History Recap / StrangerThingsS2E6ChapterSixTheSpy

* JerkassHasAPoint: The scientist who suggests burning the growth even though it will kill Will. While we're obviously not supposed to agree with him, and it sure would have been nice for them to put some actual effort into fixing Will first, he's not ''wrong'' - as far as they know, Will is going to die by the end of the day no matter what they do, so delaying the burn only serves to endanger the entire town for no purpose.

* WhamLine: "I'm sorry. He made me do it."

* NotImportantToThisEpisodeCamp: Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) doesn't appear at all in this episode while still being listed in the opening credits.

* AbsenteeActor: El doesn't appear in this episode. But she will have the next episode [[ADayInTheLimelight all to herself]].
* AccidentalHandHold: Between Lucas and Max when the group in the bus hears strange noises from the outside. The two feel awkward when they notice.

* EveryoneHasStandards: After Dr. Owen spends multiple episodes teetering on AmbiguouslyEvil, he proves to clearly be a better man than Brenner when, in a private meeting, he tells his colleagues point blank that he doesn't want Will to be harmed or killed if it can be prevented.

* SherlockScan: Bauman manages to thoroughly and accurately sum up Nancy and Jonathan's personal hangups purely from observing their behaviour.

* TotalPartyKill: The entire group of soldiers sent into the Mind Flayer's tunnels are wiped out by the creatures inside.

* WhamShot: Steve is approaching Dart, bat in hand...when a second beast appears behind him. There were zero hints that there were more than one prior to this. And then Lucas sees a third one. And a fourth one.

'''Nancy:''' ''(shy smile]])''

* GoodAdulteryBadAdultery: While they both felt like their relationship was over, Nancy had not officially broken up with Steve before she slept with Jonathan.

'''Nancy:''' ''([[{{Adorkable}} shy smile]])''

-->'''Steve:''' Hey! Dickheads! Why is random girl the only one helping me?

* GoodAdulteryBadAdultery: While they both felt like their relationship was over, Nancy had not officially broken up with Steve before she slept with Jonathan.

* CantStopTheSignal: Nancy, John and Murray prepare the information on the Hawkins Lab and send it to various newspapers.

* LuredIntoATrap: Mike realizes that the Mind Flayer used Will as its spy and the soldiers are in danger. However, he is too late to prevent the TotalPartyKill.

* SpitTake: On the morning after Nancy and Jonathan sleep together, Murray Bauman asks him [[DoubleEntendre "how was the pull-out?"]]. Cue
the spit take from Jonathan.

* SpitTake: Jonathan does this after Bauman asks him [[DoubleEntendre "how was the pull-out?"]]

* AmbiguouslyEvil: Finally averted;

"''Will's connection to a shadowy evil grows stronger, but no one's quite sure how to stop it. Elsewhere, Dustin and Steve forge an unlikely bond.''"

Will is rushed to the hospital, burning up from the inside. Steve and Dustin take the nail-filled baseball bat [[CallBack from season one]] to try and deal with Dart, but discover that he's grown again and tunneled his way free of the storm cellar. At the hospital, Joyce argues with the doctors, who can't tell her exactly what's wrong with Will, while Jonathan, Nancy and Murray make copies of the recording of Dr. Owen. As it's getting late, Murray says they can spend the night, and after some back-and-forth Nancy and Jonathan kiss and go to bed together.

Hopper is still sick from his time in the Upside-Down, but Dr. Owen arrives with a hazmat suit, saying there's something Hopper should see. They take an elevator down and we see that the gate in the basement [[FromBadToWorse is now the size of a skyscraper]], leading down to a huge network of tunnels that Dr. Owen says is continuing to spread. When Hopper asks why the scientists haven't burned it back, Dr. Owen says there's a "complication".

While Will sleeps, Joyce brings Bob up to speed. He takes it pretty well in stride, saying [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall he thought stuff like this only happened in science fiction]], and brings up moving to Maine again. Before Joyce, who is obviously still torn, can respond, Will wakes and calls out to her. Bob calls for a doctor, and when he returns, Will asks who Bob is, completely unable to remember him.

Murray very smugly makes Jonathan and Nancy breakfast, sends them on their way with a bottle of vodka and a bottle of soda water, tells them not to contact him again, and slams the door in their faces.

Lucas sneaks Max out past her abusive stepbrother with an offer of proof about his story. In the hospital, Dr. Owen determines that Will remembers Mike and Joyce, but not him, Bob, or Hopper. He does remember the soldiers "hurting him," which inspires Dr. Owen to bring in a severed piece of tentacle. When the tentacle is burned, Will cries out in pain. Dr. Owen tells Joyce he thinks it's some kind of hive-minded virus that's connecting all the hosts, but promises that it can be cured.

Steve and Dustin have a heart-to-heart while laying bait for Dart, unwittingly crossing over the dead line of corruption marked by Hopper and his deputies. Hopper tearfully apologizes to Eleven over the radio, unaware that she's still with her aunt and mother. In the office above, the doctors discuss how Will's brain is being altered by the Mind Flayer at an alarming rate. They insist that they can't keep putting off burning back the expanding corruption, even if it kills Will, but Dr. Owens refuses. While Joyce demands to know what's going on upstairs, Will tells Mike he thinks he knows how to stop the monster.

Steve and Dustin continue laying their meat-crumb trail to the abandoned yard where Hopper and the kids once hid from the helicopters, where they're caught up by Lucas and Max. Jonathan and Nancy arrive at the Byers house to find it empty and [[RoomFullOfCrazy covered in drawings]]. While investigating, Jonathan finds a Polaroid film cartridge and realizes that someone else has been there.

Using the polaroids the agents took, Will searches his map and finds a place the Mind Flayer doesn't want him to see, saying he doesn't know what's there but that it must be important. While Dustin and company prepare for Dart's arrival, a fireteam of soldiers descend into the tunnels, following Will's directions.

Night falls and Lucas and Max have a heartfelt talk on the roof of the bus, which they've converted into a makeshift fort, but are interrupted by Dart's arrival. The young Demogorgon seems reluctant to take the bait, though, so Steve takes the bat and goes out to tempt it into coming into the trap. However, Dart's got company: three other adolescent Demogorgons have Steve surrounded. He barely avoids a lunge from one and fights it off, then he retreats inside the bus. They try to batter their way in, but at the last minute something seems to distract them, and they vanish into the night, with Steve saying they weren't running away, but ''to'' somewhere else.

In the tunnels, the soldiers reach the junction Will mentioned. Hopper recognizes it as the place he was entombed just as an [[OminousFog Ominous]] FogOfDoom rolls in. Will tearfully apologizes, saying that the Mind Flayer made him send the soldiers into a trap and repeating that they shouldn't have upset him. Demogorgons descend on the group of soldiers, while the scientists watch helplessly from the control room. On the radar, dozens of red dots leave the junction and swarm down a single tunnel. Will tells Joyce to run, while in the control room Hopper and the scientists can hear growls from the elevator shaft, then a hand grips the edge.

* EveryoneHasStandards: After Dr. Owen spends multiple episodes teetering on AmbiguouslyEvil, he proves to clearly be a better man than Brenner when, in a private meeting, he tells his colleagues point blank that he doesn't want Will to be harmed or killed if it can be prevented.
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Jonathan and Nancy's liason is heavily implied to have ended in ''coitus interruptus'', given that presumably neither of them were carrying condoms. Lampshaded the next morning with a DoubleEntendre from Bauman.

* LetMeGetThisStraight: Steve starts with this line to recap a conversation he just had offscreen with Dustin about the latter using Dart to imnpress Max.

* AbsenteeActor: Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) doesn't appear at all in this episode while still being listed in the opening credits. Justified in the next episode "The Lost Sister," which focuses entirely on what she was up to during that time.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: Finally averted; after multiple episodes of it being unclear whether Dr. Owen really is a better man than Brenner or simply has a better facade, in his private meeting with his colleagues he proves that he really does care about Will and is not willing to blithely accept him being harmed or killed.

-->'''Bauman:''' So, Jonathan, how was the pull-out?
-->'''Jonathan:''' ''(SpitTake)'' I'm sorry...?
-->'''Nancy:''' ''([[{{Adorkable}} shy smile]])''
* GoodAdulteryBadAdultery: While they both felt like their relationship was over, [[spoiler:Nancy had not officially broken up with Steve before she slept with Jonathan]].

* ThisIsReality: Bob says to Joyce, [[spoiler:after he is read in to what is actually happening around them]], "I always thought stuff like this happened in movies and comic books."