Stranger Things season 2 episode 5: “Dig Dug”, summary and analysis
Season 2 · Episode 5 · Dig Dug
One file, one order, one hole. You will find the running time and the audience, the trap before the motel, the map, the bunker, then the threads that remain.
Stranger Things season 2 episode 5 covers one night and the next day, early November 1984. A man stuck under a field, a map read aloud, and a bunker in Illinois.
The essentials
- Full title: “Chapter Five: Dig Dug”
- Original title: “Chapter Five: Dig Dug”
- Running time: 58 minutes
- Directed by: Andrew Stanton
- Written by: Jessie Nickson-Lopez
- Released: Friday, October 27, 2017, with the whole season
- Story: early November 1984. The wiki says the 2nd and the 3rd. No time on screen.
- Cast: Murray: Brett Gelman. Bob: Sean Astin. Owens: Paul Reiser. Ted: Joe Chrest. Claudia: Catherine Curtin
Contents
The chapter fact file
The full title and the original title are in the fact file. Andrew Stanton, who came from Pixar, directs this chapter and the next. He is one of the guest directors. A fan of the show, he had contacted Shawn Levy, and he gave the crew beanies with the game hero’s face. Jessie Nickson-Lopez writes the script. She had already written chapter 6 of season 1. The season 2 release date is Friday, October 27, 2017, four days before Halloween, with the whole season out at once. The chapter runs 58 minutes. It is episode 13.
In the United States, on television only, the audience over three days is 8.0 million viewers, of whom 5.6 million are ages 18 to 49. These are viewers, not households. These figures were published on November 2, 2017. The episode takes place in early November 1984, with no date on screen. The wiki places these scenes on November 2 and 3.
The Namco game, released in 1982, lends its name to the chapter: you dig tunnels, and you take out enemies by inflating them until they burst, or by crushing them under rocks. The wiki writes that the title could point to the tunnels, as the image shown with it suggests. It likens the principle of the game to the descent that comes later. It does not point to the MADMAX record, which belongs to the first chapter.
The teaser of August 31, 2016 gave nine provisional titles, out of order. “The Storm” was fifth. This chapter’s title was not among them. The final title was revealed on October 9, 2017, with an image, at the same time as those of the other five opening chapters.
Pins: a pink and white cap, a blue jacket, a backpack, and a green creature with a blue collar, a red head open in petals, with teeth. Marks 2.7 cm and 3 cm.
In the shopDustin and Dart pin13,90 €See the product
The chapter, in edit order
The night starts at the Byers’. Mike says to Will: “You're like a spy now. A superspy.” Will answers: “What if he spies back?” He talks about a “shadow monster”: the shadow, which the group will later call the Mind Flayer. Mike sleeps there.
Before the opening credits, under the field, a growth spits spores. Hopper coughs, collapses, and the opening closes again. The motel comes after. The waking, the vomiting and the mask are later in the edit. The timeline follows that order.
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The night At the Byers’
A boy fears being spied on in return. Mike sleeps over.
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Before the opening credits Under the field
Spores, a cough, an opening that closes again.
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Then The motel
A double room, a moment of déjà vu, some scars.
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The basement At the Hendersons’
A trail of mortadella, then a closed door.
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Hitchhiking At the Ives’
A trucker, a door opened by thought, a mother who repeats the same words.
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Illinois The bunker
A camera, a board that gets corrected.
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The drawings The map
Lines that do not cross the water.
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The field The fire
A shovel, a knife, some hazmat suits, a scream.
Under the field, then the fire
The chief of police is trapped under the pumpkin field, in 1984. After the motel, in the edit, he wakes and vomits. He cuts a mask from a sleeve of his uniform and breaks cigarettes to mark the path. On the radio: “Does anybody copy?” He gives his name.
He finds a room full of bones and dead animals. His lighter shows that the vines draw back from the heat. He makes a torch out of a bone. Exhausted, he is caught by the legs and squeezed.
At the lab, a technician shows Owens the soil taken the night before. Nothing dangerous, except pesticides: “Well, it's a farm.” Exposed to heat, it moves away from the source, like the samples next to it.
Will wakes with a start: “I think he's going to die.” Later, he guides the car. “Turn right!” He talks about “now-memories”. They find the car and the hole. Joyce hits the vines with the shovel and goes down with Bob. Bob: “We're actually inside of Will's map.” They follow the cigarettes. She is the one who cuts the vines with the knife. “Hey, Bob.” “Hey, Jim.” Soldiers in hazmat suits get them out and burn the vines. Will screams and convulses.
Bob’s map
Bob arrives with puzzles: “They don't call me Bob the Brain for nothing.” Joyce lets him in on one condition, “No questions, okay?”. In front of the drawings: “What's at the X? Pirate treasure?” The wiki sees it as a nod to The Goonies, in which Sean Astin appeared. Joyce reminds him of the rule, then he takes her aside: Will looks unwell, and so does she.
He recognizes a shape, Lover’s Lake, then Lake Jordan, the Sattler quarry and the Eno River. The lines do not cross the water. “It's not a puzzle, it's a map.” It is a map of Hawkins.
He compares distances, “3.6 inches” on one side, “Twenty-one feet, four inches” on the other, and names Tippecanoe and Danford Creek. He warns that the scale is not exact, then places the point: “maybe a half mile southeast of Danford”. It is Will’s vision, “Turn right!”, which then leads to the car.
Big-head figure in bricks: brown hair, navy jacket, green torso, blue pants, and the end of his nail bat, a brown disc bristling with gray spikes, in his hand.
In the shopBuildable big-head figure Steve Harrington and his bat19,90 €See the product
From the motel to the bunker
At the motel, they ask for a “Double” room. Jonathan: “On or off?” Nancy laughs at a moment of déjà vu, which the wiki ties to “Chapter Six: The Monster”. They compare scars. She: “mine's bigger”. She asks why he pulled away. Will, and Steve. She: “I waited.” He: “Yeah, like, only a month.” She wants the light off. The edit then moves to Will waking.
In Illinois, at the address “3833”, a camera sits above the intercom. Murray has followed “200 tips”. He knows every step Barb took that day. Nancy points out the errors on his board: “Timeline's wrong”. The girl with the shaved head is not Russian. She comes from the lab. Brett Gelman has played this man since the police station scene in the first chapter.
They play him the recording of Owens, made without his knowledge at the lab in the previous chapter. You hear: “You see why I have to stop the truth from spreading”. Murray pours himself a vodka to think, “central nervous system depressant”, and puts on a record, “No More”, by Billie Holiday according to the wiki. He believes them, but: “You need them to believe you.” People “like the curtain”. He finds his glass too strong and adds water to it. Nancy chimes in: “We water it down”. Murray agrees, “Precisely”: the story will be watered down, “Just like this drink here”. He talks about toxins, she about a leak from the lab, “Like Three Mile Island”. The copies, the mailing to the papers and the night in the bunker belong to the next chapter.
The other threads
Eleven leaves alone, hitchhiking. A trucker drops her at “Five-one-five Larrabee”. Becky takes her for a salesgirl (“Thin Mints”); she opens: “I want to see Mama.” Terry Ives repeats her loop in front of Family Feud. Becky cuts a piece of tablecloth, and Eleven makes a blindfold from it. She sees the birth, the baby taken, another little girl in a painted room, the electroshocks. The name and the number are in chapter 7.
Lucas asks his father how to calm his mother. Answer: apologize, then give her what she wants. Billy drops Max off: “If you're not out in an hour…” She: “Walking home.” Keith, an employee at the arcade, was bribed by Lucas. He pretends the machine Max wanted is broken: “Sorry about that, Road Warrior.” Then: “Short circuit in the motherboard”. He sends her to the back room. He demands “that date” from Lucas, without saying with whom. Lucas: “Do you accept the risk?” Then: “Will didn't get lost in the woods.” Max finds it “a little derivative”. Lucas follows her: “Friends don't lie”. When he shushes her, she sees that he is afraid. She: “Prove it.” Billy arrives. She tells Lucas not to follow her. Billy: “So he has a name now”.
Claudia looks for Mews, the family cat. Dustin invents a “Mr. McCorkle”, who supposedly saw her near Loch Nora, and his mother leaves. In hockey gear, he lays a trail of mortadella to the basement and locks Dart in: “I'm sorry. You ate my cat.” He buries the cat. The escape through a tunnel is discovered in the next chapter. On the walkie-talkie, he calls “code red”. Erica, a He-Man figure in her hand, answers “code shut-your-mouth” and hangs up.
Out of his car, in front of the Wheelers’ house, Steve rehearses an apology to Nancy. Ted has already said: “Our children don't live here anymore.” Dustin stops Steve: “Do you still have that bat?” Then: “Now!” The nail bat and the empty basement belong to the next chapter. Here, it is only their meeting. According to the wiki, “Open the Kingdom”, by Philip Glass, accompanies Terry’s memories, and “Green, Green Grass of Home”, by Bobby Bare, plays in the truck.
Acrylic keychain: hat, khaki shirt, hands on hips. The mark on the image says 5 cm.
In the shopChibi Jim Hopper in uniform keychain12,90 €See the product
Frequently asked questions
What does the title point to?
A Namco game released in 1982, in which you dig. The wiki writes that it could point to the tunnels. It does not point to the high score from the first chapter. “The Storm” was only one of nine provisional titles, in 2016.
When does it take place?
Early November 1984. The wiki specifies November 2 and 3. No date and no time are on screen. The online release is October 27, 2017.
Who directs, and how long does the chapter run?
Andrew Stanton directs. Jessie Nickson-Lopez writes. The chapter runs 58 minutes.
Do Joyce and Bob dig?
No. Joyce hits the vines blocking Hopper’s hole with the shovel, and they go down. She is the one who cuts the vines with the knife. Soldiers then burn the vines.
Who says “We water it down”?
Nancy. Murray answers “Precisely”, then “Just like this drink here”. The water in the glass is his. So is the line about the watered-down story.
What does Eleven see at her mother’s?
Becky cuts the cloth. Eleven puts on the blindfold. She sees the birth, the baby taken, another little girl, then the electroshocks. That little girl’s name is in chapter 7. Eleven came alone, hitchhiking.
Where does Steve talk to Dustin?
In front of the Wheelers’ house, out of his car. He rehearses an apology. Dustin asks for the bat and says “Now!”. The drive starts afterward.
