‘Stranger Things’ Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: “The Pollywog”

“The Pollywog,” episode 3 of Stranger Things 2, is an episode about possession: romantic, amphibious, demonic. Stranger Things is done clearing its throat in its third episode, and it begins to tip our heroes into discord and darkness.

Dustin’s trembling trashcan visitor turns out to be a gooey, glistening creature that might be a pollywog. It seems harmless enough—Gremlins always do—and it also loves nougat. Dustin’s in love. One of the most humanizing touches of Stranger Things is its attention to characters’ personal interests from episode to episode: Dustin talking up 3 Musketeers bars in Chapter 2 and then feeding them to this baffling beast, or Bob dancing with Joyce to “Islands in the Stream” in Chapter 2 after announcing his Kenny Rogers fandom the episode before.

Dustin keeps the 3 Musketeers thing going: he names the pollywog d’Artagnan, even though it’s more of a Porthos. When he goes to sleep, it shrieks from its black disc of a mouth like a two-legged water bear. Everything’s fine!

The next day, Dustin races to the library to check out every book he can find on reptiles and amphibians, d’Artagnan along for the ride in his Ghostbusters ghost trap. He’s blown past his library quota, but he’s a convincing kid: “I am on a curiosity voyage and I need my paddles to travel!” he tells the librarian. (To settle Chapter 2’s debate: Dustin is Venkman.)

But that’s about as light-hearted as it’s going to get in Hawkins today. The rising emotional tensions of “Trick or Treat, Freak” start to spill over here, into rashness and jealousy. Eleven’s story is still being paired with flashbacks: we see her out in the snow, realizing it’s Hopper who’s been leaving her Eggo waffles. The scene cuts back to the present, Hopper plying Eleven out of her funk with a waffle stack. But she’s done sulking now, and turning to anger: she’s tired of hiding and being kept from Mike, and telekinetically splatters her whip cream all over her warden. “Friends don’t lie!” she blasts.

Joyce’s Radio Shack boyfriend Bob (Sean Astin, out of his league and infatuated), doing his best to connect with his girlfriend’s kids, drives Will to school and gives him absolutely terrible advice: a story about his childhood nightmares about Mr. Baldo the clown, and how he made them stop by standing his ground in dream-land one night. This might work for bad dreams, and occasionally on Freddy Krueger, but the Upside Down is real.

Bob doesn’t know, but Joyce does. She’s already nervous about Will’s monster drawing; when the screen turns fuzzy on Will’s Halloween night home video, she catches the afterimage burned onto the frame. She traces the TV with her holiday-light urgency and rushes it over to his drawing: it’s the monster, flickering into the neighborhood.

It’s getting harder to keep a secret. Hopper is not who Eleven thinks—not who anyone thinks. To protect her and his town, he’s playing a dangerous game. He knows Dr. Owens and the lab are still entering the Upside Down. Owens (Paul Reiser, making the most of this role) reassures him with sitcom warmth, but that’s not going to cut it when every pumpkin patch in Hawkins has been turned to mush.

“I keep things nice and quiet for you, and you keep your shit out of my town,” he says. “That is the deal.”

Eleven, we have to assume, is not part of the deal. She and Hopper have a deal of their own: three rules, which he explains to her in flashback and she breaks them one by one. Keep the curtains drawn, don’t open the door, don’t ever go outside.

“I call them the, uh, don’t be stupid rules,” he says.

Hopper’s workplace facade of donut-eating indifference may help him keep things quiet, but it was born from a genuine place: the loss of his daughter, Sara. There’s a box with her name still at his cabin with her name on it, and as they clean the place up in the flashback, it’s quietly clear that he’s building himself a new family with his psionic ward.

But Eleven’s trust has its limits, especially after 326 days with Hopper and no Mike. She makes her way toward the middle school, freaking out a concerned mom with a telekinetic playground move along the way who phones up Officer Powell about it. Hopper’s balancing act is falling apart.

Steve gets ruthlessly smoked on the basketball court by Billy, now the new big man on Hawkins High’s campus, and carries his wounded pride over to Nancy for a lovers’ spat over her drunken revelations. She doesn’t remember calling him “bullshit”—pretty reasonable, Steve!—but also can’t turn and say “I love you” in the sober light of day. Steve’s suddenly jealous of Jonathan, who stepped in like a gentleman to get her home after Steve abandoned her at the Halloween party. It’s not just Barb’s memory haunting their relationship.

Nancy turns back to Jonathan, who tries to stand up for Steve; a talk about Season 1’s Upside Down scientists sparks her from guilt to conspiracy theory, and after a trip to Radio Shack, the two make a mysterious call to Barb’s mom to set a meeting—a call surveilled in some underground spy chamber.

Nancy wants honesty, Steve wants assurance, Eleven wants accountability, Hopper wants control: all paths back to some kind of normalcy that others can’t give them. For his part, Dustin wants credit: he thinks d’Artagnan is a new discovery, and becomes vocally concerned about their science teacher potentially stealing credit. Dustin’s curiously enamored of his new pet: “He trusts me!” he tells his friends as they realize the pollywog is probably a baby murder-monster from the Upside Down. They agree Will’s visions of the Upside Down aren’t just PTSD: they’re real. “True Sight,” as it’s dubbed in their beloved Dungeons & Dragons-speak.

As Mike and Will remain in various existential throes, things are going pretty well for Dustin: he’s got his new teeth, and notched a new friend in Max’s addition to the group. He has a turtle named Yertle already! His attachment to the pollywog feels a little clingy, especially after it sprouts hind legs before their eyes and escapes into the school.

Their classmates have cleared out, and Eleven roams the empty hallways she escaped from after her fight with the Demogorgon, finding Mike and Max in the gym. Max confronts him about his obvious irritation with her, and he circles back to missing Eleven: “We don’t need another party member!” he erupts. In D&D terms: she was their mage. Max skates around him, trying to show off her own skills, and Eleven twitches and knocks her over from across the building. Up to now, Eleven has been a victim, a self-defender, even a protector: Hopper whip cream aside, this is her first act as a bully. The distance between her and Mike remains, and she disappears again.

Will finds the pollywog, and it howls at him from its awful water bear mouth. It roars him back into the Upside Down again, with the multi-legged monster coming for him, its body twisting into a Lost smoke monster: it looks like the swarming cloud Eleven disintegrated the Demogorgon into. Could she have made it stronger? Or did its death awaken something worse?

In the Rightside Up world, Dustin hides the pollywog and its danger under his hat, breaking Eleven’s own cardinal rule: Friends don’t lie. Will chooses the moment to do what Bob would do: stand his ground, brave and foolish. “Go away!” he shouts. The monster’s arms turn to pestilent tornadoes and rush into Will’s mouth. Stranger Things 2’s fake scares are over. The real horror has arrived.

David Greenwald is a critic and cat owner in Portland who has written for The Oregonian, Billboard, and the Los Angeles Times. He has opinions on Twitter (@davidegreenwald).

Watch "The Pollywog" episode of Stranger Things 2 on Netflix