts Hawkins under military quarantine. The population believes in a natural phenomenon. The army holds the roadblocks. A small group, though, knows the lock does not protect from what is already underneath. The first chapter, “The Crawl”, sets that town on November 3, 1987.
It is no longer a high school rumor or a mall summer. It is a closed town, with checkpoints, and an operation the army is preparing on the other side. Murray, who delivers contraband, reports that a large maneuver is being prepared. The base is not an added set. It is the tool of the lockdown.
The map of Hawkins already had a lab to the north. In 1987, the map gains roadblocks. One no longer enters the town the way one entered it by bike.
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November 3, 1987 The quarantine
Roadblocks, an unofficial version of a natural phenomenon, Eleven's secret training.
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The convoy Hopper inside the base
He goes through the tunnels, hides in the last truck of a convoy that crosses the gate.
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The attack The convoy falls
A creature attacks the soldiers in the truck. Hopper, wounded, flees into the woods.
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November 6 Kay and Akers
They note the damage. The priority stays Eleven. Akers finds a rift at the lab.
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The truck Erica and Mr. Clarke
They open the base. Murray gets the group through.
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The other lab The walls
On the other side, rooms melt, soldiers are caught in the matter.
The lab poster, the building the base still wants to hold.
In the shopThe lab poster19,90 €See the product
The base and its entrances
The base is the building of the lockdown: one prepares operations there, one parks the trucks there, one decides there who has the right to cross a gate. The Crawl shows Hopper getting in through the tunnels under the town. He slips into the last truck of an army convoy, while the soldiers burn the wall of the gate.
Access is therefore not a single gate filmed in a wide shot. There are the roadblocks for the population, the tunnels for the one who knows the town, and the gate for the convoy. Three thresholds. The base holds them all, badly.
The site has a name: MAC-Z, the military access control zone set up on the town-center square, where the cracks converged. Robin calls it “Big Mac” on the air. Its use: lock down, get trucks through, hunt.
Who is in command, and the order about Eleven
Dr. Kay is the army scientist at the head of this quarantine. She holds Eleven responsible for the rifts. She hunts her. Linda Hamilton lends her her face. Her unit is nicknamed the Wolf Pack. The detail of what she is looking for on Kali's side is in her article. Here, the order is enough: Eleven, at any cost.
On November 6, 1987, the anniversary of Will's disappearance, Kay and Lieutenant Akers note the damage from an attack. They listen to Sullivan, burned, talk about Vecna. I do not redo Akers's portrait. He is at the base, he finds a rift at the lab, he wants to go back there.
Sullivan, for his part, is no longer the man from the 1986 office. He is burned, and he speaks. The chain of command the pages show that day holds three names: Kay, who repeats her priority, Akers, who wants to go back to the lab, Sullivan, who no longer has the same body.
The lab on the other side
The lab the army wants to control has a double, on the other side. Nancy and Jonathan cross rooms there that melt into one another, with soldiers fused to the walls. These are not new species. It is the same matter, applied to bodies. The article on the creatures of 1987 holds the bestiary. Here, the place: a building that no longer keeps its geometry.
Above floats a sphere of exotic matter. Around the town, a wall that Brenner's notebooks describe as a containment field. Nancy fires on the sphere. The shock wave cracks. The base on this side and that lab are not the same pile of bricks. They answer each other.
Akers, on finding a rift at the lab, wants precisely to go back toward that. The military base is not the melted lab. It is the quarter from which one decides to send men back there.
Eleven's lab coat, the one the quarantine hunts.
Dans la boutiqueEleven lab coat69,90 €Voir le produit
The convoy and the damage
The first chapter breaks the routine in one convoy. Once the gate is crossed, a creature attacks the convoy in the Upside Down. The soldiers are killed. Hopper is wounded and flees into the woods. The base has just lost a vehicle and men, through the gate it thought it held.
On November 6, the damage is already there, enough for Kay and Akers to note it. I do not replay the town's abductions or the children's scenes. The subject is the building: it takes the hits, it counts its rifts, it keeps the same priority.
Between the attacked convoy and the lab rift, the base is no longer a block. It has holes, tunnels it does not watch, and inhabitants who know its hours better than some officers.
What the base becomes
The seventh chapter, “The Bridge”, turns it around. Erica and Mr. Clarke open the military base to let Murray's truck through. Inside: Hopper, Eleven, Mike, Will, Joyce, Lucas, Dustin, Steve, Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, and Kali. The lock serves as a gate for those it was supposed to stop.
The Bridge dates this opening to November 6, 1987. It is not a surrender filmed with a speech. It is a forced entry: Mr. Clarke disables the gate remotely, Hopper takes down the guards, Nancy fires from the truck. The base stays the army. It is no longer sealed.
I do not make it jump, nor rename it, nor give it back to the mayor. After the destruction of the Upside Down, the army leaves the town and the zone is dismantled. Before that, the lockdown will have served as an airlock: a gate forced under fire, under Kay's eyes.
The Jim Hopper figure, the one who enters through the tunnels and hides in a truck.
In the shopBuildable big-head figure Jim Hopper19,90 €See the product
Frequently asked questions
When is the town locked down?
In the fall of 1987. On November 3, the military quarantine is in place. The population believes in a natural phenomenon.
Who leads the hunt for Eleven?
Dr. Kay, army scientist, played by Linda Hamilton. Her priority, repeated on November 6, is Eleven, at any cost.
How does Hopper get in?
Through the tunnels, in the first chapter. He hides in the last truck of an army convoy that crosses the gate.
What happens on November 6, 1987?
Kay and Akers note the damage. Sullivan, burned, speaks. Akers finds a rift at the lab. The same day, Erica and Mr. Clarke open the base to Murray's truck.
Is the melted lab the base?
No. The base is the military quarter in the locked-down town. The lab with the melted rooms is on the other side, with soldiers caught in the walls.
Who opens the base's gate?
Erica and Mr. Clarke, for Murray's truck, in “The Bridge”. The group gets through. The base is no longer sealed.
