I Tried To FIX Stranger Things S5

Max was never in a coma. She was in a Stranger Things video. If Will's right, then Max and Holly are now making a Stranger Things video. Stranger Things video. God.

When I started work on this, I envisioned this like a concise 10-minute video where I just jot out a few overarching ideas on Stranger Things 5 in order to open up discussion in the comments. But when I started jotting down my thoughts, I started getting more ideas and then more and then it everything just snowballed into this behemoth of a video. I really don't help myself. Sometimes I get too carried away. Have too much fun for my own good. The future me that has to edit all of this is going to be fuming.

But let's start by admitting how ridiculous this video idea is. The season ended less than a week ago at the time of recording. Fix is a very strong word. It suggests the show is completely broken. And for a lot of people, that's not true. Stranger Things 5 has been compared a lot to season 8 of Game of Thrones. And I don't think this is anywhere near as bad as that was. For whatever faults Stranger Things here may have, faults I've discussed in my previous videos, you can still feel there's a lot of heart to this story. It's still capable of moving me in certain moments, and I still do think they had passion.

However, I think most people are at least somewhat disappointed by this season. I didn't come out feeling angry or betrayed, but my brain did keep daydreaming on things I would have done differently, even without me meaning to. My mind just kept going like, "Oh, when Robin told Lucas they needed to turn the stereo off. What if she actually did that? What if she did cut the music and then Lucas felt devastated, thought that Max was not going to come back as a result? Or what if Dr. K didn't just sit around doing absolutely nothing for the entire finale until after the showdown? What if she was involved in the climax of the show? What if she went after 11 and accidentally got herself embroiled in the fight against the mind player?" Just all sorts of little thoughts like that kept popping into my head. And I know I'm not alone in doing this. I think it's a shame when your mind is doing that because it suggests the story you got was more disappointing than you even realized at first. The fact there's been all this glamour for a secret 9th episodes that is definitely not happening feels like the fandom collectively also daydreaming on something better.

Then I even then got an interesting email about something called Stranger Things: The Last Door that I will explain later on. The point is when I mentioned in my last video that my reaction to the end of the show had been to keep daydreaming on different ideas, and a surprisingly high amount of you asked me what those ideas were, how I would have improved season 5. So I sat down for an afternoon and jotted all this out. The thoughts of some random guy on the internet.

Right. First, a few disclaimers. One, this isn't an exercise of total fanfiction. It's about the editing process, which means taking the existing season 5 we have and trying to think through how that could be improved whilst changing as little about it as possible. You know, it might be interesting if I was sitting here describing a totally original season 5 story from scratch. But there wouldn't be much to learn then in terms of editing an existing idea, the pitfalls you run into, the whole process in general. So, we are taking the story that already exists and editing that as neatly as we can. Or I am. I don't know why I'm saying we. It's it's just me sitting here.

Two, I have to work pragmatically with what the show allows. For example, all of the actors are 2 years older at this point. I'm sure that's part of the reason why there's such a time gap at the end of season 4 and the start of season 5. I think due to the aging actors, I should comply with that. Even though I think it would be much more interesting to pick this up where the previous season ended off without any time gap, I don't think we can realistically do that. And I think if there are any other pragmatic restraints like that, I should accept them too.

And thirdly, it's just to say this video is going to be a strange mix of incredibly far and also not thorough at all. Incredibly thorough in the sense I tried to actually think through where my thoughts would slot into the story because it's all well saying, "Oh, there should be a scene where this thing happens or there should be a scene where this character comes back." But is there actually room for that? Where can you fit that into the story without disrupting the pacing, without it undermining, but actually enhancing the ideas being built up within that episode? When I talk about room, I don't really just mean the runtime. I mean the flow of the story, including things in a way that doesn't kill the pace, but adds momentum and complements various aspects that are building up so it doesn't just feel like an old scene out of nowhere, you know? So, it's thorough in the sense this snowballed to the extent I ended up writing out a scene by scene summary of the entire season and then started tweaking that to include what I thought could go where. So, I have literally jotted out what happens in every scene. I didn't intend to do that, but I got carried away. And at the same time, this video is not thorough because I'm incredibly vague often in what I say there. There's no dialogue written, just paraphrasing the kind of thing characters might discuss. Sometimes no plot explanation for events. Sometimes my own plan contradicts itself as I change my mind halfway through writing this or forgot something I written early on or just thought this isn't the focus right now, move on, leave this bit blank, I don't care enough. You know, I'm sure in the weeks to follow, bigger channels than me will make perfectly refined fan edit videos with wellplanned story boards for an entire season, but that's not me. I didn't want to spend too long working on this. I wanted to just jot down all the ideas I had now while the show was topical and before I forgot them all and then move on to some other interesting projects I want to work on soon.

The only other thing that's worth saying is I obviously don't think I'm a better writer than the Duffer brothers. Hopefully that should be pretty obvious, but you know, I have the power of hindsight where the Duffer brothers didn't. I can look at this entire finished series and think about what I think could be done to improve it. I also don't have Netflix executives breathing down my neck telling me things have to happen certain ways. And even then, on the other side, what I don't have is the power of foresight. Because a lot of my ideas might sound great when I describe why they're great, but they will definitely have disadvantages to them. I think everything you change in a story has advantages and disadvantages. A lot of my changes will create problems. And that doesn't mean the idea is bad. It just means you then have to spend a bit of extra time ironing out the kinks. And I haven't done that yet. In fact, I'm not going to do that. I I don't think there's any need. This video is just an exercise. But all of it means no, I'm definitely not a better writer than the Duffer brothers. In fact, while I have experience with writing novels, I have no experience with film scripts. As you might see at moments where I quote the story board I've written, it it doesn't even look like a storyboard.

But enough of that. These are my ideas. Do with them whatever you like. Tell me they're stupid. Tell me they're brilliant. Comment suggestions on how you think the kinks could be ironed out or fill in the blanks that I didn't bother filling in. Whatever you fancy. I'm hoping this should make for a very long but interesting video. So, let's begin with the arrival of a highly anticipated train.

So, let's start by just quickly summarizing four key issues I think season 5 has that contributes to its underwhelming feel. One is just too many characters. None of them quite have the space they need to each have fulfilling, fully explored arcs. As a result, we lose a lot of character depth and end up with people either just standing around in a scene or only having things to do if it's plot related rather than story related. Two, there's a general lack of impact to anything that happens. This doesn't necessarily mean character deaths. I mean, the fact nobody ever dies when anything goes wrong and how that devalues the stakes. I think that is true. But a lack of impact could also mean more generally a lack of emotional impact on these characters or impact on the world around them. And similarly, when things go well, it rarely changes or rewards them in a substantial way. Thirdly, I don't think the world feels at all alive here. Season 4 had all sorts going on in Hawkins. It had Jason and his crew, Eddie's uncle, Max's mom, Fred working with Nancy. You had all these different pockets in the community that you felt were substantially affected by the events of the plot, and it all built up into a catastrophic moment when the community was quite literally torn apart. And then we get to season 5, and it doesn't really deliver on that. you pretty quickly forget about Hawkins as the town or even the upside down and the abyss. They they all just start to feel like a playground more than a tangible environment where people and things are affected. And fourth, structurally, I don't think they build up enough across this season. It's fine to have chapters within your story. You know, like episode 4 builds up to its own big crescendo, and that's great. The earlier crescendo where Holly is taken or even to an extent when the demogorgan bursts into Derek's home. It's good to have various different rising climaxes in your story, but there's not enough other stuff slowly building up alongside it in the background to make sure everything is slowly ramping to a much bigger crescendo at the end. Season 5 more feels like everything building up to mini crescendo after mini crescendo and it starts to just feel repetitive and devalues how much of a crescendo any of those feel in the first place. Does that make sense? I mean, I've discussed all of these points in my previous videos if you want more detail there, but those, I think, are the four main things to try and tackle.

So, let's begin. We're basically going to try and go through the story in order, and I will jump off at points to talk about the ideas, but keep in mind there will be some blank spaces. I wrote all of this in one go, in one sitting, not really looking back to tweak earlier ideas. you will see what I mean in terms of the gaps.

We open with a prologue that I'm not really changing anything about. It's fine. We're not going to nitpick things like cinematography, the slightly over-the-top action, even the fact I find the shots of the vines entering Will's mouth disgusting. Storyboardwise, it's fine. Keep it the same.

Then we get the opening credits before scene one is everybody waking up at the Wheeler's house or the Wheelers and the Buyers. The buyers don't have their own home in Hawkins anymore. They are stuck in quarantine. This is where they've been staying. All the same stuff from the original scene. They're in a rush getting ready to go. We see Holly reading a wrinkle of time at the table. My one change is Ted and Mike. Instead of Mike waiting for the bathroom, Mike is already up early and he is talking to Ted. Ted, who is trying to read the newspaper or something, only getting annoyed and distracted by this busy house of people rushing back and forth. Mike is trying to talk to him about the idea of leaving Hawkins, but he barely gets five words in before Ted cuts him off. It's clearly an idea he's raised before, and Ted will not entertain it. It's ludicrous. And then food's ready. We feel as ever that Ted is not someone who really connects to his children. Why have I got Mike suggesting something so weird? We will get to that later. That happens. They all eat the food really quickly. Everyone rushes out the house.

And then scene two is the same mostly. We have the same rocking Robin giving her radio narration to get us up to speed with the town. only in my version, the town is different and what she says is different. You see, we have a problem here. I was pretty adamant to make Hawkins feel more torn apart as a town. This is a powder cake. No one is allowed to leave due to quarantine. There are soldiers everywhere. There is a giant cut in the floor that feels like an opening to hell. Everyone was whipped into a satanic panic last season. But the problem is, we can't just immediately escalate from that. We need space for things to keep ramping up across this season. So, if we kick this off with absolute chaos from the very beginning, then that doesn't really leave enough space for progression as the story goes along. And also, there is this 2-year time jump. I I think it was 2 years in order for this community to even survive that long. We need to instill some level of control. And so, as much as I hate season 5 just going, "Oh, the military put steel plates over the cracks. Nobody knows anything about the upside down. Everything is back to normal." As much as I don't like that, I I can understand the impulse. It would be very difficult to start a story with Hawkins already torn apart, especially because it would mean just being given so much exposition about what's changed. We'd need to be informed that previously offscreen all of these characters know about the demigorgans now that Ted and Wheeler know all about this stuff. And that feels like a kind of big character moment to not see play out for ourselves.

Realistically, I decided we keep the steel band-aids. However, I tried to make it less absolute. I prefer the metaphor that these cracks are a wound you just can't heal. That for 2 years, the military have been trying everything they can to cover them up. All sorts of different materials. But every time they slowly wear away until caving in and the wound reappears. Why they keep breaking apart, why they can't keep it plastered, I don't know that this is the kind of thing I didn't stop to think through. Is it this ash slowly melting through the steel? Is it something else about environmental pressure? I don't know what it is, but I like the idea it's keeping the military stumped and that they regularly have to replace the steel band-aids, if we're still calling them that. They regularly organize switchovers where all the Hawkins residents are forced to remain indoors until the switch is completed. Not only is that a metaphor about the wounds not healing, not only does it leave space for the military to fail here, but it would also aggravate the Hawkins residents to keep being shut away and curfews alongside the fact they can't even leave the town and the whole center of it has been turned into a military base. Basically, I want to feel the sense of civil unrest building up towards the military. Obviously, that is a point we're going to build up later on in the story. It's really weird in the show that nothing else escalates in Hawkins. civil unrest in my version will reach a boiling point.

Secondly, I really like the idea that to match the four gates, Vectna opened that the community is split as well into four very rough factions. Not actual factions because that would be stupidly precise, but just like four general loose types of reaction people have to these new living conditions. One being the religious extremism. Obviously, we saw it last season with Jason, but with his death, I think it's then obvious to bring in an actual priest character. Yes, I know we're adding even more characters. I I will address that point soon. But a Hawkins priest or something of the sort who was a good man or is, but has also been radicalized by the insanity of what's happened here. And I can kind of empathize with anyone stuck quarantined in a town where the floor appears to be an opening to hell, why they would become religiously extreme and why they might gain a lot of followers through that. So, we got that aspect of the town. We've then got what I've called the builders because working to rebuild homes is one good example of what they can be doing. A group of people who were just trying to be productive for Hawkins, who were trying to turn some of their anxiety and worry about the town into action, into something positive. those kind of people. I added a new character here as well called George who is a foreman for a construction company or something of the sort. Maybe just a volunteer construction company that are helping to try and rebuild all of the damage in Hawkins. Oh, hang on. I've just called him George Foreman, haven't I?

The third type in my notes, I literally just wrote the words nihilism, which is very vague. I thought of people who were just kind of enjoying the wildness of events in a half dissociated manner. That's not really nihilism, but there is a lot of space for people to be like that, to be getting drunk and celebrating like this is the end of the world. Eddie's uncle is going to appear a few little times in this script. I don't know if I'll really mention him much, but I think he kind of fits into that category now. And any other type of people are those trying to escape Hawkins to flee the quarantine. I didn't really get much space for the nihilists and the escapists to fit into this story. I mean, I I don't want to cramp everything out with even more stuff going on, but I do quite like the idea. And so, this is what Robin largely explains for us, that there is a quarantine, that there are band-aids, but they keep needing to be replaced. People don't like being shut indoors for the constant switchovers. People finds quarantine generally aggravating and the community feels fractured. And just Robin mentioning talk of the cracks being seen like an opening to hell. You can show images of the priest character preaching in mentioning a load of people trying to be productive for the town. You show George and others building homes and so on. Some random people attempting a full hard escape only to be caught by the military. You know, that's basically scene two. The rest of it is the same. The mention of a date with Vicki, the broadcast getting cut out, and then as a result, Steve radioing Dustin for help.

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So yeah, um Steve radios Dustin, but Dustin is it radio? It's walkie-talkie. I keep saying radio. Dustin is cold in response. He doesn't offer help like in the originals. Andy appears and threatens Dustin. The others save Dustin and then tell him he needs to keep a low profile. But we add in another like snapback from Dustin there to Mike saying that Mike's scheming with Murray isn't exactly him keeping a low profile. Who are you to talk kind of thing. And you'll see what this scheming is in a moment if you haven't already guessed. It's quite obvious.

Scene four. That same slightly odd moment of Sullivan and Acres trying to catch Elean only it's someone completely different. Then we cut to the real 11 training with Hopper and Joyce only it's Joyce holding the stopwatch for the assault course run because Hopper whilst he does train 11 he is also trying to teach others. Nancy and Jonathan are in this scene. They are practicing their shooting. Hopper is training them with weapons and teaching them survivalist stuff, all that kind of thing. And I don't know exactly what the visuals would look like here but what we would see is Nancy being hyperfocused. I mean of course she is. Let's not forget Nancy has been haunted by this vision Vecna gave her of her family dying. Not that we'd be shown a reminder of that yet, but it's just that as a whole has instilled this huge pressure in her. She deals with the fear by going into training mode. And Jonathan is with her. He's trying his best at the practice, but it's obvious this isn't his thing. And he's also half distracted. He keeps looking troubled about Nancy. Hopper has to push him a little bit. You know, I suppose I'm thinking that in the show as it is, they turn Nancy into something of a super soldier out of nowhere. And while I'm not going to go that far with her at all, I think we should at least build in some actual basis for that kind of idea. Not only just show her training, but zero in on why she's so hyperfocused, hyperdetermined on being as good as possible at that and getting to see what her state of mind might be as a result. And I will stress this again because I know I'll get comments criticizing this, but I am trying to work with the bones of the existing story. I personally would rather do something completely different with Nancy than turn her into a bit of a soldier. I don't think is ideal for what her character has been in the past. However, it's what season 5 does go for. There is some merit to it for how she's haunted by a vision of Ecna. So, if that's what it goes for, let's at least try and make it work. And we can say that for a lot of the changes I have made this video, I mean some of them I go bold and do something quite drastic, but a lot of the time I am attempting to preserve original scenes, original beats, and try to do it in a way that's more fulfilling. So do just keep that in mind. Nancy should be haunted by the vision of Vector, especially when it then comes true. And we don't really get that much space in the story to see her feelings.

Steve is the other thing I should mention this scene. Steve is meant to be there training as well, but he's often been late or sometimes not turned up at all. Often with various excuses. Jonathan asks what the time is, realizes Steve is late again, and then starts moaning about him. Thinks it's pointless how much time Steve spends pushing buttons for Robin. I mean, does she really need a belch sound effect for her broadcasts? That kind of thing. This is basically just another little thing to aggravate the rivalry between Steve and Jonathan in a more interesting way than the kind of tiresome just love triangle we get. I mean, that is still kind of there. Jonathan is a bit insecure about NY's relationship to Steve. He is keen to criticize Steve's lack of ethic as a result, but Jonathan also feels insecure that he's not better at the role he's been given here as a soldier, and that is also a reason he criticizes Steve. I'll talk about Steve's reluctance in a moment and why I've written that in. Um, the only other thing to mention about this scene now is that we will see visually from how Hopper is that he is not the same guy. Hopper previously spent God's knows how long in a Russian prison. He was malnourished. He was frozen, beaten, tortured. And okay, in season 4, Hopper was genuinely heroic to escape, but he was fueled by adrenaline and the deep desire to see Eleven and Joyce again. That motivation kind of preserved him at the time. But now that he's back home and they've had 2 years here sitting around in quarantine without even a whiff of Vcnner, I think this is plenty of time for Hopper to have a complete crash. Well, not a complete crash. He's not struggling with depression in my version, but he's also no longer the super soldier he was. And we can be pretty ambiguous about this. How much is physical damage he suffered? How much is psychological? We don't really need to explain it, but Hopper is a lot weaker. He gets tired often. He moves slower. He can still shoot and do all sorts. He's not massively handicapped, but the idea of sending him alone to do cruels nowadays to go on big skirmishes. It's not going to happen. I suppose if necessary, we can mention somewhere or rather that he did originally do some of the cruels, but not anymore. He wishes he could, but he just can't manage it. So, yeah, for the moment, we just visually see from how Hopper is that he's not the same.

And I suppose I should pivot into talking about why I made this change. Um, thematically I think it's important. A whole big theme this season half explores is our original group of kids now at an age where they're taking the reigns. They're the ones now looking out for the generation below them. You know, like instead of feebly using a slingshot against a demogorgan in season 1 and often needing people like Hopper or Joyce to save them or tell them what to do, now our group of kids are building massive traps and looking out for Holly and Derek and stuff. Stranger Things was always a coming of age story and in order that our kids have the space to feel like they are now coming of age as I think this season is trying to suggest our adult characters need to step back a bit as a result in order to open up room for them. Hence I decided Hopper being less capable nowadays. He still will have things to do but it will be other things elsewhere. Elsewhere so that he's not crowding out anyone else.

Anyway, the point was Jonathan is moaning about Steve and then out of it, Steve walkietalkies them, saying he couldn't get help from Dustin. Does Nancy have any idea where the manual is? Kind of appearing to them like a pestering child. Jonathan thinks this bolsters his point. He thinks they should just turn the walkie-talkie off, but to his surprise, Nancy responds saying she will come to the squawk, that Murray should be arriving there soon anyway.

Scene five, we see Murray entering the town with his truck just the same.

Scene six appears to be blank in my notes, so I don't know if that's a typo, if I accidentally deleted entire scene here. Who knows?

Scene seven, Nancy and Jonathan now arrive at the squawk in a car that seems to be on its last legs. It keeps almost breaking down. It adds to NY's general annoyance. She's not really expressing anger here. She's trying to keep a lid in things, but just about everything in general. There's so much stress going on inside her mind. Jonathan is the one who berates Steve. Nancy just belines to finding the manual. gives it to Steve. Steve goes and climbs the tower. And then Murray arrives. Murray has his supplies, but he also runs on about a plan he has for how to smuggle the Wheelers out of Hawkins, filling Nancy in about this. And it's obvious this is Mike, who has been scheming with Murray, and it annoys Nancy. She shuts the idea down. They're not smuggling Holly, Ted, and Karen out of Hawkins. She's not risking her family ending up in military detention if they get caught. Plus, how do they even explain it to Teds and Karen and Holly without scaring them? How do they explain why Nancy and Mike are staying behind in Hawkins, not going with them? Where did a Wheelers even go? They can't take the house with them. It's a ridiculous idea. It is a ridiculous idea in a lot of ways. Nancy thinks the way to keep the family safe is to end this, to find and kill Vecnner. That should be everybody's sole focus. So, Mari should stick to smuggling supplies in, not people out. And Murray can be a bit takenback by how snappy Nancy is at him, but he then tells them there's a burn happening tonight. And yeah, I like the contrast there between Nancy and Mike. Mike reflecting a bit more of the flight response to the danger where Nancy is fight. I mean, it's not entirely flight because it's not like Mike's leaving himself, but you know, it's a nice contrast of how they feel about their family. And it's a nice way to emphasize NY's level of stress and level of focus on just killing Vecna.

Scene eight is the same school lunch scene. There's the bit of friction with Dustin and then Robin radios to tell them about the crawl to which we cut between both of their planning scenes. Nancy showing stuff on the projector, Mike exploring it on the picnic bench. All the same stuff. Will has his vision of the spinning clouds. The only addition I've made is around the line Steve has where he suggests none of this is necessary. They shot Vecna already. They've done tons of these crawls now and they've never seen any trace of him. Maybe he's already dead and they should move on. He already says that line in the original. I'm just going to try and build a bit more out of it because this is of course what's going on with Steve. I've made Steve generally a lot more reluctant because he feels this is already over. They've already killed Vecner. There's nothing else to do. Steve isn't entirely sure why he's even here. And yeah, why is he still here? We've never met his parents, so they're not really character motivation. He's not got a clear skill for the group anymore. I mean, I suppose he drives a car. He can kind of fight, but that's not really as important as shooting, and Nancy and Jonathan are more determined at the soldiering stuff than he is this season. I think that makes sense to do because they're in a relationship. Steve feels kind of like a third wheel around them. So, for a long time, I've just felt that Steve has kind of outgrown Hawkins as a character. He always wanted to find a girlfriend, but he's kind of dated most people in Hawkins already, and none of them were right. Why is it after the Starcot was destroyed in season 3 that Steve didn't just try moving to a city, try starting a fresh new people? What is it that has been tying him to Hawkins this whole time? And in a lot of ways, I don't know, but I think we can at least make an arc out of that idea. So, at this beginning point, slightly selfishly, Steve is reluctant to be here. After almost 2 years in quarantine, he is kind of regretting that he never left town ages ago. He stayed because Hawkins was his home and because he thought he was needed and because he cares about the people. But the one person he thought really needed him was his best friend Dustin. And as we see at the start of this season, he's been pushing Steve away. So Steve just feels like a spare part now. He's literally pressing buttons for Robin. The only thing he's given to do makes him feel like more of a third wheel. So, that's basically what we're doing with Steve before he will later come to realize not only that Dustin does still need him deep down via that very moving scene where Steve almost dies on a ladder and Dustin tells him he can't lose him, but also Steve realizing he hasn't outgrown Hawkins in the end, that he loves this town. He loves the people. He had almost forgotten that, but he doesn't want to leave. He ultimately ends the epilogue pretty much the same in my version. and he becomes a coach, although maybe a basketball coach because that's the sport he's known for. That's Steve in a nutshell. But yeah, Steve raises that objection about the plan. Nancy disagrees, giving us space for a reminder of this vision gave her last season about her family dying.

Scene 10, Holly sees Mr. Watsit. Yep.

Scene 11, a scene that basically just introduces Dr. K as she tells Acres, "Find the girl. Go find the girl." I tried to add something a little more here basically to try and paper over a plot hole, but it's it's very very tenuous of me to the point it might be better just not having this at all. The plot hole being if they're so keen to find 11, why haven't they put any of her known associates under surveillance? If they had, they would have realized immediately she's still in Hawkins. You know, why not take Mike in for questioning? So, I thought maybe as a weak explanation, Acres could try suggesting Dr. K gives them more resources for surveillance again. Like this was something they had been doing. And Dr. K scoffs at this. She points out they had the Wheeler House under surveillance for months, that those parents know absolutely nothing. That they did track Mike at the time and it was to no success. Dr. K thinks it's a waste of good soldiers. When in her opinion, L is obviously not going to be in Hawkins. Dr. K, like Sullivan, thinks L is the evil villain. She opens the cracks to the upside down. Therefore, if 11 is anywhere in Dr. K's opinion, it will be in the upside down or whatever word it is the military call the upside down. You know, why would a girl with telepathy who can just speak into Mike's mind? Why would she be stupid enough to visit her friends in person? So, Dr. K tells them to focus their search on the upside down instead and thinks that if they can find where all these demogorgans have gotten to, they hint that they've not been seeing them in the upside down recently, that's where they'll find 11. Dr. K instructs Acres and his men to join in the burn tonight. It's kind of an explanation. I mean, it leaves Eleven looking stupid for literally hanging out in Hawkins, but let's move on.

Eleven argues with Hopper because she wants to go on the cruel. Pretty much the same scene as before, but oh, I forgot to explain this earlier. Um, Nancy and Jonathan are doing the cruel. Steve sometimes does. They sort of rotate between two of the three each time. Eleven doesn't get why Hopper trusts them to go on the cru and not her. to which Hopper points out first it's because the military aren't looking for Nancy and Jonathan. If L gets seen or even worse caught it could be catastrophic. Right now the military stops their surveillance and think 11 is outside of Hawkins. That's useful. We don't want to jeopardize that. Secondly, there's nothing to find yet. The crawls have been empty and safe and totally devoid of any danger for ages now. that makes it simple enough for Nancy and Jonathan and not worth sending Eleven their best asset in until they know they've found something. That's the version of the argument I have. And then that scene ends with Hopper and Joyce talking and I want to use that scene to discuss how old and past it they're both starting to feel. A little exposition explaining Hopper's physical state nowadays and he can say something along the lines of remember how hard we once fought to find Will. Now what are we doing? Soon enough the kids won't even listen to us anymore. Joyce doesn't think that's true. Thinks they will always listen. But Hopper is less sure. Just something along the lines of bringing in that theme a little bit more about them being a bit aged and pasted and having to step back for the new generation.

Scene 13, Andy finds a snake in his locker. I I think I've seem to have missed out the scene where Dustin collects the snake. I don't know where that happens before, but it should happen.

Scene 14, Mike comes to collect Holly from school, but she is waiting outside the room while her parents talk to the teacher about the Mr. the what's it stuff. My change is that when Mike arrives, he goes into the room wanting to speak to them. Ted peels away from the conversation with the teacher to talk in private to Mike where he once again suggests that they leave Hawkins that Holly is clearly scared here. They should get away. Mike teeters on the edge of explaining everything, hints he knows more about what's going on, but Ted shuts him down. Ted doesn't even hear that bit. Ted's displays his extraordinary ability to not listen and to disconnect from people. And then we can have an expression from Mike suggesting it hurts to realize how distant he is to his parents, how little they've ever understood him. As a result of the hurt of this, he gives up trying to explain. Comes out of the room dejected now, but tries perking up in front of Holly where we then get all the same conversation as before.

Scene 15, Will and Lucas visit Max in hospital. I've added a bit beforehand where we see them on the way to the hospital. There appears to be a few people handing out leaflets by the entrance where they see Max's mom who is on her way out of the hospital talking to someone, taking a leaflets and then moving on. Yeah, I wanted Max's mom to at least be present this season. Um, but yeah, as they get nearer, they realize these people with the leaflets are from the church. Or if it's not the actual church and the actual priest, then we could just make it some guy forming his own sex as a radical reaction to the hairless cracks in the floor. Like I think religious figures becoming radical in this environment makes sense, but I wouldn't want it to seem like this is a criticism of Christianity as a whole. Either way, Will and Lucas go to walk past, but one of these church people calls out Will. And so Will turns and there's this bloke of a similar age that he's never seen before. So he asks, "Do I know you?" The guy explains, "No, he's Joshua. He only came to Hawkins to visit his cousin or his grandparents or something, but he got stuck in quarantine as a result of being here." And so Will asks how he knows his name and he kind of sheepishly says he read about the zombie boy. Then he apologizes for saying that, becomes awkward, goes to hand Will a leaflet, but Lucas says no. Lucas says all of this over-the-top religious stuff is half the reason they have to visit the hospital in the first place. And so they walk on, but Will feels less strongly than Lucas there and glances back to Joshua as they leave. Yeah, Jason and his total refusal to listen to Lucas last season. His insistence Max was being possessed by Satan. Exactly why she lost the music that would have kept her safe from Vecnner. So Lucas holding a grudge, not necessarily against religion as a whole, but against the extreme aspects we see in Hawkins. Now, I think that makes sense. In terms of Joshua, there's not actually that much to say. He's going to become someone Christian who is taken in by the extremism at first, but then increasingly becomes disillusioned as things spiral out of control. And it's Will who helps him see the cuts in the floor, the military base, that none of this is actually to do with hell. This is something else, but never mind that for now.

Scene 16, Dustin gets attacked by Andy.

And scene 17, Mike and Eleven have their conversation on the roof of the squawk. In the original, they talk about when this is all over, what happens next? we'll find somewhere with free waterfalls. Um, okay. I'm going to have to make a big tangent now. I don't like Eleven dying at the end of the season. It brings us right back to how season 1 ended, where Mike was wishfully hoping Eleven could just live in his basement forever, but of course, she couldn't. Eleven had been alone and traumatized and just screaming out for the kind of parental support Joyce and Hopper give glimpses of. But then tragically the season ends with her having to sacrifice herself to save the others which made sense as a tragedy there. But when the show continues on with season 2 3 4 all greater attempts for Eleven to carve out a life to get to be a kid and then an adult to get to live and belong to teach us that we aren't doomed to our trauma and just because someone is different doesn't mean they can't belong. You know fitting in and belonging are two different ideas. So to watch Eleven get slowly closer and closer to that only to just be forced to die at the very end for a very contrived reason doesn't sit right with me at all. It says she can't belong. She can't move past her trauma. And I hate that message. And even if you believe she survived, which honestly I find a little bit insulting how massive a fake out death that is and how contrived it is that she can't even tell them she's okay. You know, it feels to me more like they decided an ambiguous death was just an easier way to wrap things up than a more meaningful ending. And also that argument that Duffer brothers make about this as well, that 11 is like ET or all sorts of other magical figures who represent aspects of childhoods that then have to die or leave to represent the other characters growing up. I mean, that sounds great as an explanation in principle, but the problem is Eleven hasn't just been a magical motif for like the last four seasons. She's been a fully fleshed out character with backstory and growth. She has been our main character for a lot of it, not just a sidekick who represents something for the main characters. So, that idea doesn't work in my opinion. You can't turn this well-developed human into an inhuman metaphor at the very end just because it's simpler. But, I digress. Um, even if you believe Lle survived, it's still a very pessimistic ending that she has to isolate herself away from everything and everyone she's ever loved. And in my opinion, it's doubly pessimistic because there's no concept of what her life is anymore. She gets to see a beautiful landmark. Great. But who are you 11? What do you actually want to do with your life? the waterfall at the end appears as just a rosy veneer of a happy ending without any actual substance or genuine fulfillment for where she goes now. And so I I think that is a really good question that the story never explores. What does Eleven want to do with her life after Vecnner? And I understand not exploring at the moment because it's hard to think beyond that when there's such a big pressure to fight Beckner right now. But yes, still raise the question, what does she want to do with her life? As a result, the conversation I have here between them is different. I imagined Mike could talk about the day he's just had at school, the trouble with Dustin or Holly, or better yet, just a fun anecdote. Something rather amusing that happened that he thinks will amuse 11. But her mind is on bigger things. And then when he asks her what her day was like, Eleven has nothing much to say because it's the exact

same thing she does every day. She trains. She can say she hit her target on the assault course, but that's about all she can say, and it leaves a bit of an awkward silence.

Eleven, quite similar to Nancy, is haunted and daunted by the extreme pressure on her shoulders. When she last fought Vecner, she fails to save Max and to save the town. She is afraid of failing again. We don't need to say that, but just in having Eleven appear more serious and more withdrawn. It should be obvious. And in how Mike tries to amuse her, looks at her funny when it doesn't work, it can be obvious he is troubled by this. Thinks Eleven is taking on too much pressure and it's clearly also affecting their relationship a little bit.

So that all happens and then Mike tries another attempt of cheering her up by mentioning how Vecna is going to get obliterated by her, kind of reassuring her of that fact. And then 11 asks what happens after that. And whilst I do kind of like the free waterfall idea, I'm going a different route here. I think Mike ends up suggesting 11 becomes a cop and she's like, "What?" But Mike says she'd be great at it. Not only has she probably learned loads of cop things from Hopper, but she can see into people's minds. She could find criminals easily. But he's being deliberately over the top here in a way to try and make her smile, try to cheer her up, and this time he half succeeds. She cracks a bit of a smirk at the idea of cop things. However, she also doesn't like this suggestion at all. Being a cop is the last thing she wants to be. And we end that scene with Eleven not knowing what she wants instead. Eleven doesn't know what she wants with her life.

Scene 18. They're now all preparing for the cruel, but Dustin still isn't there. Like in the original, who can now operate the telemetry tracker instead of him. Joyce suggests Jonathan pushes him a bit more than in the original because Joyce doesn't particularly like the idea of her son going on the cruel. And the thing here is that Jonathan can hesitate. He doesn't immediately say, "No, I want to stay with Nancy." He hesitates, which annoys Nancy to the point she does the whole it's fine, I'll go on my own type thing. You know, making the decision before anyone else can, that kind of defense. And it's clearly not fine, but she insists it is. Says it's not like they're checking out a dangerous zone anyway. Steve offers to go with her, but she again says no and makes some snappy remark about Steve needing help finding a manual or or something of the sort. The point is Nancy goes alone and we have a hint that maybe Jonathan either doesn't like going on the cruel or isn't as keen to be around Nancy as he feels he should be.

Scene 19, Ted and Karen are arguing about Holly while she listens in and cries.

Scene 20, the cruel happens. They have their plan to get Nancy inside. Everything there is the same, except Mike isn't in the sniper tower in my version. For reasons you'll see, he needs to be with the other group. Hopper is then in the tower instead with Lucas, which isn't an ideal pairing in a lot of ways. I I liked the joke in the original Lucas makes with Mike about snipers chewing gum. I don't think you can do that as well with Hopper, unless we make a bit more out of that kind of subtle idea that Lucas wants to be a soldier. We're going to make that more the case this season in general for reasons you will see later on. Lucas wants Hopper to train him alongside Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve. Lucas wants to handle a gun. And I think as a result of that context, we can have a bit here of Lucas playing up being like a sniper while in Hopper's presence as a result. I think you could get a little bit of decent comedy out of that. But anyway, the crawl goes wrong. All the military vehicles get attacked by demogorgans. They lose contact with Nancy and now she is stuck in the upside down entirely on her own, which is the other side of the coin really. As much as characters like Hopper step back to make room for the younger generation to take charge, the younger generation might not feel fully prepared and fully capable, I think this scenario would be more terrifying for Nancy to be in than it is for Hopper in the original. Suddenly, we've got the fear of what if I haven't trained enough.

Scene 21. Will has his vision about Holly in the middle of this demogorgan scene. And the episode ends with Mike and Eleven taking off on bikes for the Wheeler's house. Oh god, we've got to save Holly. And yeah, you might notice this isn't quite ideal because Nancy is in the upside down. She can't be the one who goes to find Karen in episode 2. I think it should then be Mike instead, which means Mike has to swap places with Hopper in the sniper tower. So Mike is with Eleven, but then neither Mike or Eleven can drive, so they have to go on bikes instead, unless Joyce drives them. But we need Joyce to stay where she is for the scenes with Will in episodes 2. Logistically, I've created a bit of a problem for myself there. The best thought I had was Joyce tries to drive, but she can't get the car to work. It's that same car we saw earlier that was having trouble break.

In terms of what I think it is of this so far, I think it works all right. I haven't really changed very much at all. And what I have changed is setup for stuff in later episodes, so there isn't much to kind of evaluate at the moment. I've created more room for Nancy and Hopper, doing something that could be controversial, but it does create more room for them. I've added weight to how Mike will feel when Ted dies. And I've added more weight to how Jonathan feels now Nancy is stuck in the upside down when he didn't go with her. Minor changes, but I think they help with space for characters and weight to the events, which is exactly what the show has most been lacking.

Okay, it's at this point I realize the video will be far far too long if we go through every episode in that much depth. I'm not I'm not going to explain every scene from now on, just the kind of key points of each episode. And hopefully you will remember from the original scenes enough of the other things that happened to provide context. And if you haven't watched the show and you're just watching this for some some other reason, then I don't know. Hopefully, you can still piece together enough context.

Also, it's worth addressing a couple of possible problems you might see popping up now. Firstly, I said earlier that one of the issues with this show was that there are too many characters, meaning nobody has quite enough room to really breathe. And then I have gone and added more characters into the show. A priest of some kind. Joshua, George, the foreman. I I think there's probably others that might appear too. I I forget who. And yeah, it's not ideal in a lot of ways. The first thing to say here is I can't remove any of the characters. Everyone from season 4 is stuck here in quarantine. And it would be a bit contrived to just explain at the beginning, oh, Robin left town. Yeah, she escaped. Murray smuggled her out or whatever. You know, Steve died of illness. I can't really remove anyone without having characters die. And it's not really until later episodes where that can start to happen. That does make it tricky to solve this problem for those early episodes. But of the characters I've added, they're all minor characters, and they're ones who aren't taking up much space at all really. They're kind of doing the opposite. Well, I mean, they're taking up run time. I suspect my version of the story would be a longer run time than the original, but I don't think that's too much of an issue. And I don't actually think my episodes would work out that much longer overall. Anyway, there there wasn't a lot I was cutting from episode 1, but there are things I cut in other episodes. I mean, I tried to cut pretty much most of the extensive kind of unnecessary planning scenes we get all of the time this season. So adding characters may inflate the runtime, but space-wise, I don't think it's as an issue. I I think what they're doing is providing more room for the main characters to be elsewhere to interact in other ways. Instead of all the main characters being clustered together in the middle, all standing around in the same scene, unable to say much because there's so many people, now we can spread them out into different places much better where more personal or unique things can go on between them, as we will see some of. I couldn't spread everyone out too much because you'd then need to be juggling too many plot lines, but you can definitely do it a bit. And the second thing I meant to say, I actually kind of already said the second thing there, that the runtime might be a bit more, but I don't think drastically more.

Anyway, episode two begins with the same Holly and Karen fleeing the demogorgan bit. I think I might make Karen a bit less successful fighting back a creature with just a broken bottle because it lessens the threat of these creatures, but have the same basic scene, only it's Mike and Eleven who arrive at the house now, not Nancy and Eleven. They see the portal out. Mike is a bit torn between going with Eleven and staying with his mom. The portal is closing though, so Eleven can't really delay. She goes, and then after the opening credits, it's the same hospital scene, but now no Nancy, obviously, just Mike and Lucas. And in the original here, Nancy is angry at herself because they never told their parents about the upside down. She says, "Veckna gave me this vision of them dying. Why did we never tell them? Why did we never warn them?" And it's a good question. Why didn't they? That question is one of the reasons I wrote in this bit about Mike trying to convince Teds to leave, skirting around the edges of telling them only Ted's is too dismissive. And it does bother me. None of the previous seasons except season 1 ever really explored how little Teds and Karen understand their son, how lacking the communication is between them. There isn't space to particularly explore that here, but we can at least make something tragic out of it because after failing to talk to Ted in previous seasons, Ted then gets attacked and in my version killed by a demogorgan, Ted does get to the hospital but then dies and Mike is left feeling I should have told him. I should have pushed the idea more when I had the chance. None of this would have happened if not for me, which isn't entirely fair, but it's good character weight. We've immediately added more impact to this disastrous event. Mike comes away with a level of guilt.

The next scene is Hopper outside the Wheeler's house, still arguing with the police. Yes, the police have arrived. I don't actually know how they know about the attack. These are the kind of things I didn't consider, but I would guess an ambulance must have been called by Mike and maybe the police would find out, too. It doesn't matter. I mean, it matters to the story, but it it doesn't matter enough to a video like this to waste time discussing that kind of issue. The point is Hopper is arguing with the police chief from season 4, the one who was underneath Hopper when he was sheriff in season 3, 2, and one. Hopper is now trying to tell him that this isn't a normal attack here. the damage to the house, the giant claw marks that were on Karen. Don't stir up the town by going door to door chasing suspects who have nothing to do with it. The town's already a bit of a powder keg. Try to keep this a bit more under your hat. But saying this at all immediately makes Hopper look suspicious. The chief asks him if he knows something here, and Hopper doesn't respond. The chief says he's heard all sorts of rumors about a Russian girl in Hawkins. He says Hopper has always been very vague on where he went for all that time that people thought he was dead. presses that a bit, but again, Hopper says nothing. The chief tells Hopper he's not the sheriff anymore. He's not even a serving officer. He has no authority in Hawkins. He's just a broken old man that nobody listens to or that kind of thing. The sheriff obviously feels a little bit defensive and undermined at the idea of Hopper coming along telling him what to do. And yeah, we are cementing the idea of Hopper being too old, having to pass the baton onto Mike and Nancy and everybody else. We do often get this kind of trope in fiction about old washed up heroes who have turned bitter and cynical and depressed. And whilst I do like that trope, it would be nice to do a version where Hopper isn't bitter and depressed. He does hate that he can't do more. He does feel a bit useless and helpless, but he still at least has a good relationship with Joyce and Elean and feels okay.

Anyway, the military then arrive. Hopper doesn't want them to see him, so he quickly leaves and the military sweep the police away from the crime scene. They take over. We cut to Sullivan entering and seeing the clues and thinking this is evidence of 11 being here. And what we've now got in the upside down is Nancy and Eleven instead of Hopper and 11. And I imagine a lot of people won't like this change because Hopper and Eleven do have some good heartfelt scenes in the original. I do feel bad cutting them out that that's the kind of thing I didn't want to do with this script. I'd even halfway through this stream of notes, I started to doubt this change altogether. started to wonder if perhaps on a second's draft I would make this Hopper again. However, here's three points against the idea. One, yes, Hopper can get to talk a lot about feeling a bit in the past in those original scenes, like he's passing things on to 11. He's older, he gets wounded, he's slower. That's all true, but he is also still a brilliant soldier all throughout this season, which does kind of undermine that idea. And this all culminates in episode 4 with him planning to blow himself up, which is an incredibly depressing storyline that might work in a lot of instances. I mean, I think it's pretty well done. I'm not exactly criticizing it, but when we don't get proper space in the story to repair the rift this causes between them afterwards, is it worth it? Is it also too big a contrast from the man who fought like hell, who gave everything in Russia just to see 11 again? But to go from that to now just because he's not needed as much as he once was, he should blow himself up. He doesn't think he can have a fulfilling life independent of her. I don't like it. I think Nancy, who is a character that barely gets any character space in the original, sending her in instead does open up some space for her where Hopper can easily get space in other ways. As the ex sheriff, he is the obvious person to send in the community for all the Hawkins related plot lines, including this now tety relationship with the current sheriff. This awkwards dynamic where Hopper is his ex- boss and that makes him feel undermined in his authority. Hopper can have more space in Hawkins. Nancy can have room in the upside down. Plus, it informs that theme about the aging people moving back. That was my rationale.

And so, what actually happens? Um, well, Nancy and Eleven find each other in the upside down. Obviously, Nancy is confused to see L, who then explains about her and Holly and her parents. I don't think we need to see the explanation. I think we can kind of cut on a look of Eleven seeming troubled, Nancy asking her what's wrong, what's she doing here, and then a bit of a look of recognition on her face type thing. The next scene we get a little bit later on into the episode is Nancy seeming even more hyperdetermined now. She is angry at Eleven for not being able to find Holly in her mind. She is incredibly stressed and high-rung because obviously it all feels like Vecner's vision coming true. And so she's storming ahead in a bit of a stress. Eleven is trying to tell Nancy to slow down. They have to be careful. That kind of thing, which Nancy takes badly because it aggravates her fear. So she insists she's not afraid. Insists that she's hardly going to leave Eleven to save her sister because no doubt you'll do as great a job as you did saving Barb. I think that could be a nice kind of emotional punch in the scene, but then they find a blood trail and they now have a direction to go in.

I think we also need to change the environment of the upside down a bit. I think it's too empty in season 5, too lacking in fear for plot convenience of all the many scenes where people talk in the upside down and have to traverse this landscape. I understand removing the fear, but I think you can have the best of both. I think you make it that there are areas of the upside down that have kind of been chartered out by the military. They've built roads or rebuilt the existing roads. They've set up tons of lights. Areas of the upside down now feel safe and open and pretty well lit. But then there are still uncharted areas where everything is very dark. And whilst the demogorgans had been missing for a long time for reasons the characters don't yet know, now they have clearly appeared again. And so I think we should maintain that sense of threat. I think we should continue to hear just noises of them in the distance or there's sometimes movement nearby and characters have to freeze or quiet themselves every now and again. Potentially a few scenes where 11 and Nancy do fight a demogorgan. Upping the sense of threat in the upside down I think helps lead Nancy to a point where her anger finally gives way to the vulnerability underneath. I think this can really kind of make her crack and open up with Eleven. She can then apologize for what she said about Barb. admits she's just scared. She's supposed to be a journalist, not a soldier. She's tried her best to learn, but is she strong enough for this? She wishes Jonathan had come with her. And Eleven in return wishes Hopper was here. Says he had always seemed so indestructible, but he didn't come home from Russia the same. Is Eleven strong enough on her own as well? You know, we can just have them bond over this kind of feeling basically. And then eventually they reach the wall by the end of the episode and that's why Eleven can't find Holly in her mind. She must be behind the wall. Those are the scenes that happen with them this episode.

What else happens this episode? Yeah. After the police scene, Hopper goes to the hospital. We get that scene in the original where Lucas then goes and visits Max while they're there and Mike and Nancy discuss Mr. Watsit. In my version, Hopper finds Mike in the hospital and tells him that word could spread about this attack that there's a chance people might feel it's the season 4 murders starting up again. So Mike and his friends need to be careful. People can link them to the Hellfire Club. This could become dangerous. Mike isn't too much listening to that at the moment because he's seen this copy of A Wrinkle in Time. He's thinking that through in his brain. Hopper takes a moment to reassure him his mom's going to be fine. But Mike points out that his dad isn't. Ted has died at this point. And he says Holly isn't fine. And what about Eleven? They're not fine. To which Hopper can kind of reassure him that Eleven can handle herself. You know that, Mike. Hopper has known a day was coming where she would charge off into battle without him. Hopper says, kind of speaking about himself now, that waiting around like this sucks. And it makes you feel helpless not doing more, but that it's okay. 11 will get Holly. And then appreciating these words of reassurance, Mike decides to mention Mr. What's it to Hopper? And we have that conversation there. I think most other things this episode happened the same. In the original, Steve and Jonathan have an argument about Nancy that we can now repurpose into something slightly less straightforward if, say, Jonathan, now worried about Nancy and feeling guilty that he didn't go with her, is keen to find a way into the upside down himself. I think it's good giving Jonathan this character beat here. Some actual guilt about not going with Nancy earlier, hesitating when he did. Steve, however, thinks they should stick to the plan. They should fix the tracker and try to make radio contact with her. Jonathan feeling a bit anxious accuses Steve of only saying that because he's so reluctant. He never wants to get involved. And Steve accuses Jonathan of being a hypocrite because why didn't he go with Nancy earlier then is it's just that deep down he doesn't want to be with her. An argument along those lines and then there's that later argument Steve has with Dustin that can include in my version now Steve mentioning he almost left Hawkins after the Starourt burns down that he doesn't really know what he's still doing here. I was dumb enough to stick around thinking people like you might need looking out for Henderson. That kind of point that hints Steve wants to feel needed, but Dustin can respond that Steve should have left. I do quite like their argument in the original, but I think this adds a bit more weight to it. Again, I feel happy with this. I wrote it all yesterday, so I don't have enough perspective to properly evaluate. And it's worth stressing this again as well. There are so many more things you could do if I were completely rewriting everything. But that's not what this exercise is. You know, I'd personally rather have Jonathan spending more time with Will than he does with Steve, but getting that to work means changing a ton of things. You haven't even seen half the problems I've caused myself just by swapping Nancy and Hopper yet. As it is though, I I think I've added a good amount of conflict. In a way, I'm reluctant to do that because one of the nice things about season 5 is how much more of a united team they all feel. Like the gang has had experience with this stuff now, and they are a welloiled unit. But that is also part of what I think makes a lot of the episodes feel flat and repetitive. What I'm trying to do is take the idea that they are a welloiled unit in episode one, but then Holly being taken and Nancy getting stuck just completely rocks everything. And the kind of conflicts that were previously buried or at least just kept to a small level of moaning suddenly rise to the surface. Like getting to see Nancy actually break a little I think is a beast the original is really really missing because we see her snappy there and Jonathan explains to us it's because her parents have been attacked obviously but being told that and actually seeing the vulnerability laid bare are two different things.

Let's discuss episode 3. Episode three is the episode where they realize Derek is going to be taken and they rig up their home alone scheme to save him. An absolutely ridiculous scheme and I can imagine a lot of people hate it, but I'm fine with this. I don't mind the idea. The show has been a bit silly ever since season 3. And while you don't want to go too far with the silliness, it's not necessarily a problem. As ever, I'm trying to keep as much of the original as I can. So, we do preserve this same story line here. I mean, you could obviously do that actual Home Alone scene in a way that's slightly less ridiculous, but those aren't really the Manu show we're discussing in this kind of video.

Scene one, this episode opens with George. He is working on a construction site. Lucas is there, who has often volunteered to help, and George suggests he has a bit of an act for this, that he could go into a career in construction if he wanted, but Lucas says he has other interests and glances in the direction of the Maxie or a passing helicopter or something that suggests the military. I prefer the idea that it's not actually why he's glancing at them right now, but it prompts George to say that he can't think of anything worse, worse than a career in a military. And George starts grumbling about how difficult it is to get the necessary materials in to rebuild homes because of the quarantine that the military doesn't help at all. However, they're always bringing in more steel for their giant band-aids that they need to keep replacing or more materials to build up their ugly Maxi base. George says the military might say they're here for the town safety, but he's got the feeling there's something else going on. After this, they see a commotion brewing across the streets, people shouting about another attack, that Eddie Mson must be terrorizing the town again. Lucas looks worried. Um, I am, of course, just trying to involve the worlds a bit more. I like the idea that the four main kids each had some connection to the four factions of this town. Lucas with the builders. Dustin reflects the nihilists. Mike is the escapists. And Will forms a connection with Joshua from the church. And again, obviously, these aren't actually factions. That would be ridiculous. But it just gives each of these kids a bit of space and an outlet to express something of their characters within the world.

Anyway, to follow where this plot thread goes for the rest of the episode, scene five is Lucas entering the town hall following this commotion. And there's now a big argument taking place with the police chief and the priest talking about whether or not the Wheeler's attack is Eddie Mson back. The police of course saying no and trying to calm all this hysteria while other people are saying they know about the massive claw-like wounds Karen has. That only a beast from hell could inflict such wounds that the military took over the scene. Nat suggests something more etc etc you know just to hint a little bit of tension rising Luke sees Hopper in the crowd listening to all of this and he asks him why doesn't he say anything but Hopper says what what can he say to which we have a very vague incredibly faint arc for Hopper here around the idea of staying silent. He was silent before with the police chief. He's silent now. He's not wanting to involve himself too much in the town. He's more reclusive after Russia. It's awkward when people ask questions about where he went. It's easier to stay away from that. But the ark is basically him becoming more involved again later on. He may not be capable for so much soldiering stuff nowadays, but he was also a leader. He was a police chief. He can be involved as a leader in the community. That's the loose idea. And the other scene that happens near the end of the episode is scene 19. We just see a church service being given by the priest. He's talking something or other about ridding sin from the community. And we splice that with shots of the Debbie Gorgon scene ramping up where it's like slowly approaching Derek's home, cutting back and forth between that to build tension before it bursts in.

What else have I tweaked this episode? Um Derek in scene four, Derek is sitting in class before he sees Mr. Watsit. I like this moment in the original, particularly the fact Derek is playing entirely on his own. But I think it's worth emphasizing that point a bit better because this is what the whole Derek, everyone finding him annoying, partly boils down to, that Derek feels very lonely and isn't used to people believing in him or taking an interest in him. So I think just have Derek look across the tables at everyone else playing together in groups, having a good time. Derek looks sad to see it and then he sees Mr. Watsit behind him. I think that's better emphasizes his vulnerability to Henry and the threats of people like Henry in a community in general. You know, if a child feels isolated and lonely and uncared for, they are more vulnerable.

Nancy and 11. This is the episode where Hopper saves Eleven from what I think are called hedgehogs. These transmitter things that immobilize her. Hopper saves her by blowing them all up and then they interrogate Acres to learn that at least as they believe Henry is being held in this upside down military base. Mostly I've kept this the same only it's Nancy. Nancy of course has never shot anyone before. So we can up the panic and the desperation in this scene that leads to her throwing grenades to save them. And then afterwards she feels shaken up because she has now killed people. The scene ends with her staring at the bodies. And then the later scene, which I think is scene 10, Sullivan arrives at the wall and basically gets his troops to spread out searching for whoever did this. Nancy and Eleven are hiding undercover. They see the search lights in the distance. Nancy still feels bad for killing them. She's still a bit shaken up. She worries she's made things worse now, and she regrets not scavenging their guns and ammo after the fight. She used up all of hers. Hopper always stressed the need to be conservative with ammo, but she got a bit panicked and used it all. Eleven can see she's still shaken. Tries to reassure her that it was necessary and then thanks her. Nancy saved their lives. As shaken as Nancy might feel, this is also encouragement for her that she can be strong enough. She saved Eleven's life. Then they hear Acres waking up. So scene 15 is interrogating Acres. Nancy isn't a convincing interrogator like Hopper was. Acres can kind of mock her for that. However, Nancy is a good investigative journalist, so it would be nice to see her sus something out about Acres with a level of wit before Eleven then worms her way into his mind. And there are various possibilities for how that could work and for how the setup to this scene could work, but that's quite a minor point that happens. Eleven learns about the base and about Dr. K, and she suggests to Nancy that that's where she thinks Henry is.

Holly. I wanted to give Holly more runtime this episode so her story can actually hit character beats. Originally, it's that she's with Henry and he leaves her this gift in a letter box. Says he's going to be gone all day, but do not enter the woods. And then her next scene is dancing around the house until there's this knock on the door and she discovers a letter supposedly from Henry, but actually written by Max telling her to go into the woods. And then the third scene is a short scene of her thinking about whether or not she should enter the woods before deciding to because of the note. You know, Holly doesn't really have any agency here or any space to express much feeling. This plot just sweeps her along. So, I've spread it out a bit more and tried to give her more activeness. What's the word I'm forgetting there? But the same first scene, Henry leaves her. Do not enter the woods. Same second scene, Holly dances around the house, has a bit of fun. There's a montage of her doing different things. But as the montage comes to a close, we see Holly now looks a bit bored. She's run out of things to do all alone in this giant house. The scene ends with her waiting at the top of the stairs, staring at the door for Henry to return. And the third scene is Holly even more bored. She hears a noise outside and thinks it might be Henry. So, she rushes out to greet him, but there's no one there. Just the ominous sway of the trees that kind of beckon her forwards. Holly walks to the edge of the woods and calls out hello, but no one answers. She is tempted to enter the woods, but then at the last moment changes her mind, goes back to the house. The fourth scene is Holly really, really bored, now deciding to enter Henry's room, where she finds the cape and the spy glass. But then all I've written in the notes is she finds something that makes her doubt Henry. I don't know what that is. Potentially that image child Henry drew of the mind flare. And whilst Holly doesn't know about the mind flare, it creeps her out. potentially that old news article about Victor Creel where she sees the name Henry or potentially just something that gives her a flash reminder of her capture, a flash image of where she actually is at the moment with these vines, something of the sort. She is scared by whatever she sees. And then she hears a knock on the front door, so she hurries out of Henry's room. When no one comes in the front door, she cautiously approaches it again, stops, grabs a fire poker, opens it, and finds a map in the letter box. And my notes were a little bit contradictory about this map. At some points, I was going with the idea that there isn't a map at all and Holly goes out on her own. At other points, I was deciding there was a map. And then I was torn between if it was still written to look like it was from Henry or if it was written like to not look like it's from Henry, to be from no one she knows. I'm not entirely sure on what's the best point there. And you will see why later in the story. But as it is, she then has a fifth scene weighing up her options, basically considering her feelings before deciding she will follow the map and she will enter the woods. This is a lot longer. This is one of those things that is adding runtime, but it enables this change to feel like it has emotional beats to go from loving Henry to boredom in his absence to doubt to fear and moving from having no interest in the woods to mild curiosity to eventually bravery.

I know I'm not mentioning everything that happens this episode because a lot of it is just stuff I'm not changing. Like Joyce having a go at Will and Robin for going off last episode without letting her know and then Will snapping at Joyce in response that he's not a child anymore. That kind of thing is exactly the same. And when I say exactly the same, I mean I might have issues with how the dialogue's written, but again, those aren't really the things we're looking at. We're looking at the structure of scenes rather than the the specifics of the words. The only other thing I think we need to mention is the planning scene. I want to cut down all of the planning scenes so that only the planning scene in episode 1 and the scene in episode 7 are really still there because I think that makes it feel like there's more of a dip in the middle of the season where they all go from a united team at the beginning in episode 1 to then becoming scattered and fractured after Holly is taken and then it's only in episode 7 when they fully unite again. I think that just complements the structure of this season better, makes the show less repetitive with all of these planning scenes after planning scenes, and just spares us a lot of plotheavy dialogue that I don't think we even need. Some of the planning scenes, as you will see later in this video, were really easy to cut without really needing to do much work at all. Episode two, though, that was less the case. I I only half succeeded with cutting this one.

Scene eight is everyone gathering at the squawk. In my version, Jonathan sees Will and hugs him, and he's kind of supportive of Will's abilities, all of this stuff about seeing Holly, seeing into Vector's mind. Jonathan says something encouraging about Will being stronger than he realizes. Something like that. Basically, it's to remind us that Jonathan is his older brother. It's worth reminding the audience that I I want a bit more connection between them as brothers because Jonathan is going to die in my version. And so, we need a slight buildup so that it can impact Will more. Anyway, instead of then getting a really long planning scene where Will has this monologue and then they discuss all of the problems with what Will's suggesting before Mike has a monologue complete with props proposing a solution. I think you just have Will explain about Derek and that they should save him. And you have Mike say that he agrees with that. But how does that get us any closer to saving Holly? To which there can be a slight silence as people think before Hopper says because of this or with this. And he pulls out a telemetry tag and throws it down on the table. If we can stick the demogorgan with this and then send it packing, we'll be able to track it back to Henry's hiding place kind of line. That's it. That's all you need. Sure, that then doesn't address the whole kidnapping element or Robin's stealing drugs to knock them out, but you can do that in a separate scene to break this up a bit more. You can do that when Robin and Will are at the hospital. Robin's rushing down the corridor, Will's trying to keep up, and he's uneasy about the idea, drugging them. Don't you think that's a bit extreme? And Robin can stress for our sake to explain what they're doing. That they need to get the turnbos out of the house. And Hopper's plan was light on details of how to convince them to do that. Yeah, but kidnapping them. It's not kidnapping. Okay, it's saving them. Derek needs to be asleep or else Henry will see in his mind where he is. We need him to think Derek is still in the house. I'm sorry, but knocking them out with Benzos is the best I can think of. Once this is done, we will take them back home. They will never know anything was wrong. that kind of exchange they can be having as they hurry through the hospital. Still a little bit plotheavy dialogue there, but a lot better. I think you can keep that quite trim. And then the only other scene that relates to this plan is where Lucas and Mike ask for Erica's help. And you can easily infer in that scene what she's needed for without really any greater explanation on top of that. So, the planning scene is kind of still there, which is a shame, but I have cut it down a lot. Overall, I'm now a bit less happy with episode 3, partly because the planning scene still isn't great. And I'm half feeling like, isn't there just a way to cut out the whole drugging and kidnapping part of the plan altogether? There's probably a way you can just remove that aspect and still get it to function properly.

Oh, there is a bit I forgot to mention actually. Um, when they arrive back at the squawk all of them, in the original, they see Dustin's face, but they don't really question it when he claims he fell off his bike. In my version, Mike would tell he's lying, and he would repeat what Hopper told him before, that tensions are rising in the town. people can link them to the Hellfire Club. They have to be careful. Lucas, having seen that town hall meeting, agrees. They press Dustin to take off his Hellfire shirt and Dustin kind of snaps. Right, I will soon sort of thing, but then he never does. I like that idea. I like following up on the conflict we saw a bit of in the school scene, but then I completely forgot to ever follow up on this again. I never address if he's wearing this shirt or not in later scenes. No trouble comes of it. It It should do. I Yeah, I just forgot I wrote that in. I like the existing bits we have with Will and Joyce this episode. I like when she tells him about her guilt that she wasn't even in the house the night Will got taken. She was working late and when she got home, she drank without thinking to check his room. That's great. I I don't think what I've done with this episode is bad. I I just think it's generally a less solid episode to begin with. And I think some people really like Derek as a character. Some people really hate him. And I haven't really done much to change that.

What about episode 4? I think episode 4 is the strongest episode this season that the Duffer brothers put out. It's the episode where they try to rescue all the kids from the Maxie. Vcnner decimates the soldiers and Will discovers his powers. It's a great way to end volume one. You feel like, okay, things have gone in circles a bit before this, but now we've ramped up to a massive event that is going to have impact. You expect the story to keep escalating after this point, and it never really does. I actually think even the final showdown feels less climactic than this scene. So, the episode is then hurt in retrospect by the rest of the season, but at the time I felt pretty positive about this one. Nonetheless, there are things to change. Let's start where the episode does start in my version. So, for context, episode 3 ends with Derek awake and the demogorgan coming, followed by a short scene of Holly walking through the woods and Max popping out to say hello. And then episode 4 begins with the demogorgan reaching the barn and all of the Max and Holly stuff is just spread across the episode. I'm not doing that. I'm starting this episode with Max, which does undermine the more intense starting point of the demogorgan reaching the barn. But I I think if the last episode didn't even end with that, then fine, make the audience wait to see what happens. It ended on a shot of Max leaving the audience thinking about her. So I think it's then more visually clear if we open episode 4 on a scene of Max showing us what happened. Yes, showing us what happened for Max, not telling us. One of the worst things I think about this episode is the Max scenes because it's just a load of exposition. Holly just sitting there while Max explains her life for the last 2 years. Those scenes really kill the momentum of everything happening at the time. So, no, let's put all of it at the beginning. Remove the exposition. Make the scene like a flashback where we experience the story through Max's eyes as it happens. Does that make sense? So, we open with a shot of her when Vecna last attacked. Then it goes black as she wakes up here. She's confused, scared. She's calling out for 11 and Lucas, but nothing. We see her slowly make her way to that school corridor scene with a young Joyce, and Max thinks she's gone back in time. She tries talking to Joyce, but nobody seems to hear her. So, this is also confusing. But then she hears Kate Bush. She follows the sound. We see her walk through different rooms, but the music isn't always easy to hear, and sometimes it cuts out completely, meaning Max ends up walking through the wrong door and winding right back to the school corridor of a young Joyce again, getting frustrated. We see her keep trying to follow the music, but it's hard. And then the third time she ends up back in a school corridor, she looks at the leaflet and sees Henry's name. And she says to herself, "I'm in his memories." Or something of the sort. She realizes now what's going on. And so thinking this, she now takes a different route and the music gets louder because she realizes with delight she's walked into a room of her own memories. And then she follows more of her memories and the music gets louder then louder. And then we get to this raid's area, whatever you call this place. And she can see the portal out now with Lucas playing the music. So she runs, but then it cuts out before she gets there. The tape ends, the portal disappears, and Max is screaming, you know, "No, I'm still in here." That kind of thing. And she starts to cry, but then Henry appears. She is forced to flee. She tries hurrying back the way she came, but she gets lost. She ends up in a woods, and then she sees there's a cave. Goes in there, thinks Henry is about to come in after her, but then he stops. He's too scared to enter. We get a shot of Max looking confused, and then a close-up of Henry looking terrified. Cut to the opening credits.

Scene two is then a montage of Max in this cave, hiding.

Crying, wandering the planes, trying to find the music again, catching snippets of it, but then getting lost, having to hide again, seeing her leave the cave less and less often, appearing more manic and more hopeless, crying in the dark of the cave until she hears a strange noise. Some kind of sound of Holly that has just like floated all the way to the cave. Max follows it and realizes Holly has been captured.

And then we cut to Max and Holly in the present. Now in this cave with Max explaining the bits that aren't still obvious to us, which isn't much really. There's not much you would need to explain beyond those visuals. But Max says she was close to giving up until she saw Holly. And then Holly can explain all her camisots analogy. And Max is a little too excited now because she thinks they might be able to escape. She thinks she has a plan. And she just kind of casually says about Holly going back to Henry because I think this Max who has been so desperate for an escape would be too excited to entirely consider Holly's feelings at first. And it's only when Holly shows total fear about the idea of going back that Max sort of calms and reassures her it will be okay. And when put a lot more emphasis on this idea than the original show does that Holly will have to be brave walking back into the danger of Henry's house. Better emphasize how brave that is to do because Holly's arc is about bravery and we will come back to that in the future.

But yeah, I think you make Max's scenes infinitely more powerful by just having them not function as narrated exposition, but as a quite long but potentially moving sequence of her figuring out where she is, building to a climax of almost escaping and then feeling more and more hopeless until seeing Holly. That is all we get of Max and Holly this episode. And it is all right at the start. But I I think this functions better like that because it's mostly a flashback and because it allows us more space to cut between 11 fighting through the lab and the others trying to rescue the kids later in the episode to cut between those two more easily without anything like Max to kill the tension.

As you'd expect, Hopper and Joyce are still taking a bit of a step back. Logistically, Hopper was in the car with Steve, Jonathan, and Dustin when they run over the demogorgon. But I have him then get out and run to Joyce before Steve thinks to drive through to the upside down, which just on the point of Steve, we alter the bickering he has with Jonathan before driving into the upside down. In my version, Steve suggests driving in there. Jonathan completely rules it out on the grounds of danger. Steve says Jonathan was the one who was so keen to get back to Nancy, and Jonathan snaps back that Steve's the one who doesn't even want to be here. Some sort of bickering along those lines that leaves room for Steve to say something like, "Well, I am here, so I might as well make myself useful." And then he flaws it into the upside down because this is a moment where Steve actually does do something in the plot. A moment where he can still be useful, so we might as well make a little character beat out of that. This has been half his issue, not feeling needed, not feeling useful.

Anyway, Joyce has that same scene of trying to calm Derek, but failing. Then the demogorgan attacks. She obviously hugs Will after the demogorgan, but then later there's that scene where she's just hopelessly trying to radio Jonathan sitting alone in the van before Robin comes and tells her Will has drawn a painting of what he saw. In my version, Hopper is now there in the van, too. I actually prefer Joyce alone in that moment. I But Hopper now kind of has to be there in my version. And that can be good as well for other reasons because Joyce hopelessly trying to radio Jonathan, at least metaphorically, sort of reinforces what Hopper said to Joyce in their previous scene together about being stuck on the edges when nobody listens to them anymore. He can pull some sort of expression to suggest that the two of them are feeling shut out. But Hopper can also adds to the worries. Things didn't quite go to plan with the turnbo. When they awake, they can identify Erica. He says there's already enough trouble building in town without that kind of thing. He thinks a storm is brewing in Hawkins. And once upon a time, he could have kept a lid on that. He used to be sheriff and Dr. Owens used to have a hold on things here. As much of a jerk as Dr. Owens was, at least you could work with the guy. At least they could try to keep a lid on things together. But now, Hopper doesn't even know who's in charge now. He doubts even the police chief knows who is. I want to mention Dr. Owens for reasons later on, but I also just like to see the characters reminisce a bit, link things back to previous seasons. I I think it adds to the feel of this season being the final season.

Anyway, Joyce puts a hand on Hopper or something and basically says you might not be the chief anymore, but people still respect you. It wasn't the badge that made you sheriff. It was the way you looked out for people. Something or rather like that that might push Hopper to involve himself in the community again.

The next scene is a bit ridiculous, but I wanted to try and at least confront the plot hole here. It's Derek's family. What the hell happens to them? They are drugged and tied up in this barn and then never mentioned or shown again. I spent every episode after this one wondering if they were okay. And we never see. They may just die of dehydration in this barn. I don't know. It is really weird when you think about it that we never actually see, especially when a big plot point for Derek in this season is Henry threatening him with the image of his dead parents and to to then not know if they're okay or not. No.

Um, scene 10 is Hopper and Joyce basically driving and then carrying the turnboss back into their house now that the danger has passed here. Not Derek obviously because they know the military and Henry are still after him at this point, but Tina and the parents. So, they enter the house and Joyce sees how trashed it is and is like, "You cut a hole in the floor? How how are we supposed to hide that? How are we supposed to just put these bodies here and leave them to wake up and hope they think nothing's wrong?" You know? And I like the idea of them bickering about that, but it kind of breaking away into total laughter at the ridiculousness instead of like that real anger they had bickering in season 3. Here it just turns into the both of them just completely laughing, pissing themselves at the ridiculousness of what they're doing. And that being a moment that kind of reminds them how much they love each other and can lead to them half sort of reminiscing on some old memory from when they were kids. Turning a really kind of odd dark scene into something quite sweet I think could be fun. And then it getting interrupted because there's a police car they see out the window. The chief is here. It's a bit of a panic. So Hopper tells Joyce to sneak out the back, take the car to the others, get the plan going without him. If you want, actually, we could even have him give a little goodbye kiss before they go, just to just to hint that maybe something's going to go wrong for them, and then Hopper stays to speak to the chief. And I I don't know why the chief is here. I I guess either he's heard the military are taking all the kids of a certain age and he is checking in on all their families or there were reports of a loud disturbance at the Turbos and he was worried it was going to be another attack like Holly's or something along those lines. But he walks in and sees Hopper standing there who was now trying to look less like he was carrying these bodies into the house than like he was investigating and found them here. Hopper pretends to act like a private detective kind of thing, which completely riles up the chief obviously. And Hopper says, "I told you the Wheelers wasn't a normal attack. I bet the military didn't even let you see the crime scene until they'd cleaned half of it away. You'd think this is a normal attack. The whole floor has been removed." That kind of act. And it annoys the chief more this time around. He insists Hopper tells him what he knows about all of this. Where were you that last year when everyone thought you were dead? Do you know something about the military? Where is Derek? Hopper's mute on the first two questions and then says Derek was probably just taken by the military like all the others, but the chief doesn't quite believe him. Hopper can't help antagonize him a little and then gets himself arrested. Yep, that's a thing that now happens.

Scene 26 is Hopper cuffed in the back of the car talking a bit more. Now he has been arrested. He says if the chief really wants to find out what's going on, they should drive to the Max Z. He's pressing that idea, but the chief says, "Of course we're not going there. You think they'd even let me in? I only hear from them when they're giving me instructions, but Hopper says they have to go. And then they hear gunshots, loads of gunshots and explosions, and realize it's coming from that direction. And so now the chief does turn the car around. And that's as far as that goes for them this episode. It's awkward. It's clunky. There are a lot of plot holes here I'm trying to patch up with something vaguely resembling a story. And we do need to involve the town more. If the center of this town gets decimated by Demma Gorgans's episode, you'd think some people in the town might hear or take an interest, especially the police.

So, what can we say about the kids this episode? Um, well, remember that scene in the show where there's this girl who's being taken by the military? I think what if we make her dad George? Remember George? And what if they're totally reluctant to see their daughter go? They kick up a bit of a fuss to the military, but they are forced to concede.

Scene seven later on is a scene where Dr. Kate and Sullivan talk about this being her plan. Gets all of the kids that age and hold them as bait so they can draw 11 to the Max Z. Basically, in the original, Dr. K says all that and then Sullivan takes no issue with this plan. But it's his other guy, this subordinate I think called Ramirez who takes an issue. Says to Dr. K, "Isn't that reckless risking children's lives?" And she shuts him down. But who is Ramirez? I mean, he's not really much of a character this season. I completely forgot he even existed. So I think simplify this, make Sullivan the one who takes issue here. He says the whole point of capturing 11 is to protect civilian life from someone dangerous. We can't be risking civilians in order to do that. But Dr. K tells him the whole point of capturing 11 is because she's ordered him to. Yeah.

After this, the story is mostly the same as it is originally. Derek enters the spire's abase. They dig into the bathroom. Derek convinces some of the kids to go. There's an issue with the pipes. Causes a bit of a kathuffle. And then Sullivan captures most of them. I don't want to add a little bit more when Sullivan captures the gang. I want him to be more antagonistic here. So he says, "We thought Eleven was going to be the one to take the bait coming here, but instead she sends you lot Mike and Will and all of that. I should have arrested you all months ago." And Mike is trying to tell them it's not Eleven. She's not behind this. They're trying to save the kids. Saying that they should have arrested them all months ago feels like we're hinting to a level of stakes there that should have been escalated to in the original. the military hunting for all of them, not just 11. I kind of want that to start happening after this episode. So, we've set that up now. They will get away here because all the troops are going to get torn apart. But after that, the military will want to find Mike and Lucas and Will and everyone. The battle then happens. Mike tries to lead all the kids to safety, but he fails. They all get captured. That's basically the kids.

We do a little bit more with Derek, though. So, there's this nice scene at the beginning of the episode where Joyce tries talking to him gently. And then later on, we have a really long planning scene where Derek is just sitting eating crisps until Mike thinks he could work as their spy. I find this scene in the original so bizarrely long, really long planning scene. Eric from the tower watches these kids being driven into the base and then radios to say they're being held in the barracks two to the left of the library. show. Joyce marks that on a map and then overlays a map of the tunnels and they think, "Ah, we can dig in there." However, Mike then stresses it won't be easy and explains the plan again, even though that visual of the tunnels has made it blindingly obvious. How are we supposed to dig into there without the guards noticing? And then Robin has the epiphany, Tom, Dick, and Harry, where they dig the tunnels in the Great Escape, even though we already know they're going to use tunnels. And it's all just kind of a long-winded point to say they should dig into the bathroom. But then, how do they know where the bathroom is? That needs someone as a spy on the inside. How can anyone sneak in to find out? And then Mike says, "We don't need a spy like James Bond. We need someone they won't suspect." They all look at Derek. Why is this scene so long and plotheavy?

Here's what I would do. Erica radios to say which barracks they're being placed in. Joyce marks it on the map, overlays the tunnels, and says something like, "I guess the plan might work." And Lucas says if he agrees. And then they all turn to look at Derek. Cut to a shot of Mike crouching before Derek, smiling and speaking gently, saying, "We need your help. We need this spy on the inside of the barracks." But Derek cuts him off and says, "No, no way am I going anywhere near those monsters again." So Mike composes himself and tries another tactic. He says, "I'm Holly's brother. You know Holly, right? She's in your class. She talks about you all the time." But Derek cuts him off and says, "No, she doesn't. She calls me They all do." To which Mike says, "Well, maybe they're wrong. Maybe you're not Derek. You're" And then Joyce can chime in. Delightful Derek. Derek thinks that name sounds weird, but Mike pushes. He says, "I believe you can do this. Do you think Holly will still call you if you save her life or something like that?" And then the scene ends with Derek beginning to smile. Not only is this about a third of the runtime, but it's doing two important things. One is empathizing emphasizing how Derek feels. Nobody believes in him. Nobody cares about him. Half his acting out is because he's so used to being seen as a Mike is offering something different. And secondly, it's giving Mike space to be a leader, to be this figure who does look out for the next generation in the show. He had a great scene looking out for Holly. Now he has a scene to bond with Derek. That should be a skill of Mike's. And you know, like like later on in the original, Derek talks up Mike being his best friend. And there's even that scene in episode 8 where Derek gives an awkward little wave to him. I I think a moment I've written in here with Mike makes those later scenes clearer. We realize Derek is a really really sweet kid underneath who just melts when somebody shows him care.

Let's discuss how this episode ends. I feel sad saying this because I love Joyce and I've barely talked about her this video. Largely just because there's not much I've changed. But in my version, when Joyce sees Vecna and tries to stand before Will to protect him, Vecner kills her. She is thrown. She hits her head and she dies. We don't yet know she's dead. We can kind of play on that movie trope where hitting your head just means knocked out. So, we don't really have to focus on her death yet. We focus on Vecna and Will and then the conversation between them. But yeah, we discover at the start of the next episode she is dead. And it's sad, but with the season we're given here, I mean, it might be different if I was rewriting an entirely different one, but with this season we're given, her arc is pretty much done by this point. After the scene where Joyce accepts she can trust Will to make her own decisions, there's nothing really else going on for her character. She's finished, so we might as well let her die to make room to prevent her just standing around pointlessly in group scenes like a shadow of her former self, clogging up a bit of space.

Yeah, Joyce dies and then Vecna speaks to Will and he says something cryptic in the original that I thought I understood at the time only for the finale to kind of contradict it. Vcnner tells Will that some people don't belong in this world, they belong in my world. And he says that's spliced with shots that suggest he is talking partly about Will being gay. I mean, I guess he's just attacking Will's insecurities for no reason because it's not like he even takes Will back to his world. He leaves the demogorgans to try and kill him. At the time, I thought this was persuasion, but it it doesn't seem to be. Um, so I'm going to change that and I can kind of up Vecner's villain in the process for reasons that will become clear later on. Vecna can say all the same stuff originally as the first one does that he takes children because they're weak and vulnerable. Will was weak and vulnerable that Vecnner used him to build with. And then Vecna in my version emphasizes, "You are my vessel, William. You don't belong in this world. You belong in mine. When all your friends are dead, you will come crawling back to me." Haunting thing to say. He then drops Will. He leaves the demigorggans basically to kill everyone except Will. And oh yeah, Mari also dies. I think we can see that death happen in this episode when the truck flips. The only reason Murray is still there in the original story after this point is for just the plot convenience of being an excuse to have all these guns and supplies being someone who can drive. I think he can die here. Make this whole scene feel like a bit more of a guck punch. Have some consequences. And then Mike and Lucas and Robin are about to die, but then Will finds his powers.

That's episode four, except we haven't yet discussed Eleven and Nancy. I guess I was delaying that point. What I did here doesn't particularly make sense. This is a problem with starting writing an idea for a plot and then realizing later on the implications instead of actually planning ahead with a level of foresight. It's really not how you're supposed to ride. It's not how I do for a novel. Um, but it made me begin to doubt swapping Nancy with Hopper. On a second draft, you would, if not, swap them back. I think have to change a lot before this to make it work, but it it's it felt too late to go back now at this point when I was writing. So, I just carried on regardless. And you can see where the issues are.

Nancy and Eleven have driven away from this wall, and they are looking at a map in this stolen military jeep. They see where this base is that they think Henry is being kept. It's not far from here, but driving up there would be too risky. It would be too much noise. There'd be the lights of the car. And then at this point, they hear Dustin on the radio and they learn that they are in the upside down too. Dustin, Steve, and Jonathan. They have crashed into the wall. Nancy explains they think they found a lead. They're going to scout it out, but for some reason, Nancy needs to instead end up with Dustin, Steve, and Jonathan. This was the problem I didn't consider. She needs to be there for that emulsion paint scene with Jonathan. So, I don't know. The best I could think is Nancy was wounded in the previous fight. I also vaguely considered Nancy having no ammo left. But whatever the reason, Eleven suggests she will go ahead alone. She's just going to scout it. She can do that fine by herself. Nancy will drive to pick up the others, and then they will all meet back somewhere safe to then decide what to do as a group next. They part ways with a hug. Nancy tells Eleven to be careful. Don't take any risks. Just have a quick scout. And Eleven says to Nancy, "Play up your injury in front of Jonathan or something." and it says also that it makes Nancy look like a proper soldier now. But as she drives off, we get a shot to show that the Jeep is leaking petrol.

Scene 13 is when Nancy reaches the others. Jonathan apologizes for leaving her before, expects Nancy to snap at him, but she doesn't. She seems to have forgiven him. She seems a lot stressed in general than she was before. She seems more confident and at ease now, and it confuses them all for a second. She radios 11 to say they're about to drive back, but then they discover the car won't run. Dustin has been muttering to himself. He now returns to explain his wall theory. So Nancy tells Eleven they're going to check out the lab. They might as well do that to cover some of the time. Eleven will have a quick scout and then trek back to the church where they can all meet and decide what to do. You see how convoluted and tenuous it's getting now to explain why Nancy goes with them and why Eleven goes to the base. It just doesn't work right with how things are at the moment. Also, why the hell would Eleven then go into the base when she's on her own? My thinking was basically now that she is on her own and she's waiting there scouting it out, the pressure starts to build. The kind of the awareness Henry is in there, she can go ahead and end it all right now. There was that comment made before about her not saving Barb and she can think about not saving Max. But maybe if she acts now and finishes this here, she could save everyone else. She sees a power generator and thinks if she cuts the power, if she's swift enough, she can get in and out of this space without anyone noticing or being able to use the hedgehogs on her. That was kind of the thinking. She can seal this and and she does still radio Nancy to explain this. She's not initially planning to go in on her own, but she can't get hold of her and then the waiting wears on her. She eventually decides to go in alone, which I think is weak reasoning. I think it needs better motivation, but I haven't really stopped to consider what that could be. Also, the logistics of how her breaking in works has to be completely different when there's not Hopper there to help her escape the hedgehogs. I don't know how that scene operates, but it's the same basic end point. She discovers Carly and then they escape.

Overall, I think my changes improve and also worsen this episode because the 11 and Nancy stuff just doesn't make sense. What it does do though is give Nancy something close to an end point in her arc. Now, we have seen her grow, but it also means we're going to get some onetoone time with Eleven and Carly next episode, which I'm pleased about.

Let's talk about episode 5. Episode 5 is where they spark up a demogorgan corpse so Will can tap into the hive mind with a plan to kill Vecnner. But instead, he saves Max and Holly from Vcnner before being booted out and left stuck in Henry's mind. Also, Erica goes off to build a telemetry attacker with Mari and Mr. Clark. I think this is the weakest episode of the season that the Duffer brothers released. And I think one big reason is that a nothing that climactic actually happens. Will tries to kill Vecna and fails. Vecna isn't substantially affected now by having a limp. Max and Holly don't get caught, but they don't escape either. They're kind of back to square one. That's about it, which is fine. Nothing substantial needs to happen here, but the episode whips everything forwards at fast speed as though something big will happen. And I think just don't do that. Let this be a slow episode. Let it be a low point in the series. Vetner just decimated the Maxeds. All the kids got taken. Joyce and Mari died. Instead of literally 18 minutes in where Joyce is suggesting a new plan and then they all go off preparing for the next heist instead of that, let everyone feel dejected and lost and that it's not until near the end of the episode where things start to come together again. I think the fact this season kind of denies us a nice low point to breathe and reflect and brood, I think is a real problem for the overall pacing of this show.

So, what did I do? So yeah, at the end of the last episode, Wills saved the day. Mike thou runs over to him and hugs him, calls him a sorcerer. In my version, he also says something about Jonathan being right that you do have more power than you realized. Literally, wait until you tell Jonathan about this. However, Will isn't fully listening because he turns to check on his mom. He goes over and she's dead. Will then cries into Mike's arms and then Hopper and the chief appear. We just have it that the gate was torn open during the big battle. All the troops are dead, so they can just climb through at the moment. Hopper sees Joyce and cries too. And then he asks if the kids are at least safe, if the plan at least worked. But Mike's face tells him the answer. I think this is the first scene really sets us up for the low mood of this episode.

And then to follow Will's story, if we go to scene five, it's when they find Lucas in the tunnel and they bandage him up. And then Joyce pulls Will aside to suggest that if he could maybe get into Vector's mind again, he could attack and kill him. But yeah, as I say, we doing this differently because obviously Joyce is dead. And also I want to focus on the loness of this episode. So Lucas is the one thinking more along those lines, being a bit more optimistic. He calls him Will the Wise, suggests maybe if you can get into Vector's mind again, you could kill him. But Will shoots it all down here. He says, "No, I've only just found these powers. And even then, I have to be in contact with the hive mind." And it's just generally speaking sadly. There's nothing we can do. It's not like we saved the kids or Joyce or anything. They don't know where Elean is or Dustin. Will says there's nothing we can do right now. To which Hopper says they can sleep. It's about time they all got some rest. Remember rest? Remember in other seasons where characters actually slept instead of going like a week straight without any this season? Yeah, we get some sleep.

Scene eight is Lucas and Erica arriving home late to sleep. Only their parents are awake and ftting, waiting for them to come home. Where have they been? The police had been round, but not the chief this time. It was the sergeant saying something about the turnbos accusing Erica of stuff and that their son's missing. And you see the kind of scenes you have to put in just to try and make logical sense out of this season. Scenes like this don't quite work because you feel like the story shouldn't even be put in this position to begin with. But here we are. Lucas tries to calm them by explaining that the military are taking the children. That's where Derek's gone. That's what he and Erica were doing. He says they were following the bus. They were trying to see what was going on. They have been rounding up all children in a certain age bracket, but nobody knows why. It's the best answer I can possibly imagine him giving to his parents right now. It sounds kind of feasible. They then all go to sleep with Erica agreeing she will speak to the police tomorrow.

Similarly, scene 11 is Mike and Will returning to the Wheeler's house, basically to get some fresh clothes or whatever other bits they need. Either this is still a crime scene and they have to sneak in or the tape's been removed and they can get in normally, but Mike is uneasy to be here. Walking through the house, he has flashes of the attack come back to haunt him again. Just a solid, really obvious low moments this story has been needing. Ideally, you'd have something like this happen earlier, but this was the best space I found. Mike says he supposes they're all going to have to sleep at the squawk until everything is over. But Will corrects him. He says it's not all of them sleeping at the squawk. It's just him and Mike now, at least until Nancy and Jonathan get back. Which is a good ominous point to end that scene on the contrast of how full this house was in episode 1. But now Holly is missing. Ted is dead. Karen is in hospital. Joyce is dead. Nancy and Jonathan are in the upside down. It is just Mike and Will now. And ending on that point is a great moment to then cut to Nancy and Jonathan in the upside down.

Anyway, I need to explain how I did away with the planning scenes this episode because this is my least favorite planning scene. Joyce suggesting her plan to kill Vecnner when we should be brooding on the impact of recent events. And then they all go off to eat snacks and Lucas and Erica both get ideas and then they both pitch them and people are unsure which to go with until they concludes to try both. We don't need Erica's plan anymore. In my version, Nancy told Eleven that Dustin and that gang were heading to Hawkins lab. So when Eleven later gets out, she can tell them this and they can go and find Dustin by entering a gate somewhere near the lab. I mean, it's not quite as simple as that, but basically, as a result, we don't need this extra bit of all the Erica and the telemetry tag. We can just have Erica instead be talking to the police. Secondly, I think this is all we need for the plan. Lucas wakes up in his room. It's like 4:00 a.m. or something, but he's not eaten in forever. So, he stumbles downstairs, struggles to find anything he can eat except microwavable popcorn. He looks sad and tired. He is clearly brooding on things as he stands in the dark watching microwave cook. Microwave cook watching popcorn cook, but then seems to realize something as he's staring at the popcorn. Cuts to Mike and Will both awake at the squawk. They ask each other how much they slept and it's like a couple of hours. We can then have another reflective moment where we can feel both of their grief and maybe focus on Will's feelings about Joyce this time a bit more before the conversation then leads away to a point where Will is teetering on the edges of coming out to Mike. You can see Will like opening his mouth attempting to speak while Mike is rooting around for a snack or something. But then they're interrupted by Lucas calling them. Lucas says, "Remember what you were saying about needing to tap into the hive mind in order to use your powers will? Well, what if we brought the hive mind back to life before you? And then that is the planning scene.

Later on, we have scene 20 where Robin and Will are setting up the cables for this plan. And I think you can just have Will explain here whatever else is necessary to fill the audience in, which I think is basically just reminding us slashtelling Robin of what happened in season 2 to do with raising the temperature and Will and the hive mind coming up as a result and how they hoped the same might work with the demogorgan. And then like in the original talk between them turns to about what it's like coming out. And Will, in my version, can admit he almost did come out to Mike. Only he just couldn't. With everything else that's happened, it feels insignificant. Only Robin tells him it's not. That when you start bottling things up because you decide it's not important enough is when it becomes hardest to breathe. The only other thing for Will was this. When they try to experiment, it can hurt Will. Will has always been hurt as part of the hive mind, but that kind of just conveniently disappears halfway through this season when it would become difficult for Will to constantly be being hurt all the time. I think we need some kind of explanation for why it stops happening. And I I didn't have a great one, or at least I haven't stopped to think through a bigger reason, but I think this experiment does hurt Will to begin with. And as a result, they go to turn the electric off, but he says no. He is in pain, but he says he thinks he can handle it, can control it through some kind of mental fortitude. He then lessens the pain, and then tells them to turn it up even more. And there's half something metaphorical here about Will no longer being a victim to the hive mind, as we've already been seeing. He didn't think he could control the demogorgans and was only forced to watch them. He thought now he couldn't control the pain, where in fact he can. He sees Max and Holly. He hurts Vecner. He helps them escape and then he is booted out of Henry's mind or into this prison stage.

What else happens this episode? Um, Steve and Dustin fall out. I didn't change that. I think that's fine as it is. Nancy and Jonathan get to the roof where Nancy, now reclaiming her shotgun from Jonathan, shoots the exotic matter. That's how the episode ends.

Let's just talk 11 and Carly. It's a pretty similar escape. Carly is using her powers to make it look like she's still in prison until Dr. Kay notices at the last moment and the vision fades. We see Carly and Eleven aren't that far out of the base because they've been going on foot. Carly tells Eleven that Dr. K has noticed now and L says they have to get away into the darker parts of the upside down. Remember I said some of it was kind of charted, some of it's more uncharted territory. That will give them the best cover. She goes to move, but then Carly grabs her back and starts rambling about how good it is to see 11. And she asks how long it was since they last spoke. 3 years. I've been trapped with them for 3 years. Carly is all shaken, but Ells insists they have to move on. They can talk once they're safe. Basically, instead of Carly's long exposition scene happening while they sit around at the church, we can spread it out across a few scenes of them trying to escape the military search. I think that injects more pace, more tension. Also shows us more about Carly's state of mind. She has been in prison for 3 years. She is not in a good place. She is very emotional and unstable and thinking much less about the practical need to escape because Carly barely believes in escape anymore. She's thinking much more about everything she has to desperately tell 11, which is basically that they need to die in order to end this all.

So the next scene, they're under some loose cover while Carly is rambling. You're all I have left in this world, Jane. You can't ever let them catch you. You can't be put through what I was put through. They killed all of my friends. I wish I wish they had killed me. 11 promises they will take down Dr. K together, but Carly looks less convinced. The military are getting close, so Eleven has to try some desperate tactic of like Carly clinging to her back while she force jumps away. Something like that. Something that does help them move faster, but also really exhausts 11. Alternatively, you can just even have a really tense stealth scene where there's demogorgans getting involved as well as the military and there's a bit of a how to do how to do a thing that happens, you know. But they're getting near to the church now and Eleven is absolutely knackered. They stopped to rest, but they have no food to recharge. Either Nancy took it or Eleven lost it in a military base again. When Carly's rambling, Eleven promises they will kill Dr. K. But Carly doesn't think that would be enough. She says, "You killed Papa, didn't you?" which I don't think she actually did. So, I suppose his response is, "No, I saw him die." And Carly says, "That's why Dr. K is here. I thought papa dying would be the end of it, but he's not. There is no end. There will always be more like them." And Eleven is confused by this. So, now Carly explains about the pregnant women. They want Eleven's blood. They will never give up until they have you. I think this is an improvement for Eleven and Carly. I think there's more of a bond between them in this situation. There's more of an actual dynamic going on. There's more urgency. There's more tension. there's less block exposition.

The only other thing to mention this episode is the world ramping up. So, as we know, Lucas's parents are worried. The police chief, who has let Hopper go away at this point, um, we have a scene of the chief looking stressed. Obviously, he's stressed. He's just seen dead demogorgans and decimated troops and all sorts. His sergeant comes into the office and informs him about the Turnbows. He says, "I don't know. I couldn't get hold of you before. I spoke to the Turnbows. They mentioned about Erica, but she wasn't in. I was going to follow up questioning her this morning." The chief cuts him off to ask, "What is their job as officers? It's to protect and serve." The chief then asks if that includes protecting people from the truth. Is it better to hide the truth if it would cause a panic? Or is not knowing the truth what leads people to even crazier answers? If they knew the truth, might the loss of uncertainty enable them to start settling down? Some sort of question along those lines that he's pondering. The sergeant is confused and then the chief hands him a leaflet for the church and says he won't let things reach fever pitch again. How they were around the time of the last attacks. He can't let that happen. There is a scene later where the sergeant does question Erica about drugging the turnbos. I mean, after a while she is kind of forced to try explaining roughly what happened. Something to do with it upside down or protecting Derek and that kind of thing. But it doesn't get her anywhere. He doesn't believe her. So, she is arrested, I think, or the chief comes in halfway through the interview and orders him to let her go. Or I I don't know. I'm torn on this point, actually. I I didn't think enough about Erica. I kind of forgot about her up to this point. So, there's not really anything that does happen.

In the scene where Hopper, Lucas, and Mike drive to collect to demogorgan body for their experiments, they are stopped in town by Joshua and a few others with the leaflets that the chief earlier had. One we now see is a bit different to earlier, just church leaflets, because it has something about the priest performing some kind of ritual or exorcism over Eddie Mson's grave. Lucas and Mike realize this and think, "Thank God Dustin isn't here right now." But Hopper thinks things have gone far enough. And so instead of being around for the experiments, Hopper basically gate crashes the church as they're all preparing to walk to Eddie's grave. To be honest, I don't know how this works. I think an exorcism type thing is a really cheesy idea, but it also feels like the kind of slight silliness the Duffer brothers would probably go for and would probably reference the exorcist. And the priest does need to escalate into something here. Not to the total extreme yet, but up another level. And yeah, I I don't know how this scene would work with Hopper. Somehow we need to draw attention to the point about the children that that's what the town should be concerned about right now. Not hell, not sin, but whatever the military has done with their children. In the words of Helen Lovejoy, won't somebody please think of the children. And so I kind of want Hopper in this scene to reach the conclusion that staying silent, trying to keep a lid on things doesn't help anymore. You could maybe parallel that with Erica's earlier scene of being questioned by the police. Staying silent just leads the community to more extreme conclusions than the truth. So Hopper hints the military aren't a safe bet. He reminds people of the chemical spill that supposedly killed Barb suggests that that was only half the truth. It was always way worse than that. There's much more going on behind that Max Zeds. And he asks, "Have any of you been allowed to contact your children?" And if George is in this scene too, George who already had issues with the military and whose own daughter was taken, he can add to the voices here. They can start to sway some of these people. I think we can have a shot where Joshua is listening to what George says. And then scene 27 is the ritual still going ahead, but with significantly less followers now. Many other people were swayed by what Hopper was saying. Andy and his goons are there for the ritual. I I think they're just taking the satisfaction at this insult against Eddie. And we can then cut between the priest calling for Eddie's spirit to leave Hawkins to get out and Henry telling Will to get out of his mind. At this point, Joshua is still there but looking concerned by this ritual. He turns away to look in the direction of the Max Zed or even, you know, I wonder if his cousin could be one of the kids that was taken. You'd have to get tweaked quite a bit to get this to work, but that might be helpful for his character. Anyway, yeah, this episode has mostly been a low beat with some stuff starting to build up a little bit towards the end.

I haven't discussed Max and Holly. Actually, I should mention them. Not much different. Holly and the other kids are all in Henry's world now, and he explains his plan about pulling the two worlds together. Holly is disturbed by this. She later goes away to find Max and talk about it, but Derek ees drops on them. So, they come up with a plan of Derek distracting Henry so that the other two can escape. All of that stuff is basically the same except when Holly initially calls Derek in this scene. He can now say something like, "I'm delightful Derek." Mike said, "If I saved your life, you wouldn't call me that anymore." I just like kind of flipping the idea a bit with Derek cuz when you first see him, you think he's a bully, and he is a bully, but it's nice also showing the opposite side to this where he feels like he's the one being bullied and isolated and ostracized and he acts out as a result. It could even maybe include a little subtext here that Derek has a crush on Holly. I I think it's potential we could do that, but I don't know if that's unnecessary, if that's better not to have. Either way, that's episode five. I feel more confident I have improved this one. I've made a lot more space for character depth. It's I mean, it's still not a great amount of character depth in any of these episodes in the grand scheme of things, but it is hard to when there's such a plotheavy story we're working with. It's really really hard to make any space at all without making drastic changes to this show. But I think it is at least better. I I think the ideas are decent. What's about episode 6? So, this is the

episode where Max escapes and the hospital gets attacked. Let's first talk about Dustin and Steve. Also, Nancy and Jonathan because Nancy shoots the exotic matter at the end of episode 5. Now, there's an explosion. The walls start melting. Nancy and Jonathan try and then fail to escape. We get a breakup scene between them that I like. I'll defend that scene. I felt it was clear that they were breaking up, but if it's not clear, then that's a matter of just tweaking a few lines, you know.

Now, I never even actually discussed the whole Jonathan planning to propose stuff. That is all still there in my version and hopefully works a bit better when we saw Jonathan hesitate to go with her into the upside down, then feel guilty as a result. And that's partly helping push him to the conclusion that they should break up. He can say that after he was so distant with her last year, he's been trying too hard to follow her and everything now, but maybe he shouldn't have been trying. Something like that. And then they die. We can have a last lament from Nancy that she never got to say goodbye to her parents, that she never got to see if Eleven saved Holly, she never even got to tell Mike she loved him. Jonathan can say similar things of his family. Yeah, I I think they should die here. I don't think there's too much left of their arcs in the story as it is worth exploring. I think if you set up the consequence of Dustin saying that if they shoot the exotic matter, they're all going to die. I think after saying that, you kind of then need to deliver and have at least someone die. So, I think they they are killed here before the exotic matter starts to stabilize again. And, you know, it's kind of a shame because the arc I gave for Nancy isn't really one that I think is best or is most true to her character in the past. She isn't a soldier. She's quite good with a gun, but I that's not like her personality or anything. You know, she's a journalist. That's her interests. I didn't really get to do any of that here, but I kind of my thinking was that's also part of the tragedy for her. That's who Nancy really is. Gets kind of pushed to the side out of necessity. She's forced to become this other person that she doesn't think she can live up to. And it's tragic that she does start living up to that and then dies before she gets to go any further or be anyone else. I That was my hope. I I don't know what you feel about that. I'm conflicted myself, but I do think this is a good place for them to die at the least.

We've also got the scene with Dustin and Steve where Dustin stops Steve falling to his death on the collapsing ladder. And that scene as it is, I love. I think it's the best scene of season 5. And then later on, they break into this room where Nancy and Jonathan are and in my version obviously find their bodies to which Dustin is devastated because it was his fault. He says, "I was wrong." finally says, "I was wrong after all these seasons of never admitting that." And obviously, whilst it's technically true that it is Dustin's fault, he also should not be blaming himself for that. It compounds his feelings about Eddie. So then Steve hugs him and says, "No, it is not your fault. You shouldn't have ever been in a position to make such big decisions in the first place. None of us should be have to making any of these calls. You're still a kid. I'm barely an adult. None of us have ever known what the hell we're doing in any of this. It's not your fault, Dustin, when there's a whole base full of scientists who started all of this and a whole another load of scientists who could be stopping it right now." I do just kind of want to try and emphasize that fact. All these characters have had to shoulder so much that is years beyond their level. And as heroic as it is that they've often had to manage that burden, it's also tragic that they should ever have had to shoulder it at all. In the show, it's not until the next episode where Dustin and Steve reach this room. But I think if I'm having them die, we should have it in the same episode. It should it should happen sooner so it's not such a long gap between us seeing them die and then the other characters discovering it.

You know, as we know, a hole gets ripped in this wall and Eleven manages to escape through a gate in the original with Carly and Hopper. I want to make that more dicey. I want Eleven and Carly to almost get sucked in and Eleven has to do absolutely everything to steer them towards the gates that's opened instead. They just about escape, but Eleven is totally drained now, which is a handy excuse when she and Carly then get back to the squore and find Will is still trapped. Eleven being drained is a handy excuse for her not to just immediately spring to the rescue because pacing wise, I don't think that works in the original. Even Eleven tries immediately to save Will and it doesn't work because it's too soon in the episode to save him. Sure. But then instead of using that time for character exploration or to allow a little slow beat in the story, allow us some breathing room. Instead, we are given more plots, a planning scene where they now decide they can take Eleven to the bath in Hopper's cabin. And then she tries again there and she succeeds immediately that time with just a tiny bit of exploration knitted in around that. So I no just slow things down for a moment.

Scene 12 in my version is Hopper talking to this unconscious Will, talking about Joyce to him. Half expressing his own grief, half telling Will she would be so proud of what he did. Mike is there too, but he's looking out the window. He sees Eleven and Carly approaching. And then they all meet. And you know, Hopper is so relieved Eleven's here, but she is really weak and she is starving. So Hopper goes to make her some food. all the junk food he used to never let her eat. Mike hugs L and El says she couldn't find Holly. She lost touch with Nancy. She was even almost killed, explaining about how the hedgehogs damaged her and all of that. And Mike is trying to be reassuring. He says it's okay. You you can't do it alone. He says he thinks everybody's been trying too hard in their own individual plans that they've all gotten so scattered when they should be a united team. That's the way they were when they were always planning the cruels. He thinks everybody needs to come together again. Hopper then returns with food and they have a nice little reminisce about junk food in the old days. I don't know what exactly. Some kind of anecdote. Maybe there was a day where Mike and Eleven tried eating everything in Hopper's cupboards to get back at him or something. Some sort of anecdote. They have a bit of a laugh about it and then Mike says he misses those days when they first started dating when they thought all the danger was already over. 11 says she misses it too. We need some kind of warm scene between them to remind us that they are in fact in love.

I know I haven't talked about the whole ber stuff yet. I know you've probably been waiting for me to talk about that, but I I think as interesting as it would be and and there's certainly something I do want to do between Will and Mike, I don't think there's really space for Eleven and Mike to break up this season and then Will and Mike to start a relationship. I think those are quite a lot of beats to pack into what is already a plotheavy season. If Eleven and Mike had broken up last season, maybe it would be possible. If this season wasn't so plotheavy, maybe it would be possible. But I think with the room we have, we might as well just have Mike and Eleven stay together and try to strengthen what their relationship is. Eleven can then explain she knows where Nancy and the others were heading, that we're going to the lab, and she thinks they should find a way into the upside down and get them now. But Mike says they're not going into the upside down again without a full party first.

Oh yeah, I should explain that. Um, Lucas and Robin aren't here at the moment. They previously went off to the hospital. In the original, that happens because we get an odd scene of Robin using records to explain Will is trapped in Henry's mind and why Max is as well. And so, Lucas goes there specifically thinking Max is going to wake up. But, I don't think we need that explanation at all. I think we can just have a bit where Lucas is totally confused by everything that happened. How did Will do that? How did he see Max with Holly inside Vector's mind? It's really good questions and none of them know the answer in my version, but it does really make Lucas want to see Max again. Robin says she will drive him there for convenience, but also she does secretly want to see Vicki. So, they're not here. Obviously, Will is trapped at the moment. Mike tells Eleven that Will is a more pressing matter right now. And when Eleven goes to enter his mind, Mike stops her. He says, "You should eat and rest first. She is absolutely drained." That again allows us a bit of time for slowness before we can ramp things up later on.

So to explain what happens next, I should mention Will. Scene seven is Will imprisoned by Vecner, who taunts him. Basically says the same stuff as he does in the original that you think your powers make you strong, but they're my powers. You are still my vessel. I used you to build the tunnels. Here's the bit I'm adding, though. Vecar basically suggests if you want real power, join me. In my version, he wants Will, as we already hinted in episode 4. And when Will says no here, Vecner suggests it makes no difference. I can force you just the same because you're already mine. Before the end, you will realize that and come crawling back to me. I kind of want to hammer this point that um Henry thinks his vessel, as the word is, doesn't have a choice, doesn't have any choice other than to obey him. Kind of as projection for how Henry is with the mind flare that he never really believed he had the agency or the freedom to do otherwise. But uh, yeah, to to prove it, Vecner forces Will to show him where Max is, which makes very little sense in the original. Why does Vcnner need to torture Will just to find out where Max is when she's obviously in Hawkins Hospital, the only hospital in town when quarantine began? No. So, in my version, he could probably already know this, but he's making Will show him as an example of his power over Will. And this is kind of haunting, I think, when you think about the implications. Also, he's not just making Will show him Max. He's making Will be the one that summons the demod dogs, using whatever mind powers to force Will to do that. Because I guess my version of Henry has a more vindictive, awful, horrible side that enjoys taunting Will like this. So, yeah, that happens.

And then in the original, Lean then finds Will immediately frees him and they wake up, warning them to go and get Max. In my version though, we've saved back a lot of time by not traveling to the bath in Hopper's cabin. So to avoid Eleven saving Will too early, I mean, there was a beat where she does rest in my version. But even so, to avoid it being too early still, Eleven tries to save him, but more vines keep appearing. Every time she rips old ones away, it's not working. And Will is now feeling absolutely broken after what he was put through by Vetca there. Understandably, he tells Eleven that this is hopeless. I'm just Henry's vessel. I'm already too much a part of these vines to be broken free from them. He says, "I thought I was strong, but all my power comes from Henry. Forget about me. Max is in trouble. Go and save her." And Eleven can repeat this bit out loud. So, Mike hears. Max is in trouble. 11 says that they all should go and save her, but she doesn't leave Will. I want Will to express all that awful feelings about being a vessel and not having your own power and your identity kind of being warped by uh your abuser, I suppose, specifically so we can address that point and have Eleven say no. Cuz you see, in the original, Vecna does pretty much say the same things there. and Will is left feeling this. To which we have a scene with him saying it's Joyce and her saying it's not his fault in episode 7, but Will says, "No, you're wrong." And then it's never really brought up again. So Will is just left feeling like Vecner's vessel in the original version. There's never a point where he gets to conclude otherwise. The best we get is just seeing Henry also as a vessel for the mind flare. But that doesn't really feel very empowering or very I mean just how much this story I think has deliberately tried to parallel not literally essay but similar feelings and experiences. And so to just leave a conclusion that Will is unquestionably Henry's vessel. I don't like that. I want Eleven to address the point head on here and say something along the lines of Henry may have given you these abilities. He may have used you for his own ends, but it was your strength to find a way to control all of this. He would have never given you the power to fight back. You may have used his abilities to do so, but that's still you. You know, this hive mind may have affected you, but it doesn't define you. And so 11 can say she used to think her power was her anger, as season 2 once suggested to us. Anger or from Papa or from all the anger papa gave her, but it wasn't that. Her power was Mike. It was Hopper. It came from herself, her love, the belief in having something worth fighting for, worth protecting, worth living. Eleven says, "You are what makes the power strong." I want to kind of make some point along those lines, but anyway, she mentions Mike in all of this. And thinking of Mike, Will discovers the strength to break free from the vines himself. This would be really difficult to write in dialogue. Not just because it's a slightly convoluted idea, but it also sounds like a continuity error. What do you mean Mike and Hopper made her strong? It was well before them 11 was doing her most powerful level magic in banishing Henry or opening the gate. But then maybe not. We saw her close the gate in season 2. That was pretty big. Fighting Henry in season 4. And even then, it depends how you define strength either as just the sheer reckless power or having control too. We do know it was Mike's love that helped her win against Vecar in season 4. Basically, it was that innate belief that there was still something worth fighting for, a world worth living. So, I I think you can get this point to work. Will breaks himself free and then returning to the real world. They both hug.

I want a scene with Eddie's uncle crying at Eddie's grave, cleaning away the remains of the ritual, and then looking to the church with an expression of anger or else just looking angry. I don't know what you can see from this graveyard. That happens. Later on, scene nine is Robin and Lucas driving to the hospital and passing the Mac Zed on the way. They see a protest forming outside it for the children led by George. And then we cut to the chief at a nearby phone box trying to speak to the military, but they won't let him through. He's stressing he can't make this protest go away without some answers from them, but he's not getting anywhere.

Scene 10 is Eddie's uncle now basically throwing stuff at the church. He's ranting that the priest is the one who's cursed Hawkins. And the priest comes out and talks over him and loudly performatively to all onlookers says that this behavior proves Eddie was against God. They can kind of have a little bit of a spat there. And I think basically this moment causes the priest to realize why his ritual earlier didn't work or at least as he believes. It's not Eddie that's haunting Hawkins anymore. It's that he still has followers who were carrying on his work. The priest decides Hawkins needs to be rid of them.

Scene 11 is a scene that in the original doesn't happen until episode 7. Dr. K arrives back at the Max Zed with Acres and speaks to a wounded Sullivan and then Acres starting to doubt Dr. K has a bit of a spat with her until she kind of stops him on it. I want this scene to happen now instead of in episode 7. I want Dr. K to question why he let Mike and all of them escape. They've clearly been stirring up the public if there are protests now. But Sullivan is like, "We didn't have the troops to stop anyone. They've mostly all been killed." And he insists, "This wasn't Eleven. We've been wrong about her. This was someone else. This was something else." But nonetheless, Dr. K tells Akres to go and find the girl. She's going to call in some reinforcements as well, but Acres, in my version, asks about the kids. Shouldn't we be finding them if they've all been taken? What about the thing that massacred Sullivan? These are big issues, aren't they? Akres is uncomfortable seeing these protests and seeing the way Dr. K is leading gangs. But I was torn on if Dr. K orders him to get Mike and all of them. If that's why there were then soldiers at the hospital scene later on when they try to arrest Robin or if that's an extra unnecessary moving part. I do like the idea of later on when they leave the hospital some sort of narrow escape where they avoid Acres, but he somewhat figures out that the squawk is where they've been hiding out. Anyway, that would happen next episode, so I don't know why I'm talking about that.

Now, let's talk about Max and Holly. Most of this is the same, but a lot shorter. We all know Max and Holly spends too long rabbiting on outside the portals instead of just running. How do we shorten it, though, when there's so much she does have to explain? Well, first, I do want to be consistent with the other villain to Henry that I introduced. That scene where Henry says he's going to make Max suffer until Holly gives in. I've added Henry saying that Holly will come crawling back before the end. I'm making Henry very very dark here, even though I already quite physically recoil about all of the implications to this character. Recoil even more so in my version. Um, but I I just think this is what Veknet was always about in season 4. It was having people feel trapped, having them feel like there's no choice, there's no other option. But basically, to make this scene shorter with Max and Holly, it's about setting things up better beforehand so that there's not so much that needs to be explained.

Now, this scene tries to explain why Max doesn't need the music and also how Holly escapes and also what Holly's arc is. Max has to basically explain to her that she's brave. And I think we can do that all a lot more concise and with a lot more punch if we just set things up better. But first, um, Robin and Lucas are hiding from the demod dogs and Robin says they have to turn off the music. In the original, they then just don't do that. Lucas says, "No, they can't. Max won't be able to come back." back. Robin says, "We have to or these dogs are going to find and kill us." But then they just don't do anything. They just sit there for the rest of the time. In my version, Robin turns off the music, or at least actually she takes the stereo and throws it away to distract the dogs, which it does distract them briefly, but it's then destroyed in the process. And Lucas looks devastated. We cut from that to Max hearing the music stop in Henry's mind, and now she's panicking. She's going, "No, no." and she races forwards to this this red area, but she sees the portal is still there and it shocks her. It's still there. It takes a moment and then suddenly understanding she turns to Holly and she says, "You need your own portal to your body to escape, but you don't need music. It was never about the music. It was about having something from the world you connect to or whatever it is that Max says. I can't remember actually, but it's something along those lines." You can say that super super quick now because the whole point about music has been expressed visually beforehand. And the other point all this waffle about Holly being brave. I think you simplify that just by giving Holly agency here. Instead of Max explaining how the portal appears and Holly saying she can't do that, I'm not brave. And then Max saying, "Yes, you are brave actually for all of these reasons." Instead of that, Holly just squeezes her Holly the heroic figurine and her portal appears straight away and they go to run. But Holly stops. She says she's got to turn back. And Max is like, "What? No. Come on. I'm not leaving you." But Holly says Max has to go. She's the one who can actually get out to the others. And she has to tell them everything she knows. It could be really important. Whereas if Holly escaped, she would just be stuck in the upside down or the abyss. And Henry would probably just grab her again as he does do in the original. So instead of that, Holly says she's going back to save the others. She says it's what Holly the heroic would do. That she might not be the bravest when it comes to fighting, which yeah, is the whole thing she kept failing at. You can keep those flash images of her freezing up around the demogorgans and Vecnner. She might not be brave to fight, but some bravery means walking back into danger knowing there's something more to do. That is also massive bravery. And realizing that now she turns and she runs. Max can call to her. Max can promise she will find a way back for her, but then Max does escape. And so you kind of have a scene of both of them running in opposite directions. I think doing that is so much quicker, so much simpler, expresses the character beats with more punch.

Only one other thing to mention here. Carly has very little to do in the original. I don't think the argument with Hopper is necessary. I don't think we need Hopper and Carly like an angel and a demon on El's shoulders for whether or not she has to die. No, I prefer it being a battle one-on-one between the two sisters with Carly representing the urge to die and Eleven the desire to live. So, we cut all of that and uh what can we do instead? Well, let's go all the way back to scene 15. Eleven is sleeping and Mike is there beside her. Carly is also sleeping but wakes up and hears a noise in the kitchen. She goes in and finds Hopper is organizing supplies into bags for the entire party and he says it's what Joyce would have been doing. Carly doesn't know who that is, but Hopper says he knows who Carly is. Everything L told him was that she was a fighter. He says you need to bring your agame for what's ahead, but Carly says after 3 years in prisons, there's no fight left. And I think Hopper being Hopper isn't particularly sympathetic to this. He says he's well acquainted with prison himself, but he hasn't given up. And Carly questions, "If so, then why aren't you fighting? Why are you just gathering snacks?" Yeah, that's a scene there.

Scene 20 is when Eleven is able to tell Mike that Max is in danger. So, they all go and rush to the hospital. Carly is going to stay with Eleven at first, but Hopper looks at her. And then at the last second, Carly decides she's going to go with them. And then at the hospital, Robin throwing the stereo away bought them some time. But now the dogs are closing in again. They're about to creep around the corner. They do creep around the corner. They can see Robin, Lucas, Vicky, Max, except they don't. The dogs pause like nothing is there. And it's confusing until we then see Carly at the far end of the room using her powers. The dogs can't see them. And then they turn away and disappear through a gate into the upside down. Yeah, Carly actually gets to do something in my version and is given some vague interaction with the group. something she can do that the group can then have feelings about can appreciate her for, you know, make her feel a bit more integrated, a bit less like just a sore thumb standing on the edges of this group of people she doesn't know. It is a little contrived, but I do think Carly does need to do something, and it's still a lot less contrived than Karen with the tumble dryer. So far, I'm mostly happy with my edit. I think what I've done with episode 6 works pretty well. It's after this that things start to get in a complete muddle.

Episode 7 is not actually much happening. It's like they suddenly remembered we need some character exploration, so tried to throw it all in at once while they wait around preparing for the finale. And to be fair, I think most of this is okay. I think this episode's got a bit of a bad rap, probably because of the will scene. I think there is some sense of buildup to the finale. I think they do that fairly well. But yeah, there are also definitely issues. And that's true for my version too now because I've set up various moving parts that I now need to deliver on. And writing this all in one go. I just forgot things or got confused or realized there were problems with my plans that I hadn't foreseen.

Scene three this episode is the protests picking up because they still haven't had any contact with their children. It's insane in the original that all of these kids are taken away by the military and no parents are ever concerned. What makes it worse in my version is that these band-aids over the cracks are now also wearing away. They should have been replaced before. Only most of Sullivan's troops got trounced and Dr. K has been focused on nothing but finding 11. So, this has been neglected. The soldiers are now trying to round up the protesters, send everybody home so that they can replace the band-aids, but no one is moving.

Scene four is the priest giving some kind of speech about rounding up lenon sinners. They have a list of Eddie's associates that we see Andy has helped to compile. And top of the list is Eddie's uncle and Dustin.

Scene six. The protests are getting even worse. The steel wearing away even worse. Not the plates inside the Maxi obviously because they could replace them easy enough, but the ones out in town. And I did kind of chop and change on the idea of this sort of chase scene where Acres goes after the gang on their way back from the hospital that a dying soldier at the hospital could have told him about the demma dogs and then he's trying to get out there to Hawkins, sees the gang driving past, has to sort of turn to chase them but is impeded by the protests. Maybe figures out that they're heading to the squawk, maybe doesn't. It's not clear. I was tempted by that kind of thing, but I also think it could be quite contrived trying to get that to work. At the very least, the protests build to the point that a soldier shoots them or some of them and I think shoots George dead and now the protests scatter, but Acres is angry with him and stresses it didn't help. That is going to make things worse.

Scene nine is Andy and his goons getting a hold of Dustin and I got in a bit of a muddle about how this could even happen. My vague thinking was Eleven and Will go to find Dustin and Steve. Now that the plates are wearing away, getting into the upside down is a lot easier. And they know roughly where they are. So they go and find them. And on the way back out, they encounter Andy's goons, plus a few of the priests people, including Joshua. And so they surround Eleven, Will, Steve, and Dustin. And Steve tries to calmly talk them out of the situation and signals Eleven not to fight them, that showing her powers wouldn't be a good idea. Only Dustin can't help running his mouth off at Andy. They're all grabbed. There's a bit of a scuffle. It's not going well. And it's Will appealing to Joshua. Appealing that they've got this all wrong. Here is a point where Joshua finally makes his choice. He hits Andy from behind with a stick or something. It frees up Steve enough to fight back. They turn the tide of this fight and send them running, leaving Will to feel grateful for Joshua. But Joshua doesn't now join the group. We don't need more people. Joshua asks Will to explain everything that's going on. I've just helped you fill me in on what this is all about. And Will says he will tell him, just not right now. They're in a hurry, so they leave him behind.

Scene 13 is either a town hall meeting where they share their outrage about the military, about George's death kind of stuff. That's set against the priests sort of arguing the opposite, saying they shouldn't pick a fight with the military. That's a battle they will lose. They should all focus on rooting out Eddie's followers. They should combat sinners, not soldiers. But we've also had a lot of town hall or at least church meetings. Now I think maybe we just let this one play out on the streets with a big commotion. And there's a lot of people angry at the military. A lot of people scared for their children and a lot of people getting fed up with the priest now as well. They all start tearing up the band-aids as a result, ripping open the floor. An act of real vandalism, knowing this would cost the military, knowing they want them replaced.

Scene 20 is Erica hearing this commotion. I forgot about Erica and suddenly remembered. So, I don't know where she's been, what's been going on. Was she under house arrest? Was she just at home? I don't know. But she sees something here and she alerts the squawk that a riot is building. This is bad news because they're all planning to get through the maxi gate in their truck. But if a riot takes over town, how are they going to get anywhere? Only Hopper thinks this could be good. What if it wasn't just a riot? What if the crowd could make their job so much easier? Hopper thinks maybe it's time the people took back the town center. So he will go to them. He's going to try and rally the people in a different direction. But if it doesn't work, if he's not back in time for everyone, go on without him. Eleven wants Hopper to come with her for the big plan. But Hopper says he trusts her. You are strong enough. And he gives a parting word to Carly again about needing to fight, which isn't as minor as it sounds. The whole point of Carly saving the day last time was just to sprinkle in the hope that maybe she doesn't have to die. Maybe she can grow. I want to go into the finale not quite knowing what's going to happen between her and Eleven. In terms of the Hawkins plot line though, that's where this episode ends. I was tempted to have the town overrun by Demogorgans or something, but I think that might be really complicated to write in a way that doesn't just obliterate the story. It's possible you could get that to work, but I I I didn't think any more about it. There's not a huge amount I wrote for Eleven this episode. I would like her to have a good scene with Mike and one with Hopper, but I didn't really stop to consider what they would look like. The one thing I do know is we need the conversation with Carly. The conversation where Carly again suggests she will have to die when all of this is done. Only 11 is torn on what to think and she can make a few arguments back at her. And yeah, like I said earlier, I wanted to feel uncertain what they're going to do. But Carly isn't quite so certain as she was anymore. or her mind is a bit more torn between her logically believing they have to die in her opinion and now starting to wish otherwise, starting to doubt herself. This conflict between the two sisters, I think, adds more tension.

This episode begins just the same. Max wakes up and a very moving scene with Lucas occurs. The only difference, in my version, is that Max is blind. That's what season 4 suggested was the case. So, so I think keep it keep consistent with that. After this, we have scene 10, which is a short moment where Lucas is showing her the squawk, but Max is troubled because Holly didn't escape and Lucas comforts her that they're going to save Holly. In my version, it's mostly the same as that, only Max is struggling without her sight, and she thinks she should have gone back with Holly. In Vector's mind, Max can run. She can see. Whereas out here, she's useless. She can't do anything that helps them. Lucas comforts her on this, but he also stresses how they need her. She's the one who can tell them about Henry's mind. She is useful. Which is then scene 18. Basically, in the original, she's talking with Will and Will asks her how she survived in there so long. And in mentioning the cave, she then mentions that Henry has fears and that they might be his weakness. But in the original, there's not really much focus on this comment. And when there's then various scenes after this before we get to Will opening up, it it kind of loses the punch you could have here. And it means you then kind of have to have Will explaining through the dialogue to make it clear that I need to confront my fears because they are a weakness VCNA can exploit. So I simplified this. I did this differently. Lucas and Max are talking about all the things they'll do on the other side of this. It's a bit of a blunder when Lucas mentions seeing movies together because she's blind, but he then goofily insists he'll describe them to her and she laughs. Will then appears and he asks her straight up to tell him everything she knows about Henry. Max says about the cave and says about his fears and we ends this scene with a closeup on Will's face pondering this about fears being a weakness. And then he walks out of the room to think for himself for a moment. And then we get a scene with Steve and Dustin. I changed that slightly but not enough to really discuss. And then Will is now walking up to Mike asking if he can speak to him in private.

So let's discuss Will. Will of course finds out Jonathan and Nancy are dead when he reunites with Dustin and Steve. I've curiously written very little notes about anyone's reactions to their death, which is a shame. Um, but that happens. Then there's all the stuff I mentioned earlier. We go through it until, yeah, Will opens up to Mike and Mike is taken aback by this. I don't actually know if it's right to inject slight tension into this scene, but I think it would help with the flow of this as a as a scene. Mike is so taken aback that Will finds his reaction hard to read and Will starts to worry that Mike is angry. And then Will begins to like minimize what he's saying. Almost apologize out of guilt that it may inconvenience Mike. But Mike stops him. Says, "No, you shouldn't have to apologize. You shouldn't hold any of this back." That Mike is not angry with Will. He's angry at himself for not noticing before, for not being there for him. He says, "I was so distant with you back in Lenora. My mind was always on protecting L, protecting L, worrying about L, but we're supposed to be a full party. Mike says it's only with everything that's happened recently. Holly, Joyce, Jonathan, Nancy, that Mike has begun to see the full party again. I think we could even perhaps link back to the painting here as well. Have Mike in the middle of this very suddenly realize what that painting was all about and feel incredibly bad that he hadn't noticed until now. Potentially, you could do that. I don't know if it's a step too far. Will of course knows Mike doesn't feel the same as this. Has this confirmed. But Mike promises this won't come between them. They'll stay best friends and he's sorry Will didn't feel able to tell him sooner. Will who had felt so afraid about this now having a a mostly positive experience here. I didn't want to write this scene as something perfect, but with how this is going, suddenly wishing he could have told his mom and Jonathan, although then thinking maybe Jonathan always knew. I've tried to bring their actual dynamic as characters into this scene. And I've tried to link back to season 4. I've also tried to have a lot of buildup to this scene as well. I've deliberately made a lot of tender scenes between Mike and Will in order to add rising tension towards this climax in order to feed both Will's hopes and fears. It's not a perfect coming out scene, but I don't think it should be.

You know what else is worth mentioning this episode? Probably just Holly. I think it sucks how little agency Holly gets in the original story. She basically escapes Henry because Max tells her everything to do only to get dragged back anyway. Where she now does nothing at all. If she's Holly the heroic, we should see more heroism. Only it's I I find it difficult to think how that could be done. I knew I wanted her to willingly go back to try and save the others. But then what? As I say, writing this all in one afternoon, I wasn't exactly having foresight here. I was writing it and hoping I would find a solution when I got there. But if she's too successful, Henry won't have the power to do any of his master plan and will lose tension in the finale. And if she's not really successful, how can there be any middle ground? You know, either the kids escape or they don't even then. How do they escape when Henry can see into all of their minds and none of them believe Holly? And also, he's on alert about Holly and Derek now. He's not going to fall for another distraction from them. I had no idea what to do. I basically wrote and hoped something would appear. And in a way it did. In a way.

Scene two is Holly now back at the cave pacing, thinking to herself, what can she do? How is she going to convince the others that Henry is the villain? Scene eight is Holly then creeping to the edge of the forest. She sees Derek. She starts to discuss a bit of a plan she has, but she wants his help to think some of it through. Only Derek is really strange and weird here. You'll remember he was threatened with the death of his parents if he defied Henry. Um, so yeah, Derek tells her that Henry is waiting for Holly upstairs, that she shouldn't be late, and it's really eerie and it scares Holly, but she steals herself. She takes a deep breath and decides to walk towards the house. You see, there's bravery. Let her show it through action, not just Max telling her she's brave.

Scene 12 is then Henry and Holly in Henry's room. Henry says, "You think you know what I am, but you don't understand. The world is weak and needs changing." All that kind of stuff he said to Ele in season 4. And he says, "I am giving you a gift. I am giving you some of my power. Not just to amplify my own. Not just to bring the worlds together." He calls her a bright girl again as he did before. But this time, the comment makes her recoil. And he says, "You must understand I am a savior. There is something far darker than me that wants to consume the worlds." He says, "I need to be strong to defeat that darkness. We all need to be strong. And once it is gone, I want to build a better world, not to consume it. You and Derek and the others will have my powers. We will be a new people. Don't you want to be strong?" And perhaps in the middle of this, she can glance at the drawing of the mind flare that's still there. Yeah, I'm changing the story. Henry is going to fight the mind flare. He wants to take full control of the hive mind for himself. We'll talk more about this soon. Holly says she'll never help Henry. She's quite disturbed by most of what he's saying here. But he disagrees. He says if she didn't want to help, then she would have escaped when she had the chance. Instead, she has come crawling back just like he said she would. And he says she can try talking to the others as much as she likes. They won't listen. I told them Max is a twisted monster that's tricked your mind. This is all worrying stuff for Holly. And then scene 15 is Holly then trying to speak to the others. And like in the original scene, she fails to convince them. However, unlike the original scene, Holly doesn't smash them in the face with a stereo. In my version, she just ends that scene feeling hopeless, feeling like maybe she has made a mistake coming back, feeling very disturbed by everything Henry has said. Only Derek then finds a moment alone with her. He apologizes for how he was before, but he says Henry was watching at the time. Henry threatened his family and they talk about how they can possibly escape when Henry can see into their minds. And as I said, I struggled to think of an answer. There were kind of two I thought of. Well, mainly one, which is to make it unclear where they are. Hide in some box in the dark and then he won't be able to tell. The other idea that I sort of switched to more later on, which is also quite flawed, but I think could be better if you wrote in more around it. Holly meditates basically really really intensely, focuses her mind on picturing herself somewhere else, picturing herself in the woods or in order to trick Henry into thinking that's where she actually is. Apparently in my script, she suddenly possesses an extraordinary imaginative ability, which yeah, I do think could be cool. I I think that also kind of sums up the power of children to have a really strong imaginative ability. I do like the metaphor in that. We would just need to write some stuff in earlier so this feels less out of the blue. That's how they can trick Henry. Holly doesn't know how they can convince the kids to leave. And all I could think was the map. The map I earlier changed in the story to use differently and then decided it wasn't there at all and then decided it was there but it wasn't written to look like it was from Henry. But I but I suddenly thought, what if we went back and it it was the same map? It was looks like a letter from Henry. What if we kept that? Because Derek could use that. The kids think Derek is on his side. He was the kind of leader one who led them through the tunnels, who told them he was going to take them to Mr. Watsit. Let Derek reprise that role again with this map as an excuse. Henry has like given them one last task they need to complete while he is currently off searching for Holly. Something like that. Not that they explain all of this in the scene now, but that's kind of the idea we're going with.

Scene 21 is them then stealing the map from Henry's room. And I think we can then explain more of the plan there. That's episode 7. And it's not that I'm unhappy with what I've written here. I think most of the ideas are quite good. It's just that I'm getting very vague now. And that means I can't fully trust what I'm saying. This was the kind of whole point of a video like this. The the idea that it's too easy for me to just say, "Oh, here's these ideas that I think the story could have done with." It's kind of arrogant.

To just say that without actually looking at if those ideas could work. You know, that's sort of what I wanted to try and do to actually test the ideas to see if they're any good. And I'm I'm now failing to do that a lot, which makes me trust it less.

I still have no idea where Erica is, what she's doing. I think she's somehow involved in the town with Hopper, but I don't know how. I haven't done anything at all with Robin. I mean, I mean, she's doing stuff, but I haven't added anything. I haven't given her any more of an arc. She's not terrible because she does have some function with Will and she does have some decent scenes with Vicki, but it would have been nice to write in more of an arc for her. There are a lot of things like that.

Cracks are starting to show in my plan made worse by that point I still haven't discussed that you've probably been wondering about, which is the wormhole. I don't like the wormhole stuff. I think it's an unnecessarily convoluted plot reveal that maybe clears up a few plot holes or at least plot confusions, but that's about it. It doesn't feel a weighty reveal. It's interesting lore, but sluggish story. So, I was really really tempted to just cut this completely. And the idea instead was going to be it's all just set in the upside down. What Henry is doing is not trying to merge planets, but build this wall, build a kingdom behind it that he can not only defend against the military and slowly build into a proper world, but also a defense against the mind flare.

However, season 4 already established the abyss. This shot is clearly the mind flare and Henry in the abyss, not the upside down. I was giving myself the power to edit season 5, but nothing earlier. So, I tried to persevere with the abyss and it means everything got more and more confused as I tried to balance all of that stuff alongside now Henry fighting the mind flare and it it just became a mess. I think I should have just stuck to one idea or the other rather than trying to keep both. So, yes, personally, I would rewrite the story that this wall isn't the edge of a wormhole. It's something of a fortress Henry has been building. He wants the children to amplify his power to fight the mind flare. I I I wanted to do that because I think the mind flare is a better villain. That's the Lovecraftian horror. Henry was a great villain in season 4 because he got to mean something personal to 11 and almost meant something personal to Will this season. But I think we also have to go bigger again. I don't think we can just recycle the same villain. I think it cheapens the weight of this finale and denies us a chance to raise the stakes even higher.

So, you'll see what I was thinking this episode, but you'll also see how vague and messy my notes are really becoming now. Scene one is people still ripping up these floors, hammering the metal, throwing weight onto it until it caves in and falls through. The priest thinks this is madness. They are unleashing hell. You know, I suppose what they're really doing is either mindless vandalism or deliberately enraging the priest or attempting to draw the military out of the Max Zed. I I don't quite know how it works, but a fight breaks out now. No, you know what? Um, let me rethink that right now because I because it doesn't make sense. Let's say they haven't been smashing up the floor. They've just been committing, I don't know, ordinary looting and rioting. And it's when Hopper arrives now, he tries to redirect their rage. Although, that would be kind of hard to do if they're all out in the open. So, maybe we do have the town hall meeting and Hopper manages to storm it, even though he's kind of already done that in a story. May maybe that would work better here. I think the police chief can call on Hopper and can can warn him about some of this. And Hopper can come down and he can um he's not able to calm all that anger, but he is able to give it a direction. and he suggests they storm the Max Zed and they do that by ripping up the floor and drawing a lot of the soldiers out as a result to leave the Max Zed more open. This Hopper claims is how they will find the children. So, I think there's probably a way we can go back into episode 7 and rework some of this and and we can kind of get it to work. I I don't really know why the chief is calling him there, but I'm sure I'm sure there's something we could figure out. But I'm getting bogged down. The plan is to storm the Max.

Scene two is Dr. Okay, telling Acres not to get involved in the mindless squabble of the ordinary people. I mean, Akus has been worried about this protest. He's been worried about his soldier shooting George and a few others, but they have to find the girl. Akus protests against this now. He says he doesn't think Eleven is behind any of this. He thinks how many resources Dr. K is throwing at Eleven is causing Hawkins to spiral out of control. The people wants to see their children and they don't have them. They can't answer them on that point. If they find out we don't have them, they will rage. If this creature that killed so much of Sullivan's men comes back, we're defenseless against that. I think Dr. K would probably know Vcnner is 11, but I don't think Acres would. And depending on whether or not we did have that chase scene last episode where Acres attempts to follow the gang back from the hospital, only he gets impeded by the protest or some if that was a thing, which I don't think it should be, but I might as well share the plan anyway. Dr. K would infer here from the way Akus is speaking that he knows something about the girl. You know where she's been hiding, don't you? She says and Acres can look a bit troubled by this. You know, we haven't used Mr. Clark, so this is just the alternative way they find out about the squawk, which they definitely need to do at some point. And it really shouldn't be difficult at all to find out this is where they've all been hanging out. Acres has found out exactly where they are in my version. But because of his doubts about Dr. K, he has currently admitted sharing that information. However, he's not going to refuse a direct order.

It's not until scene 8 we see Dr. Okay. And a load of forces reach the squawk. And I think because of these protests now going on in town, because of ripping up the floors and a lot of confusion, that slows them down. And it means by the time they do reach the squawk, the truck has already left. As well as Dustin and Mike and all of that lot being at top the radio tower. And they see from there the military arriving, but realize those still in the squawk like Max and Vicki are in trouble. They can't get down there quick enough to help them or warn them. So like in the original, Max tries hiding in the secret basement. And the fact Dr. K has pulled so many forces away to here has left the Max Zed even more vulnerable. Dr. K finds Max, finds the basement, but the town led by Hopper storm the base, which now leaves the way open for the truck to get in and to enter through the gate. And yeah, I mean, they fail to find the kids in any of these Max buildings, obviously, as as Hopper would know would be the case. And I think people here are starting to get more violent as a result until attention is drawn towards this gate. And I kind of like the idea of Eddie's uncle actually seeing this gate just somehow knowing intuitively that is where Eddie died. Can you notice my total lack of detail?

Now you see this is where whether or not we go for the wormhole plot becomes a problem because then are people needed to be on top of this radio tower and if so who? Because Eleven and Carly are going in the truck to the upside down lab so she can use the deprivation tank. But who's driving the truck? Can any of them drive? Murray can't drive because he's dead. Hopper is in Hawkins. Jonathan and Nancy are dead. So, I guess Steve could, but Steve shouldn't be really split up from Dustin. And it wouldn't make sense for Dustin to go with this group. And you can see the kind of issues that are forming now. I can't just maintain the same plot as the original whilst removing so many characters. I mean, the characters you don't really need story-wise, but plotwise, there still needs to be some logical functions going on. And with the plot as it is, I it doesn't work quite the same. And I can try to sort of patch it, but I don't think that's the best way. I I think I should try to rewrite the plot a bit. But anyway, alternatively, Hopper could rejoin them at the Max Zeds once it's been stormed and then he's driving the truck. Although, again, I I don't know how the truck would get there in the first place. Maybe Carly can drive. I don't know. Or Eleven and Carly go on foot or they go on bike. As I became unclear whether or not the abyss exists in my version, I became very hazy on who's doing what's in any of this finale. I mean, did he even need to go to the deprivation tank anymore? Although I should say this episode isn't actually my finale. This is the penultimate episode. There is an episode 9. This episode now is one of just moving everybody into place. It lets Hawkins and the people there get a bit more of the spotlight. And also Holly.

Scene three is I guess Holly meditating on a vision of being somewhere else than she actually is in a field. Some sort of location we've seen earlier in Henry's mind. We see her in a field walking about and then we hear Henry in her mind. I thought I told you I'd see if you tried to run away again type thing. And then Henry travels to this field but he can't see Holly and he's frustrated by this.

Scene four is Derek leading the others away. They are reluctant to go and they are arguing asking questions about this supposed plan. What was it exactly Henry said? But Derek is pushing them on.

Scene five is Henry still searching for Holly talking to her in her mind all the while about fear. how she's always running and hiding. How she's weak. Maybe you don't deserve to be in my world. But then Holly says she's not running. And saying this breaks her concentration a little and gives away a glimpse of where she actually is. She's still in Henry's house, in Henry's room. Maybe the attic is a better location. Now, suddenly, Henry is angry and realizing he's been tricked by Holly, he realizes all the others are going.

Scene six. God, I really just put all of these scenes one after the other, didn't I? Um, scene six is Derek's gang almost at the cave when Henry is approaching. And seeing him approaching, it's only Derek that hurries enough to get into the cave while the others go to Henry. They still kind of believe him. However, Henry also needs Derek. He needs all of them. He's afraid to enter this cave. Derek is swearing at him from the distance. The other kids are pestering Henry with questions and they're offering to go after Derek themselves. And all of this going on while Henry is faced with his fear here causes him to snap at these kids. Suddenly they see his fury and it scares them. They go quiet and Henry in the process musters the courage to enter the cave. Will at this point who's in the abyss or not in the abyss if it doesn't exist. He feels Henry's fear. Derek can see this man with a gun and freeze up and that can delay him a lot. But then we also see the memory play out for Henry. Mike asks Will what's happening at the moment because Will's eyes have gone white or or he's struggling with something and Will explains some of what's going on and he tells them he thinks Henry is going to fight the mind flare and it's a bit of a shock he would be doing that since that's kind of it here. He tells the others to go ahead without him and then I think there's two options for what's going on with the sort of Holly Derek related plot here. Either Derek escapes or he doesn't. either Derek gets to the red area and can't see a portal. But he reads a note Holly left for him. One that he's been referring to through most of the scenes. I just forgot to say it's like the original map, but then on the back of it, Holly's written some notes to help with getting out, like not to take the visions in the cave too seriously. And reading it now, the note mentions about finding something from the real world to connect to, but it also says you're not a Derek. And Derek then thinks about what Mike said before about imagine Holly not calling you that. and picturing Mike, picturing Joyce and how kind she was. I I would say maybe picturing Holly, but she's also in Henry's mind at the moment. She's not in a real world, so maybe just them two. Suddenly, Derek can see a portal. I think there could be something very sweet and tragic about this boy not seeing his family at all. But it's those brief, precious encounters with Joyce and Mike that help him to see a portal. There's something very, very sad in that idea. Um, Derek escapes or else he doesn't escape. Henry gets to him before and knocks him out and then they all return for their seance. Holly is in the house seeing them from the window, devastated that they're all returning.

Let's talk about Henry. So, basically, we get the same scenes with Henry experiencing his memories and breaking down and Will talking to him. I really like that sequence. I think Jamie Campbell Bower puts in a great performance there. I just think it's kind of missing an extra beat because we got the bit where Will's saying, "You called me a vessel, but you're one, too. You're a vessel for the mind flare. You needn't have been any different to me." However, Henry then says he is different. And we're going to have to do this slightly different to how it is in the original because he's fighting the mind flare rather than joining with it. Henry says the mind flare made him strong. He drew on its powers to build a world of his own, but he's now so strong he's ready to defy the mind flare itself. Take all the power for himself. I don't know what Henry calls the mind flare. Maybe just the darkness or something. However, importantly, Will disagrees. We need a chance for Will to express why he's so different for Henry and why he's actually stronger. And so, he says, "The mind flare hasn't and can't ever make you strong. And if you can't see that, Henry, then you won't win against it. It will kill you. What makes me strong is that despite all the ways you've used me, I'm still my own person. I can still choose to be different. I have many other influences in my life that have helped me to find myself. But you you don't know who you are. You want the mind flare's power, but you don't know what you are without it. You haven't grown strong. You haven't learned anything since the day you first stumbled into this cave. You've just repeated the same pain over and over. And all the while done the mind flare's bidding. Even all of this is the mind flare's bidding. And if you're choosing to fight him, it's because he's ready to discard you. I doubt Will would say all of that. That's a lot of different stuff to fit in, but things to that effect, you know, things to emphasize how very different Will is and that he is more than his trauma and more than his abuse and that Henry does not define him. And if those things do define Henry, then it's a tragedy. I'm slightly torn between how um damning and angry Will could be all of this towards Henry and if he should be a little bit more pleading and empathetic and wanting Henry to change. I'm not quite sure which works better. But nonetheless, Henry is enraged by what Will says and it spurs him on. He insists Will's wrong and in fury now he charges forwards and either does catch Derek or not. Takes either all of the kids or the remaining kids back and begins his seance. draws on their power and goes to fight the mind flare. Holly uses her powers of imagination to try and attempt hiding again. But now that it sort of failed and now she's panicked from seeing all these other kids returning, she can't quite pull it off. So Henry gets her. Yes. So he goes to fight the mind flare. And in my version, it's not this creature of flesh or rock or whatever. But it's in its shadow particle form. If Henry's lacking Derek to draw on for power, then he isn't quite as strong as he hopes. But regardless, either way, Henry gets absolutely demolished in this fight. He's able at first to somewhat hold the mind flare back, like the way he sort of reshapes it in season 4, using his force to hold it back, but the longer he has to do it, it's absolutely exhausting. And you see his fear start to rise. And there's nothing to sort of ease his fear now. There's no other voices in his head. just this darkness slowly coming over him as he then starts to feel weaker and weaker and then just gets torn apart with total ease. It was a folly to fight here, but then he never truly had a choice anyway. He was already under its thr and coming here to fight was just a mind flare being ready to discard him. I do kind of like a moment at the end where Henry realizes exactly how hopeless and how trapped he's been all of this time and you can see that panic in his eyes and then he's gone. And some of this would also see through Will's eyes watching this from kind of Henry's eyes and so Will will feel all of this too. I think that could actually be quite powerful. Henry dies and the mind flare then reclaims all of this hive mind for itself. I don't know how the hive mind works. I think it is slightly confusing in the original Stranger Things. They they do give an explanation, but it's still kind of convoluted. So, in my version, all of the Vine stuff is Henry building his own kind of hive minds, drawing on the mind flare's power to do so, but not directly under the Mind Flair's control. This is a big part of why Henry felt he was going to be able to challenge the Mind Flare. But obviously, yes, indirectly, this has all still been the Mind Flare's influence. And now Henry's dead. It just reclaims this hive mind for itself. reclaims the vines. So now it's controlling all of these children. And if the abyss does exist, then it can start moving towards the earth again. Or if it doesn't exist, then I'm not actually sure what we're seeing the mind flare do with these children. May maybe it amplifies it, too. Maybe it just grows a bit stronger or bigger or something like that. That's kind of how this episode ends, though. And and I like this way to end the episode a lot. I think it's a great buildup for the finale to see what we thought was the villain get so easily ripped apart by a now much greater Lovecraftian presence and you go, "Oh my god, I thought Henry was going to be super hard to beat." But now this, I like it a lot. I like we get to see in Henry's um death sort of the the the folly, the tragedy of what he's been doing and how alone he is in the whole thing. And that's part of why he loses. The only people he has even remotely close to him are people he just manipulates and uses like vessels. And on the one hand, that might make him feel strong, but it's not true strength. It's not connection. It's not people that can really empower and bolster you the way Will has close friends the way 11 does. That I I think having Henry die in this way kind of really emphasizes that point much stronger when we're then going to see Eleven and Will succeed. So yes, storyboard wise, none of this lines up at all now. There's no detail to anything, but I do like the overall idea here.

Two things I forgot to point out. One was actually a scene I wrote into episode 7 that I don't think I mentioned in this video. Um, there was a scene before they all set out where Hopper is going through all their supplies. He's taking stock of everything that Murray was able to store up for them in the past, and there's not a huge amount of weapons and ammo and explosives and things there, but he now needs to divvy them out. And now that Jonathan and Nancy are dead, he needs more people to offer weapons to. And so he goes to Lucas, who was previously so keen to seem like a sniper in his presence, you know, and who wanted to be trained and who wanted to handle weapons. And so he offers this to Lucas. He says, "Here's a weapon. We're going to go out. We're going to practice for a bit so that you're ready for the go on this skirmish." However, I think Lucas, looking at this gun, looking at Max, decides he's he wants to stay behind. He wants to stay with Max for this. He's not going to go on the skirmish. That's the very very faint arc we had for Lucas. There's not really anything substantial, but but it is something. You know, the other thing I forgot to mention earlier this episode is Sullivan, who has been recovering from his injuries. He's still in a Mac Zed. He hears and, you know, understands the Max Zed is being stormed. This is a problem. He manages to sort of hobble himself to the nearest phone and he immediately calls Dr. for Owens. Sullivan tells him to get here with whatever authority he still has, whatever forces you can still command. Get here with them now. I will give you clearance. I will give you whatever. You were right about the girl. I think we're all in danger. Get here now. So, just having that in episode 8 is a little setup for something that's going to happen later on. Pretty obvious what's going to happen.

But let's discuss episode 9 now, the finale. This was the point I officially gave up trying to make sense of it. My notes literally say, "I've gotten lost. Having the wormhole plot makes this too confusing. I should have made a decision earlier because I don't know where anyone is or where they're going." If I do have the wormhole plot, then Dr. K can read Operation Beantock, realize the group has climbed top the radio tower, and send people up there. If I don't have the wormhole plot, she needs to read a different plan and go to the upside down. And the point is, in my version, she's obsessed solely with chasing 11. In my version, she wouldn't be going into the abyss anyway, unless Eleven is there, meaning Eleven needs to be there, or if this all takes place in the upside down, she needs to go to wherever Ele is. It just doesn't make any sense currently. And you could make sense out of this if you took time, but you know, it was late in the afternoon now. I'd been doing nothing but this for the last several hours. I was getting tired. Somehow, for some reason, Dr. K heads in the direction of 11.

Scene one, though, is actually 11, Max, and Carly who have been in Henry's mind. They think they've saved the kids, but then because Henry has died and the mind flare has taken over, suddenly the kids are in a trance again, and they don't know what to do. They can't seem to get them out. But then again, my notes suggest the kids have escaped. So, I don't entirely know what's going on there. The point is though, you write whatever plot allows everyone to get to the same place for a big showdown. 11 ends up where the mind flare is realizing that defeating that is now how they save the children. Will and Mike and all of that group end up there too. And then Dr. K, who is coming after 11, also ends up there with like all of her forces, which is where the Dr. K and Akres conflict now hits its climax. Dr. K is using the hedgehogs to immobilize Eleven and Akus thinks this is total madness. There's this giant shadow monster we can see approaching in the distance. They need Eleven right now. The gang is arguing, too. They're screaming. They need her to fight. Even Eleven manages to say some of this as Dr. K crouches over her body, taunting her and Carly. But because Dr. K has just been getting progressively more crazed over the course of this season, she won't listen. She says to Ele, "I don't care what your morality is. I don't care who caused any of this, what that thing over there is. You are nothing but a resource to mine for me. you are just a sack of bloods to extract kind of thing." And this is quite terrifying because it kind of proves everything Carly was warning correct. Gives Eleven more reason to consider dying at the end of all of this. Also, this is obviously a tense moment. In Dr. K's mind, she's just going to grab Eleven and they're all going to leave and the mind flare can do whatever it likes here. But that is obviously insane. The options are either Acres kills Dr. Okay. Or the mind flare does. Or I like the idea Carly has something or rather to do in the finale. So it would be nice if she was able to cast some kind of illusion on Dr. K, but she can't really do that if they're both immobilized. Either way, this is the kind of moment where Dr. K's total dogged obsession gets her killed now. And then we have everyone else, including the military, now fighting the mind flare, the shadow particle version of the mind flare. That was always the threat established early on in season 2. All they could do then was shut it out of the world. In season 3, they could only fight this meat version of it that it put some of itself into. Now they're actually fighting the total whole thing. And the problem is, how do you fight a load of particles? And even then, it's not just fighting particles, is it? I mean, where are the demogorgans? Why have there been so curiously few demogorgans all season? Henry has obviously used them to strike at times when he needs to. We've also had a few sort of wandering the upside down in my version, but generally the mind flare has been amassing an army of them here. The mind fllayer has always sensed there was going to be a showdown here wherever we are for this final showdown. And so we've got loads of demma gorgans, dema dogs, demaab bats, the whole works. You probably even introduce another kind if you wanted to, but never mind that. The mind player is also capable as well of sending particles into people through the nose and mouth like kind of what it did to Will in season two, but doing that to just sort of kill them from the inside. I think we can see the mind flare doing this to a lot of soldiers until Eleven is forced to switch focus from killing the army of demogorgans in this scene to now just using her powers to hold the mind flare back like we previously saw Henry doing when he fought it. just sort of trying to hold it back and not really getting much further than that. So yeah, that's now what's happening. 11 is just trying everything simply to hold it back. And then we've got Dustin and Steve killing the bats paralleling what Dustin and Eddie did before in season 4. We've got Mike Oh, hang on. Um, we've only got Mike, Robin, Dustin, Steve, and Will now, haven't we? That's quite That's not much. May maybe Lucas should be here. May. Yeah, maybe it's stupid of him just staying with Max, unless he actually had something of use to do there. But I don't know what that could be. So maybe Lucas is here, too. But either way, Mike and Robin can be flinging molotovs like Robin did in season 4. I think that's probably the most effective tactic they can use against demogorgans. One of them prepares the Molotos, the other one froze. Carly, I would guess, can be using some of her powers to try and confuse some of the demo army, a bit like she did in the hospital scene, while Will is using his powers to try and control them now on a massive scale now, not just three demogorgans. And I think you can add some kind of emotional beats over the top in a sort of voice over or visual or something to emphasize his growth here to emphasize that he is yeah, he is his own person now. making him not just free from hive mind influence, but actually able to influence it himself fully. So, we got Will both ripping demogorgans apart and also making them turn on each other, making them kill each other off. And then, yes, obviously the army shooting demogorgans as well, probably using more flamethrowers and explosives in the past. You would hope they would have learned that guns aren't very effective. And so, we have three general beats to this fight, as far as I imagine. One is the army getting torn apart by the mind flare causing Eleven to then switch tactic and focus on holding it back. In a way, it could be nice if Dr. K is still alive at this point and suddenly realizes how much she needs Eleven's help to see that desperation from her. And Eleven can genuinely attempt to save Dr. K here, but not quite succeed. The mind flare enters and rips her apart before Eleven is able to pin it back. And then the second beat is now our team turning the tide because in 11 pinning this back it frees everyone else up to fight the demo army. Now Will is having success. Carly is having success. The military is having success. You know that they are ripping into this demo army. However, it all still depends on 11 being able to pin back the mind flare. And like with Henry, this is exhausting for her. This is taking up so much strength. If they don't hurry up killing the rest of this army, she might collapse. That's kind of tension building now. And potentially, I don't know how this would actually work, but potentially Mike could be as the beating heart of his party could be offering some sort of encouragement to Eleven here. I I don't know. But the third beats is now as things are getting to their most desperate. Eleven is really really struggling. Suddenly, she goes Super Saiyan. You know, we can cut back in with a voice over kind of pretty much what she said to Will before about having something worth fighting for, something worth protecting. a few flash images of Mike and Harper and the gang and all sorts of nice memories. And then then she really goes for it. This gives her the fuel to reach the next level in a way Henry couldn't do when he was on his own. And yeah, again, what is the next level? This is a question of how do we kill a collection of shadow particles? I I I don't know science. I don't know if this makes any sense, but in doing this, I was kind of thinking of how in the original Mike talks about the D and D standing for L using Sunbeam. I think it's that. And so I thought, what would happen if Eleven basically like splits open the sky in the upside down or in the abyss, if this is the abyss, splits it open and brings like a really intense blaze of sun straight down upon the mind flare. So much so it burns the particles. We know the mind flare isn't keen on heat. I think adding this like real radiant light could be really effective there. It could be fun because it is 11 getting to use radiance or like divine magic instead of just psionic or necrotic. Metaphorically, it would be a nice touch to end such a creature of darkness with so much light and it would kind of emphasize the sort of light she has inside her heart. So, I think 11 would do something like this and it would just burn the mind flare. However, it would also take so much out of her. This is an incredible amount of power. She collapses faint. We cut to black.

Before I tell you what happens next, I should be telling you what Hopper's been doing this whole time. The original plan or the operation beanstalk like plan we have in my version is that Hopper is the one who sets up the bomb and sets it off to detonate that destroys the upside down. And he was supposed to be with Eleven and Carly while doing this initially, but then this riot broke out in town. and he got drawn into that instead. I don't really know how this lines up, but I think I want him and many of the people from Hawkins not just storming the Max Zeds, but going into the upside down and storming the military base there, saving the pregnant women. I don't want to just forget about them. I don't want them to just be left there to explode. I want to save them. Which arguably creates the plot hole of now having tons of babies with powers like Carly who might be born. But I think the show kind of hints that the experiments there haven't been working. So, we can just make that point clearer. It's not been working. These babies haven't either been getting the power or haven't been surviving when they've been given the blood. They will now survive that they're obviously not going to be given any more of Carly's bloods, but they won't have power, you know. So, they break all of them out. They save them. Hopper then sets the bomb. I I don't know how he's gone from the military base to now the lab to do that. And then it's a case of getting them all out before he actually detonates it. I mean, not only has he got to get all of these people from Hawkins out again, but he also actually has to wait for 11 to beat the mind flare and all of that. So, he's positioned waiting for some kind of signal. L defeats the mind flare, collapses faint, cut to black. Then what? Well, in the original, Dr. K seizes them all and 11 decides to blow herself up or make it look like she blows herself up. And I've discussed already why I don't like that. However, we have still had pretty much all this buildup from Carly suggesting that she and Eleven need to die. And I think what Dr. K said to her about being a resource to mine would disturb 11. I've still got all of that buildup. We have to take it somewhere. And I again struggle to think what I could actually do here. Um, I had one vague idea, but I didn't know how it could work. Here's what I tried to write. After this cut to black, Eleven wakes up in the truck, and she's with everyone now. Presumably, they've all gathered after the battle together. Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Robin, Steve, all of the kids, whoever else have forgotten. Hopper is driving the truck. Holly can currently be in Mike's arms, and it would be nice to have a sort of moment between them here. But Eleven is just looking around, seeing that everyone is okay, and that's making her smile. The bomb is obviously set to go off now. As Hopper's driving them out, they drive through the gate into the Max Zeds. And then that scene from the original basically happens again. Dr. K is there. Loads of soldiers are there and they're using hedgehogs. Everyone is grabbed, but none of this makes sense. You know, how is Dr. K still alive? How did the soldiers get back so much quicker? Eleven is thrown down onto the floor next to a handcuffed mic. Everything's chaos, but he gets some moment here to talk to her. And he says, "The gate is right over there. You know, if you run, you can make it. You can get there before the bomb detonates. And Eleven is like, "What? You don't want me to do that, do you?" And Mike says with surprising coldness that you don't belong here, 11. We've both known that deep down for years. We've tried, but you've never truly belonged. They're going to hunt you forever. You don't want that. And Eleven can't believe Mike is saying any of this. She feels heartbroken. For a moment, she's completely lost, but then she starts to think and starts to feel angry. And then she says, "No, you're wrong. I do belong. We can figure this out. We can." And then she stops realizing that despite the hedgehogs, she's not immobilized. She's not in pain from it. And again, she remembers that Dr. K definitely died. Suddenly, she realizes what's going on. Now, the illusion fades, and Eleven realizes she's still in the upside down with Carly. She's not terribly far from the exit, but it's just the two of them. And the bomb has been set to detonate. And then we cut to a shot of Mike and everyone actually inside the truck, and he is still got Holly in his arms. Hopper has driven it back through the Max Zed. He is on his way to go further, but Mike then realizes something is wrong with Eleven. She's not responding, and when he touches her, she disappears in a whisp of smoke. Mike now realizes what's going on, too, and he's banging on the wall of the truck, shouting for Hopper to stop the car. Stop. Eleven's not here. I don't think the logistics of this is perfect. I don't actually know how we've gotten into this situation, but I definitely definitely want some kind of confrontation after the mind flare between 11 and Carly like this has been what it's kind of all been about for five seasons. Can 11 get to live? Can she just get to live a life or will everything Carly represents right now prevail? I think a confrontation between them both is the most suspenseful and best way to explore this point in my opinion. And I think it gives us a real sense of climax here. And so realizing this, Eleven immediately tries just running to the exit, knowing the bomb's going to explode. She's got to get out quick. Only Carly keeps summoning illusions to confuse Eleven on which way to run. And suddenly her head's spinning and she's raging. And then Carly tells her it's hopeless, that they both have to die. She says, "I won't let you go." Only to suffer what I did at the hands of another doctor, only to make more of us, for those children to suffer, for everything to happen again. Carly says, "We shouldn't ever have existed like this. Henry wasn't supposed to have his powers. No one should. We don't belong. We're sisters. We're meant to die together." And Eleven can be rocked by some of this. There are convincing arguments. She remembers again exactly what Dr. K said earlier, but she still disagrees. She says they're meant to live. She thinks of Mike and Hopper and all sorts of flashes of good memories from past seasons. She says they were always meant to live. And I quite like the idea of calling back to their parting words from season 2. Back then, Carly told Eleven not to go because they can't save you, Jane. And Eleven responded, "But I can save them." I like the reverse kind of being true now. Carly says, "They can't save you, Jane." And Eleven, still thinking of all the warm, loving memories they've all ever given her, says, "Yes, they can. They already have." And realizing how tight she is on time now with the bomb, she has no choice but to attack Carly, knock her out, and it pains her to leave her here to die, but she has to le it to the exit. The bomb detonates as she's running. We can start to feel the effects from around her. Mike is running to the gate from the other side. He can see the distant shape of Eleven on the other side of it. They're both running to each other as the explosion builds and builds and then we can't see if she got out or not because the explosion is so blinding. But then after a beat of silence, we see Eleven collapsed on the edge of the Maxi in Mike's arms. We have some kind of little intimate moment between them before she then sees Hopper's face appear as well, smiling down at her. And they get to say something. Hopper can really start to cry and so can Eleven. And then after that beat, she also sees the face of Dr. Owens.

All we have left now is the epilogue. Let's just go through this in the rough order I wrote it. I mean, a lot of people like the epilog as it is. I like bits of it a lot. I think there are very satisfying, touching scenes in there, apart from this one. I find this one really, really stilted. But despite a lot of it being quite touching, it all does just feel like a mash of different scenes with not much of a clear throughine. Each just going on and on as they struggle to find any conclusive end point. And obviously 11 hasn't died in my version, so we have to change a lot to fit around that.

Scene one, we see graves for Joyce, Jonathan, Nancy, Murray, and Carly. Eleven is sitting by Carly's grave, but she keeps looking over her shoulder at other people nearby, looking wary of them. Mike sees this and puts a hand on her shoulder and says it's okay. Looking around, she then sees in the distance Eddie's uncle at Eddie's grave and the priest comes over to him offering flowers. And we don't see if Eddie's uncle accepts them or not because we now hear Dr. Owen's voice over the top of this. And we cut to scene two.

Dr. Owens is talking at some kind of hearing inquiry big government board thing. He's recommending that the projects into 11, into the upside down, into all of it be terminated indefinitely. He argues there is too much danger to all life. He doesn't believe the shadow monster is dead or can be convincingly killed for good, which is why it's imperative. Its world needs to remain well away from all life on Earth. And we make the point that no amount of technology and power we can master is enough to control it. He recommends seeking an agreement with Russia to also cancel their research programs. Kind of. I suppose this is now loosely a point about nuclear weapons. Someone on the board asks Dr. Owens about the people of Hawkins, and Owens says they'll all know the truth now, or as much as it as they need to know. There's too much out there for them to possibly keep a lid on.

Scene three is either George rebuilding parts of the town with Lucas, or if George is dead, Lucas doing it with some sort of visual prop to remind us of George using George's hammer, wearing his hard hat. I don't know, some something better than them. either George or if it's a new foreman. They ask Lucas if he'd want a job in construction and Lucas says maybe this time. He had considered a military. The foreman says with everything that's happened, they can't imagine anything worse. But Lucas says it's not that. It would just mean being away a lot and there are more important things at home he wants to focus on. The alarm of his watch beeps. He asks permission to go and he runs off.

Scene four is Max in the hospital with Vicki and a doctor helping her to walk. Although I'm not actually sure if she would need that, if she needs help learning to walk and with re-exizing her muscles, but that's what I wrote anyway. Um, Robin bangs on the window, making Max jump and irritating the doctor. Robin calls through the glass that she has booked Enzo's. The doctor says it's strictly no visitors and that Robin will have to wait, but then there's another bang on the glass and this time it's Lucas. He's holding two tickets to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. Vicki tells Max this and she insists then that she's going to leave now. Exercise or not, Max feels this is more important.

Scene five, they all meet outside the cinema. Max, Lucas, Mike, 11, Will, and Joshua, who aren't in a relationship, and they both feel a bit awkward around each other, but they're they're socializing. You know, they're trying something here. Lucas is assuring Max, almost fussing that he is going to describe everything that happens in this movie. And she is laughing at the idea. She says they'll get kicked out if he talks the whole movie.

And he's like, "It won't be the first time we've been kicked out." Well, he finds something kind of fun in that idea. 11 is looking around the street wearily. Mike asks where Dustin is, and Will explains he's gone to watch basketball, which confuses all of them.

Scene six. Dustin is in the crowd where Steve is coaching his first basketball game. Steve is pleased to see him there. And then we see Derek is one of the players. Steve hears laughter in the crowd and realizes the Turnboss are there. Tina is laughing about her brother being useless at basketball or something. And her parents, who we saw, are hyper concerned about their public image. They're not laughing. They're trying to tell Tina to stop, but they are looking really embarrassed by their son. So, Steve signals to Dustin, and Dustin then sidles over to them and basically says, "What are you doing? You should be encouraging. Derek is not a And maybe if you took more interest in your family than in your public perception, you would see that." The kind of sort of scolding that Dustin has often been good at giving to people. The Turnboss all look shocked. Tina is then going to sort of snap back at Dustin, but then her dad or her mom stops her and awkwardly at first, Derek's parents begin to cheer their son.

Scene seven. The others all come out of the cinema raving about the film, but again, L is quiet and looking around wearily. She sees someone in the distance wearing a suit and sunglasses. Mike clocks this and explains what him. "That's Mr. Whoever who lives on whatever road. You know, he's always dressed like that. He's no one. Don't worry about him." And Eleven accepts this, but then tells Mike she can't delay forever. Mike says he knows and suggests after graduation.

Scene 8 is the graduation scene. We can mostly keep that the same. Karen is of course there. We It's important we see Karen. I haven't really done anything with Erica this um epilogue, but I kind of liked the idea of Erica writing a story about all of this. We see Mike writing in the original epilog. And whilst that makes sense cuz he's into storytelling, I'm going to do something else with Mike. I think Erica is vocal and confident enough to kind of position herself as the person to tell the story of what's going on in this town. So, in whatever form that might be, I I would kind of like something in this scene to suggest her beginning to do that. The only other thing we're going to add into this scene is Mike looking sad towards the end, seeing Dustin, Lucas, and Will, and feeling really sad.

Scene 9 is 11 going through things in Hopper's cabin, reminiscing on old stuff for a quick moment before we then cut to scene 10. Mike, Lucas, Will, Dustin, and Max are playing Dn D. If it's not already obvious why 11 isn't here, we can just have Mike mention that she had something to do with Hoppers or something like that. But it's mostly the same scene as the original, except Max calling Mike's ending trit and demanding a better one. That doesn't happen in my version because Mike just doesn't have an ending. He never says the end. He never explains any happily ever after. And you know, after they kill the monster, whatever it is, I've forgotten. The others are confused. They're like, "What next? Is that the end? You haven't said the end." Then when they press him, Mike says he doesn't know how to end it. This is the one time he doesn't know how to end. And so instead of him explaining what everyone's ending could be, in my version, they all chip in with their own. Will describes going on to college to study art and maybe a long-distance relationship could work with Joshua, but it's not also kind of set in stone between them. Maybe he will find someone new. He's excited about the future here. Dustin goes on and excels in college, but keeps in contact with Steve. Lucas says he doesn't care what his future looks like so long as he's got Max. And Max says, "Excuse me, I care. I want to make music. I want to do something involving music." I don't know what. I feel like with everything after Kate Bush, Max would care a lot about music. And then it gets back to Mike. Mike is asked what Eleven's DND character standin does, and he thinks for a moment, and then he says something along the lines of all she ever wanted was somewhere to belong, but it's difficult because she always worries there's more danger around the corner. And because she's always had to fight so hard for so long, it's only now everything is over. She realizes she doesn't know how she belongs or who she is or what she wants to do. And so she decides she wants another adventure, but like a different kind now. One without the danger. Well, you know, like no quests, no villages to save. An adventure to see the best of the world, not its worst. An adventure to discover who she is. An adventure she's not going to go on alone. Something like that that causes all of them to realize Mike is saying goodbye, that the two of them are leaving. This then becomes a goodbye scene. And you might remember I criticized the lack of substance and false rosiness to the waterfall scene at the end of 11 in the original story. Um, so maybe this sounds equally bad, but I think the framing changes it. I I think the idea that this is Eleven free and excited to explore something about herself rather than feeling like she's having to hide away somewhere. And it's not that that idea isn't in the original, but in certainly emphasizing it a lot more, that's really the focus now. She still has some of the same fears about running away, but it it's not as definite in my version because it's more her fear rather than a reality we've actually seen. And there's still a lot of possibility that she might come back. She's basically having a gap year, you know. And I don't know how you do Eleven's goodbye with Hopper. I didn't write a real Hopper scene, but I think we do need one. We cut back to Eleven and realize she's not just reminiscing in this cabin. She is packing things. And Hopper at this moment has been out getting all sorts of extravagant snacks or movies for one of the classic night sim of 11. I think the police chief can see him and can offer Hopper some kind of job or like potential for that. And Hopper says no. He's earns the quiet life. Now, unlike season 2, Hopper is coming home early. Either he finds Eleven, realizes what's going on, and we have a nice long goodbye scene, or he finds a note from her that he gets to read out. And in the past, where I think he would have felt really hurt by the idea of losing 11 or having to let her go. This time, he can smile. This time, despite obviously missing her, he can't help but feel pleased and proud.

Scene 12. We then get a short moment back with Dr. Owens where he is asked what about 11. You know, when Dr. Owens says her powers are completely gone now. There's no way they're coming back. There would be nothing you can gain from her as a result of this. Although I do like the idea of seeing 11 use her powers earlier in the epilog to hint that Dr. Owens is lying to them. And he stresses even if she did have powers that could be extracted, all of the huge dangers this again poses to the world, it is not a good idea. However, the government board say regardless of any of that, they should at least keep an eye on where she is. To which Owens says they can try by all means, but he has no idea where they should start. And even then, how much money and resources do you want to pour into finding this one girl before it gets too expensive? Especially when this project has already been hugely expensive and ended only in failure and public humiliation. I kind of like the idea that in all of those senses, politics has just sort of changed now that whilst there might always be new people like Brena, they there will also be new people with different ambitions or different public pressures on them and and just a different world. I like that being the kind of real end point for this. It's not that there isn't a a reason they would keep pursuing 11, but it's that it's just become too expensive, too much of a failure, and how publicly aware this whole thing in Hawkins has become adds so much scandal.

Scene 13, we then just see Mike and Eleven far away somewhere with three waterfalls or two waterfalls. I'm unclear if there's two or three in this shot. I don't know. Where Eleven has previously been looking weary all throughout this epilogue, now we see her finally smile. And that's the end. That's all of my notes. I can't believe I wrote this much. As ever, I get carried away. But I think it's worth it. I think if I was just explaining my barebones thoughts, it leaves too many open questions about how this actually fits together. Can it actually fit together? Do these ideas actually make any sense? And we've seen sort of some of them do. Not exactly. I think they could do with a lot of work. You know, all ideas, I think, and all changes always have disadvantages as well as advantages. You might not see those disadvantages to begin with until you write them out and encounter kind of the issues we have here. And various other issues I'm sure a lot of you can add to the comments that I haven't even considered in this script. There are always, always issues that you need to then iron out or work around. I am sad I didn't do more with Erica. I'm sad I didn't do more with Robin or Vicki. Mike is still fairly bland. And even the characters I did give a lot of space for, it's still a pretty pedestrian character exploration. You know, do we really ever explore much about Will beyond just some vague metaphorical points that he is more than the abuse and pain he suffered? I mean, I I'm passionate about that point, but there's not really much to it. You know, I'm sad I didn't get to take things further. I'm not convinced Hopper has enough of a conclusion here. We've kind of forgotten the fact Joyce died. Let's not forget any of these deaths. Maybe I shouldn't be too hard on myself because I am having to work with such a plotheavy story here. But yeah, I'm I'm happy with this. I am. It just could definitely be better. And that's a natural end point to reach, I think, when you've done a rough story board. If you did a rough story board and you were like, "Wow, this is perfect." Then then you've got problems. You know, you shouldn't really be feeling that until you've actually finished whatever final final draft of a total script, which I am obviously never going to do. I think writing all of this out was a fun interesting experience, a worthwhile video, and a very weird way to spend my afternoon, but I'm going to leave the rest to you. You know, you need to tell me what works about these ideas, what doesn't work, what I haven't considered, how you would tweak them, how you would fill in the blanks I've left or fix the contradictions. And if any of you are working on any kind of Stranger Things fanfiction, I've got a feeling that's going to become a big thing in the near future. If you're doing that and you actually like my ideas here, then feel free to steal them. I have no plans to rework this into anything more than this vague video of haphazard thoughts. But if you are someone interested in the idea of rewriting Stranger Things or interested in seeing what that might look like, or you're someone from this fanfiction world, then I'm going to direct you to the email I received the other day.

Hi, my little thought tree. I'm organizing a community-driven fanfiction project called Stranger Things: The Last Door. The goal is to create a professional, highquality version of season 5 that fulfills the story fans have been waiting for, followed by a sequel trilogy set 10 to 20 years later exploring the characters as adults. Basically, I've been told about a project here from the project manager who has been assembling a team of writers, editors, media coordinators, moderators to help get involved in bringing this thing to life. There is a Discord server for fans in the community to just put forward ideas they think should be a part of this story and then a team will work together to bring it all to life. I've been emailed about this in the very very early stages of it. It's still very much the early stages and I was asked if I wanted to be involved and and I said as as fun as that would definitely be, there are other things I should focus on more. I have enough trouble finding time to make videos alongside my actual job and everything else. So, as much as I can devote an afternoon for this and turn it into a video that I hope might get me some views, I don't think I can be doing a lot more beyond that, you know. But I said I do want to be kept in a loop about how this is going. I don't really know anything about fanfiction, but this feels like a really, really interesting idea to me. So, having accidentally ended up making a sort of fanedit video about Stranger Things, it feels appropriate for me to promote this project and leave a load of links down below for you if you want to get involved. Any of you interested joining the writing team, the editing team, the media team, admin, simply moderating the Discord, or even just joining the Discord to put forward your thoughts and ideas about season 5. If any of that is your thing, then take a look at the links below. As for me, this will be my last video about Stranger Things. Now, unless I do that video I never did make about season 4, I'm still tempted to make that. Otherwise, there are some new projects I want to move and focus on now that I hope are going to interest you. Like this video if you liked it, subscribe, maybe even support me on Patreon, either as a free member if you just want updates about all my new videos. Being a member on Patreon is the best way to be notified about what I'm releasing. or becoming a paid member there if you want the bonus content, you want extra credits, or you want access to the Discord server. But otherwise, hopefully see you next time. And as ever, a special thank you goes to Flying Spider, Luke Core, Michael Gallagher, Benry, Fify, Chad Bramwell, and Joshua C. Folier. Thank you.