Stranger Things newscast: Brenda Wood reports on Barb missing

Stranger Things is honoring Barb, even though you won’t see it in season 1.

Just in time for Halloween, Netflix on Monday released a faux newscast from Hawkins, Indiana. In the short clip above, WYIZ news anchor Brenda Wood gives the local audience an update on missing high school student Barbara Holland (Shannon Purser), a.k.a. everyone’s favorite missing sidekick, Barb.

Viewers already know Barb’s unfortunate fate, but the clip offers a peek inside the ’80s world of Hawkins during a rather strange time period for the town — and, most importantly, an official confirmation that someone actually seemed to care that Barb was missing.

“[Holland] was last seen at Steve Harrington’s home just a few days ago with a number of other Hawkins-area teens,” Wood says in the Minute by Minute segment, recalling details of the fateful night Barb got sucked into the Upside Down.

Though Wood says Barb’s best friend Nancy Wheeler couldn’t be reached for comment, friends “described her as someone who was loyal to a fault to Nancy, the kind of girl who notices if you’re wearing a new bra, and [someone who] can really rock a pair of mom jeans, or as we call them now, jeans.”

Wood also mentions a certain shoplifting incident at Bradley’s Big Buy, where an unidentified young girl stole an “unprecedented” number of Egg-O waffles. The clip plays “security footage” of Eleven snatching the waffles, and urges anyone with answers to contact Police Chief Hopper.

Wood is the news anchor for 11Alive in Atlanta, and had a brief cameo as a newswoman in the first episode of Stranger Things, as the series was filmed in and outside of the city.

Season 2 of Stranger Things is set to premiere next year.