Stranger Things Recap: Episode 4 “The Body”

Recapping the fourth episode of the Netflix Original series Stranger Things “The Body”

Chief Hopper tells Joyce the visions she’s having of a monster coming through the walls and talking with Will is all in her head as her way of grieving. She doesn’t think she’s crazy and wants him to believe her that Will isn’t dead.

Mike is upset with Eleven and yells at her because friends don’t lie to friends. She knows he’s alive though and uses her powers to play Will singing The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” through the wallow talkie. After hearing this, Mike is convinced Will is still alive.

Joyce is convinced too despite seeing the body pulled from the water that the officers and coroner said was Will. Hopper is surprised to hear it was State officials who performed the autopsy on the body. Joyce asks to see a birthmark on the body and storms out convinced as ever that the body she saw wasn’t Will’s.

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However, Jonathan is ready to plan the funeral for his brother which leads to an uncomfortable shouting match in public. Jonathan plans it when Nancy meets him to ask about the picture of Barb. She describes the same monster his mom saw. He didn’t have a face.

Jonathan is planning the funeral when Nancy meets him to ask him about the picture he took of Barb by the pool before she went missing. She put together the ripped photos and sees a shadowy figure in the background and she describes the same monster Joyce saw. She described a man without a face and now he doesn’t think his mom is so crazy after all.

Credit: Stranger Things - Netflix (screengrab) — Credit: Stranger Things – Netflix (screengrab)

Meanwhile, Mike and the boys give El a makeover so they can sneak her into school to use the Ham radio so she can locate and communicate with Will. She is in a pink dress with a blonde wig. Mike says she “looks pretty. Good.” and she repeats that same line after catching a glimpse of her in the mirror. At school, El makes Mike’s bully pee his pants after he was mocking Will at an assembly for their fallen classmate.

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Now, for one of the moments viewers have waited for, we see one of Brenner’s workers attached to a security line and he’s going to enter into the alternate dimension where Will, Barb and the monster are. It looked like he was being sucked into a slimy, squishy, mysterious hole like a Venus fly trap was swallowing him up. Sure enough, the monster ate him and Brenner’s crew wasn’t able to reel him back in time.

The conspiracy is getting more intense with Joyce and Jonathan not convinced the body was Will’s and after Hopper learns six State officials performed the autopsy on the body, he suspects something foul is at play. He meets a man at a bar who was the officer who found the body they allege is Will’s and his suspicions are confirmed after he starts beating him up and learns the cop was made to say it was Will. Hopper sneaks in to see the body and performs an autopsy of his own and cuts open the body cavity and sees it packed with what appeared to be cotton, like from a pillow.

El uses her powers to try to talk to Will through the radio at school. In a flashback to her time with Brenner he viewer learns she can locate people with her powers. She is able to make contact and the boys can hear him calling for his mom and Joyce can hear Will too through the wall in their home.

She can see him too through the alternate dimension. The boys hear his voice too and are convinced Will wasn’t pulled from the quarry, but the radio catches fire before they can make further contact.

Joyce tells Will to hide with the monster coming back for him, but she starts taking a sledgehammer to the wall to get to her boy. He’s not physically there, but he’s “right here” and we know the way to get there is through the gate in Brenner’s lab.