Diksha Sundriyal
The world of ‘Stranger Things‘ returns in Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things: Tales From ’85,’ as the gang regroups to fight a new kind of creature terrorizing Hawkins. The animated series takes place between the second and third seasons, presenting Eleven and her friends with a challenge that feeds into the storyline continuing from the third season. Over the course of ten episodes, the mythology of the Upside Down and its mysterious creatures is expanded, while new characters are introduced and stakes are heightened. In the end, it all comes down to Eleven and her friends to save their beloved town. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Stranger Things: Tales From ‘85 Plot Synopsis
The winter of 1985 was supposed to be a calm one in Hawkins, especially after Eleven closed the gate to the Upside Down in the Season 2 finale. However, a new kind of creature surfaces and starts abducting people. It moves under the cover of thick snow and has vines that feed on a mysterious green liquid that seems to be its lifeblood. When a monster is killed, the green stuff in its body finds its way further, such that another creature is infused with life and wreaks havoc on the town. It starts with the kidnapping of two bullies, Charlie and Jeff, who run into the woods while chasing after Dustin. While Dustin escapes them and goes to school, the bullies are eaten up by the creatures.
Meanwhile, a new kid named Nikki is introduced in school, while her mother, a substitute teacher, Mrs. Baxter, takes over the science class for the current semester. When an unsuspecting Nikki is attacked by the creature, Will and his friends save her. This includes Eleven using her telekinetic powers to subdue the creature, who turns out to have Charlie inside of it. When Charlie is removed from its body, the creature dies, proving that the monsters need a host to survive. Because Nikki witnesses the whole thing, she is looped in and becomes a part of the group. Her knack for building stuff, especially weapons with which they can fight monsters, quickly makes her an indispensable part of the group.
While the kids continue their fight against the monster, several questions come into the picture. To begin with, they have to figure out how the creatures are still alive. Since Eleven closed the gate, they should be dead. Yet, here they are somehow, alive and thriving, not only increasing in numbers by the day, but also evolving to the point that they don’t need human hosts anymore. To make matters worse, the group has to figure all this out without letting Hopper know, because if he finds out about it, he will put an even stricter curfew on Eleven to ensure her safety.
Is Daniel Dead?
One of the characters introduced in the animated series is a man named Daniel. At first, he appears to be a regular Hawkins native, running a convenience store that Dustin frequents. However, when a snowstorm hits the town, and Dustin and Daniel are stuck at the store, they start to open up to one another. It turns out that Daniel came to Hawkins to work at the secret lab. He wanted to be a part of the research, but he was never promoted to the position where he would have the required security clearance to find out what exactly the lab was working on. He remained on the sidelines, wishing that one day he would get to be a part of the research and make his name in the world.
But then, the lab was closed, and Daniel had nothing to show for. Now, he is stuck in Hawkins, running a store, while wishing that he’d done something different. At first, Dustin is happy to discover that Daniel was never a part of the experiments focusing on the Upside Down and Eleven. Later, however, it turns out that Daniel’s desire to leave a mark on the world led him to resurrect the dead vines left behind after the gate was closed. Mrs. Baxter had been working on a formula that would bring dead plants back to life. While she didn’t succeed in her experiments, Daniel stole her research and her formula and used it on the vines, which not only came back to life, but also turned into a monster that is now the queen of a herd.
Dustin and the gang find Daniel’s secret lab and also locate the queen that controls the rest of the creatures. Things get out of hand when the whole lab is brought down, collapsing into the tunnels below, where the fight against the creature begins. Daniel is surprised to discover the tunnels and the extent to which the creatures communicate and move. However, he is still too clueless to understand what’s going on. The only thing on his mind is that the formula worked, and now, he can have all the glory and fame he always wanted. What he doesn’t realize is that the creatures are also after the same formula. His attempt to save the vials and keep them for himself leads the queen right to her. The giant creature consumes Daniel, along with the vials, ending his life brutally.
Does the Creature Die? Does Eleven Close the Gate?
Thanks to Mrs. Baxter, the gang discovers that the reason the creatures are alive and adapting so quickly outside of the Upside Down is because of their inherent need for survival. With the closing of the gate, the creatures were forced out of their environment, risking extinction, which kicked in evolution at a much faster pace. However, evolving to live on Earth is not the only goal here. When the queen monster eats Daniel and all the vials of the green liquid in his hands, it gets a power update that allows its powers to evolve to unprecedented levels. On reaching that stage of evolution, there is only one thing on its mind: going back home. Mrs. Baxter notes that this is what living beings usually do when they have evolved enough.
But in the monster’s case, this desire to return home means the end of Hawkins and the rest of the Earth as we know it. The monster tries to open a gate to the Upside Down. The problem is that while the queen might return home, the gate will not close on its own, and it will remain open for the other creatures, like the Demogorgons and the Mind Flayer, to enter Hawkins and destroy it. Once again, it falls on Eleven to close the gate. However, it is difficult to do that with the giant monster and its horde attacking her. To help Eleven, the gang divides responsibilities, and it falls on Nikki to kill the monster. Earlier, she had noticed that a strong surge of energy, replicating the power of the sun, had sent the monsters running for their lives.
She equates it to the theory of how some plants die if they get too much sunlight. The fact that the monsters had been hiding in the sewers and only came out during the winter, when the sun is not as powerful as it is in the summer, gives more legitimacy to her theory. So, using the scrap parts in her garage, she builds a makeshift device that, given a strong source of power, like car batteries, can replicate the power surge that they had witnessed in the sewers before. While she attacks the queen monster with her weapon, Eleven uses her powers to close the gate. Nikki’s weapon weakens the monster, which is now halfway through the gate it opened. Eleven taps into her full powers and closes the gate, which cuts the monster in half, killing it once and for all. Or so it seems.
What Does the Purple Flower Mean? Is the Creature Still Alive?
Once the queen monster is killed, the rest of the creatures die as well. With the gate closed, the gang can now rest and resume their lives. To top it all off, they didn’t have to resort to help from the adults, particularly Hopper, who would definitely have made Eleven stay at home under a stricter curfew and killed Mike for letting her get in harm’s way. In fact, Hopper feels guilty for keeping Eleven at home all day, with nothing to do, so in the end, he decides to be a bit more lenient. He agrees to let her hang out with her friends for a bit longer, which he certainly wouldn’t have done had he known about all the things that she and her friends were up to in the past few days. For a minute, everything seems to have gone back to normal. The group hangs out at Nikki’s place, since she and her mother have now decided to stay in Hawkins for longer.
But while they have fun together in the right-side up, something starts to stir in the Upside Down. In the dark and cold world of the place that is home to all the monsters stirring trouble in Hawkins, the remains of the queen monster give rise to a new problem. A purple flower is seen blooming from its corpse, suggesting that evolution has allowed the monster to survive, allowing it to adapt to a different form. The only good thing about the situation is that the flower, and hence the monster, is still in the Upside Down, the door to which has been closed by Eleven. However, as we know from the events of ‘Stranger Things’ Season 3, the door doesn’t remain closed for long, and once again, the terrifying monsters walk the town, bringing even more dangerous and powerful monsters to Hawkins.
Read More: Stranger Things: What is on the Other Side of the Wall? What is the Upside Down?
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