The Demogorgon demands that its human interlocutors attend to the lab at the edge of town and the experiments being conducted there—as well as the government’s attempts to colonize a whole new dimension. Updated October 31, 2019. In Stranger Things Halloween Special, a monster attacks Hawkins twenty years before Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will take on the Demogorgon. Courtesy of Netflix. The second album features keyframe art from the Aaron Sims Company, including a look at the Upside-Down world and the inter-dimensional rift/gate inside of Hawkins Laboratory. The replica can move up to 120ft far from the Oblex, but it can’t separate from it entirely. All of them are on a par with one of the possible influences for Stranger Things season 4: John Carpenter’s The Thing. By creating an account, you verify that you are at least 13 years of age, and have read and agree to the Comicbook.com Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, By Jay Jayson Stranger Things 2 returns to Upside Down with new monster, bigger story By Tim Stack September 27, 2017 at 12:00 PM EDT Like we fell in love with Gaten, and there were aspects, like Barb, we were already planning to deal with. Although these weren’t replicas of the victims, instead being the Mind Flayer taking control of their bodies (as it did with Will in season 2), it’s a concept similar to that of the Oblex. She gets pretty seriously slimed in the process, but that is only appropriate given the whole Ghostbusters thing going on in the new season. It can create credible copies of its victims, which are made of the same ooze as the Oblex, and are pretty much identical to the victim except for a faint smell of sulfur. Entertainment Weekly is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. By the end of the nine-hour season, fans can also expect new characters, like Bob (Sean Astin), a love interest for Joyce (Winona Ryder), and some pretty wow-worthy action sequences. It premiered on Netflix on July 15, 2016 along with the rest of the season. The monster shakes up the spaces so casually decorated with plant emblems, calling, it seems, for a wholesale reevaluation of normal life in the contemporary U.S. As it infringes on domestic order, the monster also reveals and forestalls the ongoing military explorations of the U.S. government. I want the Toy Story debate!”. Venus flytraps, which are native to the wetlands of what are now North Carolina and South Carolina, famously eat by closing their jawlike traps around unsuspecting bugs. Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW. Guillermo del Toro said “hi” to her once. The Demogorgon’s face is terrifying because it is predatory. - September 6, 2017 02:42 am EDT. “It makes [Stranger Things] so authentic because it comes from their hearts.” The Duffers’ canny but old-fashioned combination of emotion and thrills drove the series — about four small-town Indiana friends who find themselves dealing with a portal to a different dimension — to monster-level success after its 2016 premiere. But it looks, to my eye, like a lily. In the first season of the Netflix series Stranger Things, when Will Byers and other residents of Hawkins go missing, it’s not immediately obvious that the culprit is a plant. Copyright 2018 ComicBook.com. But also Caps and Leafs), or wondering what life would have been like had Pushing Daisies, Firefly, and Limitless not been cancelled. But, like a stray seed, a little bit of the monster remains shut out in the real world. Shawn Levy also serves as director. To that end, when the show comes back it will have the cinematic moniker Stranger Things 2. Edge Effects is a digital magazine about environmental issues produced by graduate students at the Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE), a research center within the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Plant monsters abound in twentieth-century science fiction and popular culture. However, given the Mind Flayer’s abilities shown in season 3, the creature can also be compared to a more modern creature from D&D: the Oblex. The potential consciousness of plants—their ways of knowing and willfully acting— is the site of ongoing scientific investigation. It felt like there was a nice alignment between what we wanted to see and what other people wanted to see.”, RELATED: See Stranger Things Recreate 7 Classic Movie Posters for Season 2, While season one was focused mainly on finding Will (Noah Schnapp) and defeating the demogorgon, Things 2 features several disparate stories that intertwine but all roads eventually lead to the “shadow monster,” a nickname given to a giant creature Will first meets in PTSD-like visions of the Upside Down. It was great. Stranger Things, Volume 1; Stranger Things, Volume 2; Stranger Things 2 (soundtrack) Stranger Things: Halloween Sounds From the Upside Down; Stranger Things 3 (original score) Stranger Things 3 … Orderly greenery keeps plants on the scene. The Demogorgon was named after a powerful D&D demonic monster. Illustration of the Venus flytrap from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, 1804. She gets pretty seriously slimed during the breakout, which is only appropriate given the whole 'Ghostbusters' thing going on in season two. Click the button below to start this article in quick view. Tags: American StudiesArtsPlants and GardensTelevision. “Obviously they’re nerdy, but that’s what makes them so cool,” says Brown. She comes across a small portal to the normal world and, using her telekinetic powers, breaks through to the better-lit and plant-free reality. Whatever happens to Hawkins and the Upside Down in 2020, I hope plant monsters make a comeback. The Venus flytrap is the most well-known example of a mobile, carnivorous plant, and a favorite of early American writing. The plant creature decenters the values that define the protagonists’ lives, as looking at a person-sized lily might shake one’s sensibilities on the sidewalk. As other writers have articulated, in some ways Stranger Things isn’t critical of Hawkins’ domestic and governmental orders, which are inherited from the Anglo-colonial world that precedes them. Though there are some ideas of how the Demogorgon chooses its preys, there’s still one big question that hasn’t been answered: why did it take Will Byers? She is an Audiovisual Communication graduate that wanted to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans (and it turned out great). Will, who is held captive in the Upside Down, is called “a queer” by bullies at school and by his dad. Next: Stranger Things Season 4 Needs To Properly Explain The Upside Down. What’s known about Stranger Things season 4 is that it will continue exploring the role of the Russians, their experiments, and their real plans, especially because they have Jim Hopper (David Harbour) as prisoner. She was also a contributor for FanSided's BamSmackPow and 1428 Elm. And the characters more closely entwined with the Demogorgon fail to conform to normative gender roles. Facelessness is its own kind of terror, but the monster does have a face of sorts. When its mouth is closed, its face seems to be folded inward, featureless as a bud before opening. It mainly uses its psychic abilities to mentally enslave other beings, which is why Dustin used it as example to explain the Shadow Monster and its motivations. All rights reserved. The Demogorgon and the Upside Down are a mystery not only to viewers but to the characters within the series, who haven’t been able to figure out how they work and what their origins truly are. The floral patterns of the Stranger Things backgrounds present botanical life as a set of orderly adornments, a nonthreatening backdrop for the more important affairs of human beings. The Venus flytrap, then, is just the most literal example of an American nature full of potentially predatory plants that disrupt categories of plant, animal, and human being. 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Courtesy of Netflix. Plant faces appear again, too, this time on the much beloved, very terrifying Demodogs. To read more on Stranger Things 2, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly on stands Friday. Says Matt, “The good news is that a lot of what we wanted to see or what we responded to, that seems to be what the audience responded to. It has to be.” But of course, as the dripping slime left on the bear trap and the creeping vines and drifting particles of the Upside Down suggest, it’s not dead at all. The Stranger Things monster takes different forms across the seasons. The author adds that the monster was able to find Will at Castle Byers in the Upside Down because Eleven had just been there through the void, for which she used a lot of power, and so the Demogorgon sensed it. Let's take a look at some fan theories. For eighteenth-century English and early U.S. writers, plants could be monstrous in two specific ways that are germane to Stranger Things: they could be predatory, or they could move. Related: Stranger Things: The Upside Down Is Future Earth Theory Explained. In this way, it’s not so different from the lilies it reminds me of. Another argument to support this is that a lot of blood was shed at Hawkins Middle School when Dr. Brenner and his team arrived, thus bringing the Demogorgon into the mix. Whether Stranger Things season 4 will answer the big question of why the Demogorgon took Will to the Upside Down or not is unknown, but it should at least shed more light on how the monster chooses its victims, as well as how the Upside Down really works. Offers may be subject to change without notice. The Demogorgon was introduced in season 1 of Stranger Things, when Eleven accidentally opened a gate to the Upside Down and let the monster in. In the season finale of season one, we saw Eleven disappear into the Upside Down or whatever after doing in the Demogorgon, but the latest trailer for season two made it clear that the mysterious 13-year-old makes it back to Hawkins—or the woods nearby, at least.