‘Stranger Things’ Creators Defend That Out Of Place Season 2 Episode That Had Everyone Talking

Stranger Things Season 2 Episode 7 The Lost Sister Explanation

Netflix


It should be pretty obvious, but there are some potential SPOILERS ahead for Stranger Things Season 2. If you haven’t watched through Episode 7 then you might want to peace out now. Moving on….There was an episode in Stranger Things Season 2 that had everyone scratching their heads. I’m talking about Episode 7, ‘The Lost Sister’, where Eleven/Jane goes off to Chicago to reconnect with her ‘sister’. This girl, Kali, was tattooed with #8 and also possesses otherworldly powers like Eleven. Their skill set differs, however, and Kali’s abilities enable her to make people see things that are not there.

Stranger Things Season 2 Episode 7 The Lost Sister Explanation

Netflix


In ‘The Lost Sister’, Eleven reconnects with Kali after finding her living in a dilapidated warehouse in Chicago. The girl’s become a criminal and lives with a group of criminals. Their gang tracks down ‘bad people’ and kills them. Eleven goes out on one of these outings after tracking down the man responsible for scrambling her mother’s brain with electroshock therapy but Eleven calls off the killing after finding out the man has two daughters.

‘The Lost Sister’ Kali is angry with Eleven for the change of heart but ultimately seems to forgive her. Which is fine. They’ve both been through some serious shit and carry insane amounts of baggage. But what the shit was the point of that entire episode? The Duffer Brothers, co-creators of Stranger Things, explained the purpose of the episode in an interview with EW:

“Whether it works for people or not, it allows us to experiment a little bit. It’s important for Ross and I to try stuff and not feel like we’re doing the same thing over and over again. It’s almost like doing a whole little other pilot episode in the middle of your season… But it was really fun to write and cast and work on. Our test of the episode was we tried to pull it out of the show just to make sure that we needed it because I didn’t want it in there as filler — even though some critics are accusing us of doing that. But Eleven’s journey kind of fell apart, like the ending didn’t work, without it. So I was like, whether this works or not, we need this building block in here or the whole show is going to collapse. It’s not going to end well.” (via)

As noted on UPROXX, Ross Duffer compared Eleven’s journey and return to Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back. To be fair, the hero’s journey is one of the oldest archetypes in storytelling so I’m not seeing the connection to Star Wars specifically, but I don’t want to get caught up in that.

I think I was about 15 minutes into that episode before I looked to the person next to me and said ‘what the fuck is the point of this episode?’ If it was all about Eleven leaving town on a journey to experience some revelations and gain life experience then that’s fine. I’ll take that. But if this was the writer’s way of saying ‘we’re going to move away from the plot of this show because we don’t have enough material to write 9 episodes in a row’ then I think I’m going to have to abandon this show in the future. I’m 100% certain we’ll see Kali/#8 again in Season 3 or 4, but if they plan on introducing #’s 1-7, 9, and 10 and it’s just a show about people with powers and the core characters are abandoned then I’m out.

Now that we’re all done binge-watching Stranger Things Season 2, can we unanimously agree that Steve is the best bro in the state of Indiana?

[h/t UPROXX]