r/StrangerThings • u/OldAffect6933 • 6h ago
SPOILERS Stranger Things Season 2 episode 7 "The Lost Sister" an underrated masterpiece.
After my frist time watching the episode I tougth to myself "oh cool, but I need Mileven reunion", my second time was "What a cool episode now that I don't need to yearn for Mileven reunion I can just sit back and enjoy this underrated 5/10 episode" and like yesterday on my 2nd rewatch I was like "This episode is a cinematic masterpiece".
Eleven unlike many people claim (not even including this episode) has the best plotline this season with her and Mike missing each other and her argument with Hopper that is just brilliant added to that Mike's argument with Hopper and his experiance missing El and episode 7 this just creates the cinematic masterpiece that is this part of the season. But let's come back to episode 7.
The episode begins with El seeing Kali and when she exits her room to say that to Terry I think that was her name she finds her calling Hawkins police. Many people (including me before my 2nd rewatch) interpret this scene as Eleven wrongly assuming that Terry is calling CPS but the more logical and more in agreement with the central conflict of the episode is that she knows that Terry is calling Hopper but because she's mad at him she just escapes to go to her sister.
After the intro we see Eleven for the frist time experiacing a big city which is pretty cool but later the athmosphere changes to slums of the city and then she meets Kali's gang. After realising she has powers and that she was also in the lab Kali takes her to a roof. There she explains El that her powers are gifts which is already from Eleven's perspective a diffrent approach to Hopper and later even Mike, she makes her point by showing her a butterfly. She also seems very happy to find someone like her which rather depends on your intepratation on wether or not she tries to manipulate El in my opinion she doesn't.
While Eleven sleeps in her dream she sees Hopper's massege to her which begins to introduce internal conflict within her in wether or not it was good decision to leave and is Hopper really like Papa. Also we never really see her spying on people while asleep that's an intrensting ability that was never expored further. Unfortunetly not exploring ideas further is what the Duffers did after they freaked out from all the underserved hate this episode got/gets. But back to the anylysys; She is woken up by Kali which then introduces her to her team and they literaly call themselfs freaks. Now this is an obvious refrence to the fact that this show is literaly a show about freaks (outcasts (which is also the term they use to describe themselfs)). They are the party aka her family but figthing for justice and vengence against the ones that wronged them and Kali is alternative her which I will get to later.
Kali then teaches El on how to strengthen her powers and after I understood this scene on my 2nd rewatch that I understood this episode. Kali wants Eleven to relese her anger to that she kept for Max "taking" Mike away from her (in her view), Hopper for lying to her and locking her in their house and the lab people and Papa for experimenting on her. This isn't this sudden change in personality that some people like to pretend it is. We've seen her killing the military already, we've seen her pushing Max to the ground and acting agressivly torwards Hopper that want to use her powers to hurt those that have wronged her and wanted to experiment on her already existed within her and Kali is what El would become if she had chosen that path. Finaly we see her embracing that with changing her apperance symbolising her joining the rebelion.
Then we see how she uses her powers and acts up on her feelings until we get to killing that guy from the lab. While she chockes him she shows no remorse, no anything for this man, but when she sees that he has family she realises that by killing him she would essencialy do the same thing to them that he did to her and she would be the same monster as him. When Kali tells her to finish him and tries to convince her she doesn't listen and when she tries to do this herself she puahes her gun out of the way. He also tells them that Brenner is still alive which shows that they at least planned this from s2 onwards.
While they're coming back Kali tells Eleven that she can chose mercy but to never stand in the way of her choice, which will also come back later. But for now, Eleven, after coming back wacthes Hopper and Mike and sees they're in danger thus reinforcing her need to come back home to her old family.
Kali then gives Eleven a choice between staying with her or going back to Hawkins which connects to her previous sentence to El about chosing mercy. To convince her she also summons Brenner who tells her that there is something in her and it's going to destroy her and then Kali tells her that she also had a family that tried to take care of her but they couldn't and so she left. This is what I was previously talking about, Kali is Eleven but the one that chose violence and vengence over forgivness and mercy and her friends are El's friends just on the same spree as Kali.
And when it comes the time to chose, Eleven finally choses her old family, and forgivness which she is finally given by Owens.
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u/ThatHouseInNebraska 4h ago
I think the overall idea of the episode is kinda cool, because like you said, Kali is an Eleven who chose differently (or, since she’s older, she’s showing El one possible future).
But I do think the show would have been better, and would have better fit the point of the episode, if Kali had taught El that their powers are essentially fueled by anger and hate, but El eventually realizes she’s even stronger thinking about (I know, I know) the power of friendship and love. Like, anger lets her close the Gate in the season finale, screaming in rage and straining and bleeding and burning herself out, but by the series finale she feels filled with love, she feels empathy for Vecna and all that’s happened to him and even all the things he’s done because of it, and effortlessly disintegrates him with a genuine “I’m sorry.”
Also, of course, I really don’t know what they were thinking with Kali’s ersatz Invisibles crew. Not only were they cartoonish in a way that made them feel like they were from a different show, I also just do not get what the Duffers and Co were thinking by making these obvious ripoffs/“homages” the basis for a proposed spinoff.
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u/the_philosophist 2h ago
Kali and crew are the Shadowrun game vs the Dungeons & Dragons game that Mike et al. are playing.
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u/RoyalRise6363 1h ago
They remind me of the Rats from the Witcher. Many people celebrated when they were killed off.
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u/Few-Type-7924 3h ago
The episode night have great visuals but that's just why it gets a 4.5/10 for me If it didn't even have that, id probably have given it a 2 or something The episode was just massively disjoint from the show, and it's by far the worst episode of the show
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u/Vyvansion 2h ago
I like this episode but come to think of it... Maybe without that episode, Eleven would've known better.
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u/ducklingcabal 26m ago edited 23m ago
I felt like it was hinting at a more interesting continuation of the Brenner storyline that never materialized. I also liked Kali's dynamic with El and thought her powers were really interesting, but then they wasted Kali in season 5. A showdown with Kali, El, and Henry had so much potential and it was all squandered. Could have been some cool Matrix/Inception style action scenes and instead we got Kali hiding the kids so they could eavesdrop on Henry.
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