The possessed of Stranger Things: the Mind Flayer's army, from Billy to Mrs. Driscoll
Universe · Season 3 · Monster
A first host, then houses, then a mass. In this article: what being taken means, Billy, Heather and her family, Bruce and Mrs. Driscoll, the sauna and the hospital, and what is left after the mall. At the end, the list has an end.
The possessed are an army without a uniform. In the summer of 1985, the Mind Flayer takes them one by one, then melts them to make itself a body.
The essentials
- The season: été 1985
- The first host: Billy Hargrove, night of June 29, at the steel mill
- The next family: Heather, then Tom and Janet Holloway
- At the paper: Bruce, melted at the hospital with Tom
- The old woman: Doris Driscoll, and her rats
- The rule: la chaleur fait souffrir la chose, elle ne l'expulse pas toujours
Contents
What being possessed means
Possessing, that summer, is not lending a voice. It is taking a body, making it eat anything toxic, making it flee the heat, then undoing it. People keep going to work for as long as it takes to recruit others. Then they melt.
The party calls these hosts the Flayed. The English word stays in the dialogue. In French, they are the possessed: inhabitants of Hawkins, plus rats, held by the Mind Flayer. They do not form a cult. They form a reserve of flesh.
The article on the season 3 monster follows the creature from start to finish. Here, one stops at the people. Each has a name, a place, and a moment when the name no longer serves.
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The rats The first sign
Rodents eat fertilizer and chemical products, then burst.
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June 29 Billy at the steel mill
The first human host. He takes up his post again, and he recruits.
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Late June Heather, Tom, Janet
The lifeguard on June 30, then her parents, at their dinner of July 1.
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The sauna The heat on Billy
He suffers. The thing does not come out. He nearly kills Eleven.
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The hospital Bruce and Tom
The two melt. The mass starts to show itself in broad daylight.
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Early July The steel mill again
Dozens of inhabitants melt to swell the body.
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July 4 The battle
The body attacks. The hosts, for their part, do not come back.
The iPhone case: the Mind Flayer and the alphabet wall, the shadow and the code.
In the shopMatte iPhone case Mind Flayer and alphabet wall19,90 €See the product
Billy, the first
Billy Hargrove is taken at the steel mill on the night of June 29, 1985. He is the first human host, the one the others pass through. The next day he is still a lifeguard. The smile holds. The recruiting has begun.
He chooses people he can approach without forcing a door: a coworker, then a house where he is invited to dinner. Possession needs a known face. Billy supplies the face, the Mind Flayer supplies the rest. Without that face, the thing would knock on doors that do not open.
The test will come later, in a heated room. One already knows, since the previous year, that heat hurts this thing. Applying it to Billy does not free him. It only proves that he is indeed taken, and that he is dangerous when one pushes him.
Heather and the Holloways
Heather Holloway is next. A lifeguard, taken by Billy from her work, then her parents, Tom and Janet, at their house. The story moves from the water's edge to a family table. Possession has no preference for teenagers.
Tom Holloway is Heather's father, and also the editor-in-chief of the Hawkins Post. Bruce is one of his journalists: same paper, not the same man. Confusing them erases a house. Here, the house counts: one dines there, then one no longer dines there.
I do not redo Heather's portrait. Her article holds it, up to the melting. In the list of the possessed, she is the name that makes one understand that the army recruits outside the party.
Bruce, Mrs. Driscoll, the steel mill
Doris Driscoll is the old woman with the rats. She eats fertilizer. Her rats burst. It is the first readable sign, even before one understands the size of the recruiting. A suburban basement, bags of products, a neighbor nobody would go look for in a war.
Bruce is the journalist at the Hawkins Post, possessed after Tom, his boss. The two will end up melting at the hospital. Bruce's job matters because it gives the thing a man who enters newsrooms and public hallways without surprising anyone.
Around them, dozens of inhabitants. The show does not give them a directory. It shows them gathered at the steel mill, then thrown into the creature to make it grow. The army has known names and a crowd without names. The two serve. The crowd counts as much as the first names: without it, the body would have no volume, and the steel mill scenes would stay portraits. The story accepts this blur and adds no extra name.
The Samsung case, the same motif, for another phone.
In the shopMatte Samsung case Mind Flayer and alphabet wall19,90 €See the product
The sauna and the hospital
The party locks Billy in the pool sauna and turns the heat up. The lesson comes from season 2: the shadow fears heat. The test half succeeds. Billy suffers, the thing screams inside him, it does not come out. He nearly kills Eleven before she throws him through a wall.
At the hospital, the proof changes shape. Bruce and Tom no longer struggle in a closed room. They melt. The audience finally sees that these people are no longer patients to treat. They are matter.
Between the sauna and the hospital, the rule gets clearer. One can hurt the host. One does not get him back. Heat is a detector, not a remedy, when the body has already given way too far.
What is left after Starcourt
In early July, the possessed melt at the steel mill and the body takes shape. On July 4, this body attacks. The Starcourt mall is the field of that night, in the middle of season 3. The hosts do not come back out of the mass to take their names again.
Billy dies in this battle, on July 4, 1985, after resisting one last time. The others, Heather, her parents, Bruce, Doris, the crowd, have already been undone into flesh. There is no list of survivors to publish. The story brings none of them back.
What remains is the method. A thing can raise an army in a town by taking ordinary people, one dinner after another, until there are no more people, only a body. The following summer does not start this list again. It is closed.
The list can also be read upside down, from the body back to the kitchens. One starts from the mass, one finds again an old woman and her bags, a journalist, a family table, a lifeguard. None of these places was a battlefield. All of them served as a gate. That is what an army of the possessed is: it has no barracks. It has addresses.
The season 2 bedding set, the Mind Flayer as the heat has already shown it.
In the shopBedding Set Season 2 Mind Flayer69,90 €See the product
Frequently asked questions
Who are the possessed?
The Mind Flayer's hosts in the summer of 1985: Billy, Heather, Tom and Janet Holloway, Bruce, Doris Driscoll, rats, then dozens of inhabitants.
Who is the first human?
Billy Hargrove, taken at the steel mill on the night of June 29, 1985. He is the one who recruits the next ones.
Who is Mrs. Driscoll?
Doris Driscoll, an old woman whose rats explode. She eats fertilizer. It is one of the first signs.
Are Bruce and Tom the same man?
No. Tom Holloway is Heather's father. Bruce is a journalist at the Hawkins Post. They both melt at the hospital.
Did the sauna free Billy?
No. The heat makes him suffer, the thing does not leave him, and he nearly kills Eleven.
What becomes of them afterward?
They melt into the flesh monster. None of them takes up their life again. Billy dies on July 4, 1985, during the battle.
