Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab
- Episode aired May 27, 2022
- TV-14
- 1h 38m
As Hopper braces to battle a monster, Dustin dissects Vecna's motives -- and decodes a message from beyond. El finds strength in a distant memory.As Hopper braces to battle a monster, Dustin dissects Vecna's motives -- and decodes a message from beyond. El finds strength in a distant memory.As Hopper braces to battle a monster, Dustin dissects Vecna's motives -- and decodes a message from beyond. El finds strength in a distant memory.
- Mike Wheeler
- (credit only)
- Will Byers
- (credit only)
- Jonathan Byers
- (credit only)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe table and chairs in Mike's home are direct replicas to the kitchen table and chairs in Poltergeist (1982).
- GoofsRight after Eddie gives Steve his jean vest to wear, they are thrown to the ground by an earthquake. When the camera cuts to Eddie, he is still wearing the jean vest, then in the next shot, it's gone again.
- Quotes
One: Like you, I didn't fit in with the other children. Something was wrong with me. All the teachers and the doctors said I was... "Broken," they said. My parents thought a change of scenery, a fresh start in Hawkins, might just cure me. It was absurd. As if the world would be any different here. But then... to my surprise, our new home provided a discovery. And a new found sense of purpose. I found a nest of black widows living inside a vent. Most people fear spiders. They detest them. And yet, I found them endlessly fascinating. More than that, I found a great comfort in them. A kinship. Like me, they are solitary creatures. And deeply misunderstood. They are gods of our world. The most important of all predators. They immobilize and feed on the weak, bringing balance and order to an unstable ecosystem. But the human world was disrupting this harmony. You see, humans are a unique type of pest, multiplying and poisoning our world, all while enforcing a structure of their own. A deeply unnatural structure. Where others saw order, I saw a straitjacket. A cruel, oppressive world dictated by made-up rules. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades. Each life a faded, lesser copy of the one before. Wake up, eat, work, sleep, reproduce, and die! Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for it all to be over. All while performing in a silly, terrible play, day after day. I could not do that. I could not close off my mind and join in the madness. I could not pretend. And I realized I didn't have to. I could make my own rules. I could restore balance to a broken world. A predator... but for good.
- ConnectionsReferences Gunsmoke (1955)
I won't go into spoilers, but there are so many things revealed that recontextualize what we thought we knew from previous seasons. So many answers! Another thing I loved from this episode is the brutal slaughter scene from a monster, followed by a heartwarming reunion.
And the cinematography is more amazing than it's ever been in this show, as if that was even possible. 10/10 episode of television!
Details
- Runtime1 hour 38 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.00 : 1