Nancy in Stranger Things season 3: intern at the Hawkins Post, from the rats to the firing

End of June 1985: two interns

The summer of 1985 opens with an internship. Nancy and Jonathan are interns at the Hawkins Post, in Tom Holloway’s newsroom. She says so in the car: they like her as a coffee-delivery machine. She also brings the meals. The song that plays over those rounds is Workin' for a Livin', by Huey Lewis and the News.

Bruce leads the mockery. Tom takes his coffee with two creams and two sugars, and it ends with a “Thanks, sweetheart”. The nickname lands fast: Nancy Drew. Jonathan, for his part, is well regarded no matter what he does, according to Nancy. Other women work at the Post. Nancy asks if one of them can go get lunch instead of her. The reporters who make the decisions, though, are men. Michael Park plays Tom, Jake Busey plays Bruce.

Nancy Drew is the heroine of mystery novels published from 1930 on. That is where the Post’s nickname comes from. Nancy and Jonathan remain interns. Passing themselves off as reporters will later be one of the grounds for their firing.

The story turned down: downtown

Nancy pitches an article on the shops closed since Starcourt opened. She offers a figure: at least five, on Main Street. The mall has emptied downtown.

Bruce answers with the mustard missing from his hamburger. The nickname Nancy Drew follows at once. A reporter warns a certain Phil: she might be after his job. So the internship has a setting, the coffee, and a ceiling, the story she is denied.

That evening, after closing, Nancy is tidying up the Hawkins Post offices. The phone rings. She picks up and says the name of the paper. It is Mrs. Driscoll. The call comes in there, at the paper, not at Nancy’s home. That is where the rats begin.

Mrs. Driscoll’s rats

The next day, Nancy lies to Tom to get out of the office. She claims female trouble and a doctor’s appointment. Jonathan wants to ask Tom. She answers that Tom would say no: you ask forgiveness, not permission. He is afraid they will be fired. Mrs. Driscoll welcomes them in: she and Nancy spoke on the phone the night before. She thinks they are too young to be reporters. Her husband, Jack, died about ten years ago. The fertilizer comes from Blackburn's Supplies. She shows them a rat in a cage. Later, during Nancy’s calls, she offers lemonade.

Nancy makes her calls from Mrs. Driscoll’s house. Jonathan photographs the rat. She introduces herself as calling from the Hawkins Post and asks if any rabid rats have been reported. The rat bursts open into a mass of flesh after they leave. They are no longer in the room.

Back in the newsroom, Nancy cites Blackburn's Supply, Hawkins Farming and the Crawleys. Fertilizer, pesticides, cleaning products and diesel are missing. She shows Jonathan’s photos. A mocking headline goes around, though no one can tell whose voice it is: the rodents of Hawkins prefer poison, and a crazy woman tells all. The newsroom settles it: it decides what counts as a story.

Bruce and other reporters play a prank. A rubber rat is hidden in a closet. Nancy wants the real rat tested, with blood samples, through animal control. Jonathan stops her: Tom did not ask for proof, he asked them to drop the story. She describes Mrs. Driscoll as an 80-year-old woman, and it is raining. At night, in her basement, Mrs. Driscoll eats fertilizer.

1. End of June 1985 The evening call

   Mrs. Driscoll phones the Hawkins Post while Nancy tidies, after closing.

2. The next day The rat in the cage

   Visit, rat in a cage, photo by Jonathan. The calls go out from the house, where Mrs. Driscoll offers lemonade. The rat bursts after they leave.

3. Episode 3 The newsroom

   The mocking headline, the rubber rat, then the basement where Mrs. Driscoll eats fertilizer.

4. Episode 4 The firing

   Tom’s six facts, the scene with Karen, the night at the hospital.

5. Episode 5 The hospital

   Tom and Bruce. Nancy and the extinguisher. Jonathan and Tom.

6. July 4, 1985 The dated day

   July 4 is the dated day of the season. The battle of Starcourt takes place that night.

The six facts and the firing

Tom reminds them that he has twenty-five years in the newspaper business, then he talks about trust and about facts. The first fact is disobeying a direct order. The second: they passed themselves off as reporters. They are interns. The third is trespassing. The fourth: Mrs. Driscoll nearly died on the way to the hospital. The fifth is the word he uses, paranoid schizophrenic. The family threatens a lawsuit. The sixth closes the list: they are fired, both of them.

In the car, Nancy thinks Tom was on drugs. He was sweating hard, and his hands were clammy. Jonathan reminds her what life costs for the Byers family: the mortgage on the house, school, an absent father. For him, this internship was not a whim. He adds that they were only interns. They end up concluding that they no longer understand each other.

At home, Karen tells her she is a fighter. Nancy answers that she gets it from her mother. Karen tells her to finish the job, then to go sell the article to the Indianapolis Star. At night, at the hospital, Nancy introduces herself as Nancy Driscoll, the granddaughter. Mrs. Driscoll’s fit happens around 9 p.m., at the same time as the sauna test, at the municipal pool.

Mayor Kline threatens the police chief: one phone call to Tom at the Post, and it is over for him. The line shows how much weight the paper carries. Tom Holloway is the editor in chief, and he is the father of a lifeguard at the pool. Bruce’s possession is not shown on screen. Tom and his wife, Janet, are possessed at the steel mill at the start of episode 4.

The hospital: Tom, Bruce, the extinguisher

The call goes out at 6 in the morning. Nancy saw, the night before, a bandage on Tom’s forehead. At the hospital only two visitors are let in at a time. In the elevator, Jonathan admits he was wrong to doubt her. They make up. In the room, Mrs. Driscoll is no longer there. Tom appears: she went home, he says, and they were hoping to see the two of them again.

Bruce calls her Nancy Drew again, and asks where she is. He says Marco. She answers Polo. She hits him with a fire extinguisher. The blow also reaches Tom, through the link between the possessed, and Jonathan stabs him in the neck. Nancy finishes Bruce off. The two bodies melt. They merge into a single creature, taken over by the Mind Flayer. It looks vaguely like a crab.

At the start of episode 6, the creature slips under a door. Eleven throws it through a window. It escapes into a storm drain. The monster of season 3 carries on elsewhere, up to the giant of July 4. After the firing, Nancy once again calls the places where products had disappeared. She again introduces herself as calling from the Hawkins Post. Peggy Miley plays Doris Driscoll.

What the summer leaves behind

In March 1986, Nancy writes for the Weekly Streak, the high school paper, with Fred and Candace. The motto is Keeping Hawkins High Informed. Their reporting crosses paths with Forest Hills: Nancy questions Wayne, and Fred walks off into the woods, very close to the park.

In 1987, the radio station WSQK, hosted by Robin, with Steve on sound, serves as headquarters for the group, Nancy included. This happens in season 5. The 1985 internship already showed what she does with a story she is denied: she pursues it anyway.

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