The Gate
The Gate is the ninth episode of season two. Mike Wheeler and Eleven have a fun slap battle against each other, before getting interrupted by Jim Hopper. Mike is enraged at Hopper and screams at him. Eleven then slaps Dustin Henderson and Erica Sinclair, hugs Max Mayfield, and says hi to Joyce Byers. Billy Hargrove has fun with Karen Wheeler before heading to the Byers’ house to have fun with Joyce. The group separates into many fractions. Eleven tells Hopper about his freaky interaction with Terry Ives, and Hopper apologizes for not warning her earlier. Dustin and Steve Harrington are hungry, so they clear out the fridge and find a demodog’s body inside of the fridge. Steve is all of a sudden interrupted by Billy, who smashes a plate before getting stabbed by Max with a knife, knocking him out for a while. Joyce, Johnathan Byers, and Nancy Wheeler tie Will Byers to a rope mechanism in the roof, hanging him unfatally, while Hopper and Eleven arrive at Bob Newby’s death site. Max decides to get revenge on Billy by crashing his car, and Steve and Dustin join him. She crashes the car into the same spot where Hopper was lost. Will is in agony and begs for them to stop burning him with fire, but Joyce believes this is the only way to remove the Mind Flayer. She remembers Bob and then stabs a torch into Will’s mouth. Will is so hot and burning that a black bunch of smoke enters his mouth, causing the Mind Flayer to exit Will’s body because it feels like it is getting bullied. Steve sets a graveyard on fire for fun to torture some spirits. Johnathan phone calls Hopper, telling him to close the door. Hopper and Eleven go down while the Demodogs are distracted because they are offended that a graveyard is being burnt down. The Mind Flayer decides to find someone else to bully and attempts to bully Eleven. Mike and Dustin run into D'Artagnan, who leaves Mike alone and goes straight for Dustin, biting his head off. Eleven has to close a door to shut out the Vale of shadows, but the door is not budging. Suddenly, she remembers how she found out her papa was still alive somehow, and with all the happiness in her body, starts to make progress. Steve realizes Demodogs running for him and in his final moment, creates a human wall to prevent the Demodogs from running past. As the kids watch in shock, Steve gets taken to the ground by the Demodogs, who tear Steve apart until running away towards the door. Eleven finally closes the door, and Hopper congratulates her. Depressed, all of the Demodogs decide to jump off a bridge. One month later, Murray Bauman flips off anybody he can because Hawkins Lab was shut down, meaning he can’t flex on Johnathan by taking a similar selfie. Barb Holland is given a funeral which nobody shows up to. Joyce is smoking outside with Hopper, who tells Joyce to stop ruining her body and that she shouldn’t smoke because it would’ve offended Bob. At a snowball fight, Mike and Eleven are on one team; Erica and Max are on another, and Will is with Jennifer Hayes. As they have a dance fight, the Mind Flayer looks at Hawkins Middle.
