I think the idea of the taking-her-child thing was simply that no one knew she was pregnant when she took the drugs/went into the tank. They monitored her during the experiments, figured it out, and decided to take the child at birth in order to see if anything had happened - they lucked out with it working with…

Mad scientists, man. The Nazi scientists admitted after-the-fact that their experiments hardly proved anything at all to them and were mostly them fucking around with live human beings just because they could. Every time I see a mad scientist on a show and think "That's not realistic", I remind myself that the Nazi…

I actually thought that was a nice bit of humor - she's clearly lying and trying to keep him from asking any more questions by using the most sympathetic thing she can think of off the top of her head.

It's never stated that Eleven is the same child, but obviously Joyce (and Hopper) are smart enough to make the connection. I thought it was interesting that the show lets us grasp all that without hitting us in the head with a speech from one of the adults about Eleven's "true identity". It was a show that let the…

Oh dear god. And the cops are just as complicit as the murderers, just ignoring the obvious pattern of disappearances for so. damn. long.

Yeah, but they clearly surprised/hurt it at least a little. No lasting damage, obviously, but I'd compare it to getting knocked in the side with a kickball; while it's not going to kill you or even maim you, getting hit with enough kickballs would definitely slow you down or cause you to pause entirely and get bruised.

Why? It's the prototypical Super Secret Government Installation. Why would they want townies or people living in the town? Instead you just argue that the land is DOE and put the fence out wide enough that people can't really see the building itself, so townies don't get more than a glimpse of the guy at the gate, and…

Yeah, but I think that sort of drops off the point that this whole thing is one giant secret. You don't send your guys out into the town with Big Old Secrets on-hand and not expect them to get out - and they reacted with such zeal the second a Big Old Secret DOES get out…

Maybe? I don't have a clear memory of what they were doing, but i think you're right. Still. I still think it rang a bit false.

Yeah. Or even just a shot of her mom frantically arguing with The Worst Deputies on Earth here and there as Hopper walks through a scene. There's no way a kid like Barb has parents who would be like, "Uh, sure, guess she ran off, doo dee doo."

I don't think it's weird - it's a government facility bringing their workers in from the outside and they seem to be housed entirely on-base. I would have appreciated more of a mention from the townspeople of "that weird military base up the hill" (just because that would fit with the consistent Stephen King refs),…

We do see her mother, who evidences at least some concern, have a conversation with Nancy. Then never again.

I love how many details about this show ring untrue to people who grew up either in more urban areas or at least larger towns, and those of us in the tiny little towns are like, "No, it was really that ridiculous."

Yeah, he's just a guy doing something terrible who isn't particularly conflicted about it and isn't a cackling James Bond villain, either. I enjoyed that.

For the record, in my small town, the police department didn't lock. Didn't. Lock. Just think about that for a while. Neither the front nor the back door. No locks.

Yeah, it really embraces the fact that kids are very black-and-white, and so are their stories. The bad guys are BAD, and they are here to hurt us - who cares if they get out of the vans or not?

I wouldn't say NO effect.

Barb was killed AFTER being kidnapped, not during the kidnapped. She pops up (briefly) alive and then is killed by it in the Upside Down. I think it's grabbing people out of our world, but them doing the actual hunting of them in its own world where it has the advantage.

I mean, what else do they have her do all day in that sterile room? I guess I assumed they gave her books just because I can't imagine she would still be sane without them.

I think it helps to think of it more as an eight-hour movie than anything else. Because we binge-watched (and watched this and the last two episodes all at once), it didn't FEEL like a time-waster, because it was the buildup to the action-packed finale without a break in-between.