Stranger Things 2 Episode 6 Review – “Chapter Six: The Spy”

Stranger Things 2 Episode 6 – “Chapter Six: The Spy”
Written by
Directed by
Premiered October 27, 2017 on Netflix

“The Spy” is an incredibly dense and episode of Stranger Things 2 – but one that, until its final ten minutes, kind of feels like business as usual for the series. But in its own way, the first 45 minutes of “Chapter Six: The Spy” is an incredible work, lulling the audience into its usual, slightly awkward rhythms of coming of age stories and science fiction undercurrents; it’s not boring, but there’s certainly no expecting how the episode ends, suddenly placing both of its parties in imminent danger with a dramatic escalation of stakes that reveal some of the strengths, and weaknesses, of this extended season.

Where Stranger Things 2 has really excelled, on a character level, is deepening and complicating the relationships of its adolescent characters. “The Spy” opens with the wonderful pairing of Steve and Dustin, as they discover Dart has gotten lose, and plan to set a trap for him; not only does it put two of the show’s best hairdos together, but it allows Stranger Things to access both of these characters in more empathetic lights, where they are usually resolved to serve their archetypal roles within the story (especially Steve, though one of season two’s highlights has been slowly peeling back the onion that is the young Harrington boy).

In particular, it lets Dustin interact with someone outside of the group, where his confident facade falls away a bit, and we see that he’s just a boy with an unrequited crush on the new girl – and as her friendship with Lucas continues to grow, puts him in a more complex emotional position than we’re used to seeing the party’s eternal optimist.

Their story provides its own particular pleasures, but its really with the characters of Hopper and Max that “The Spy” grounds itself, as Stranger Things 2 takes this idea of digging deeper to a much more literal level. Though Will’s increasingly compromised (and sweaty) state of mind certainly allows this episode a certain unsettling tone, it’s not where the episode is at its strongest emotionally. Through both characters, Stranger Things 2 takes this idea of the Upside Down – which has reacted to being set on fire by burrowing deeper and deeper underneath Hawkins – and turns it into a strong metaphorical device for characters allowing themselves to fall into the emotional void, so to speak; and as we see with both of them at different points in the episode’s second half, when the going gets rough, both of their inclinations are to dig deeper, damned be the result.

For Hopper, this has led him into some dangerous places, as we saw in “Chapter Five: Dig Dug”; for Max, it is something that’s obviously become a defense mechanism, on full display when she hides Lucas from Billy and escapes from home so Lucas can provide “proof” for the season one recap he delivered to her from the arcade office. Rather than appease her psychotic brother, she exacerbates his anger towards her and Lucas by sneaking out – an approach that is the result of her recent family circumstances, which she talks to Lucas about later, in what is easily the episode’s best scene.

Though Max’s backstory isn’t particularly ingenious – classic ’80s divorced child with an older brother acting out – how Sadie Sink reveals those with Lucas, in what is clearly a rare moment of vulnerability for someone too young to have built up the emotional defenses she already has for herself. But just like Hopper realizes when he takes an elevator underground to see a massive, growing gash to the Upside Down, there’s only so far someone can dig before it spirals completely out of control – and her attempt to reach out to Lucas, however reluctantly and appropriately teen-ish her actions are, make for a much more compelling character, one who is interesting beyond what she does to upset the group dynamics (Dustin’s quick-growing resentment of Lucas for spending time with Max being the most obvious example of this).

There are two other main plot threads in “The Spy” – one of which involves Murray inviting teens to have sex in his nasty little apartment, and another featuring a kid and his mother trying to fight the interests of the shadowy American government. And they are dichotomous as they sound; while Murray drinking with teenagers is a bit of fun, things get weird when he’s inviting them to use his bedroom so they can get an anxious, sweaty teen fuck out on his guest sheets. It easily wins the award for the weirdest way to handle one of the season’s most obvious plot developments; while we’re all happy to see the burgeoning little Hawkins investigators mush their faces together, it’s treated almost as an afterthought (hell, even Steve got to get laid across two episodes) – and is catalyzed in the weirdest fucking way possible, in a way that distracts away from the emotional intent of the scene.

With Will, it’s more traditional Stranger Things weirdness, thankfully, as we watch Will try to resist against the influence of the shadow monster – and eventually succumb to it, helping the smoke monster coax a group of military boys into the Upside Down, where they were immediately shrouded in fog and attacked by a group of demogorgon dogs. As Will succumbs further and further to the smoke monster, Stranger Things 2 subtly begins to ratchet up the tension – until it reveals just how deep a hole everyone finds themself in, a realization that sinks in the moment Steve steps out to take on the demodog, and a near-dozen other of them begin to peek out through the shadows of the automobile junkyard the Loser’s Club always finds themselves in.

That reveal is a great bridge between the show’s somewhat sleepy second act, and what lies awaiting in the season’s extended climax – and in the moment, a perfect accelerant to raise the tension in both the abandoned bus and the secret lab, the two locations “The Spy” boils its story down to (and a third, of course… but we’ll see what Eleven’s been up to next episode, unfortunately) as it puts its pieces in place for Stranger Thing 2‘s final showdown between the Hawkins heroes and the growing horrors of the Upside Down.

Grade: B

Other thoughts/observations:

• Yes, Steve does still have The Bat. Good boy.
  
• Murray “reading” Nancy and Jonathan is dumb and ridiculous and leads into him telling them to fuck in his house, so let’s just move on from this plot, ok?
  
• Billy chain smoking while he does bicep curls is the kind of masochistic villain building I am here for.
  
• Bob suggests moving to Maine again – it’s interesting to think what Joyce eventually decides to do, considering this little running subplot.
  
• Dr. Owens infers that the Upside Down is run by a hive intelligence, explaining why the demodogs suddenly stopped attacking the enhanced Loser’s Club and ran to the lab.
  
• Nancy’s “different than the other girls”. Cue eyeroll.
  
• Steve gives Dustin a lesson in… negging?
  
• Lucas’s endearing turn this season has been a nice shift for the character: “I like talking with you, Madmax.”
  
• The restraint Stranger Things 2 shows with the demodog attack on the Hawkins soldiers is the kind of thing later seasons completely abandoned (some for good reason, and some… not).