The Case of the Missing Lifeguard
The Case of the Missing Lifeguard is the third episode of season three. Joyce Byers goes to Jim Hopper's cabin, where he gets mad at Joyce for standing up, saying that he hasn’t seen a girl stand up since Alice in ninth grade. Joyce interrupts Hopper and brings a magnet and tells Hopper to leave the room. When they both leave and then come back, the magnet is missing. Joyce tells Hopper to help her sneak into Hawkins Lab to determine whether they are responsible for the magnets. Joyce uses her wire-cutting abilities to cut open an entrance inside of the wires. They sneak downstairs but get detected by a lot of cameras while moving around. They realize there are weird scientists in the basement and that they need to get a key to enter the door room, and when they enter, they realize something is wrong. The door is sealed with cement but find some files about Mayor Larry Kline and the building process on Starcourt Mall, as well as the Ives’ teen files. They get ready to leave, but Hopper gets smashed in the head by a person who is revealed to be Grigori in a later episode. Joyce attempts to look but instead takes Hopper back to Hopper’s Cabin. She comes up with a new plan and decides to dress Hopper inside of a paradise vacation suit. Hopper realizes he is wearing this when he wakes up, and screams at Joyce before determining that they should professionally meet the mayor at Hawkins Square. Dustin Henderson meets back with Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley at Starcourt Mall, where he finds out that one sentence has been translated. He determines that the sentence is “the silver cat feeds.” Dustin searches around the mall for hints and finds a cute little silver cat eating a sandwich. Dustin realizes this and heads back to tell the others, but the cat pounces on Dustin, eating him. At Hawkins Suburbs, Will Byers tells Mike Wheeler to get his player manual, and when he returns with his manual, Will tells Mike to slay 200 rats. After a long and advantageous journey of slaying 200 rats, Mike tells Will that he isn’t a baby, which upsets Will because Will always believed that Mike was a baby. Mike then tells Will that it isn’t his fault that Will was gay, stating “It’s not my fault you’re gay!” The truth about Will had been said out loud, and Mike had known it the whole time. Frustrated, Will walks out to the rain. Mike doesn’t feel like ruining his new clothes so he doesn’t chase after. Eleven and Max Mayfield decide to spin the bottle and whoever’s name it lands on they spy on, where Eleven struggles to decide who spins. Max spins, and it lands on Billy Hargrove. They sneak to his room, where they find a huge pool of blood inside of his bedroom and a knife, as well as a bunch of bones. They go to the community pool and ask for a DNA test, where they find out these parts are from a woman named Heather Holloway who works at the pool as a lifeguard. They go to her house and find Heather with Billy at Heather’s house alright with no injuries. Eleven says that they saw her blood, but Max quickly covers it up, saying they saw her bloody dumb lifeguard buddies who said she never showed up. Billy says that Heather didn’t want to show up. When Eleven and Max leave, Heather smiles and forces her parents Tom Holloway and Janet Holloway into the basement, where she allows the Mind Flayer to touch them and hurt their feelings.
