Stranger Things: Every Season 3 Episode Ranked Worst To Best

With the reveal in the previous chapter, the only way Stranger Things 3 could go was up. Make the monster bigger, badder, and scarier.

There's plenty of exposition in this episode. Hopper and Joyce, along with season two's Murrary Bauman, the former investigative journalist, learn of the Russian plot from Alexei. Steve Harrington ends up captured and interrogated alongside Robin by said Russians. Dustin and Erica, bratty little sister of Lucas, tromp through the Russian's lair. Not exactly grounded in anything close to reality, really.

Eleven, meanwhile, uses her powers to seek out Billy. Only too late does she realize that it's a trap: Billy wanted to be found. Through him, The Mind Flayer speaks to her, stating that she let them in — a reference to Eleven creating the rift to The Upside Down — and promising that they would end her, and her friends. "And then we are going to end…everyone."

Aside from bits in season two when Will Byers was inhabited by The Mind Flayer, this is really the first direct communication anything from The Upside Down has had with our heroes. Throughout the sequence, The Mind Flayer builds itself bigger and bigger with more of The Flayed merging into it.