Stranger Things 2: Episode 3 “The Pollywog” Review

A stumble though not a fall for the show as Smoke Cthulu makes its first real move

★★★1/2

In retrospect, Stranger Things probably should have got moving a bit quicker than it has done. This season so far has gotten a surprising amount of mileage out of some pretty low-stake (if any stake at all) scenarios and a large factor in this is that it’s been unexpectedly entertaining just to watch the people and town go about it’s business. Hawkins doesn’t really strike me as an accurate representation of 80s America; instead it’s more like 80s America as delivered by 80s movies (it has to be, given neither of the show’s creators were actually alive during the period this show is set during). I never really considered this all that much during Season 1, but for whatever reason – increased budget or refocused efforts, perhaps – Hawkins feels more alive and colourful than ever before and is definitely no small part of the show’s alluring escapism. But, as much fun as this has been so far, Stranger Things can’t coast by on good vibes forever and so “The Pollywog” starts to kick the main plot into gear at last, which is definitely welcome, although It can’t help but feel a little slight for three episodes in and there's not as much meaty new information for us as in episodes 1 and 2.

Take for instance the first development; namely the discovery of a creature that confirms Will’s continued connection to the Upside-Down. Problem: we, the audience, already knew this, so it kind of lands with a bit of a thud. So the thing we’ve really got to latch onto is the creature itself, which doesn’t do a whole lot except grow slightly bigger over the course of 50 television minutes.

Our other main development concerns the ever-rotting pumpkin patches that are revealed to be connected to the facility that originally housed Eleven. It’s a step forward, but again, not a very big one as the episode then flits over to check out something else.

Where the episode isn’t setting up the dominos for later it fairs a bit better. Sean Astin’s character (I confess I forget his name and don’t want to Google it for fear of spoilers) is now quite definitively positioned as a character whose warm “Easy-peasy” attitude is both just what the Byer family deserves, whilst also being totally at odds with their situation. He’s like the flipside of a coin with Steve on the other side – both are characters that want to move past the events of the last year, though with different ways of going about it. Steve, having lived through the events, tries to reassert his own reality through enforced ignorance, whereas Astin has no real comprehension of what went down and how his gentle attitude is completely at odds with the horrors of the Upside-Down. Easy Peasy? Try telling that to Will, who takes the advice given to him and ends up with a face full of Cthulu.

Which brings us to ‘ole Smoky itself, which is still as impressively realised as last episode and eons more interesting than the Demogorgan ever was. It turns out that Smoky doesn’t like being told what to do and so upgrades its threat level from ‘stalker’ to…whatever the hell it’s up to during that last shot. Please note also the visual connection between the Monster launching it’s tendrils through Will’s face and the Phineas Gage case discussed earlier in the episode, wherein a man suffered an iron rod through the brain and survived, but with a drastically different personality. That for me finally throws into relief the theme that I’ve been totally missing up until now: the theme of PTSD and how the marks left behind by past trauma don’t cease to exist just because the monster that left those marks is dead.

Elsewhere we have Hopper and Eleven, whose storyline is probably the hardest to properly latch onto thus far. Part of that is down to pure structure: trying to fit in the flashbacks amidst everything happening must have proven to be a pain in the writer’s room and despite the welcome brevity of the flashbacks, the delivery hasn’t been entirely successful. Much of the events between the two characters during “The Pollywog” rely on flashbacks we haven’t yet seen and it leads to some rushed-feeling insertions as the show tries to sell the emotional betrayal of Eleven’s rebellion. Their relationship is an appreciated shakeup of the show’s dynamics, providing a fair amount of room to investigate the hole left in Hopper’s life by the death of his daughter and how that hole is potentially being filled by Eleven, but a lot of the emotion that comes from that has probably already occurred in the space between Season 1 and 2 and so far the attempts to convey that kind of drama to the audience hasn’t been 100% successful, though not a complete failure either.

Oh and there’s an incredibly bizarre scene where Eleven returns to the school that’s a bit murkier than we’d probably have liked. Millie Bobby Brown still goes for broke on all the emotional beats, but the actual beats themselves are a bit hard to properly follow and it’s unclear how much her envy of Max was experienced in the moment or whether this is a permanent feature of her personality now (I’m betting the former). Making it all the weirder is that it comes during a pivotal scene where Max confronts Mike about his dislike of her, but the actual details are lost because we’re too distracted by the bigger emotion of Eleven seeing Mike again! I think the takeaway is that Mike and Max get on now, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t guessing a bit here.

The myriad strands the episode (and I!) have to cover here would seem to indicate that any stunting in the revelations and pacing of the show isn’t really down to lack of trying but rather because the writers have just got so much to cover. Every piece moves forward in this episode, but really only by about half a step (it remains to be seen whether Eleven’s plotline is about to get upturned if we just reset to Eleven hiding out at Hopper’s Grandad’s old place). I mean, the show still doesn’t seem to be repeating itself which is a notable step over last Season, but the lack of a big motivating event means that all the different storylines are spread out and harder to cover. Given how the episode ends, it’ll be interesting to see whether Episode 4 starts to bring the pieces together a little better.

Episode 4 "Will the Wise" review here.

Other things:

• Continuing that last note for those that care: Stranger Things has never been particularly big on coalescing all of its plots to fit a particular episodic theme or point (like the best episodes of Breaking Bad could) and it’s not until looking back at “The Pollywog” that you realise just how true this continues to be. I mean, for an episode called “The Pollywog”, how much is the Pollywog actually the focus?

• Nancy discusses with Jonathon how it feels wrong for nothing to change after Season 1, tying into her clear lack of love for Steve who wants nothing more but to move on from those events. She makes an actual move on this frustration by phoning Barb's parents with promise of the truth.

• The television reveal to Joyce about the nature of the Monster is pretty neat and nicely executed.

• How protective can Dustin be over a slimy rat thing he’s had for like, a day? If this is what divides him against the rest of the group, I’m gonna have some questions.

• Bob! Sean Astin’s character is called Bob. Because of course it is.

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