Stranger Things

Season 1

Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers

1. When introducing the four boys, they are playing Dungeons and Dragons. This is an homage to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), in which the protagonists are introduced while playing Dungeons and Dragons.
2. The scene where the three boys pull up to the edge of the woods at night with their bikes, is a reference to the scene in The Goonies (1985) when the boys first pull up outside the Fratelli's hideout on their bikes. The music is almost identical as is the conversation.
3. Along with the Mirkwood reference to Lord of the Rings/the Hobbit, there is a second reference to the J.R.R. Tolkien novels. When Joyce (Winona Ryder) has a flashback to talking to Will (Noah Schnapp) in his Castle Byers hideout, she has to give him the password first. The password is Radagast, the name of one of the Wizards from Tolkien's novels.
4. The 1980s calendar poster of Debbie Harry on Nancy Wheeler's (Natalia Dyer) bedroom wall was issued to promote the 1980 Blondie album "Autoamerican".
5. There is a poster of the movie The Thing (1982) that can be seen in the room where the kids are playing at the beginning.
6. The episode won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series.
7. When Winona Ryder's character Joyce calls the Wheeler's household looking for Will (Noah Schnapp), her son, the scene at the Wheeler's household with the whole family present at the round kitchen table is an homage to the movie Poltergeist (1982): the older teenager dark hair daughter, middle dark hair brother and youngest being a blond hair daughter. The parents' characters are very similar in physical appearance to Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams characters of Poltergeist.
8. This episode begins with the date of 6 November 1983, which was a Sunday. When the boys are finishing their DnD game, Mrs. Wheeler says "It's a school night", and Mike said they had been playing for 10 hours, which also indicates that it was a Sunday. For a brief second, Mike's father is shown trying to improve reception on the TV, on which an episode of Knight Rider (1982) can be seen. In the Fall of 1983, Knight Rider was on its second season, and indeed the appearance of KITT's voice box seen on the TV appears to confirm a second season episode is showing. However the dialog barely heard does not appear to come from the S2 Ep7 Knight Rider: K.I.T.T. the Cat (1983) that aired that night.
9. Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine have appeared together once before, in Roy Orbison's music video, Roy Orbison: A Love so Beautiful (1990).
10. The story, according to an onscreen 'title', is set in the mid-1980s. In a flashback, presumably a few months before the action of this episode in which Will Byers vanishes, Will's makeshift shack is shown in 'happier times'. Flying above the shack is a 48-star American flag, which would have been superseded by the 50-star flag some decades earlier (after Alaska and Hawai'i became states in 1959). This anachronism is not explained. But, hey, he could have found an old flag! Tadaaa
11. When the boys are playing Dungeons and Dragons, the Demogorgon attacks the boys. Will attempts to attack it, but rolls too low of a number to defeat the monster. He tells the dungeon master before leaving and saying to Mike, "the Demogorgon got me." This is foreshadowing Will being be attacked on his way home by the show's antagonist monster.
12. In the first shot of Hopper's (David Harbour) trailer, there is a copy of Ernest Hemingway 's "The Old Man and the Sea" sitting on the table. This book famously revolves around an aging fisherman who is considered extremely unlucky. That it appears when Hopper is first introduced foreshadows the feeling of being cursed that he shares in S1, Ep 2, Stranger Things: Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street (2016), after a disappearance and apparent suicide happen on his watch, within a day of each other, after decades of relative calm. Also, a shark plays a key part in the book's plot, which foreshadows Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Nancy's (Natalia Dyer) discovery that the demogorgon, like a shark, is attracted to blood.
13. When we first meet the kids, Mike is wearing the blue sweatshirt and gray sweatpants that Eleven wears throughout most of the first half of the show.

Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street

1. In the scene where Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) is leaving the school after Nancy (Natalia Dyer) attempts to console him, as the school door closes behind him, a faint voice can be heard saying "Mommy" as the door squeaks shut.
2. When Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) visits his dad's house to see if Will (Noah Schnapp) is there, when he pulls up and gets out of the car you can see the "Terminus" building in the background of the shot, as seen in The Walking Dead: Us (2014).
3. When Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) gets zapped on the phone while trying to communicate with her son, Will (Noah Schnapp), this is reminiscent of (and might be a homage to) the classic scene in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) when Banzai (Peter Weller) has the same experience while speaking with the Red Lectroid leader in the phone booth at the convention center. In both cases, the character is trying to figure out who is on the phone when the electrical zap occurs.
4. When the three boys first speak to Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) in Mike's (Finn Wolfhard) basement, Dustin is wearing a t-shirt that says "Drama Club". Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin, is a big fan of theater, and began his career acting and singing on Broadway.
5. The quarry scene in this episode is the same location used in The Walking Dead (2010) Season 1, most notably episode 4, The Walking Dead: Vatos (2010). The quarry also appears in the Netflix movie The Fundamentals of Caring (2016).
6. The clothes that Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) borrows from Mike (Finn Wolfhard) are the same ones that Mike was wearing during the Dungeons and Dragons game in the previous episode, Stranger Things: Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers (2016)
7. When Hopper (David Harbour) visits Joyce (Winona Ryder) in the beginning of the episode and reports on their search for Will (Noah Schnapp), he mentions they searched all the way to Cartersville. There is no town called Cartersville in Indiana, where the story takes place, but there is a real Cartersville in Georgia, where the series is filmed.
8. Barbara, played by Shannon Purser, is taken by the monster after her blood drips into the pool. This is preceded earlier in the episode by the poster from Jaws (1975), clearly as a nod to a source of inspiration.
9. When Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) is driving his car, you can hear about two seconds of another song right before "Should I stay or should I go" by The Clash starts playing. That song is "Go nowhere" by Reagan Youth, most likely referencing the first season's theme of Will disappearing.
10. The title is a nod to the Twilight Zone episode The Twilight Zone: The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street (1960), in which alien visitors succeed in driving a neighbourhood to paranoia and violence by turning the power on and off. This might reflect the friends' tensions over what to do with El (Millie Bobby Brown), their 'alien' visitor with strange powers.
11. The episode titles are homages to old horror classics.This episode's title is a clear reference to Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone (1959) classic, The Twilight Zone: The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street (1960) (Season 1, episode 22.) In the episode, a group of neighbors descend into paranoia and murder after they gradually become convinced that aliens/monsters are invading their neighborhood during a power outage. The irony of course is that they themselves are the monsters on Maple Street. The final reveal is of two actual aliens nearby, manipulating the power on the street and commenting that that alone was enough to cause humans to turn against each other, and that to conquer the planet all they needed to do was allow humans to turn on themselves. The title may also be a reference to Stephen King's short story "The House On Maple Street."

Chapter Three: Holly, Jolly

1. Early on in the episode, there is a picture of Tom Cruise on the wall in Nancy's (Natalia Dyer) room. Later on the mood music playing is very similar to that from Risky Business (1983), starring Tom Cruise.
2. The only episode of the first season to not have the title of the episode start with the word "The".
3. Ronald Reagan's voice can be heard on TV.
4. Shannon Purser was the first actor from the series to appear on a Stranger Things panel. Purser attended Los Angeles Comic Con on Saturday October 29 2016- three months after the Netflix summer series debut. The panel theme was "Vale of Shadows" and hosted by independent filmmaker Greg Beville.
5. When Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine) is watching Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and she crushes the can with her mind in the examination room, her nose bleeds. Brenner leans in after her nose bleeds and smiles. He could be smiling because of the crushed can, but note that his character in the film Vision Quest (1985) used to get a bloody nose when he would work very hard as a wrestler. Eleven worked very hard with her mind powers to crush the can, which made her nose bleed.
6. When Eleven turns on the TV, a portion of Ronald Reagan's October 27, 1983 speech regarding events in Lebanon and Grenada can be heard.
7. When young Holly Wheeler (Tinsley Price & Anniston Price) is drawn to the wall where the monster lurks, it is very similar to Poltergeist (1982) where Heather O'Rourke's character is drawn to the television. Also, throughout the episode, the way Joyce (Winona Ryder) attempts to communicate with Will (Noah Schnapp) through lights and the way she is seen as "out of her mind" by others, is perhaps an homage the Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). The music playing in the scene near the beginning also resembles the 5 note sequence played in the movie.
8. When Nancy (Natalia Dyer) asks her classmate if she has seen Barbara (Shannon Purser), a poster can be seen hanging in the wall of the classroom. The poster has a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe and the word "nevermore", in reference to Poe's famous poem "The Raven". This might be a clue that Barb was dead and Nancy would never be able to see her friend Barbara again, exactly as the main character of the poem would not be able to see his beloved Lenore again.
9. While in the library looking for news articles about the government agency, one of the officers shows the Chief one about an experiment involving LSD and a patient. This is an homage to Stephen Kings novel Firestarter.

Chapter Four: The Body

1. When the boys are disguising El (Millie Bobby Brown) to bring her to the school, they dress her up like Carrie White of the Stephen King novel "Carrie" and subsequent movies: Carrie (1976) & Carrie (2013). Like Carrie, El also has telekinetic powers.
2. The title, and later in the series the boys following their compasses along train tracks, is a homage to Stephen King's short story 'The Body'.
3. A guard/trooper can be seen reading Stephen King's book Cujo (1981, later made into Cujo (1983). King also wrote the novella "The Body" (later made into Stand by Me (1986)) which is included in his collection book "Different Seasons" (1982). The Duffer brothers (Matt Duffer & Ross Duffer) are fans of King.
4. Executive Producer (and director of this episode) Shawn Levy plays the Coroner and is seen briefly when Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) bursts out of the morgue refusing to believe the body is her son.
5. When Nancy (Natalia Dyer) is pulled out of class, the teacher is reading "Heart of Darkness", by Joseph Conrad.
6. Will's fake body was made with a cast of Noah Schnapp's head, and a full body cast of a very petite woman, due to the fact that SFX Makeup Artists don't like to do full body moulds on children.
7. In Chapter Four: The Body, there is a scene where a young government agent called "Shepherd" tears his way through a living portal in an otherwise solid wall, to enter a shadow dimension. Alex Shepherd, the protagonist of Silent Hill: Homecoming, is a young soldier who frequently cuts or tears his way through living portals in otherwise solid walls, to make his way through a shadow dimension.
8. The song played at the beginning is "Atmosphere" by Joy Division.
9. When the sheriff goes to the morgue to view Will's (Noah Schnapp) supposed body, he talks to the officer reading "Cujo", later made into the film Cujo (1983), and says he spoke with O'Bannon. O'Bannon is likely a reference to Dan O'Bannon, screenwriter of Alien (1979) and director of The Return of the Living Dead (1985).
10. Croquet mallets are shown in the Wheeler's garage. This is a reference to Stephen King's novel "The Shining" as a character in that novel uses a croquet mallet as a weapon.
11. Of the many nods to Stephen King in this series, this episode has one of the most obvious, when the kids travel a significant stretch along the railroad tracks. Much of the story in the film Stand by Me (1986) (and in the novella it is based on, titled "The Body"), includes kids travelling along railroad tracks. *Applies to episode 5, not episode 4.*
12. The croquet mallets in The Wheeler's garage may also be a reference to Heather's, which Winona Ryder starred in.
13. Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine have appeared together once before, in Roy Orbison's music video, Roy Orbison: A Love so Beautiful (1990).
14. The episode titles are homages to old horror classics. This episode's title pays homage to the Stephen King novella on which the movie Stand by Me (1986) was based. It is the story of four friends who set out in search of a dead boy the same age as them, just as the four here go in search of Will (Noah Schnapp). Many scenes in the episode parallel Stand by Me. Of special note is when the children walk along the railroad tracks talking together (the two in front engaged in lighthearted bickering, the two in rear much more serious and somber, just as in the movie), and also when they hide out in the local junk yard.

Chapter Five: The Flea and the Acrobat

1. When the boys and El (Millie Bobby Brown) are walking to try and find the gate, they walk along railroad tracks in pairs, in a scene very reminiscent of scenes from Stand by Me (1986). Stand By Me was based on "The Body" by Stephen King. King is a major influence on this series.
2. Before Nancy (Natalia Dyer) picks up the baseball bat as her weapon of choice, the POV camera zooms in on a set of croquet mallets. It refers to Stephen Kings The Shining, where such a mallet is Danny's father's favorite tool (although it became an axe in Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation, The Shining (1980)).
3. The acrobat can move forward and backward along the rope. But the flea can move forward and backward as well as side to side. If the flea keeps walking to one side, it goes around the rope and winds up where it started. So the acrobat has one dimension, and the flea has two dimensions, but one of these dimensions is a small closed loop. So the acrobat cannot detect any more than the one dimension of the rope, just as we can only see the world in three dimensions, even though it might well have many more. This is impossible to visualize, precisely because we can only visualize things in three dimensions.
4. As the boys and El are walking down the railroad tracks, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) is wearing a sweatshirt that says Waupaca, Wis. on it. The main employer in Waupaca, Wis. is an iron foundry that also has a plant in Etowah, TN - another city previously mentioned in the very first episode.
5. The croquet mallets in The Wheeler's garage may also be a reference to Heather's, which Winona Ryder starred in.
6. Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine have appeared together once before, in Roy Orbison's music video, Roy Orbison: A Love so Beautiful (1990).
7. The teacher shows how to break through to the upside down dimension by folding a plate in half and shoving a pen through it. In Event Horizon (1997) the same demonstration is given to show how to travel by space warp. In both the point is to travel from one place to another quickly (here mentally, in Horizon physically) and in both cases it turns out there is something evil between the entry and exit points.
8. The song playing during Will's (Noah Schnapp) funeral is "Elegia" by New Order.
9. The music playing during the funeral scene was also in the John Hughes film Pretty in Pink (1986).
10. The song playing during Will's funeral is Elegia by New Order, who wrote the song for their previous frontman Ian Curtis back when the band was Joy Division.

Chapter Six: The Monster

1. When Hopper (David Harbour) and Joyce (Winona Ryder) go into Jane's room, there is a framed illustration of the White Rabbit from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a story that centers around a child falling through a portal into an alternate world full of strange and magical things.
2. The 1973 Ford Pinto Sheriff Hopper (David Harbour) drives is the an homage to the protagonists in Stephen King's Cujo, the mother and child are forced to defend themselves from it after it stalls out
3. The way that Eleven's (Millie Bobby Brown) psychic visit to the "Upside Down" is depicted is very similar to visuals contained in the "Doctor Who" serial "Kinda" (originally airing in England in 1982): In "Stranger Things", El is depicted in a featureless, black void with her mirror reflection the only other visible thing. In the Doctor Who serial, companion character Tegan falls into a dream state where she envisions a featureless, black void and only her mirror image. Additionally, "Kinda" had a plot concerning a snake-like monster escaping from an astral plane and invading the material world - much like the monster in Stranger Things.
4. When Troy pulls the knife on Mike and Dustin it is reminiscent of Stephen King's IT when the bully uses his switchblade to carve his initials on one of the kids.
5. Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine have appeared together once before, in Roy Orbison's music video, Roy Orbison: A Love so Beautiful (1990).
6. When Jonathan gets the better of Steve and is repeatedly punching him the face, Tommy shouts out, "Stop it, man! He's had enough" which is almost exactly what Bobby says in The Karate Kid (1984) when Daniel is getting beat up after the Halloween dance. Later in S2E2, Tommy is wearing a Kobra Kai gi as his costume at the Halloween party.
7. The musical mobile over the baby bed that Terry Ives (Aimee Mullins) keeps for Jane has yet another reference to a Stephen King work. The clowns are reminiscent of Pennywise from "IT" who was also a murderous villain who terrorizes an otherwise serene town and fights a group of children who band together to defeat the monster.

Chapter Seven: The Bathtub

1. The movie that Mr. Clark (Randy Havens) and a lady friend are watching is John Carpenter's The Thing (1982).
2. The dining chairs and floor pattern of the Wheeler house are the same as those in Poltergeist (1982).
3. It took 1,200 lbs of salt to make Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) float in the kiddie pool.
4. During filming of the Steve and Jonathan fight scene, the actor Charlie Heaton actually hit Joe Keery in the face by accident The scene was going to remain in the series because Joe Keery and Charlie Heaton continued to stay in character and followed the script, however it was removed. Charlie Heaton did apologise to Joe Keery after the scene had ended.
5. This is the first episode of the series to take place entirely within the same day. The previous six episodes have started one night and ended the following day.
6. Sensory deprivation tanks were used extensively in psychological research, often including LSD, and have previously been used as plot devices in both Fringe (2008) and Altered States (1980). The tank seen in Stranger Things is however very different from those two.
7. The scene that sees Hopper (David Harbour) burst into the bus to rescue the kids, was purposefully shot to resemble Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).
8. The music during the building of the home-made sensory deprivation tank is "Fields of Coral" from the 1996 album Oceanic by Blade Runner (1982) composer Vangelis.
9. When Hopper and the other Police officers open Jonathan Byers' car trunk to look inside, it is nearly identical to the recurring "trunk shot" that has become a trademark in Quentin Tarantino's films.
10. When Mike (Finn Wolfhard) answers the walkie-talkie to Hopper (David Harbour), Hans Holzer's book "Great American Ghost Stories" can be seen on the shelf (although it wasn't actually published until 1990).
11. Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) is wearing a Castroville Artichoke Festival t-shirt in Chapters 7 and 8 (Stranger Things: Chapter Eight: The Upside Down (2016)). Marilyn Monroe, still as Norma Jean, was Miss Castroville Artichoke Festival at the start of her career.
12. The first time that Hopper, Joyce, Jonathan and Nancy meet Eleven.
13. The music at the Fun Fair when Hopper and Joyce arrive sounds a lot like the theme song of the Dungeons and Dragons animated series which starts with the protagonists getting on the Dungeons and Dragons ride at the fair.
14. Hopper and Jonathan steal several bags of de-icing salt. Presumably this would have been use to clear the roads if it froze. However, in this case, sand would be preferable to salt, as salt is corrosive to the metal on cars.
15. Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine have appeared together once before, in Roy Orbison's music video, Roy Orbison: A Love so Beautiful (1990).
16. "Fields of Coral" by Vangelis can be heard twice in this episode when they are creating the sensory deprivation tank. It comes from the album "Oceanic", released in 1996.
17. The episode titles are homages to old horror classics. Chapter Seven: The Bathtub, reminisces of the famous bathtub sequence in The Shining (1980). The plot device of a sensory deprivation tank was also used in 80's horror classic, Altered States (1980)--Drew Barrymore's (Firestarter (1984)) film debut, the character Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is lovingly based on. Also, the water scenes are reminiscent of some of the scenes in early episodes of the Fox television series Fringe (2008), when actress Anna Torv's character goes in the "tub" to try and channel info.

Chapter Eight: The Upside Down

1. As the kids are fleeing the monster and the armed Department of Energy personnel, Dustin carries the semi-conscious Eleven to safety, rather than Mike. This was due to Finn Wolfhard's inability to carry Millie Bobby Brown. The responsibility for transport fell to Gaten Matarazzo, despite having an injured ankle and knee on the same leg on the day of shooting.
2. Eleven's (Millie Bobby Brown) longest phrase in Season 1 is only seven words long ("Just... Just hold on a Little Longer"). Throughout the entirety of the season she only had 42 lines.
3. Hopper (David Harbour) wears a braided blue bracelet throughout the series. Its origins are touched on in a flashback: the materials for the bracelet are his daughter Sarah's hairbands that she was wearing the day she got sick.
4. The articles pinned to the Police Station bulletin board have the headlines: "The Boy Who Came Back To Life," "Hawkins Lab Blocks Inquiry," "More Heads Roll in Ongoing State Trooper Scandal," and "Coroner Arrested for Falsifying Autopsy."
5. The scene where they are running through the school to get away from Dr Brenner (Matthew Modine) is reminiscent of The Breakfast Club (1985) when the kids are trying to evade Vernon.
6. The episode won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series.
7. Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan's (Charlie Heaton) plan to draw out the monster from the Upside-down so Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Jim (David Harbour) can travel through safely to find Will (Noah Schnapp) is reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), when Aragorn and his party drew out the armies of Mordor so Frodo and Sam can travel to Mount Doom to destroy the ring without being caught.
8. Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) is wearing a Castroville Artichoke Festival t-shirt in Chapters 7 (Stranger Things: Chapter Seven: The Bathtub (2016)) and 8. Marilyn Monroe, still as Norma Jean, was Miss Castroville Artichoke Festival at the start of her career.
9. Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine have appeared together once before, in Roy Orbison's music video, Roy Orbison: A Love so Beautiful (1990).
10. After Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) kissed, directors shouted "CUT!" Millie got up and said "THAT'S kissing?! That's it? That sucked!" as that was her first kiss.
11. Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard reported that before their kissing scene, they each ate an entire container of tic tacs.
12. When Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Hopper (David Harbour) are exploring the "Upside Down," the entire scene is a reference to Alien (1979). It is reminiscent of the scene in Alien when they are exploring the planet and discover the nest.
13. Towards the episodes end the children shoot the monster with a rock and a slingshot, driving it back. This could be a reference to the Stephen King novel 'It', in which a similar group of children temporarily banish Pennywise (King's monster) using a slingshot. King was a big influence on the shows creators, and this pays homage to his work.
14. In the season one finale, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) are surrounded by government agents in the hallway of the middle school when Eleven uses her telekinetic powers to kill the agents by crushing their brains from within their own heads. This mirrors the iconic scene from Akira (1988) (which The Duffer Brothers (Matt Duffer & Ross Duffer) were influenced by for the series) where Tetsuo first discovers his telekinetic powers after being taken to the hospital. In his escape, Tetsuo enters a hallway, is surrounded by guards, and violently uses his powers to make guards explode.
15. As the kids are confronted by the monster in the final episode, Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), clearly over matched, bravely attempts to shoot the Monster with rocks using a slingshot. With Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) yelling encouragement, Lucas shoots rock after rock with little effect, until dramatically landing his final shot in the Monster's mouth and seemingly knocking him backwards. However, we quickly learn that it was Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who steps out from behind the boys, who knocked the Monster back using her telepathic powers. This is reminiscent of Steven Spielberg's final battle scene in "Saving Private Ryan (1998) when Tom Hanks's character, now injured and weak, bravely fires his sidearm at an approaching German tank. As with Lucas, Hanks is clearly over matched but fires one last time and appears to somehow blow up the tank, when in fact, an Allied fighter "tank buster" roars from overhead and actually blows up the approaching German tank.
16. The scene where Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) are setting traps is inspired by the scene in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) where Nancy is setting traps for Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). Additionally, the characters of Nancy and Jonathan are likely inspired by Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) from the first and third Nightmare on Elm Street movies and actor Johnny Depp, who played Nancy's boyfriend in the first Nightmare film.
17. When the boys are questioning Mike (Finn Wolfhard) after the final Dungeons and Dragons game, they are subtly referencing the series itself, addressing unanswered questions that will potentially be resolved in the following season. They question the "weird flowers in the cave", which parallels the large egg/pod Hopper discovers in the Upside Down. The "Proud Princess" is reference to Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and her unexplained disappearance. The "Lost Stranger" most likely refers to Hopper (David Harbour), searching for peace/redemption after his daughter's death. The boys even complain that the game was too short, despite it lasting 10 hours, a nod to the season only getting an 8 episode treatment instead of the standard 13. There are also a few hints given for the upcoming season, much in the way the game at the beginning of Season One foreshadowed the events to follow. The most obvious: in the game the boys defeat a thessalhydra, a deadly, and incredibly powerful 7-headed monster, which is strikingly similar to the giant spider-like creature from the Upside Down that towers over the town in the second season.
18. At the end of the final episode, the boys are playing Dungeons and Dragons, Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Will (Noah Schnapp) complain that the campaign was too short, being only 10 hours. This is a nod to the fact that the first season is only 8 episodes vs the typical 13.
19. Mike keeps his promise to Eleven about the Snow Ball and they attend at the end of the second season.
20. This is the last time Mike, Dustin and Lucas see Eleven until "Chapter Eight : The Mind Flayer" (S2E8), exactly one season later.
21. Not only does Stephen King's Firestarter (1984) have a similar plot, it features a soundtrack by German electronica band Tangerine Dream. Stranger Things uses a short excerpt from a Tangerine Dream piece called "Horizon" in this episode during the hospital flashback scene.