Stranger Things season 2 episode 4: “Will the Wise”, recap and analysis
Season 2 · Episode 4 · Will the Wise
“Chapter Four: Will the Wise” is the twelfth episode of the series. The wiki places the story on November 1 and 2, 1984. No date appears on screen.
The chapter in which Will's cold becomes a drawing, and that drawing becomes a network. Joyce keeps her promise, Nancy records, and the last image is a tunnel under a field.
The essentials
- English title: Chapter Four: Will the Wise
- Original title: Chapter Four: Will the Wise
- Direction: Shawn Levy, executive producer, already on the previous chapter
- Script: Paul Dichter, his first script signed alone
- Release: Friday, October 27, 2017, with the rest of the season
- Runtime: 46 minutes according to our other pages, 47 min 07 according to the wiki
- Audience: 9.3 million in three days, including 6.6 million aged 18-49
- Characters: Joyce, Hopper, Will, Eleven, Owens, Nancy, Mike.
Contents
- The chapter fact file
- Two November days, scene by scene
- The “now-memories”: the cold, the bath and “he likes it cold”
- The papered living room: Joyce and Hopper piece the drawings together
- At the lab: the burned gate and Nancy's tape
- The cabin: the fight, then the box
- The pumpkin field: down to the tunnel
- Behind the scenes: the panes blown without digital effects
The chapter fact file
The original title is “Chapter Four: Will the Wise”. Shawn Levy is behind the camera, as in the previous chapter. He takes chapters 3 and 4 of the first four seasons. He is not a director just passing through.
Paul Dichter is credited with the script. According to the wiki, he was the writers' assistant on the first seven chapters of season 1. He has sole story credit on the eighth, which the Duffers adapted into a script. According to the wiki, it is his first solo script. He will write “The Flayed”, then “Dear Billy”. It goes online on Friday, October 27, 2017, with the season 2 release. Our other pages announce 46 minutes. The wiki counts 47 minutes and 7 seconds. Nielsen, on television and in three days, records 9.3 million viewers, including 6.6 million aged 18-49. Source: The Hollywood Reporter, November 2, 2017.
Sean Astin is credited without appearing. According to the French-language Wikipedia, no lead actor had yet missed an episode. The title is that of the wizard Will plays in Dungeons & Dragons games. No one says “Will the Wise”. It was missing from the teaser of August 31, 2016, nine titles out of order, including “The Palace” in fourth place. The title is revealed on October 9, 2017. The announcement image showed the shadow, and the drawing Will made of it.
Matte case, pink edge, held in a hand. A collage: at the top, stick figures. In the center, a large black silhouette with long legs, above a fence and tall grass. At the bottom, small colored bulbs. Sketches to carry everywhere.
In the shopMatte iPhone case, Upside Down sketches29,90 €See the product
Two November days, scene by scene
On the middle-school field, the group finds a boy frozen in place. Joyce tries to wake him. He chokes, then comes back. Lucas counts two seizures in two days. Someone mentions a vision from the game, and the answer is that it is nothing. According to the wiki, they refuse to explain it to Max. The vision from the game comes back later, in the club room.
At the house, Joyce and Will talk. In the evening, at the cabin, the punishment escalates. Jonathan finds his mother and Will asleep. The next morning, Nancy tells her mother she is sleeping at Stacey's, then she joins Jonathan. The wiki places “This Is Radio Clash” on that drive. Then the station and the cold. Dustin hides the little beast. The others look for it. Mr. Clarke talks about fear, and Will refuses the bath.
Billy knocks Steve down and tells him to plant his feet. Steve learns that Nancy skipped school with Jonathan. At the park, the morning meeting does not happen. Hopper hears memories that are not Will's. In the club room, Mike tells of the shadow seen on the night of the party. Dustin talks about another plane, where it could not touch him. Someone answers that this is real life. Mike will go see Will. Lucas and Dustin look for the little beast. Only then, the closed room and the gate.
Then the sheets of paper. Max asks Lucas if they are shutting her out because she is a girl, and she leaves. Billy, who now lives with Max, orders her to stay away from that boy. Eleven reads papers. Mike rings the doorbell. Dustin comes home. The field closes the chapter.
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November 1 The field
A boy frozen in place, a mother calling him.
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The same day The cabin
A punishment that escalates, panes that fly.
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The next day The bathroom
A bath too hot, a boy who wants the cold.
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Morning The park
A missed meeting, a car that stalls.
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The day The living room
Memories that are not his, then sheets of paper.
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The day The lab
A gate, a flamethrower, a tape that rolls.
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Then The living room, again
Sheets that join up, one word: vines.
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Last scene The field
A shovel, a membrane, a tunnel.
The “now-memories”: the cold, the bath and “he likes it cold”
Will remembers nothing, this November 1. Joyce shows him the shape of the tape from the night of the party, paused on the image in the previous chapter. It is the same shape as his drawing. She thinks the doctor is wrong. No more secrets, she says. For Will, it is almost a sensation. She recalls the night at the arcade. Him: it got him, everywhere. She promises twice to fix what is moving through him.
The next day, she calls the station again. Flo tells Hopper that Joyce Byers has already called eight times. It is not a fever: it is cold. According to the wiki, a few degrees below normal. Will does not feel awake. He reminds her of the promise: no doctor. She keeps it. The bath is too hot. “He likes it cold.” According to the wiki, the back of his neck flares, and images of tunnels cross his mind.
Hopper has slept too long. The house is icy. Joyce tells him to leave the door open. According to the wiki, Will is in his underwear. He knows things, like old memories that are not his. “They're now-memories, happening all at once, now.” This journal calls them “memories of today”. Something in them grows, spreads, kills. He does not know what. Joyce suggests doing without words. He draws.
The papered living room: Joyce and Hopper piece the drawings together
According to the wiki, dozens of thick blue lines on a black ground. At first they are called simple scribbles. Joyce sees that the lines meet. They tape the sheets to the walls and to the floor. Every drawing is Will's.
The guesses follow one another. A maze, or a road. Forks like lightning. Not the storm: that one, Will had drawn in red. Maybe roots. Then Will's word: kill. Hopper decides. “Vines. He's drawing vines.” According to the wiki, he leaves in a hurry.
These lines are the ones that cover the Upside Down. The shadow holding Will, the group will later name it the Mind Flayer. Mike only says “the shadow monster”.
The 1983 wall, the alphabet wall, has its own article. Mike rings the doorbell. Joyce says it is a bad time, and that Will does not feel well. Mike asks if it is the shadow monster. In the next chapter, Bob reads a map of the town in these sheets.
At the lab: the burned gate and Nancy's tape
Nancy and Jonathan at the park, the morning of the meeting. The quarter hour has passed. Mrs. Holland does not come. A man talks to himself. Children play duck, duck, goose. One of the two says they had better leave. The car stalls. A man offers to drive them back. Nothing shows sabotage.
In the closed room, they want out. Owens answers that hospitality is not their strong suit. He quotes George Sarton: “Men of science have made abundant mistakes of every kind.” Nancy: “You killed Barbara.” The people responsible for what happened to Jonathan's brother, and for Barb's death, are gone. He is the guy they brought in to fix things. She asks if that means their silence. He finds her tough. He thinks they are a couple; Jonathan corrects him: “We're not together.”
He shows them what really killed their friend. Teddy, the soldier with the flamethrower, agrees to have an audience. According to the wiki, they are not destroying the gate: they are keeping its tendrils from spreading. Owens talks about a mistake you do not erase, like weeds. The argument: a foreign power, the USSR, might try to reproduce it. The truth has to be stopped, by any means necessary. The scene takes place at the Hawkins lab.
In the car, the doctor is heard again. Nancy concludes: “Let's burn that lab to the ground.” According to the wiki, the device is the Walkman bought the day before.
Square cover with a brown edge. A paneled wall lit in orange, large black letters in three rows, bulbs in red, green, blue, orange and white. A sofa under a checked throw. This is the 1983 living room, before the sheets.
In the shopJoyce's living room cushion cover26,90 €See the product
The cabin: the fight, then the box
On the evening of November 1, Hopper waits for Eleven outside. She was seen, a mother and her daughter called. He says she put them in danger. She answers that nothing happens. He reminds her of the three rules. The punishment escalates: first the Eggo, then the television, a week, two, a month, then not at all. She holds the set with her mind. According to the wiki, he rips out the cables.
“You are like Papa!” He threatens a phone call. She says she hates him. The word of the day is “brat”, then he tells her to grow up. The panes fly. Papa, when she says it, means Brenner. In the morning, he starts an apology, then orders her to clean everything. He will see about the set.
Under the floor, boxes. One is marked HAWKINS LAB. She reads Ives, Terry, Jane. According to the wiki, an article on Terry Ives, and a photo of her with Brenner.
In the Void, Terry repeats her loop. Jane. Mom. She vanishes when Eleven reaches out.
The pumpkin field: down to the tunnel
First at Dustin's. Claudia calls the cat for dinner. The aquarium is broken, a shed skin is left inside, a trail of blood goes on. Dart, bigger, devours Mews, turns and cries, according to the wiki. Dustin had come home to talk about Will.
Dart's head opens like a Demogorgon's.
Hopper is alone. According to the wiki, “The Growing” plays as he heads for the field. He digs down to a gray substance, cuts it, it pulls back, a hole opens. He falls into a long dark tunnel. “Oh, Jesus.” It is a diseased pumpkin field, in 1984. The next chapter picks him up under the field, after a night at Joyce's.
Behind the scenes: the panes blown without digital effects
According to the wiki, Shawn Levy said in Beyond Stranger Things that the panes were blown on set, without CGI. David Harbour remembers a very complicated day.
The opening, according to the book Worlds Turned Upside Down cited by the wiki, was shot at Patrick Henry High School. Noah Schnapp is at the center of a circular tracking shot, in front of a green screen. The storyboards are by Michael Maher Jr. Hydraulx rendered the shadow in CGI and changed the background.
Two nods. A 1984 episode of Cheers, “Sam Turns the Other Cheek”, plays when Hopper cuts the cable. A Ghostbusters fan-club certificate sits near the terrarium. “Scarface (Push It to the Limit)”, by Paul Engemann, plays when Hopper starts the car and during the basketball game.
Big-head brick figure. Wide gray hat, brown beard, khaki and brown uniform, a white mug in one hand, a gray pistol at the belt. The Hawkins police chief, to set on a shelf.
In the shopBuildable big-head figure Jim Hopper19,90 €See the product
Frequently asked questions
What happens in season 2, episode 4?
Will's body is cold without his feeling it, and he describes memories that are not his. Joyce and Hopper join his drawings. Nancy records Owens in front of the gate. Hopper falls into a tunnel.
Why is season 2, episode 4 called “Will the Wise”?
It is the name of the wizard Will plays in his games. No one says it in the chapter. The title was revealed on October 9, 2017.
What are Will's “now-memories”?
Memories that are happening now, all at once, and that are not his. This journal calls them “memories of today”. Something in them grows, spreads and kills.
Why does Will want the house to stay cold?
The bath is too hot for him. He says: “He likes it cold.” According to the wiki, his temperature is a few degrees below normal, with no figure on screen.
What does Will draw in season 2, episode 4?
Thick blue lines on a black ground, which Joyce joins up. Hopper recognizes vines in them. Bob will see a map of the town in them, in the next chapter.
What does Owens show Nancy and Jonathan?
The gate, which a soldier with a flamethrower keeps from spreading. He says the mistake cannot be erased. Nancy records the visit on a Walkman.
