Stranger Things Recap: To Catch a Demogorgon

Stranger Things
The Turnbow Trap
Season 5 Episode 3
Editor’s Rating ★★★
Previous Next
Previous Episode
Next Episode

We’re three episodes in, and already, I am concerned about people’s sleep (or lack thereof). Admittedly, I’m always worried about whether people are getting enough sleep across all aspects of life because sleep is so important, especially for these teens! The initial crawl that went to shit was the night before, and there are no signs anyone is sneaking a nap anytime soon. The sleep deprivation, however, might explain why our group’s plans are getting more ludicrous by the hour. “The Turnbow Trap” and the plan it refers to really stretch the suspension of disbelief, but it is exciting to watch, so stretch it we will. 

The other reason the crew’s plans are getting wilder and riskier is, as Will points out, because they don’t have time to play it safe. Now that Will knows he is tapping into the hive mind and getting glimpses of what Vecna can see, he and Robin have figured out that Vecna plans on kidnapping more children and his next victim is Dipshit Derek Turnbow. Don’t come at me for being mean about a little kid — everyone calls him that. And he is, in fact, a real dipshit. Not even Holly can stand Derek, and Holly seems pretty chill, aside from being so easily tricked by an evil wizard monster and blindly trusting a man no one else can see. Except for Hopper and Eleven, the whole team meets back at the Squawk to figure out what’s next. 

It’s very sweet to see Will leading the discussions. He and Joyce do eventually have a heart-to-heart about their current dynamic, and Joyce apologizes for being overbearing but admits she is still carrying a lot of guilt and fear from the time he was taken. “What kind of mother doesn’t check on her 11-year-old?” she says. Winona forever, you know? She can let Will spread his wings to a point, but she is always going to be watching and looking out for him. I swear to God if Joyce sacrifices herself for Will at the end of this thing, I will be crying for days. 

But now that Will knows about his connection to Vecna, and they know about Dipshit Derek, they need to figure out a way to protect him. Of course, it would be nice if they could figure out a way to protect Derek that would somehow help them in their search for Holly. And Mike might just have a way. Sure, it involves kidnapping an entire family, but it’s kidnapping to save lives, so Joyce, the only real adult in the room, is fine with it. 

So, yes, Robin (with her new buddy Will) knows exactly where to find a whole bunch of benzos from the hospital, thanks to all the time she’s been spending there with Vickie. Then, they’re going to bake those benzos into a pie. Lucas and Mike have enlisted Erica — you knew she’d pop up at some point — who is best friends with Derek’s sister Tina, to be their inside woman. There is one small hiccup: Twelve days ago, they turned from best friends to archenemies because of some incident in gym and also because it’s middle school and that’s their prerogative. Still, Erica is on board once Mike explains that this isn’t really about Derek, it’s about saving Holly, and also, what they’re asking her to do will surely make it so Tina never wants anything to do with her again. A real win-win-win. That third win is for us because Lucas informs us that every member of the Turnbows is a menace, and he is not wrong. Knock ’em all out, I say. (Safely, of course.) 

Erica’s the perfect person to send in to the Turnbows. She fakes a very sincere-sounding apology and offers Tina’s favorite pie as an olive branch. She’s also able to problem-solve quickly when Tina refuses to eat the pie, and though Tina’s parents and Derek have all passed out as planned, she needs a quick shot to put her to sleep. Erica has no problem administering this. (Is Erica a psychopath?) 

Aside from the Tina debacle, surprisingly, almost everything else goes according to plan. Joyce, Robin, and Will take the now-fast-asleep Turnbows to a farm across town. The team shoves pillowcases on all of the Turnbows’ heads to make sure that even if they wake, Vecna can’t figure out where they’re hiding. Meanwhile, the rest of the team sets up a trap for the Demogorgon they’re sure Vecna will send for Derek once he’s believed to be fast-asleep. The goal is to get the Demogorgon in their trap long enough for Nancy to shoot a tracker into it, and then they’ll be able to follow the tracker on Dustin’s device, which will hopefully lead to Vecna and thus to Holly. The plan includes a mannequin in Derek’s bed, water balloons full of acetone to make the Demo highly flammable, some wood beams to injure the thing, and, yes, a giant square cut out of the living room floor so the monster falls down into the barbed-wire pit below, where Nancy can shoot it with the telemetry-tag tracker before Jonathan lights that baby on fire. 

It all goes according to plan, more or less. It’s once the Demo takes off that there’s a problem. Our tracking team consists of Steve, Dustin, Nancy, and Jonathan in Steve’s now-souped-up BMW (do not even get me started on that), and the Demo is moving fast in the Upside Down. Steve has to blow through some fences and people’s backyards to keep up with it. Suddenly, Dustin sees on his equipment that the Demo has changed course — it has doubled back the way they came and is heading southeast quickly. 

It’s Will who figures out what went wrong. Derek is awake and has managed to get the pillowcase off his head. It’s too late, he tells the group: Vecna knows where they are, and the Demogorgon is on its way. Dipshit Derek is really living up to his name. 

Obviously, time is of the essence here, but it would be swell if the team up top could figure out a way to reestablish communication with Hopper and Eleven in the Upside Down. Those two are acting on theories they’ve hatched without updated intel, and it could prove dangerous. 

We find the two of them still at the wall, but whatever that thing is made out of or whatever it’s hiding, they can’t figure out a way through; El’s powers aren’t strong enough to crack it open. They run out of time exploring it anyway. The military shows up, and they have a fancy new toy they refer to as “the hedgehog” — it emits some type of sonic blast that turns out to be El’s kryptonite (Hop’s word, not mine). As soon as it reaches her, she doubles over in pain. She can barely move, she can’t think, and she certainly can’t use her powers against it. This is a game changer. 

Hopper hides them behind a collapsed billboard and tries to keep El as quiet as possible, but she is hurting. The incident almost ends without them getting noticed, but one of the military guys, Sullivan’s right-hand man, Akers, stops to take a piss on the wall and discovers a knife Hopper accidentally left behind. They turn up the power on the hedgehog, and El screams out in pain. The soldiers realize who’s there, and a shoot-out commences. I guess Hopper has been training with Eleven because he’s basically Rambo now. His grenades kill most of the soldiers, and he’s able to shoot at the hedgehog and disable it — a powered-up Eleven knocks out Akers, the last soldier standing. 

Instead of just running for it, Hopper and Eleven take Akers prisoner. Hopper wants to interrogate him for info on when the next supply run is coming through so that he and Eleven can get unflipped, as it were. Eleven hates this idea — she wants to interrogate him about the wall. If he peed on it, he probably has some idea of what it is, and she is desperate to get through it. The father and daughter decide to compromise. Halfway happy, remember? 

Hopper gets the face-to-face with Akers, but while he’s asking the guy for info that he really does not want to give up, Eleven is rummaging around in his brain. The soldier is terrified, begging her to get out of his head, but El’s very good at this now. She winds up in a memory of his in which he and Sullivan talk to Dr. Kay in her lab. She’s able to follow Dr. Kay down a secured hallway with a big, metal door at the end. It’s locked tight, like a vault, and Hopper presses, but Akers is adamant he doesn’t know what’s behind the door. It doesn’t matter. Once El bounces out of his head, she tells Hopper she could feel the kryptonite coming from behind the door, stronger than the machine the soldiers were driving around with. She thinks it has to be coming from someone with powers like hers — it has to be Vecna. She is convinced the military has him and is using him as a weapon. It certainly seems impossible, since we know Vecna has been freely moving around in his victims’ minds. So who or what is behind that door? 

So far, we’ve done a lot of chatting about Vecna and his plans, but do we see him in action at all in this episode? Sure do. Well, at least, we see him in his Henry Creel skin, being the most thoughtful host to Holly. He’s brought her to some vision or memory or other dimension-type place where the Creel house is shiny and new and contains everything Holly could want (aside from her parents, who Henry swears he’ll bring over once they’re healed). There’s a gorgeous breakfast with her favorite foods and all the dresses she could want, and he even gives her a tape player and a Tiffany cassette. He has to leave for the day — other children to kidnap, one assumes! — and gives Holly free rein, only warning her to never go out into the woods. (Let’s forget, I guess, that if this is Vecna’s world, couldn’t he, like, fix it so she can’t go into the woods? I’m just asking questions here!!) 

Holly seems content to have some me time. But it doesn’t take too long for someone to start ringing that doorbell. When Holly opens the door, no one is there, but there’s a letter inside the mailbox. The note seems to be Henry asking for her help, but he needs her to meet him out by the rocks, which are, of course, through the woods. He even drew a handy map. Holly honestly seems like a smart kid, but she’s being real dumb at the moment. None of this adds up if you think about it for more than ten seconds, but still, Holly goes on her journey through the woods. (She is dressed like a hybrid Dorothy/Little Red, after all.) 

She reaches the rocks, but instead of finding Henry, she thinks she sees a monster in the cave, and so makes a run for it. It is not a monster who runs after her, though; it’s someone in boots and jeans. And when Holly looks up, she finds Max Mayfield staring back down at her. Max lives — I mean, in this vision-memory-mind trap Vecna has built. But still: Max lives. 

More Strange Things!

• Listen, I know Dustin is acting out because of his grief, but he’s so mean! There’s only so many times you can accept “he’s misplacing his anger over the loss of one brother figure and putting it on to his other brother figure,” okay? When he just drills into Steve’s car to install the telemetry system? What an asshole. These two better make up — it’s already become insufferable. 

• Steve does clock Dustin lying to his friends about how he got so bloodied and bruised, so maybe he’ll be instigating an emotional chat sooner rather than later. 

• Speaking of insufferable, Jonathan is really brooding over this Nancy thing. As suspected, Murray snuck an engagement ring in that Coltrane cassette and is confused when he discovers Jonathan hasn’t popped the question yet. That proposal is going to be a disaster, isn’t it? 

• During the interrogation, Hopper screams at Akers that he would kill a thousand soldiers “to protect the one person that [he] loves.” It might make you tear up for a second until you realize that’s a potent piece of information to just hand over to the enemy, Hop. 

• Ah! Another mention of wormholes! Mr. Clarke is teaching his class — which includes star student Erica Sinclair — about wormholes and the Einstein–Rosen bridge. In short: They’re very unstable! 

• Robin and Will have another moment together at the hospital when Will asks how she knew Vickie was interested in her. She talks to him about little signs snowballing into an avalanche. They also make some jokes about Will’s bowl cut, which is nice for us. 

• Bring back calling people “barf bags”!!