Stranger Things: Every Season 3 Episode Ranked Worst To Best

Chapter 5., entitled "The Flayed," is a close-up look at those under the control of The Mind Flayer. It's also a close-up look at just how deeply embedded the Russians are in Hawkins — quite literally.

It's a hit and miss episode with more hits than misses. The Russians weren't exactly a great choice by the Duffer Brothers. Yes, they fit the 80s motif, but they're comically bad, with no good explanation for how they tunnelled a mile or so under the Starcourt Mall, corrupt mayor or not.

The best of them, Alexei, has some fun comedic moments in this episode after being captured by Joyce and Hopper. Alexei is played off as a big kid forced to work on an evil science experiment by those dastardly Russians. He likes American cartoons, so we know he's not a bad guy himself.

Steve, Robin, and Dustin stumble onto the Russian base by way of a subterranean elevator. Nancy and Jonathan's investigation has moved to the missing lifeguard. They've now linked her to their dead rat story, and thus return to Mrs. Driscoll, herself linked to the rat case.

Meeting Driscoll in the hospital leads to them encountering "flayed" co-workers, including Jake Busey's Bruce (Busey is the spitting image of his dad). That ends in a fight, which gives us one of the season's most memorable scenes: Bruce and Tom, the other Hawkins Post scribe, melting together in a horrific tribute to The Thing.