It's summer in Hawkins, and up to now, things have been going great for the main characters. Hopper and Eleven are still living in the cabin, apparently finding it a better alternative than returning to Hopper's crappy trailer, but Eleven is no longer a prisoner there and is free to leave to be with her friends whenever she wants and have them come visit her (well, mostly Mike).
Lucas and Max also have a good relationship, and Dustin, upon returning from summer camp, reveals that he also now has a girlfriend named Suzie, who lives in Utah. He asks the party to go with him on an expedition to outskirts of Hawkins to set up a radio antenna, so he can talk with her over the radio he constructed at the science camp and formally introduce her to the party.
Jonathan and Nancy now have summer jobs at newspaper reporters. Nancy, however, suffers under an extremely sexist work environment and being saddled with menial tasks, and is hoping to find a big story that will kickstart her career. Billy, meanwhile, has found a job too, as a lifeguard, and a strict one at that.
Steve has moved on from Nancy, but has, much to his chagrin, been unsuccessful in the field of romance ever since. To make matters worse, his father has forced him to pick up a summer job too under threat of withholding his college fund, so he now works at the ice cream parlor at the newly opened Starcourt mall. He gets on well with his co-worker, Robin, however, and is trying his best to impress her.
But near the fourth of July, things start to go south. Hopper feels that Mike and Eleven are spending too much time together. He seeks advice from Joyce, who encourages him to talk it out politely with the young couple. But when they don't respond respectfully to his attempt to do this, he takes Mike aside and scares him into backing off. What's worse, while Dustin's new radio fails to contact Suzie, it does pick up a Soviet broadcast that seems very close by... and Will's senses of something wrong have been acting up again...especially whenever he's in Starcourt Mall.
This episode provides examples of:
- Abandoned Warehouse: The part of the Mind Flayer that was controlling Will at the end of the last season appears to be residing in one of these on the outskirts of Hawkins.
- Ankle Drag: Happens to Billy in the final scene after he wrecks his car outside the steel mill where the Mind Flayer is hiding.
- A-Team Montage: Of the kids mounting Cerebro on a hill.
- Blatant Lies: When Hopper spies Eleven making out with Mike in her room, she uses her telekinesis to shut the door and keep it shut while Hopper tries to get in. When he's finally allowed in a few seconds later, Mike and Eleven are positioned on her bed as if they've been reading the whole time, staring at him innocently. Hopper can only fume.
- Body Horror: The Swarm of Rats going to the abandoned warehouse each convulse and explode in a gory mess once they reach inside.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Hopper is right in that Mike and El are involved with each other to an unhealthy degree. However, the fact remains that, due to the restrictions El is under, Mike is largely her only contact with the outside world.
- Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Hopper is not happy with the physical intimacy that Mike and Eleven are indulging in. He's also considerably less than thrilled about the way Mike seems to be disrespecting him.
- Break Up Demand: Despite his good intentions, Hopper ends up threatening Mike to stay away from Eleven which he does.
- Brick Joke: The Farrah Fawcett hairspray discussed in Season 2 makes a reappearance as Dustin's weapon of choice.
- Burger Fool: Steve has to wear a stupid sailor uniform for his job as an ice cream vendor at the new mall.
- Call-Back: In Season 2, Owens warned Jonathan and Nancy of the dire consequences that could happen if someone like the Soviet Union learned of Brenner's screw-up (opening a portal to another dimension). In this episode, we see that his fears were apparently completely justified, with a Soviet experiment being conducted to replicate the Hawkins Lab accident, seemingly with no regard for the results or the cost thereof.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Hopper very clearly has trouble actually talking to Mike and Eleven about their relationship, and eventually gives up, making an excuse to get Mike alone with him so they can talk on his terms.
- Compartment Shot: Of Joyce fetching food from the fridge.
- Cradle of Loneliness: Hopper cradles a pillow when lying in bed and memorizing the lines for his speech.
- Dark Reprise: Happens in the scene where the Mind Flayer kicks off its plan to create a flesh proxy in Hawkins by causing several dozen rats to explode viscerally. The soundtrack playing is "Rats"
which fittingly turns into a slower-paced and more watery-sounding version of "The Upside Down". - Distant Prologue: The episode's prologue is set a year before the rest of the plot of Season 3, which also places it before Season 2.
- Dying Town: Or a dying part of town, at least. The opening of Starcourt Mall has clearly done a number on Hawkins' pre-existing shopping district; most shops are empty and abandoned, the general store where Joyce works is having a 70% off sale, there are flyers up organizing meetings protesting the mall, and there are hardly any customers around.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Karen and her fellow moms are all eagerly eyeing Billy in a bathing suit. When one sees Heather getting down from the lifeguard station, she alerts the others to give them a chance to freshen up before Billy arrives for his shift.
- Exact Eavesdropping: A variant. Dustin's radio tower picks up Soviet communications encrypted in Trick Dialogue, though he doesn't immediately realize what it means.
- Eye Scream:Downplayed. Lucas gets a face full of Dustin's hairspray when the kids surprise him after coming home from science camp. He's able to wash them out in the sink later and retains his vision.
- Fanservice: A lot of attractive people walking around in bright-colored swimsuits, Billy in his lifeguard uniform (or lack thereof), Heather in her lifeguard uniform, Karen Wheeler and her pack of horny moms, even Jonathan has a moment where he gets out of bed in only his white briefs.
- Future Loser: Steve bemoans that he's in the early stages of this; he didn't get good enough grades to get into college and his dad is forcing him to work at a humiliating minimum-wage job at the mall ice-cream parlour to teach him a lesson. He's even lost his charm with girls, who appear to find him more laughable than sexy, although he does have a point that the goofy Scoops Ahoy uniform isn't helping.
- Girlfriend in Canada: Dustin claims to have made a girlfriend at science camp. Her name's Suzie, and she's apparently a genius who looks like Phoebe Cates and lives in Utah with Mormon parents who won't allow her to date outside her religion, meaning that Dustin can only communicate with her via an intricate radio set-up. His friends are clearly a bit skeptical about whether she even exists.
- Glorious Mother Russia: The Soviet Union is portrayed as this, as per the usual 80s depiction, with stone-cold, militaristic leaders, No OSHA Compliance, all set in a remote facility in a snow-blasted mountain, all topped off with "White Army, Black Baron" playing as the scene comes to a close on a Soviet flag.
- Growing Up Sucks: Both Will and Dustin experience this in the episode:
- Will, apparently the only member of the group who hasn't gotten a girlfriend, is feeling like a bit of a third wheel and wants to play D&D instead of hanging around the mall with the others.
- Dustin feels left out and left behind by his friends after being at summer camp, who would rather hang out and make out than join him with his radio set-up.
- Hope Spot: When Nancy walks into a meeting to make food deliveries and the newsmen are talking about what their local stories should focus on, she suggests covering Starcourt Mall and how many of the small businesses are suffering; for a moment it looks like she's about to gain praise from the boss for such an idea, only for him to give her a hard time about the lack of mustard on his burger.
- Jump Scare: As Billy approaches the motel where he plans to meet up with Karen, a rat suddenly slams into his windshield and makes him crash. Another one ends the episode shortly after, where he gets dragged off by an unseen monster to his apparent death.
- Inconvenient Darkroom Illumination: When Nancy arrives at the newspaper where she interns, and begins to distribute the burgers she picked up for the staff, she enters the darkroom while Jonathan is developing pictures there. She hastily apologizes and closes the door again.
- Lady in Red: Before attempting to leave the house to meet Billy, Karen wears a flowy, figure-forming dress in red and was seen wearing red lingerie.
- Lipstick-and-Load Montage: The scene where Karen prepares for her "meeting" with Billy has her doing her make-up, blow-drying and teasing and combing her hair with a touch of red lipstick.
- Lipstick Mark: Jonathan still has Nancy's lipstick on his cheek the next morning. Joyce wipes it off his face with a smile.
- Make-Out Kids: Teen hormones coupled with making up for nearly a year's separation added with summer break mean Mike and Eleven are having some heavy make-out sessions, much to Hopper's increasing frustration.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: While talking to Joyce about Eleven and Mike, Hopper at one point decides to simply kill Mike and cover it up, and is only partially joking.
- Neck Lift: The head scientist at the Russian lab is on the receiving end of one at the beginning courtesy of the General's freakishly strong henchman. See You Have Failed Me.
- No-Tell Motel: Billy invites Karen to one, ostensibly for "swimming lessons". Neither could be any more blatant about the fact they're discussing a possible affair.
- Oh, Crap!: Mike, when Hopper's got him alone in the car and it finally sinks in that Hopper's limits have been reached, both with the near-constant making out with Eleven and Mike's disrespectful attitude.
- Plucky Office Girl: Despite her effort, it's clear that the all-male writing and editorial team at The Hawkins Post want Nancy to Stay in the Kitchen, with one particularly boorish man haranguing her over the missing mustard on his hamburger after making a series of sexist jokes about a beauty pageant contestant.
- Rage Breaking Point: Hopper has been increasingly irritated by Mike and Eleven's relationship throughout the episode, but it's when Mike undermines him by making cheap sniggering comments when he's trying to patiently confront the two that Hopper decides that a little alone time between him and Mike would be a good idea. Even then, he doesn't completely snap until Mike, realizing Hopper's deception, yells that he's a "lying piece of shit", after which Hopper gets quietly enraged. Only then does Mike, now locked in a police car with his girlfriend's police-chief father whom he has succeeded in seriously pissing off, realize that he has crossed a line and is now in real trouble.
- Secondary Character Title: Named for Dustin's attempts to raise his Girlfriend in Utah on his ham radio.
- Security Cling: Eleven's reaction to Dustin spraying Lucas is to embrace Mike like this is scarier than anything the Upside Down had to offer.
- Sexy Surfacing Shot: During the Pool Scene, Karen Wheeler is seen climbing out of the pool ladder in her swimsuit right before Billy walks up to her and they start flirting.
- Shout-Out:
- Hopper has clearly grown his mustache to emulate Tom Selleck's. To illustrate this, he is seen at one point watching Magnum, P.I..
- Dustin named his homemade ham radio "Cerebro."
- One of Dustin's inventions from science camp is an electric hammer, much like the one made by Homer Simpson.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Even leaving aside Hopper's frustration with the near-constant making out, Mike and Eleven have clearly reached the point in their relationship where their all-consuming fixation on each other is starting to annoy their friends a bit; when they make up a lame excuse to ditch Dustin's homecoming because of Eleven's "curfew", Dustin is clearly a bit hurt by this and Lucas and Will irritatedly gripe that they've been like that all summer. The sole outlier is Max, who thinks their behavior is romantic.
- Slow Electricity: The power outage travels slowly across Hawkins.
- Soviet Super Science: The Russian scientists seem to be in the process of building a machine capable of creating a portal to the Upside Down.
- Spy Speak: The instructions that the Soviets broadcast via radio signal are encoded like this."The week is long...The silver cat feeds...When blue meets yellow in the west...A trip to China sounds nice...If you tread lightly..."
- Stacy's Mom: Karen hangs out with a group of overly made-up, well-coiffed, stylish and glamourous women by the pool to check out Billy, even posing to catch his eye.
- Surprise Party: After Dustin returns, Eleven telekinetically moves some of his toy robots into the living room so the Party can give him a surprise welcome back party. Unfortunately, Dustin is so freaked by the toys moving that he brought his Farrah Fawcett spray with him. When the Party yells "surprise", he ends up emptying a good portion of the bottle into Lucas' eyes, with both boys screaming like girls, and Eleven so scared she embraces Mike like the Mind Flayer just popped out.
- Swarm of Rats: A huge one is seen converging on the abandoned warehouse the Mind Flayer remnant is inhabiting.
- Title Drop: The episode title is Dustin's question to his girlfriend in Utah.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Teenage hormones and the confidence coming from having a girlfriend appear to have gone to Mike's head somewhat, as he's a lot more smug, disrespectful and obnoxious than he was in previous seasons. Unfortunately for him, he makes the mistake of being a bit too smug and cocky towards Hopper, leading to a Twerp Sweating which quickly brings him crashing back to earth.
- Tranquil Fury: Hopper, pushed to his limits by Mike and Eleven's constant making out, is already on edge when he tries to approach the two "on their level" to get them to try and maybe dial it back on the constant making out. However, his anger to this point has mainly been bluster and ineffectual huffing and puffing, so they initially don't take him seriously. Then, when he's trying to work himself up to his speech, Mike makes the mistake of getting a bit cocky and disrespectful, leading Hopper to contrive a reason to take the boy home so they can have a little 'chat'; however, despite having apparently punched through some kind of anger event horizon, Hopper is clearly still trying to take on board Joyce's earlier advice about not losing his cool. That said though, it's one thing to lose your cool. It's another when you don't, and what is transcribed here is a display of quiet anger that is infinitely more terrifying, as we see Hopper, bug-eyed and clearly exercising every ounce of self-control he has:Mike: You lying piece of shit! [Mike tries to leave the car, but Hopper keeps using the internal lock to trap him] You're crazy!
Hopper: [Glaring at Mike with wide eyes, but never raising his voice beyond a soft murmur] Crazy? You wanna see real crazy? You disrespect me again. [Mike stares back, wide-eyed] Okay. Here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna drive you home. And I'm gonna...speak. And you're...going...to listen. And then maybe — maybe by the end of it, maybe if you're lucky, maybe — I will continue to allow you to date my daughter. [Looks back at Mike, who is still staring at him frozen in fear; beginning to get loud] Nod if you understand.
[Mike nods frantically; Hopper pulls the car away just a little too fast] - Trick Dialogue: We see Hopper in close-up giving his speech. Then we cut over to see that he is still with Joyce in her shop, with her helping him practice.
- Twerp Sweating: After having his buttons pushed a little too often, Hopper contrives a reason involving Mike's grandmother to get him alone in the car, ostensibly to take him home but clearly so that he can pull some of this. In Hopper's defense, and to his credit, he actually made a genuine effort to be calm, reasonable and patient with the two and speak to them respectfully on their level about his discomfort with the situation, but Mike made the mistake of getting a bit cocky and disrespectful. In Mike's defense, when he called Hopper out a bit too strongly for lying, it's quite possible that he was alluding to at least one occasion that put him through a year of misery and another occasion that risked his life with the government agents... Another point in Mike's defense is the nature of Hopper's lie, that something happened to Mike's grandmother, and that evoking that kind of fear just for the sake of this trope goes a bit too far.
- Two-Keyed Lock: The Soviets' massive laser requires this to start up.
- Useless Bystander Parent: No one steps up when Billy insults a fat kid for his weight in public, even though the pool is populated with adults (including Karen and her friends).
- Wedding Ring Removal: Karen leaves her wedding and engagement rings on her bathroom sink while getting ready to meet Billy.
- What You Are in the Dark: A more minor case than usual, but likely no one would've been able to find out if Karen had slept with Billy. However, seeing Ted sleeping with their daughter Holly on his lap causes her to decide not to go through with the temptation.
- When Things Spin, Science Happens: The big laser built by the Soviets to reopen the Upside Down is made up of various spinning parts.
- Whoosh in Front of the Camera: Rats whoosh across the foreground while Billy is investigating the broken windshield of his car.
- You Are in Command Now: After having the previous head of the Soviet dimensional gate project killed via Neck Lift, his junior subordinate is informed by the Soviet general that he has a year to produce results, with the obvious implication that if he doesn't he'll meet a similar fate.
- You Have Failed Me: When the machine running the Soviet experiment to open the gate fails and explodes after temporarily opening a gateway to the Upside Down, the head scientist nervously tries to claim to the general overseeing the project that they're close. He doesn't get to finish this claim since the general's underling performs a Neck Lift and throttles the scientist to death.
