“Roger that, Bald Eagle.
This is Scoops Troop, going radio silent.
10-10, over.”
“I hate children.”
At the end of Stranger Things Season 2, El fought the Mind Flayer at the Hawkins National
Laboratory.
She closed the gate, which cut off the Mind Flayer from the Demodogs.
In Season 3, they had to do something similar.
But El lost her powers, so Joyce and Hopper had to close the gate so as to cut the Mind
Flayer off from the Monster.
This all went down at the Starcourt Mall.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned.
Steve, Robin, Dustin, and Erica went back up to Dustin’s radio tower to be the navigators.
The adults went down below, and Murray ripped out some of the cables.
That set off an alarm which allowed Hopper and Joyce to get to the vault to get the two
keys.
Unfortunately, the passcode didn’t work because Murray had forgotten Plank’s Constant.
“Suzie, do you copy?”
“This is Suzie.
I copy.”
“Suzie!”
“Dusty-bun?”
“Do you know Plank’s Constant?”
“Do you know the Earth orbits the Sun?”
“Planck's constant is 6.62607004.”
So Hopper and Joyce got the two keys and went to turn off the machine.
Unfortunately, Grigori showed up again and he stopped them.
While Hopper and Grigori fought inside the room with the machine, Joyce rigged up a strap
on her uniform so that she would be able to flip both buttons herself if necessary.
Meanwhile, the other kids were supposed to leave with Nancy and Jonathan, but Billy had
shown up and removed their ignition cable.
So they ran back inside to get an ignition cable out of the demo car, but then, the Monster
showed up.
To make matters worse, El’s powers no longer worked.
While Steve drove back to the mall, the kids inside the mall snuck around.
A few of them got outside with the new ignition cable, but Billy was there.
Billy tried to ram them, but Steve rammed Billy instead.
They all jumped into the station wagon and lured the Monster away from the mall.
Unfortunately, the Monster eventually turned back around.
Back at the mall, Billy found El and carried her out into the food court.
The Monster returned, so the kids threw fireworks at it, which bought El a little time.
Although El could not use her powers, she still had one card to play.
El reminded Billy of the happy memory that he had had with his mom.
That memory was so powerful that the real Billy regained control of his body.
This was a nice nod back to something that Mrs. Wheeler had said to Billy.
“I have a family.
And I can't do anything that will hurt them.”
When the Monster shot out to grab El, Billy stopped it.
His sacrifice bought the kids a little more time.
Shout out to Billy.
Down below, Hopper threw Grigori into the machine.
That caused a wave of radiation that prevented Hopper from leaving the room.
So he gave Joyce a nod, and she turned both of keys.
The machine blew up and the gate closed.
That cut off the Mind Flayer from the Monster.
Billy and Hopper’s sacrifices were a nice node to Mike’s final move in Dungeons and
Dragons.
“I'll use my torch to set fire to the chambers, sacrificing ourselves, killing the jujus,
and saving the Khuisar.
We all live on as heroes in the memories of the Kalamar.”
Now, the ending.
Murray and Joyce ran off from the Russian soldiers as the American soldiers finally
flew in.
Three months later, Robin and Steve got new jobs at a video store, Will donated his Dungeons
and Dragons stuff to Erica, and Joyce packed up to move out of town with her sons and El.
While packing to move, Joyce found the letter that Hopper had written to El at the beginning
of the season.
It was a speech that he had planned on giving to her, but never did.
The speech was about trauma, happiness, and change.
Ironically, the last thing that he jokingly said:
“For the sake of your poor old dad, keep the door open three inches.”
That line may have a hidden meaning.
In the mid-credits scene, Russians mentioned an American prisoner.
So Hopper may have survived.
He may have run through the last three inches of the door so to say.
But since El’s powers still didn’t work, she had no way of looking for him or finding
him by chance.
“Turn around.
Look at what you see.”
“I’ll see you in hell.”
“Story.”