Stranger Things season 2 episode 1: “MADMAX”, recap and analysis

The first chapter’s fact sheet

Matt and Ross Duffer write and direct this first chapter. The release date of season 2 is Friday, October 27, 2017, with the whole season. That Friday falls four days before Halloween. This article goes with 48 minutes.

In the United States, on television only and over three days, the Nielsen audience is 15.8 million viewers, of whom 11.0 million are between 18 and 49. They are viewers, not households. The figure is given on November 2, 2017. A teaser from August 31, 2016, already announced nine titles, and the one for this chapter opened the list.

It is the first chapter in which Schnapp, Sink, Keery, Montgomery, Astin and Reiser appear in the main cast. Schnapp and Keery move up after spending season 1 as recurring cast members. Keith is played by Matty Cardarople. Merrill is played by Fenton Lawless. Barbara’s parents are played by Cynthia Barrett and Aaron Muñoz.

From Pittsburgh to the cabin

Season 2 starts here, at the end of October, a year after the disappearance. All of this takes place in 1984.

The opening is dated on screen: Pittsburgh, October 28, 1984. The game night, though, is not dated. In the schoolyard, one of the boys notes that Max arrives at school the day after their record falls. The school day and the pumpkin field fall on Halloween eve, October 30, as Merrill says and as the site already has it for the fall of 1984.

No time is given for Will’s vision. He gets up after the movie night. The cabin is the last scene of the cut. Nothing proves the vision happens before it. The markers below follow that order.

1. October 28, 1984 Pittsburgh

   An escape from the police. The 008 shows on a forearm, for the time it takes to wipe a bleeding nose.

2. One evening The machines

   Joyce drops Will off and will be back at 9 p.m. sharp. The boys play. A score comes up. Will sees the storm with red lightning.

3. Halloween eve The station

   Murray at the station, then Merrill’s call. Merrill does not come in. At the field he talks about Halloween eve, then a noise in the corn turns out to be a crow.

4. The school The new girl

   A student from California goes by Max. She throws a note away as she goes back into class.

5. The lab Owens

   Will describes the storm. Owens tells Joyce and the police chief about the anniversary effect. The gate in the basement is burned.

6. The evening Two houses

   Barbara’s parents are selling theirs. Mike, grounded, is on day 352.

7. Later Will’s vision

   After the movie night, he opens a door onto the storm and a huge silhouette, still unnamed.

8. Last scene The cabin

   Eleven says It's 815. The police chief corrects her: Eight fifteen, so 8:15 p.m.

Pittsburgh and the number 008

The caption says Pittsburgh, October 28, 1984. A masked crew flees the police. The lead officer thinks he sees the tunnel collapse, right in front of him, and he blocks the other cars. It was an illusion. In the van, Kali wipes her bleeding nose on her sleeve. She lets the 008 show, tattooed on her forearm. She has worn it since childhood: the gesture reveals it, but it is nothing new to her. The wiki presents this opening as the first scene outside Indiana, flashbacks aside. Kali’s story continues in episode 7 of season 2.

Linnea Berthelsen plays Kali. Her name is spoken in the van: “Do something, Kali”.

The score and the new girl

The boys pool their coins and meet Will at the Palace Arcade. Mike took Nancy’s money: “I'll pay you back!” Dustin dies in Dragon's Lair. Lucas claims Princess Daphne. Dustin calls out “I'm still tops on Centipede and Dig Dug.” Keith, the employee, answers “You sure about that?”. The screen shows MADMAX on Dig Dug, with 751 300 points. Keith will not say a word without a date with Nancy. Mike refuses: “I'm not prostituting my sister!”. One of the boys mocks the employee: what does he make, $2.50 an hour? During the argument, Will sees the Upside Down and the storm with red lightning. A Dig Dug machine accepts only three letters. MADMAX has six. The title and the handle point to the film Mad Max, released in 1979.

At school, Mr. Clarke presents the human brain: “a hundred billion cells”. He welcomes Maxine, from “sunny California”. She answers “It's Max.” He has her repeat: “Nobody calls me Maxine. It's Max.” One of the boys whispers “Mad Max”. Later, she throws a note that the boys fish out: “Stop spying on me, creeps.” That evening, Dustin and Lucas see her play and confirm the score is hers.

Earlier, at the high school, Nancy rereads Steve’s application letter: the game against Northern, the grandfather in the war, an early submission due the next day. Steve says he will end up working for his father. A car comes roaring in. A high school boy and a middle school girl with a skateboard get out. Rock You Like a Hurricane, by Scorpions, accompanies the boy’s entrance. The dialogue does not name him, and it does not state the family tie. He is the boy with the Camaro, Billy, her stepbrother, as we later learn. That evening, he drops her off and they argue.

Will, the anniversary effect, Owens

Will finds a clipping on his locker with ZOMBIE BOY scrawled across it. That evening, he draws himself that way. He blames everyone for treating him as if he were going to break. Jonathan answers that he would rather be friends with Zombie Boy than with a boring nobody, and asks: “Bowie or Kenny Rogers?” Earlier, at the high school, Nancy hands Jonathan an invitation to Tina’s party. He says he wants to do Halloween with Will.

Joyce and the police chief take Will to the lab to see Dr. Sam Owens, the new director. Owens greets him with “Sir Will”, greets Joyce and the police chief with a “Mom. Pop.”, then asks Will for his desert-island candy: Reese's Pieces. Will describes the storm and an evil presence that wants to kill everyone, except him. The doctor learns that Will has already had two episodes this month. Owens talks about the Anniversary Effect, observed in soldiers, and advises treating Will normally. Then a worker takes a flamethrower to the gate, in the basement.

At night, the lab’s machines go wild. Will gets up, opens a door, and sees the Upside Down, the storm, and a huge silhouette. The show does not name it in this chapter. The name Mind Flayer will come later.

Bob, Murray, the cabin

Bob Newby stops by to see Joyce at the store. They kiss in the stockroom. Bob reminds her that in high school she did not know who he was. Joyce answers that she has to get back to work. They plan a movie night, Jonathan’s choice, with no scary film. Later, at the lab, the police chief asks Joyce how “Bob the Brain” is doing. She asks him not to call him that. That evening, Bob films Joyce on the camcorder while she makes the popcorn: “This is the future”. Then everyone watches Mr. Mom, a 1983 film, on VHS. The phone rings. Joyce tenses. Bob reassures her and suggests it is a prank. They let it ring. Bob’s visit takes place at Melvald's.

Murray Bauman approaches the police chief with “Good morning, Jim”. He cites a former employee of the Big Buy, a glass door broken by a little girl’s mind, and a colleague of Ted, a little girl with a shaved head hidden at his house. His theory: Russian spies abducted and killed a high school girl. The chief gives him five minutes, then leaves for the call the switchboard passed on. He tells Murray to go home, and to stop bleeding the Hollands dry. Merrill phoned without coming to the station. He accuses his neighbor Eugene, the man from Pick Your Pumpkin, of having poisoned his pumpkins. At the field, he suspects one of Eugene’s workers instead.

That evening, Barbara Holland is absent from the table. Steve and Nancy have dinner with her parents. There is fried chicken. Steve says “I love KFC”. The parents hired Murray, a former Chicago Sun-Times reporter, and they are selling the house to pay him. Nancy goes off by herself and cries. The score cue titled Eulogy accompanies those tears and, in the same cut, Mike’s call.

At the Wheelers’, Mike is grounded. The Atari is confiscated. He has to fill two boxes of toys for a yard sale. Ted talks about “strike 20”. In the blanket fort, Mike calls Eleven on his Supercom: “It's day 352”. He thinks he hears his name, then Dustin cuts him off. Dustin comes home, hears a noise under the porch and thinks it is his cat Mews. The trash can moves. He does not find Dart in this chapter. In the woods, the police chief avoids a tripwire, knocks a code, and the door unlocks by itself. An Eggo waffle is on the table. Eleven says “No signal”, then “It's 815. You're late.” He corrects her: “Eight fifteen”, so 8:15 p.m. The rule comes next: “dinner first, then dessert”. The score cue is titled Eight Fifteen.

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