The eighth chapter becomes a roller-coasting wave of emotions as the final showdown at the Hawkins Middle School gets under way.
Eleven uses more physics-defying mental powers to keep the government scientists from trying to re-capture her. Meanwhile Hopper and Joyce are granted entry into the lab's upside down layer, where tense personal moments lie ahead. Nancy and Jonathan do some battling on their own back at the Byers home, Steve being their unlikely accomplice.
I suppose the most unsettling part of this segment overall is that there really is no dimensional boundary for the faceless monster which we have seen plenty by the time this eighth episode, "The Upside Down," rolls around. It's in the school. In the home. In the upside-down. There even seems to be no man-made contraption or weapon that will destroy it. Yet this cannot stop Joyce and the sheriff from recovering the long lost Will, who seems to have awoken from a deep sleep.
Cut to the holiday season, and everyone is assimilating back into real life just fine. Families are reunited. Unlikely friends are made. It's the ending we hoped for, but there's a little recurring exchange with the upside down that may keep you guessing. Luckily, there's a second season already being filmed by now.
On that note I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did. While I tried not to include too many major plot points, if I ended up ruining something for you, allow me to express my apologies.
As you hopefully have realized by now Stranger Things achieved something few other shows--on Netlix or cable television-- pull off as successfully. The integration of tropes, music, and plot is so fresh I usually forgot this story took place in the earlier half of the decade which I was born. You become attached to characters more than you care to. Your emotions run up and down depending on the events occurring in the show. If your feelings at all resemble what I am describing here then let's hold on and wait for the season two trailer together.