- [Dan] This is a code red.
I repeat, this is a code red.
There are spoilers ahead so make sure
to watch all of Stranger Things three on Netflix
before going any further.
(ominous music)
Eleven first opened the gate to the upside-down
way back in Stranger Things one
when she made contact with a Demogorgon.
That big monster with the flower face full of teeth
that you know still haunts you in your dreams.
(Demogorgon roars)
But Ross Duffer and his brother Matt,
the creators of the series,
they knew that the Demogorgon
would be the least of Eleven's upside-down problems.
- [Ross Duffer] We always saw the Demogorgons as sharks,
like the shark in "Jaws", in season one.
But, ultimately, it was a creature, it was following blood,
and so what we really wanted to do
to up the stakes moving forward,
is to create something sentient.
Because that's always even scarier to us
then just a creature or monster.
- [Dan] So going into Stranger Things two,
they wanted an antagonist
who would be more powerful than a Demogorgon,
and the writers wanted something
that they could build as a recurring villain.
And when the writers were brain-storming
what this new enemy could be Paul Dichter,
one of the writers on the show,
he says they referred back
to Mike, Lucas, Will, and Dustin's
all-time favorite book: "The Dungeons and Dragons Manual".
(loud crash)
(mysterious music)
- [Dustin] The Mind Flayer.
- [Hopper] What the hell is that?
- [Dustin] It's a monster from an unknown dimension.
It's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home.
- [Man] When we came across the Mind Flayer
in Dungeons and Dragons mythology,
it felt like a, almost like a shocking discovery.
- [Dan] The DnD Mind Flayer was cosmic,
he was from another dimension,
and he thought of himself as a superior being
who wanted to take over other worlds.
And so is the Stranger Things Mind Flayer.
He is the all-powerful who rules
the parallel dimension know as the upside-down.
In this season the Mind Flayer tries, once again,
to take over Hawkins and the entire world as we know it.
So, for our season finale,
we are the ones going up against the enemy.
We will face the people he flayed.
- [Billy] We are going to end everyone.
- [Dan] We will dissect that monster
he's building out of all those townspeople.
(roaring)
and we'll find out how,
even though Eleven lost her powers,
the Stranger Things gang still managed
to foil the Mind Flayer's plan.
- [Eleven] I can fight.
(mysterious music)
- [Dan] I'm your host, Dan Taberski,
and this is Behind the Scenes of Stranger Things three.
Episode 3: "The Mind Flayer"
(mysterious electronic music)
Last season the Mind Flayer tried to conquer Hawkins
by unleashing an army of Demodogs
and by possessing Will Byers.
- [Will] It's like everything inside your body
is just sinking, all at once,
but this is worse.
Your body, it goes cold, and you can't breathe.
- [Dan] But, the Mind Flayer's plan failed
because Eleven closed the gate.
The theory was; if you close the gate,
you cut the Mind Flayer off from our dimension.
And so any part of him that
was left in our dimension would perish.
And so the kids assumed
that whatever piece of the Mind Flayer
was expelled from Will Byers body had died.
But that assumption?
Totally wrong.
- [Will] What if he never left?
What if we locked him out here with us?
- [Man] We always had this idea that
what if he was locked in here with Hawkins, with the kids,
and what would he do if he was locked in?
- [Dan] Ross and his brother Matt loved the idea
that all this time, that piece of the Mind Flayer,
that was in Will, it hadn't died,
instead it was lying dormant in Hawkins.
Stewing, waiting for the gate to be reopened.
And for the Duffers and the writers,
having a piece of the Mind Flayer
locked up in the kids dimension would create
new possibilities for the super-natural storyline.
- [Man] And we got excited about, you know, a couple things,
One, that he knew about Eleven now,
which he didn't in season two,
which is really why we ended season two
with the Mind Flayer hovering over Hawkins,
cause now he's aware that this girl has these powers
that are extraordinarily strong
and can stop him from his evil plans.
- [Dan] Obviously the Mind Flayer is gonna try
and take over the world again, it's what villains do.
And this time around,
he knows that to do that he's gotta take out Eleven first.
(Electronic music)
- [Man] We thought about that idea of him, you know,
in sort of that hell-raiser way of building a body.
- [Dan] Building a body would mean that the Mind Flayer
would have a physical presence in Hawkins.
And this physical proxy would be so big,
and so powerful, and so disgusting,
that there is no chance he'd lose to Eleven this time.
- [Steve] Okay so, just to be clear,
this big fleshy spider thing that hurt El,
it's some kind of gigantic weapon?
- [Nancy] Yes.
- [Steve] But instead of like screws and metal,
the Mind Flayer made its weapon with melted people.
- [Nancy] Yes, exactly.
- [Steve] Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm just making sure.
- [Dan] The Mind Flayer starts building
this creature with rats.
But, he quickly realizes he needs bigger bodies,
and to get those bodies, he needs a new host.
This time preferably not a sweet, innocent, 13-year old boy.
- [Dacre] We'd actually spoken about it a lot in season two.
And that was something that I was very aware of
but I wasn't really aware of how it was gonna pan out.
- [Dan] Dacre Montgomery is the Australian actor
who plays Max's big brother, Billy Hargrove.
You know, the lifeguard,
with the sexiest mullet-perm in Hawkins.
Is it a mullet?
Is it a perm?
We don't know, it's the 80's, it was a crazy time.
Having the Mind Flayer control Billy,
this was not a new idea.
The Duffers talked to Dacre last season
about wanting to do some possession plot line with Billy.
They even tried to work it into season two.
But, they weren't able to fit it in.
So, when they sat back down in the writers room
for Stranger Things three,
possessing Billy was back on the table.
Billy is a pretty great host for two reasons.
One, he's this big, magnetic, muscly guy.
- [Billy] Afternoon ladies.
- [Ladies And Dan] Afternoon Billy.
- [Dan] And he's already got an aggressive streak,
which comes in handy,
since his whole job is knocking people out
and bringing them to a warehouse to be flayed by a monster.
- [Billy] Don't be afraid, it'll be over soon.
- [Dan] And two, Billy is a convenient host
because the group of kids investigating the Mind Flayer
includes his little sister Max.
And Max happens to be besties with Eleven,
the Mind Flayers arch-nemesis.
So, Max and Eleven are able
to snoop around Billy's bathroom together without,
you know, breaking in.
- [Max] Why do I get the feeling
that we're gonna find all kinds of wrong in here.
- [Dan] And in that bathroom they find blood on the cabinets
and melting ice in his bathtub,
which all leads to a growing suspicion
that Billy is up to something.
So, the kids decide to confront him.
- [Mike] And look, the controls are right here,
it's perfect.
- [Will] Will it get hot enough?
- [Mike] 220 degrees.
We just have to figure out how to get him in here.
- [Will] Then we lock him in.
- [Lucas] Heat him up.
- [Mike] No matter what happens we'll know.
We'll know for sure.
- [Kate] For the actual sauna test, you know,
I re-watched and I read that scene from The Shining
when Jack Torrance is in the freezer.
- [Dan] Kate Trefry is a writer on Stranger Things
and she wrote the first draft of Chapter four.
It's the episode where the kids do a sauna test
to confirm whether or not the Mind Flayer
was actually controlling Billy.
- [Kate] Cause that was kind of the feeling
that I wanted to evoke.
And because I think that that character,
you know, like vacillates so effectively from,
like, somebody familiar to somebody horrifying,
something unrecognizably bad.
You know?
- [Man] Let's talk about Jack Nicholson for a second.
- [Dan] Okay, so Jack Nicholson
famously plays Jack Torrance,
the main character in The Shining,
one of the scariest movies ever made.
And on Stranger Things
it's clear that horror obsessed minds think alike.
Because Kate was referencing The Shining in this scene,
and even though they never talked about it,
Dacre was looking to Jack Nicholson's performance
in that movie for inspiration.
- [Dacre] I feel like,
whether he's playing the archetypal villain,
or hero, or somewhere in between,
he gives very unusual acting choices, which, I think,
keep the audience on their toes a little bit.
That was a strategy that I wanted to employ
a little bit in this season,
I think it was very important,
even more so then last season,
to keep the audience on their toes.
- [Dan] Like, when the kids are luring Billy
into the sauna and he sees what he thinks
is a kid who's taunting him.
- [Billy] Got you (cackles excitedly)
(claps)
- [Dan] Billy's creepy laugh and clap
when he thinks he caught his prey, that is just one
of the unusual acting choices
that Dacre made while playing Billy.
And once Billy gets trapped in the sauna
and the kids start cranking up the heat,
the line between where Billy ends
and the Mind Flayer begins is blurred,
for the kids, for you and me in the audience, and for Billy.
- [Dacre] I think it's a fight, it's a constant fight.
Like you're, you know,
you're choking yourself in a weird way.
- [Dan] Dacre wanted to find a way
to show the internal struggle that Billy is experiencing
because of the Mind Flayer's control.
And so, he researched dissociative identity disorder.
What used to be known as multiple,
or split personality disorder.
- [Dacre] I did a lot of work
about in psychology where the spot is,
like, which personality has control over the spot,
the room, right?
In your head, and I think the whole thing is the fight
for Billy having the spot and having the voice.
So I did a lot of work
on those people that suffer or live with those conditions.
- [Dan] The work that Dacre
put into this character is important,
because he's not just playing Billy,
in some ways he's playing the Mind Flayer.
The only time we here the Mind Flayer speak
is through Billy.
Both in the upside-down and later in Billy's memories.
- [Mind Flayer] You let us in, and now,
you are going to have to let us stay.
- [Dan] But, Billy is just one piece of the Mind Flayer.
And now we are about to get into the other slimy,
toothy, thirty-foot tall piece of him, the monster.
(monster screams)
(mysterious electronic music)