I wanted to write this in earlier comments: Does anyone think of Black Mesa while the Hawkins Lab scenes (the current time, not Eleven's flashbacks)? [spoiler] specially when they send in the one dude in the Upside-Down. That could've been Gordon Freeman[/spoiler]. Anyway, as a i expected the protagonists are shifting now in the offensive. But i cringed on Hopper's plan. What was his exit strategy? I know, he is more an intuition type, but that was seriously dumb. Another thing that felt out of place was the scene at the vigil with Mr. Clarke. Firstly it was an unusual amount of explanation for _Stranger Things_, secondly this punch-a-pencil-through-paper-explanation was very cliché. And not 80s cliché, i looked it up. It was first used in Event Horizon in 1997 (or has Mr. Clarke the ability to watch movies from the future, which would be awesome btw.), then recently in Interstellar. I really enjoyed the duo Nancy-Jonathan. Nancy finally left her 80s-trope-shell and showed some soul. The confrontation developed both characters much further. Speaking of Duos: Joyce was in combination with Lonnie also very good. She used her maniac energy, that she had built up in the last episodes in converted it into an emancipatory act. [spoiler] One final thought, that i also wanted to write in earlier comments: I think they showed the monster too early. We saw already the head and parts of the body in episode 3 or so. I would've wished they wanted until the end of this episode to show anything of the monster directly. So the picture analysis in the dark room and everything else connected to finding the monster would have had so much more impact.[/spoiler]

I'm thinking eleven caused the portal. And she's scared to go back. It looks like the creature is definitely attracted to blood. Barb's bloody finger...the deer.

I love how well-developed all the kids and teens are in this show. People often don't give kids nearly enough credit; they're smarter, as a general rule, than most people realize. Especially the kids in this show. Except Lucas, who will obviously grow up to be a misogynist and a mansplainer. Or a Hawkins Sheriff's deputy.... How cool would it be if it turns out Hopper's daughter didn't really die but was stolen away and her death faked, just like Will, and that Sara = Eleven? Probably way too obvious and convenient and optimistic an idea for this show, though.

The only dumb thing in this ep was that they didn't kill Hopper once they got him, I mean they don't leave any loose ends like when one of the operative killed the Guy in the restaurant for protecting eleven.