A code red brings the gang back together to face a frighteningly familiar evil. Karen urges Nancy to keep digging, and Robin finds a useful map.
This episode provides examples of:
- Asshole Victim: A non-lethal version with the Mayor when Hopper beats the all-loving shit out of him and subjects him to the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique. Kline doesn't help himself with the sheer crassness he dismisses the death of Hopper's daughter, Sarah.
- Air-Vent Passageway: Downplayed. They can use it to get to the room they need to, but it's a regular-sized air vent and the only person who fits is Lucas's sister Erica. And even then, it's a tight fit.
- Barbell Beating: During her fight against Billy, Eleven telekinetically lifts a barbell and hurls it at him, but he manages to push it back at her.
- Body Horror: As the Flayed are "activated", they start forming Tainted Veins on their bodies as they are reduced to simple minded, monstrous agents of the Mind Flayer. While the old lady Nancy visits can only lay there and moan, Billy becomes a definite danger who nearly kills the Party.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Nancy and Jonathan's argument after they get fired from the paper. Nancy is absolutely correct that Jonathan can't understand how humiliating and degrading the casual day-to-day sexism was for her to deal with. Jonathan is absolutely correct that Nancy apparently expecting to make star reporter in a month, and being unwilling to play the game with the deck stacked against her to get there was more than a little naïve. Jonathan also points out how careless it was that her crusade endangered his position at the paper as well, as he needs the money for college more than she does, as his family has significantly less money than hers. Once they've both had a chance to cool off, they essentially realize this trope was at play and apologize to each other.
- Bound and Gagged: Heather's parents when they're given to the Mind Flayer.
- Brain Bleach: The sauna room full of older, heavier men has this effect on Mike, Will, and Lucas.Lucas: I think I just threw up in my mouth.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Mayor Kline attempts to dismiss Hopper's questions by claiming he doesn't remember all the things Hopper accuses him of. Seeing just words isn't getting anywhere, he opts to just interrogate him violently and nearly cut off a finger, and that gets him the info he wants.
- Call-Back: Lucas still has his slingshot and uses it on Billy to stun him.
- Cardboard Box of Unemployment: After Nancy and Jonathan are fired from their internships at The Hawkins Post, there's a brief shot of Nancy returning home with a small cardboard box in her arms.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Mayor really never had a chance against the tall and powerful Jim Hopper.
- Dare to Be Badass: Karen's speech to Nancy after she gets fired and talks about her own struggles with the Stay in the Kitchen attitude.Karen: But you're not like that. You're a fighter. You always have been.
- Death Course: Discussed. Erica asks if there are any booby traps, lasers, or spikes to be expected on her way across the Air-Vent Passageway. Later, when asked if there are any booby traps in the warehouse entrance, she snarks that they'd be pretty terrible traps if she could see them.
- Detect Evil: Because of his previous possession by the Mind Flayer, Will confirms he has some residual awareness of it now. He can sense when it is active and pushing its intent into a person, such as Billy going from sobbing about the horrible things it made him do, to violently attacking Max.
- Dutch Angle: The scene when Tom confronts and fires Nancy and Jonathan is shot this way, to emphasize the sense of wrongness that Tom emanates after having been infected by the Mind Flayer. Nancy does suspect that something is wrong about Tom, but believes it's because he's hopped up on drugs, and not because he's been Flayed.
- Epileptic Flashing Lights: The light starts flickering menacingly after Billy gets trapped in the sauna.
- Failed a Spot Check: The kids' attempt to drive out the Mind Flayer from Billy. Even Will forgot to mention Joyce and others managed to expel the Mind Flayer because he was heavily sedated and restrained at the same time. The Mind Flayer puppeteering Billy, obviously having none of the disadvantages this time, manages to wake up and ruin the effort, and almost committing a Total Party Kill.
- Food as Bribe: Team Dustin bribes Erica with ice cream which she parlays into a "for life" deal in exchange for getting them in the warehouse.
- Fin Gore: Hopper nearly cuts Mayor Kline's finger off during the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: It's implied that Karen wanted to make her mark out on the world when she was younger, but she was subjected to the misogynistic attitudes of their time and place, and gave up. She urges Nancy to pursue this story over and over while she still can.Karen: It's not easy out there, Nance... People are always saying you can't. That you shouldn't. That you're not smart enough, good enough. This world, it... it beats you up again and again until eventually, I... Most people, they just, they just stop trying.
- Innocently Insensitive: Nancy towards Jonathan. After getting them both fired, she tries to brush off losing their jobs like it's no big deal, but Jonathan reminds her that, unlike her, he actually needed that job because he doesn't have a father who makes six figures a year. On the other hand, though, Jonathan is being dismissive of the unfair and horribly misogynistic treatment Nancy was repeatedly subjected to. Of course, once things calm down, both of them understand what the other's going through.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Done by Hopper to Kline to get information about the guy who attacked him.
- Kick the Dog: Mayor Kline tells Hopper not to give him the "dead daughter sob story" again, because he doesn't care. This, alongside his flippant attitude to Hopper's questions, compels him to just brutalize him and threaten to cut off a finger to make him spill the beans.
- Neck Lift: Done by Billy to Eleven. She is saved by Mike's intervention.
- The Noisy Straw: When making demands for her "contribution," Erica is slurping her milkshake with much noise just to make a point.
- Not Brainwashed: Heather's parents seem to think they've lost her to some kind of brainwashing. It gets even worse seconds later when they realize she's not only turned against them but is actively trying to convert them as well. Needless to say, both of those options would have been better than what ends up happening.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: A minor example. While spying on Billy at the pool, Lucas points out that Billy is wearing a long sleeve shirt, something even Max notes to be unusual. This, alongside the fact that they discovered the bath tub full of ice, makes them highly suspect that Billy is indeed an agent of the Mind Flayer.
- Orifice Invasion: Happens to Heather's parents, so they become corrupted by the Mind Flayer.
- Patriotic Fervor: 'You can't spell America without Erica.'
- Please Put Some Clothes On: When Hopper gets up, naked, and Joyce is looking away pointing to the spot where his clothes are drying.
- Precision F-Strike: Billy lets out the first proper F-bomb of the series when he breaks through the window in the sauna door and tries to stab Max.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After Nancy's Intrepid Reporter shenanigans get her and Jonathan fired, Jonathan lays into her over her entitled attitude, while she lays into him over how he's dismissing the horribly misogynistic treatment she'd received.Jonathan: I don't live in a two-story house on Maple Street. My dad doesn't earn six figures. Hell, he isn't even around.
Nancy: Oh God, here comes the Oliver Twist routine.
Jonathan: Mortgage, college tuition. You know what, they're real things, Nancy. Things that you don't care about, only because you don't have to.
Nancy: *sarcastically* I didn't realize I lived in a bubble!
Jonathan: Well, you do! You want everything handed to you on a silver platter! I mean, we were interns, Nancy, interns! What did you expect? That you would make star reporter in a month? Crack the big case?
Nancy: Ugh, you sound just like them, you realize that, right? Just like Bruce and those assholes—
Jonathan: Yeah, yeah. Those assholes gave us jobs.
Nancy: Is that what that was? That was humiliating! Humiliating!
Jonathan: Yeah, the world sucks. Deal with it like the rest of us. - Refuge in Audacity: Hopper beating the crap out of the mayor in the mayor's own office, in hearing distance of the man's secretary no less, is this in spades. Joyce helps by stopping his secretary from calling for assistance.
- Rewatch Bonus: Upon re-viewings of the show and after exploring the Twitter feed of Caroline Arapoglou
, it's confirmed that Winnie Kline was one of Karen Wheeler's pool friends and the butt at the Jazzercise class. - Sauna of Death: Billy gets put to the test. Unfortunately, it doesn't take, as the Mind Flayer compels him to break free, and he comes dangerously close to killing the Party.
- Shout-Out: An almost word-for-word quote from Sneakers.Robin: It's fascinating what twenty bucks will get you at the County Recorders office.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again," already no stranger to this trope, plays over the creepy last pan shot across a group of Flayed people from Hawkins.
- Suddenly Shouting: Billy goes from tearfully begging Max to believe that he didn't mean the things he's done one moment, to screaming that he'll kill her in the next as the Mind Flayer takes control of him.
- Undressing the Unconscious: Hopper wakes up naked under a blanket on his couch after being beaten into unconsciousness by Grigori in the previous episode. He is nursed by Joyce who apparently brought him home and undressed him. Hopper only realizes that fact when he gets up and feels himself without clothes. He looks at Joyce and sternly asks for his clothes while Joyce turns her head.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Gender Inverted by Mike when Billy has Eleven by the throat, so Mike whacks the older boy over the head with a lead pipe. Then played straight by Eleven when Billy then menaces Mike, and Eleven throws him through a brick wall. This is despite the two being broken up at the time, hinting that the break-up is not that serious and that she's just trying to teach Mike a lesson about lying to her.
- You Are Not Alone: A dark variation. Heather consoles the wounded Billy that while he may have failed against Eleven, she cannot win against "us." Then the camera pans back and reveals dozens of other people the Mind Flayer has corrupted standing there in a dormant state.
- Previously, Max plays this straight as she convinces Billy they truly understand what Billy's going through in the sauna, as they try to exorcise the Mind Flayer out of him. Too bad it wakes up the Mind Flayer in the process...
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Line said by Max when the boys call her on the landline after she turned off the radio.
