Stranger Things 3 Episode 6 Review – “Chapter Six: E Pluribus Unum”

Stranger Things 3 Episode 6 “Chapter Six: E Pluribus Unum”
Written by Curtis Gwinn
Directed by Uta Briesewitz
Premiered July 4, 2019 on Netflix

Though “E Pluribus Unum” opens with the Meat Flayer chasing down everyone in Hawkins Memorial Hospital, Stranger Things 3‘s sixth episode is much less dramatic and threatening than it may initially seem. For all intents and purposes, save for Mayor Kline’s spin on the Tilt-o-Whirl and Steve’s violent beating at the hands of the Russians, “E Pluribus Unum” is a bunch of characters… just kind of sitting and standing around, as Stranger Things continues the thoroughline of “The Flayed” in getting everyone caught up to the audience on What’s Really Going On around Hawkins.

That doesn’t mean it is an entirely boring episode – but boy, it certainly uses the kinetic tension of its opening sequence (where Eleven mind-throws the Meat Flayer out a hospital window, where it retreats into the sewer) as a wave to coast on through most of the non-Steve scenes of the episode. It’s not really until Billy lets Eleven briefly into his mind inside the void that “E Pluribus Unum” starts to feel like its moving forward, which just make a lot of what happens in between feel a bit superfluous – and in some of its weaker places, a bit inert.

After the Meat Flayer’s been temporarily dealt with, “E Pluribus Unum” shifts into putting all of its groups in individual rooms: Steve and Robin in the Russian holding area (with Dustin and Erica arguing in the air vents above them); the rest of the Hawkins kids back at the cabin while Eleven searches for Billy; and the adults in Murray’s now-compromised compound, as the Hawkins adults try to pry some useful information out of the Slurpee-sucking Russian Alexei they kidnapped in the last episode. While this naturally gives Stranger Things 3 a moment to gather itself, how it fills that space is a bit disappointing, especially with Mike’s bickering and Hopper’s arrogance leading the way for the emotional tenor of these mostly-stagnant scenes of characters piecing together bits of information sprinkled amongst them over the first five episodes.

It feels a lot more workmanlike than obviously intended; particularly in the first half, when we’re privy to scenes like Kline meeting Grigori to fill us in on the political corruption we’re already acutely aware of. But as it moves into episode’s final twenty minutes, it moves away from some of the more perfunctory material as its two rescue missions begin to play out; first with Suzie and Dustin trying to find the Scoops Ahoy team – which is both my least and favorite parts of the episode. Steve and Robin pondering the people they might have been is such a great moment; unfortunately, it takes a lot of getting through Erica’s smarminess to get there – which has made this one of the more grating subplots of the season, especially when their conversation devolves into who is the bigger nerd.

And then, of course, there’s the ending, where Eleven enters the void, contacts Billy, and then enters his memories; with this, Stranger Things 3 makes its biggest emotional play of the season, in its attempts to humanize Stranger Things 2‘s secondary antagonist. What I really like about this scene is how it strikes a balance between conveying information (Eleven discovering where the Brimborn Steel Works location is), and in trying to empathize with Billy, who is obviously cognizant of the things he’s been doing when he becomes ‘activated’ by the Flayer. The single tear that falls from his eye as he tells Eleven what’s going to happen to her world and the people she loves is a great, rare moment of subtlety for Stranger Things 3, as we see the fear and horror previewed when he tries to peek through the Flayer veil in “The Sauna Test” – a feeling that only amplifies when Stranger Things 3 cuts away from the vignettes of Billy’s emotional childhood (where his mother abandoned him, leaving him with his abusive father at a young age) and to its gross, wet final images, where Flayed Billy’s victims begin disintegrating into the same noxious goo we saw attack Jonathan, Nancy, and company in the episode’s cold open.

Though Stranger Things 3 is still struggling to stretch out its narrative a bit (this is the show’s first non-finale 60-minute long episode, which certainly doesn’t help), characters like Alexei, Steve, and Billy keep the entire episode from feeling perfunctory, even in the moments where it drags or underwhelms (again, Eleven – what do you still see in this gangly, annoying version of Mike?). And with Billy, Stranger Things 3 has slowly started to reveal that its season of discovery and expansion is also one of distinct tragedy, as the town bully now stands alone alongside the decrepit monster built from bodies brought to the Mind Flayer (including all of the Holloway family, RIP), now grown and ready to unleash itself on the still-largely-unsuspecting world of Hawkins in the season’s final two episodes.

Grade: B

Other thoughts/observations:

• The score in the final scenes just feels a bit… off. The strings and choral chants just don’t really quite fit the rest of the show’s score, which has bounced back and forth from being too laden with licensed songs, and offering clever interpretation and development of themes from previous seasons. Some real kick-ass snyths in this episode too, though.
  
• Dr. Zhakov is a caricature of a mad scientist – and though I didn’t like it when first watched Stranger Things 3 in 2019, I’m kind of board with it this time around.
  
• “Girlfriends don’t lie; they spy!”
  
• Steve has learned a lot in his few months on the post-high school graduation streets; “Everything people tell you that you should care about… it’s all bullshit.”
  
• Fat Rambo is a great burn, and one I wish this show used more with Hopper.
  
• Steve thinks gelato is Russian ice cream. No notes.
  
• Everyone enjoying a cigarette while they watch cartoons in Murray’s house is a good reminder that the show did lose a bit of texture when it got rid of smoking. I’m just saying.
  
• It happens quick, but there’s a scene where Hopper reaches out to Dr. Owens to bring him up to speed on what’s going on. Sure, let’s bring the US government back in to Hawkins!