Stranger Things<\/a><\/p>\nThe Turnbow Trap<\/p>\n
\n Season 5<\/p>\n
Episode 3\n <\/p>\n
\n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n
3 stars<\/p>\n
***\n <\/p>\n
\n The group pulls a classic Home Alone on a Demogorgon, with mixed results.
\n Photo: COURTESY OF NETFLIX\n <\/p>\n
We\u2019re three episodes in, and already, I am concerned about people\u2019s sleep (or lack thereof). Admittedly, I\u2019m always worried about whether people are getting enough sleep across all aspects of life because sleep is so important, especially for these teens! The initial crawl that went to shit was the night before, and there are no signs anyone is sneaking a nap anytime soon. The sleep deprivation, however, might explain why our group\u2019s plans are getting more ludicrous by the hour. \u201cThe Turnbow Trap\u201d and the plan it refers to really stretch the suspension of disbelief, but it is exciting to watch, so stretch it we will.<\/p>\n
The other reason the crew\u2019s plans are getting wilder and riskier is, as Will points out, because they don\u2019t have time to play it safe. Now that Will knows he is tapping into the hive mind and getting glimpses of what Vecna can see, he and Robin have figured out that Vecna plans on kidnapping more children and his next victim is Dipshit Derek Turnbow. Don\u2019t come at me for being mean about a little kid \u2014 everyone calls him that. And he is, in fact, a real dipshit. Not even Holly can stand Derek, and Holly seems pretty chill, aside from being so easily tricked by an evil wizard monster and blindly trusting a man no one else can see. Except for Hopper and Eleven, the whole team meets back at the Squawk to figure out what\u2019s next.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s very sweet to see Will leading the discussions. He and Joyce do eventually have a heart-to-heart about their current dynamic, and Joyce apologizes for being overbearing but admits she is still carrying a lot of guilt and fear from the time he was taken. \u201cWhat kind of mother doesn\u2019t check on her 11-year-old?\u201d she says. Winona forever, you know? She can let Will spread his wings to a point, but she is always going to be watching and looking out for him. I swear to God if Joyce sacrifices herself for Will at the end of this thing, I will be crying for days.<\/p>\n
But now that Will knows about his connection to Vecna, and they know about Dipshit Derek, they need to figure out a way to protect him. Of course, it would be nice if they could figure out a way to protect Derek that would somehow help them in their search for Holly. And Mike might just have a way. Sure, it involves kidnapping an entire family, but it\u2019s kidnapping to save lives, so Joyce, the only real adult in the room, is fine with it.<\/p>\n
So, yes, Robin (with her new buddy Will) knows exactly where to find a whole bunch of benzos from the hospital, thanks to all the time she\u2019s been spending there with Vickie. Then, they\u2019re going to bake those benzos into a pie. Lucas and Mike have enlisted Erica \u2014 you knew she\u2019d pop up at some point \u2014 who is best friends with Derek\u2019s sister Tina, to be their inside woman. There is one small hiccup: Twelve days ago, they turned from best friends to archenemies because of some incident in gym and also because it\u2019s middle school and that\u2019s their prerogative. Still, Erica is on board once Mike explains that this isn\u2019t really about Derek, it\u2019s about saving Holly, and also, what they\u2019re asking her to do will surely make it so Tina never wants anything to do with her again. A real win-win-win. That third win is for us because Lucas informs us that every member of the Turnbows is a menace, and he is not wrong. Knock \u2019em all out, I say. (Safely, of course.)<\/p>\n
Erica\u2019s the perfect person to send in to the Turnbows. She fakes a very sincere-sounding apology and offers Tina\u2019s favorite pie as an olive branch. She\u2019s also able to problem-solve quickly when Tina refuses to eat the pie, and though Tina\u2019s parents and Derek have all passed out as planned, she needs a quick shot to put her to sleep. Erica has no problem administering this. (Is Erica a psychopath?)<\/p>\n
Aside from the Tina debacle, surprisingly, almost everything else goes according to plan. Joyce, Robin, and Will take the now-fast-asleep Turnbows to a farm across town. The team shoves pillowcases on all of the Turnbows\u2019 heads to make sure that even if they wake, Vecna can\u2019t figure out where they\u2019re hiding. Meanwhile, the rest of the team sets up a trap for the Demogorgon they\u2019re sure Vecna will send for Derek once he\u2019s believed to be fast-asleep. The goal is to get the Demogorgon in their trap long enough for Nancy to shoot a tracker into it, and then they\u2019ll be able to follow the tracker on Dustin\u2019s device, which will hopefully lead to Vecna and thus to Holly. The plan includes a mannequin in Derek\u2019s bed, water balloons full of acetone to make the Demo highly flammable, some wood beams to injure the thing, and, yes, a giant square cut out of the living room floor so the monster falls down into the barbed-wire pit below, where Nancy can shoot it with the telemetry-tag tracker before Jonathan lights that baby on fire.<\/p>\n
It all goes according to plan, more or less. It\u2019s once the Demo takes off that there\u2019s a problem. Our tracking team consists of Steve, Dustin, Nancy, and Jonathan in Steve\u2019s now-souped-up BMW (do not even get me started on that), and the Demo is moving fast in the Upside Down. Steve has to blow through some fences and people\u2019s backyards to keep up with it. Suddenly, Dustin sees on his equipment that the Demo has changed course \u2014 it has doubled back the way they came and is heading southeast quickly.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Will who figures out what went wrong. Derek is awake and has managed to get the pillowcase off his head. It\u2019s too late, he tells the group: Vecna knows where they are, and the Demogorgon is on its way. Dipshit Derek is really living up to his name.<\/p>\n
Obviously, time is of the essence here, but it would be swell if the team up top could figure out a way to reestablish communication with Hopper and Eleven in the Upside Down. Those two are acting on theories they\u2019ve hatched without updated intel, and it could prove dangerous.<\/p>\n
We find the two of them still at the wall, but whatever that thing is made out of or whatever it\u2019s hiding, they can\u2019t figure out a way through; El\u2019s powers aren\u2019t strong enough to crack it open. They run out of time exploring it anyway. The military shows up, and they have a fancy new toy they refer to as \u201cthe hedgehog\u201d \u2014 it emits some type of sonic blast that turns out to be El\u2019s kryptonite (Hop\u2019s word, not mine). As soon as it reaches her, she doubles over in pain. She can barely move, she can\u2019t think, and she certainly can\u2019t use her powers against it. This is a game changer.<\/p>\n
Hopper hides them behind a collapsed billboard and tries to keep El as quiet as possible, but she is hurting. The incident almost ends without them getting noticed, but one of the military guys, Sullivan\u2019s right-hand man, Akers, stops to take a piss on the wall and discovers a knife Hopper accidentally left behind. They turn up the power on the hedgehog, and El screams out in pain. The soldiers realize who\u2019s there, and a shoot-out commences. I guess Hopper has been training with Eleven because he\u2019s basically Rambo now. His grenades kill most of the soldiers, and he\u2019s able to shoot at the hedgehog and disable it \u2014 a powered-up Eleven knocks out Akers, the last soldier standing.<\/p>\n
Instead of just running for it, Hopper and Eleven take Akers prisoner. Hopper wants to interrogate him for info on when the next supply run is coming through so that he and Eleven can get unflipped, as it were. Eleven hates this idea \u2014 she wants to interrogate him about the wall. If he peed on it, he probably has some idea of what it is, and she is desperate to get through it. The father and daughter decide to compromise. Halfway happy, remember?<\/p>\n
Hopper gets the face-to-face with Akers, but while he\u2019s asking the guy for info that he really does not want to give up, Eleven is rummaging around in his brain. The soldier is terrified, begging her to get out of his head, but El\u2019s very good at this now. She winds up in a memory of his in which he and Sullivan talk to Dr. Kay in her lab. She\u2019s able to follow Dr. Kay down a secured hallway with a big, metal door at the end. It\u2019s locked tight, like a vault, and Hopper presses, but Akers is adamant he doesn\u2019t know what\u2019s behind the door. It doesn\u2019t matter. Once El bounces out of his head, she tells Hopper she could feel the kryptonite coming from behind the door, stronger than the machine the soldiers were driving around with. She thinks it has to be coming from someone with powers like hers \u2014 it has to be Vecna. She is convinced the military has him and is using him as a weapon. It certainly seems impossible, since we know Vecna has been freely moving around in his victims\u2019 minds. So who or what is behind that door?<\/p>\n
So far, we\u2019ve done a lot of chatting about Vecna and his plans, but do we see him in action at all in this episode? Sure do. Well, at least, we see him in his Henry Creel skin, being the most thoughtful host to Holly. He\u2019s brought her to some vision or memory or other dimension-type place where the Creel house is shiny and new and contains everything Holly could want (aside from her parents, who Henry swears he\u2019ll bring over once they\u2019re healed). There\u2019s a gorgeous breakfast with her favorite foods and all the dresses she could want, and he even gives her a tape player and a Tiffany cassette. He has to leave for the day \u2014 other children to kidnap, one assumes! \u2014 and gives Holly free rein, only warning her to never go out into the woods. (Let\u2019s forget, I guess, that if this is Vecna\u2019s world, couldn\u2019t he, like, fix it so she can\u2019t go into the woods? I\u2019m just asking questions here!!)<\/p>\n
Holly seems content to have some me time. But it doesn\u2019t take too long for someone to start ringing that doorbell. When Holly opens the door, no one is there, but there\u2019s a letter inside the mailbox. The note seems to be Henry asking for her help, but he needs her to meet him out by the rocks, which are, of course, through the woods. He even drew a handy map. Holly honestly seems like a smart kid, but she\u2019s being real dumb at the moment. None of this adds up if you think about it for more than ten seconds, but still, Holly goes on her journey through the woods. (She is dressed like a hybrid Dorothy\/Little Red, after all.)<\/p>\n
She reaches the rocks, but instead of finding Henry, she thinks she sees a monster in the cave, and so makes a run for it. It is not a monster who runs after her, though; it\u2019s someone in boots and jeans. And when Holly looks up, she finds Max Mayfield staring back down at her. Max lives \u2014 I mean, in this vision-memory-mind trap Vecna has built. But still: Max lives.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Listen, I know Dustin is acting out because of his grief, but he\u2019s so mean! There\u2019s only so many times you can accept \u201che\u2019s misplacing his anger over the loss of one brother figure and putting it on to his other brother figure,\u201d okay? When he just drills into Steve\u2019s car to install the telemetry system? What an asshole. These two better make up \u2014 it\u2019s already become insufferable.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Steve does clock Dustin lying to his friends about how he got so bloodied and bruised, so maybe he\u2019ll be instigating an emotional chat sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Speaking of insufferable, Jonathan is really brooding over this Nancy thing. As suspected, Murray snuck an engagement ring in that Coltrane cassette and is confused when he discovers Jonathan hasn\u2019t popped the question yet. That proposal is going to be a disaster, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
\u2022 During the interrogation, Hopper screams at Akers that he would kill a thousand soldiers \u201cto protect the one person that [he] loves.\u201d It might make you tear up for a second until you realize that\u2019s a potent piece of information to just hand over to the enemy, Hop.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Ah! Another mention of wormholes! Mr. Clarke is teaching his class \u2014 which includes star student Erica Sinclair \u2014 about wormholes and the Einstein\u2013Rosen bridge. In short: They\u2019re very unstable!<\/p>\n
\u2022 Robin and Will have another moment together at the hospital when Will asks how she knew Vickie was interested in her. She talks to him about little signs snowballing into an avalanche. They also make some jokes about Will\u2019s bowl cut, which is nice for us.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Bring back calling people \u201cbarf bags\u201d!!<\/p>\n
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