And though Hopper is pleased that his plan has apparently paid off and that Mike is out of the picture for now, this separation sets off a chain reaction he never predicted, one that climaxes with El bumping into Mike at the mall and proclaiming, “I dump your ass” - as blunt of a breakup as has ever been delivered.īut first: a shopping montage! After some antagonistic moments last season, Max and El here become BFFs by trying on outfits. El may still be a bit naïve about how the world works, but she knows a lie when she hears it. Too terrified to hang out with El after Hopper’s threat, Mike takes a cue from Hopper and lies about an ailing grandmother who’s actually doing just fine to create an excuse to keep his distance. That’s not the only sort of trouble afoot in Hawkins, either. Billy’s never been the easiest character to love - even with his sweet ’stache and mom-pleasin’ bod - but this Billy is a new kind of trouble. Sometimes he’s capable of worse, as when he kidnaps a fellow lifeguard and brings her to the warehouse to meet … what? We don’t know, but it’s almost certainly not anyone nice. He’s given to strange flashbacks to his time in the cellar and prone to violent fantasies, as when Karen tries to apologize for not showing up for their motel assignation. The Billy who emerges isn’t entirely himself. Instead, he seems to have found a new way into the Upside Down, where he meets a gang of creepy phantoms that includes his doppelgänger. But, as you might expect, this was no ordinary basement in an ordinary abandoned warehouse. The previous episode ended with him getting dragged into the basement of an abandoned warehouse.

The bad news: Well, maybe he’s a little dead. Okay, there’s good news and bad news as far as Billy is concerned.

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