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ExploreStranger things are going down in Hawkins.
It seems most of those things have to with Halloween, E11e, and, most importantly, Will.
Netflix’s final trailer for Stranger Things 2 has got fans talking all across the globe. There’s a monster (or several) coming for Hawkins through a new rift in space and time that appears to be rooted in Hawkins Middle School at the site where E11e took down the Demogorgon. Will has been plagued with troubling premonitions about the dark future of the town, and nobody except for Hopper and E11e seem to be clued into what is going on. The problem? If you were paying attention last season and through the trailer, Hopper is probably working closely with the government (with or without his consent), and E11e was recaptured by some scientists who are most likely affiliated with Hawkins Power & Light.
The last trailer for Stranger Things 2 gives us important glimpses at E11e’s return, but that’s not the focus of this blog post. We know E11e can take care of herself. We’re way more worried about Will. The question voiced by Joyce is the question echoing in all of our heads: what’s wrong with him?
Will has been a foil for E11e since the beginning of Stranger Things. He was the first person to be captured by the Demogorgon – the monster E11e let into our world on accident. Where E11e is powerful and able to take care of herself more or less, Will is more of an innocent bystander caught up in the mess left behind by secret government organizations and mad scientists. In a way, they’re both victims, but that manifests very differently in the two characters.
We’ve known something was very wrong with Will right from his last scene in Stranger Things. The tentacle that had latched onto his body and brain while he was in the Upside Down may have left something behind. We’re not sure if it’s just bits of a tentacle or if there are tiny creatures inside of Will, but we do know that he’s been irrevocably linked to and marked by the Upside Down in ways that other characters haven’t been.
Throughout all of the previews for Stranger Things 2, Will’s visions of the huge Lovecraftian monster from the Upside Down have been key. I don’t use the term Lovecraftian lightly, either. That thing is huge and its chief purpose seems to be to prey on the minds, rather than the bodies, of humans – just like Lovecraft’s Cthulhu.
This may be why, in certain scenes in the most recent trailer, the boys wear masks. Sure, it might be an out of context scene from their trick or treating days (the events of Stranger Things 2 do take place around Halloween), but it could also be more than that. What if they’re hiding their faces to keep the monster from seeing how afraid they are? What if the monster has gotten bigger because it’s feeding off of the fear created by the first rift?
We’ll just have to wait and see.
All we know is that there is something deeply wrong with Will. He’s been altered beyond repair by his time in the Upside Down. We know the creature doesn’t want him, though. It wants everyone else. Could it be because Will already has fragments of the Upside Down left inside of him, creating these hallucinations and visions?
We’ll let you decide. Watch the trailer below, and don’t forget to check out our Stranger Things collection!
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Written by Elizabeth
Elizabeth is a Portland-based freelance writer, who spends her time playing with her cat, blogging, working on the three-billion writing projects she has bouncing around in her brain, tutoring kids in writing and reading, and perusing the streets of Portland, looking for the best coffee shops and book shops.
