The Upside Down (episode)

Merry Christmas, wiki!

5 years ago today, Will Byers got an Atari for Christmas! What is 1 thing you got, and what is your favorite episode of Stranger Things season 1, the Christmas themed season, and why?

I got LED remote controlled strip lights for my room.

My favorite episode of season 1 is “The Upside Down” because it has great acting, and served as a beautiful finale for the first season.

Prior to Billy’s final apology to Max, while she weeps at his side, Billy’s culminating moment interacting with the incarnation of The Mind Flayer in S3:E8 “Chapter Eight: The Battle Of Starcourt” is his defiance in protecting El, his impalement, followed by a resounding scream as the shot focuses on his face and upper body darkened by blackened veins.

Stranger Things has had a number of times when The Flayed are shown screaming in similar condition, however the most prominent among them is the exorcism of Will Byers in S2:E9 “Chapter Nine: The Gate.” As El and Hop are at The Gate, and Mike and the others are setting fire to the hub, while Will is being roasted in the cabin. His veins blackened, strength enhanced and howling, Will is choking Joyce until Nancy placed the glowing hot fire poker to his skin. The shot focuses on his screaming circular mouth as The Mind Flayer in it’s Season Two smoke form exits Will’s body and crashes through the cabin door and flies into the starry night to ultimately shelter in Brimborn Steelworks.

So, how did The Mind Flayer escape and where did it go at the closing of a Season Three? The Mind Flayer escaped by, “Moving in Stereo.”

Early in the whole of the series El demonstrated her ability to transmit electromagnetic waves from the void as radio waves converted into audio such as when the man at Hawkins Lab was reading words, and when viewing the Russian prior to hearing The Demogorgon. When isolation tanks were unavailable El used electronic white noise as an aid to access The Void. In addition, and entwined with sci fi elements, I theorize that El may possess cryptochromes, and developed magnetite concentration in her ethmoid bone allowing the use of and disruption of magnetic fields.

I theorize the The Mind Flayer has similar capacity. By activating The Flayed I theorize it transmits waves to itself, such as with Will in Season Two and the magnetite (used in steel refining) solution infused Flayed of Season Three. Through this means I believe The Flayed may be activated, or called/pulled back to a given location.

As Dustin repeatedly yells into the Supercom amplified by Cerebro The Mind Flayer takes the dropped Supercom in the food court and screams back, then breaking its casing though not its functionality. The shot pulls into its broken form showing the circuit board (rather akin to the piece focused on in Terminator 2) and the working speaker.

In Season One El seemingly deatomized The Demogorgon with a high frequency, high amplitude scream causing herself to be transported into The Upside Down. In Season Two The Mind Flayer exits Will similarly though remaining in Hawkins and taking shelter in the steelworks. In Season Three I propose that as Billy screams The Mind Flayer transmits it’s incorporeal self through the Supercom combined with the duel broadcast amplification of the Soviet and Cerebro antennas to a new location. In 1985, due to the increasing transition from analog to digital technology and signal transfers I believe The Mind Flayer escaped functional (with the possible existence of other open gates about the Earth) into the networks of digital geosynchronous satellites (a sky net of sorts, playing off Terminator 2) that have been depicted along with Space Shuttles that deployed them as early as when a young El is reclining on a pillow in Mike’s basement decorated with such holding a Supercom.

Each Season in progression organisms from The Upside Down and The Mind Flayer remain closer and more potent. Please share your thoughts in the comments!