We start with the sweetest scene of Max explaining Wonder Woman to Eleven and it's a win for feminism...

Mrs Driscoll wants to go to the rat farm really really badly but little does she know they no longer farm rats there, they are harvesting souls mwahaha and are getting nothing from Tom because he never had one...

Hopper is NAKED and Joyce is embarrassed and probably tired after lugging him home from getting beaten like a Harrington but she tells him that his attacker was driving a motorcycle and he's seen a motorcycle helmet exactly once in his life apparently and he knows where he saw it... coming out of Trum-- I mean the mayor's office because the mayor has been colluding with russians because this plot line is so dated to that particular time in our lives and Larry is really Donald but does anyone really get or remember that reference years later?

Anyway Larry pulls an Angela from season 4 and says A**hole things about Hopper's dead daughter and gets what he deserves for it...

Scoops troop is still doing a better job at defending the country than Hawkins lab or the real gov. but they hit a couple snags because for one, Steve can't win a fight with a human to save his life or anyone else's and for two a capitalist gets involved and dude you could have found any other child but people think this one is cute and funny for some reason thatI can't figure out because to me she's as annoying as all the other pro capitalist patriotic people I've known...

Mike and Lucas contact the girls post sleepover and they are ANNOYED but then it's a code red so it's fine... Will asks if they know what roller coasters feel like and they are all like of course, except for El who is like "does everyone forget that I was kidnapped and held captive for my entire childhood or what?" so they spy on Billy because El was right about him being wrong but not his regular wrong, a new wrong... and two wrongs do make El right... they plan to trap him in the sauna because he is not as hot as he thinks he is, not yet...

Nancy has gotten herself and Jonathon fired and she's like "I'm a woman" and he's like "well I'm poor" and they are like we should fight with each other and not the rich white a**hole men who are oppressing both of us and in that way they are the most American people in this episode...

The scoops troop does make it into the secret room of boxes and then they find out it's an elevator that goes all the way down to the standards of any girl who would go out with Billy...

Mike corners El and tries to mansplain his way out of trouble for lying and she's like "Hopper is right because Max taught me feminism with a comic book and I make my own rules, excuse me because i have to prepare to beat Billy/the mind flayer up like he's a Harrington"

And she does, she does and it is bada**

We start off at a slumber party in a cabin in the woods where El uses her psychic abilities to spy on people and she gets scared of a fart and a possible murder. This is not the babysitters club people, this slumber party is almost as weird as the ones in Jessica Jones (inside joke with myself)

Hopper comes home drunk and stood up but he's happy his daughter is making out with Max instead of Mike now because she's just way cooler than him. (kidding, well not about Max being cooler because she is, but the rest of it)

Steve, Dustin and Robin are doing a better job of defending the country than anyone has since the 1960s by spying on a jazzercize class and hopping up on tables in the mall and yes they are still doing a better job of catching Russian spies than Brenner and the actual government irl

Joyce tells Hopper she was in the same room as another man for important reasons and his man brain can't handle that because he's suddenly an annoying jealous bf, even though he's not her bf at all... chill out Hopper, I know you are better than this. But he promises to take her on a date at the place were all her troubles came from and where her last bf died which is a great idea...

Mike and Lucas are simping over their exes who are way too busy tracking down a missing lifeguard and having a good time to care about stupid boys but when Will wants the boys to stop caring about "stupid girls" Mike does an accidental homophobia and then feels bad... dude you should have just played D&D because you trying to do things in the real world just pisses everyone you care about off badly... you are not good at real life...

Nancy tries really hard to get men in suits in the 1980s to stop being misogynist A-holes and take her seriously and girl... this runs in the family because you are fighting a losing battle, move on because you are better than them anyway, but she's relentless and her and jonathon find Mrs. Driscoll eating fertilizer in her basement and it is disgusting.

Hopper get's his ass kicked at the lab like he's Steve Harrington or something...

El and Max track down a red door and find Billy pretending to be a normal person and not being very good at it

He stares El down because he is also the mindflayer and several other names that we won't find out about until season 4...

Heather thwops her dad, Tom (nancy's boss) upside the head with a wine bottle and it's mildly satisfying except for the fact that she's only doing it because she's been 'flayed' by Billy/the mindflayer... and Nancy didn't even get to see Tom get owned by his own daughter, what a shame

Named after my favorite Kevin Smith film. I guess that makes Eleven- Silent Bob and Max-Jay?

Just like Mallrats, we don't start at the mall, we start at the rat farm where Billy is running away seemingly unharmed, because of racist white male privilege probably.

Mike lies to Eleven because as we find out, just because "friends don't lie" it doesn't mean boyfriends don't, boyfriends lie- ALL.THE.TIME.

Hopper is a little too happy about El's sadness but that's okay because he will have a date with Karma later at Enzo's.

He celebrates with Joyce and almost slips on a MAGNET

and Joyce fixates on those for this entire season starting now

Billy smashes Karen's head in but not really, and then a lifeguard named Heather says "take me to him" but also not really... and this man LITERALLY can not stand the heat of facing the reality of women around him and like most men deals with that logically by kidnapping heather, I wonder if this is even the first time he's done this.

We find out that he has been recruited into being the foot soldier of a genocidal maniac but to be honest if he'd have lived in 1940 or today the same thing would have happened to him anyway.

Max takes El to the mall where she shops and explodes orange julius all over that bitch Stacey (Karma at the mall for rejecting Dustin)

Max is teaching El to be herself and to be a strong independent woman and it is literally the best day of El's life even after she dumps Mike's lying ass

Mike I know it's the 80's but shopping at the mall with just $3.50 is completely ridiculous

Hopper has to stop people protesting Don- I mean the mayor because of the mall and Hopper begrudgingly arrests them and sends them off with Calvin because he's gotta get ready for dinner (it's not a date) riiight, that's why you had flo go get you a brand new magnum PI shirt.

But Joyce has to leave work to go to the middle school science teacher's house because MAGNETS

And Hopper is left at Enzo's all alone because Joyce stood him up because MAGNETS

Dustin and the rest of the scoops troop are busy all episode decoding a russian message and Steve figures out the call is coming from inside the mall because of a song from a horse... Stranger things indeed, yall get your clues about as strangely as Spencer Hastings when she got a phone number from a bird...

Nancy and Jonathon are being the journalist photographer duo and honestly, why would their lives or careers ever drive them apart, they literally have coinciding jobs, their dream life is literally the same one, another rat pops and it's disgusting and all the other rats slime shows up at the end to save heather from Billy I presume because what the freak man? Is this a hobby? Where did you learn to tie up girls and take them to abandoned buildings because this does NOT look like your first rodeo, let's hope the rat blob saves her in time :)