The Stranger Things Finale Theory Nobody Can Let Go Of | Parallel Frequencies

Just Blane (00:00)
All right, it's parallel frequencies with Just Blaine and Coco over there who's here to give me the side eye whenever I need it because that's, right? That's what we're doing.

Courtney Pearl (00:11)
to

be giving anybody side eye. I'm over here in my witch shirt today.

Just Blane (00:13)
Well, you know,

I saw that was gonna ask, what is that shirt? What do you got on there? What does that say? Wild and free nature witch and a dragon on there.

Courtney Pearl (00:19)
of wild and free nature which got this at

the Daybreak Farmers Market.

Just Blane (00:26)
⁓ okay. Okay. Like a House of Dragons type thing you got going on there, I like that.

Courtney Pearl (00:29)
HUEH

Yeah, I'm from the house Targaryen, so.

Just Blane (00:38)
yeah.

yeah.

Courtney Pearl (00:40)
Dragon blood.

Just Blane (00:41)
I'm hyped about that show coming back too. That's gonna be a good one. I cannot wait for that one. Huge Game of Thrones fan. You know what? That's a show that we'll have to touch on is the new Game of Thrones. Honestly, we may have to watch that one in real time and break it down the week of the episodes maybe. I don't know. Maybe it will fit in to parallel frequencies.

Courtney Pearl (00:48)
Meet.

Yeah, that'll be one of our rewatches. Rewatch Game of Thrones.

yeah. Yeah.

Just Blane (01:08)
schedule that we're putting out for you guys. You wanna go through that Courtney, should we?

Courtney Pearl (01:13)
Yes, I mean, if there's anything that a teacher, a former teacher like me loves, it's a good schedule. You guys, I've been getting my color coded little post-it notes and my great little calendar and everything already. And so I came up with Movie Monday. So those of you love when we talk about the movies and we break those down, we talk about directors, writers, all that good stuff. We have TV Tuesday. You know, because we're rewatching

Just Blane (01:24)
yeah.

Whoo!

Courtney Pearl (01:41)
or watching new shows that are coming out. Wednesday, I really had to work hard on the alliteration on this one, but it's wistful Wednesday because it's nostalgia, right? It's all of those old movies and shows that we watched when we were kids or when we were young adults, we were growing up and we're like, oh, we got to do a shout out to this movie or show that we love. That can be movies or TV shows. So we've got a lot of room to be creative there. We have Just Blains Trailer Park Thursdays.

Just Blane (01:48)
Okay.

All right,

for podcast discovery, for podcast discovery out there, we throw some crazy ones out there and what we got Friday.

Courtney Pearl (02:11)
I don't know why, but had to be a Thursday.

And Friday, that's my favorite. That one is in my mind the image of the question mark on Nintendo games. It's the feature Friday. What's the feature of the week? Whatever randomized thing that comes up and sometimes it's gonna be a total mystery or surprise. So feature Friday.

Just Blane (02:29)
Hmm

I love this, this is all news to me and what I want people out there to do is tell us what day of the week you're looking forward to most. I want people out there fighting over it. Is this Tuesday's best day or the trailer park is my favorite? Yeah. I do have to ⁓ throw out one idea though. Let's do a name change for Tuesday and let's call it Tube Tuesday. I like Tube Tuesday, right?

Courtney Pearl (02:50)
Yep. Can't wait. Yeah.

Okay

Okay, now for you young audience members who have maybe been born in this century, ⁓ TVs used to have what we called a tube to be able to work and watch things on.

Just Blane (03:14)
Let them know.

He's not wrong.

Courtney Pearl (03:24)
back before

the digital, what is it that replaced that? They don't have tubes anymore, do they? They have.

Just Blane (03:30)
Well, they got the LCD screens and the chips and the motherboards and the OLED and whatever else is out there now. Yeah, but.

Courtney Pearl (03:35)
Yeah.

Maybe

like this thick in the back or like a whole box, right?

Just Blane (03:43)
The first

big screen I had was one of those giant box. It took up half the room, half your living room. It was giant and it was huge, but you couldn't have nobody over to the house to view it with you, because it was so damn big. You had to get rid of a couch. Yeah, you had to get rid of a couch or something to even get in there.

Courtney Pearl (03:59)
Yeah, took up your whole living room.

definitely wasn't being mounted to the walls like today's TVs. You could have a big screen and mount it, right? Not me.

Just Blane (04:10)
No, no, no, no, no, that was not even. You know what I think

the next step will be, though, is we won't have screens at all. It'll just be projections and it'll be. ⁓ 8K projectors out there, they're already out there. CES, CES in Las Vegas is going on right now. I wish I was down there. I wish I was done. I love seeing the new technology and all that stuff come out. And that's where they show off the clear.

Courtney Pearl (04:24)
Mm-hmm.

Just Blane (04:38)
There's literally TVs coming out that are clear. Like you see through it. I mean, I don't know what the point is, but that's a window, right?

Courtney Pearl (04:43)
⁓

You know, that made

me think of in the 90s when the computer monitors became ⁓ like futuristic and they were still this big, like they still had the big old back to them, but they were like clear. So we all thought that was like the future. We want you to see the parts inside of it because that's cool.

Just Blane (04:58)
yeah.

It was the future.

I think it was the future for then at least. mean, you know, everything changes. Nostalgia, all that kind of stuff. I'd love to have one of those giant TVs now, but you know, like, where would you, where would I put it in here? I don't even know. Like, there's nowhere to put one those.

Courtney Pearl (05:19)
No, I

can't fit it in here. This is the cave. The cave is tiny.

Yep. Just me.

Just Blane (05:28)
Did you?

No, I know next week is when we're gonna get into the Movie Monday, the Tube Tuesday. I gotta say right now though, Movie Monday, we'll tease it now. It's gonna be Knives Out. We're doing Knives Out. What is it, Wake Up Dead Man? Was that the name? That's the name of it? That's the name of it?

Courtney Pearl (05:45)
Yes,

wake up dead man knives out. It's trending. It's people's favorite. We've got to get to it. We've got to talk about it.

Just Blane (05:50)
That's before.

I love it. I've seen it. It's, yeah. my gosh. Man. I wish I had his patience. We're going to, we'll talk about that on movie Monday, but I'm looking forward to tube Tuesday next week when we finally get to talk about stranger things season five. Is that what we're doing? We're to talk about it, break it down. The finale.

Courtney Pearl (05:59)
Benoit Blanc!

Yep,

yep. And I only just have to apologize. We're not getting to it right away, but in my mind, all those freaks, is that what we're calling it, our fan club, everybody who's sitting there just going, I can't wait for them to talk about season five. Season five is already done. Why aren't they even talked about it yet? So I'm gonna let you sit on the edge of your seats and wait for us to get to it. We're getting to it. I promise it's on the schedule.

Just Blane (06:29)
That's right, the freaks.

You know what though? We might, if we did it right now, we could be premature according to a bunch of the people out there on the internets right now. They think, and people have been breaking this show down, looking for Easter eggs, looking for all this, and they think that episode eight is not the finale. And there's gonna be an episode nine that drops for some reason, they're saying January 7th, two days from now. And they said that the theory is that

Courtney Pearl (07:10)
Okay.

Just Blane (07:13)
Vecna was behind the finale and that was why it was all happy and everything but he was controlling it and we're gonna really see the dark ending to Stranger Things. Now I gotta show you something that might kind of lead to this being a real, it's either that or Netflix is playing in but if you go to Netflix's site, right,

you go to Netflix, then right now, you type in there, fake ending, look at this, what comes up?

Courtney Pearl (07:49)
fake ending and a stranger thing.

Just Blane (07:51)
and it

says new episode.

Why? Why would that, why would fake ending in the Netflix search bar only lead to stranger things? Is there something to this theory? I'm getting hyped up about it.

Courtney Pearl (07:57)
Why?

You know what?

If they didn't do this, if they didn't do an episode nine, they're probably sitting around going, everybody thinks there's a season, there's an episode nine. Maybe we should have done that. They're probably regretting it if they didn't right now, right?

Just Blane (08:23)
I know, right?

But it's got me kind of thinking like, man, there could be, it couldn't be, it may not be over. It might not be over. Like, it also could just be a bunch of, you know, nerd fans out there like me, you, coming up, yeah, coming up with, I mean, let's just be real. The Duffer Brothers wrote it and ended it like they wanted to, but if they did have this trick up their sleeve, and there was this secret episode,

Courtney Pearl (08:32)
bits and

Hoping.

Just Blane (08:54)
Episode 9. They even got a name for it. The conformity

Courtney Pearl (08:58)
Hmm, interesting.

Just Blane (08:59)
I got a little word.

So if they didn't do it, then someone else, all these fans need to come together and we need to write this bad boy and get this episode up and see what happens. But Netflix playing into it and having fake ending goats is stranger things to me is I don't know what's going on there. Like that's weird to me. That's weird. There's something, there could be something to it.

Courtney Pearl (09:19)
Yeah.

Okay, here's my thought, possibly. Let's just set this aside as a theory. ⁓ What if they have a plan B ending just in case the ending that they put out was not well received? So if everybody was like, that sucked, I hated that ending, they messed it up, they did so much.

Just Blane (09:26)
Therese.

Courtney Pearl (09:47)
which by the way, I'm one of those for Game of Thrones. One who when it ended was like, wait, what? Fix it, please. But anyway, ⁓ maybe they just, you we're like, let's have a cushion. Let's have a fail safe just in case. So if it ends and everyone's like, that was great. Best ending of a show ever. We all love it. Then they're like, okay, good. We're good. We're done. That's it. Mic drop. We're out.

Just Blane (09:50)
yeah.

Yeah.

I'm gonna add one more layer to this and this is happening tonight. But tonight there's a crazy crossover happening of Stranger Things and WWE. They're gonna have the upside down version of Monday Night Raw tonight on Netflix. Why, why would you have a Stranger Things WWE collaboration after 10?

Courtney Pearl (10:18)
Okay.

Just Blane (10:43)
Years and I know Netflix and WWE just got together in the last two or you know, it's been a year It's a year today. I think but why would now after the show's already over with why would this be the time to have a Stranger things WWE they've even told all the crowd. They're like, hey dressing stranger things clothes. It's gonna be it's gonna get wild. It's gonna be crazy tonight So yeah, there's a lot of stranger things stuff still going on and I they got some spinoffs coming They got stranger things

Courtney Pearl (10:56)
Hmm.

Wow, ⁓ that's fun.

Just Blane (11:12)
Tales of 85 or something come in. They said the Duffer Brothers did say that they are gonna do a spin-off and show where that crystal, that rock came from. So that's gonna be fun. The briefcase with the rock, the Vecna's powers that we were like, wait a minute, where's this rock come from? Well, we're gonna find out.

Courtney Pearl (11:24)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

That was all

set up for something, right? Because yeah, now there's this whole prequel ⁓ mythology that we didn't get to see all of. So definitely set that up for future.

Just Blane (11:42)
Well, let's talk about and play the episode where we talk about the Stranger Things phenomenon and why it gets so big and why it is as big as it is. It's still growing. That's what I'm saying. It's over. The finale has hit. Unless you talk to some of those, you know, dark web people out there and say, there's episode nine coming. If episode nine dropped, there would immediately be this push out there to say, there's an episode 10 too.

Courtney Pearl (11:54)
Mm-hmm.

Just Blane (12:10)
I promise you that'd be the first thing out within 30 seconds. Yeah, so I think it's over. I'd love to see if it wasn't, but I'm not gonna have my hopes up. But let's go ahead and check out this episode. And then the rest of this week, we're gonna have 2026 TV shows to watch, 2026 movies that you must see. We're gonna do a trailer park. We'll have a feature Friday and then ready next week, Knives Out Monday, all brand new content. We're gonna have a guest.

Courtney Pearl (12:10)
Mm-hmm. It would never end.

Just Blane (12:40)
We're gonna have a guest on, the director of coherence is gonna come on and join us and talk about coherence. I can't wait for that, but right now, once again, roll the episode.

Just Blane (12:51)
know what? It's time to get to Stranger Things Season 1, our overview. We did the recap. That was fun. But this is what we're just going to kind of dig a little deeper into. This, like I said earlier, global phenomenon overnight. It was an overnight success. Season 1 dropped in 2016. And I remember. I remember that weekend. I remember I was I was working for Big Boys neighborhood.

Courtney Pearl (12:59)
Yeah, yeah.

Just Blane (13:18)
⁓ in LA, and I remember all of us start texting each other about this Stranger Things show. And we knew, and that's what we talked about. And it was crazy, and it was this out of nowhere show that had a fictional town, Hawkins, Indiana. It's actually filmed in Jackson, Georgia. Have you ever been to Jackson, Georgia?

Courtney Pearl (13:25)
yeah, I remember that too.

Hmm. You know what? I'm not sure. I've spent some time in my childhood. ⁓ But again, I grew up in Indianapolis. And so we went down to Alabama, Florida when I was a kid for vacations and stuff. So I'm not exactly sure which area we were in. But I remember, I remember what it looked like. I remember the landscape. really, I mean, other than like when you get into like the marshes of Florida and like that kind of look, it's...

it's still very reminiscent of my childhood in Indianapolis. Like I still look at it and say, that feels like my childhood.

Just Blane (14:16)
I'll just say it, if you haven't been to Jackson, Georgia, but you've been to any small town, suburban, the 80s, you've been to Jackson, Georgia, because that's what it was. every, it looked so familiar to all of us until Will Byers vanishes. And then things get a little wild, know, Eleven showed up, she's been ripped out of a sci-fi novel. The whole thing starts coming down.

to where it's Steven Spielberg and Stephen King colliding with a John Carpenter synth-filled soundtrack, really? And what 80s kid, like seriously, what 80s kid was not gonna get caught up with all this nostalgia and this feeling, you know?

Courtney Pearl (14:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, a couple of things stood out to me when I first saw it. remember 2016. I remember we were ⁓ just moved back to Utah and we were in like a tiny little two bedroom apartment while we were trying to sell one house and buy another house. So we were just kind of like crammed in. So there's not much to do. I was there with a two year old taking care of my son most of the time. And ⁓ yeah. And then that show came on. I was like, yes, something to watch. Like I was excited.

Just Blane (15:13)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Pearl (15:27)
And my first thought was very reminiscent, my favorite show X-Files. I was like, okay, we're talking about weird paranormal things. I'm loving this, the vibe and rewatching it for the recap too. The same thing that struck me was, ⁓ you know, that eighties nostalgia, everything. They did such a good job of not making it kitschy eighties. Like, I know you watch like Meet the Goldbergs. ⁓

Just Blane (15:53)
yeah.

Courtney Pearl (15:58)
sitcom and they really kind of like play up the 80s. I mean, everything's a little bit brighter and a little bit more like big hair and you know, they really play it up kind of like if you were to have an 80s party and everybody dresses up. So they'd really they really go all out. ⁓ This show didn't do that. It was very much like, OK, this is this is familiar to me. Joy Spires home with the wood paneling and the old couches.

Just Blane (16:07)
Yeah.

Courtney Pearl (16:28)
Hopper's asleep on his like old, what is that like knitted couch? Has those like feelings. Mm-hmm, yep.

Just Blane (16:32)
Yeah, yeah, you get the rotary phone?

rotary phones,

I mean, you know what? The Duffer Brothers, they're the ones who created this whole thing. We didn't really talk about the Duffer Brothers in our recaps or anything, but they have the genius minds behind this and they pitched this show as Stephen King meets Steven Spielberg. It's a mix of horror and heart. Really, you know, the nostalgia. They knew what they were doing. They knew how to tap into my age. I'll say my age because I'm not gonna put yours out there, but.

Courtney Pearl (16:46)
Mm-hmm.

Just Blane (17:05)
They knew how to tap into that, what we liked. I even joked with my wife the other day, I said, you know what? There's gonna be a Stranger Things remake in like 2050 and it's gonna be set in 2020. You know, like, and it's gonna hit the same way. But this show did hit other people, other genres of people, you know. It did, it did hit other age groups. So I don't think that is.

Courtney Pearl (17:18)
I know.

The demographic. Yeah, yeah.

Just Blane (17:33)
The only thing that kept it popular was the nostalgia because there's other people that are outside of my age range, both older and younger, who both love this show. So, you know, it's just one of those things, it's a phenomenon, that's the only one I can come up with.

Courtney Pearl (17:44)
Yeah.

Yeah, it hit at the right time where people were looking at the 80s as kind of, ⁓ you know, vintage. it's, you know, something that throws back and kind of circles back to the same fashions and things like that. So I think when it started up, people were like, yeah, 80s vintage. They liked that. And then, you know, if they do do a remake and they talk and it goes back to 2020, ⁓ at least they won't have to work as hard to have the different characters and groups that are always doing different things to communicate with one another.

Just Blane (18:19)
Yeah,

yeah, right?

Courtney Pearl (18:20)
They had to work real hard. I put a note about that in that ⁓ the walkie talkies even just like straight out the gate episode one, season one, when ⁓ the teacher, Dr. Clark, he has like the ham radio and he's like, this will reach all the way to Australia. You know, he's like setting it up that these radios, these walkie talkies that the kids are using are going to be a pivotal and necessary tool throughout the entire series.

for them to be able to communicate with each other all the time. Insane.

Just Blane (18:52)
I think

in the 2050 remake, I think the kids are just gonna have like iPads and they're gonna be in their own room and they're just gonna be playing Roblox instead of D &D. It's not gonna be Dungeons & Dragons, it's gonna be a bunch of kids with a screen in front of them. But the Dungeons & Dragons thing and the 80s and the nerd, that was the easiest way to establish what this show was kind of about from the very beginning scene.

Courtney Pearl (19:04)
yeah!

Just Blane (19:22)
They're playing a D &D game. And it's like, if you look at that scene now, you're like, everything in this show is right here.

Courtney Pearl (19:22)
I know.

the same thing. I did. I was like, we cannot not talk about, especially because as I started to think about it, and I did watch it all for the recap, and I might be missing something out there. So if you're like huge Stranger Things fan and you know the answer to this question, please write it in because I may have missed something. Do the scientists have a name for the creatures? Do they call them anything because

We only know the creatures from the upside down. We only know the upside down. We only call it that. And we only use the name Demogorgon. All of that comes from D &D. All that comes from the kids. And that's how we, the audience, knows everything. We call it those things. So I was thinking about it, and I could not remember a single time that I remember the scientists ever saying a different name. Do you?

Just Blane (20:25)
I don't either,

especially not in season one for sure. I don't think it happens in season one at all, but I can, let me see, I can remember. ⁓

Courtney Pearl (20:29)
Yeah, no.

Or the mind

flake, too. That comes from D &D.

Just Blane (20:39)
Yep, you know what? There is one difference I could think of in season one, and that is the Upside Down, because Dustin calls it the Shadow of Veils from the book. And then they, so there is, so there is a little bit of difference there, but I don't know, you know, Upside Down may be in D &D 2, but that was just a nickname.

Courtney Pearl (20:49)
Uhhhh

Well, that's when they flip

the board over and they're like, they're in the upside down, right? ⁓

Just Blane (21:02)
Yeah, he's going through

the guide and he finds the shadow of Veils and it's the same thing as the upside down, they flip the board over. Yeah, fun fact for you, that scene, the D &D opening scene, that's the very first scene that they all filmed. The Duffer brothers were nervous about the kids' chemistry. I'm gonna say they nailed it, like right out of the gate, they nailed that. ⁓ But yeah, that's crazy to me that that was the very first scene that they did.

Courtney Pearl (21:07)
Okay, yeah.

Act.

like

their little bonding scene. love that. that the, ⁓ you know, Mike mentions to his mommy and they were playing for 10 hours. brings you back to when like pre video games and these like worlds that were created in video games. This is what the kids were doing. Like maybe the nerdy kids. I'll grant you that. But that you could play a game like that with your friends for 10 hours straight. How fun.

Just Blane (21:48)
Yeah.

Courtney Pearl (21:56)
I had played D &D and I never played it, but it sounds so fun.

Just Blane (21:59)
We can

get a D &D group together. Why don't we do this?

Courtney Pearl (22:03)
Yeah, somebody needs to teach me how to play. I love the callbacks to folklore and mythology. Obviously, I'm super into that stuff. If you listen to Practically Magic or any of other stuff, you know that that's like a huge thing for me. ⁓ in Celtic folklore, there being a lot, a lot of references to the Anuvin or the other world, which is in that realm, in that folklore, you can literally be walking

Just Blane (22:05)
start putting on.

Courtney Pearl (22:32)
in the forest, walking anywhere, even like arrive on an island from a boat. And without even knowing it, you can step into another world where time and space is different. And so when I first saw this show, probably way back in 2016, when I first saw it, that was what came to my mind was the upside down being a place that somehow exists in the same place

Just Blane (22:41)
Mm.

Courtney Pearl (23:01)
as the now, as the present world we understand, but it's just not quite there.

Just Blane (23:09)
Yeah,

and no spoilers, but they do dive into that thought later on in later seasons. So it does kind of play into it. I love that aspect.

Courtney Pearl (23:22)
your mind too because you're like, wait, so how is this existing in the same reality? yet, like, so when the creature took will, where did it come from? And then where did it go? And how does it exist in the real world and also in the upside down without going through? Where's the portal? Where's the? Yeah, it just makes you question everything.

Just Blane (23:47)
What about the D &D you see that had real relations to one another Demogorgon, is that a real thing? Like, what is that? What are the demons that they did encounter? Are there real life, you know, alternatives to that? So I want to hear some of that from your perspective.

Courtney Pearl (24:03)
Yeah.

Well, I mean, to that point, in the rewatch, it's so interesting to go back and rewatch it now that you've seen like all the way up to, like I said, we watched season five, episode one. we're way beyond all of this. So to go back and do ⁓ episode one of season one and watch Will, you know, tiny little baby Will with his cute little eyes and his cute little bowl haircut is so cute. ⁓

Just Blane (24:18)
Okay.

I

Courtney Pearl (24:35)
they're facing the Demogorgon, right? In that game that you talked about. it's Will who has to roll the dice and either he has to do a 13 or more if he's going to fireball it or he could have cast a protection spell. ⁓ But he rolls the dice, they lose it. And then the last thing he says to Mike before he bikes away. And then, of course, he's going to be disappeared after that. But he says, I rolled a seven. The Demogorgon got me. And man.

rewatching it now knowing everything that happens it was just like my gosh they just like told the whole story right there in the first scene incredible

Just Blane (25:16)
They did. They really did.

It's fascinating to me how humans use demons to explain the unknown. Same thing here at Hawkins, the upside down, it's the unknown. Another thing about the upside down and you saying it was all in the same place, it reminds me of like time travel movies, trying to figure out, what about this? And then, you know, it does make you ask a bunch of questions. There's some laws of physics broken. I think that's the fun of it though, right?

Courtney Pearl (25:24)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and we see this so much in ⁓ so many different storytelling. ⁓ The Wizard of Oz, right? Like, where is Oz? Somehow it's a different place, but it's not. mean, that's the stories that we've been telling for centuries. I mean, that's why I love the folklore and where that comes back to that because

Like you could just walk through a doorway or you could walk through anything and end up in another world and not even know it, right? But ⁓ the thing that I notice about those stories is, and like the Wizard of Oz is someone will have a whole adventure, live a whole, ⁓ the Chronicles of Narnia, just thought of another one. Have a whole adventure, have a whole lifetime, have a whole, you know, hero's journey.

Just Blane (26:33)
Yeah.

Courtney Pearl (26:41)
But then when they make it back to their regular life or the regular world, it's been like an hour. Like time and space don't necessarily follow the same rules in different places. I haven't seen that yet with the Upside Down and Stranger Things. As far as I know, time exists the same. We haven't seen a whole lot of play there, but could you imagine if they did? Can you imagine how the series, like how that would have gone if they had been like.

Just Blane (26:46)
Yeah!

Yeah.

Courtney Pearl (27:07)
having these whole adventures with Vecna and like the upside down and everything going on there and then come back and something that they did there impacts something in the future.

Just Blane (27:19)
You might be onto something. You might be onto something because think about this, and I'm not sure if this happened all in season one, but I know there are multiple references to the movie Back to the Future in Stranger Things. So you might be onto something. We're have to save this out and see what happens, but I think you could really be onto something with that thought. Like that's.

Courtney Pearl (27:19)
in the real world.

Yes. Right.

Interesting. Yeah. And I've been reading fan theories and stuff, which are awesome and great. And, you know, you can take them off with a grain of salt because it's fun to listen to hear what they have to say. then you're like, I have to forget that too, so that can focus on what's really happening. But I've seen some really amazing fan theories where it's like, what if Will never left the upside down? He's still there. What if what if this is all entirely a D &D game that the kids are playing?

Just Blane (28:11)
⁓ my gosh.

Courtney Pearl (28:12)
all in their heads, all an adventure that they made out.

Just Blane (28:15)
⁓ my gosh, you mean pulling the old, ⁓ it was all inside of a snow globe? From the old? Yeah. What was that show?

Courtney Pearl (28:22)
Right.

It's been referenced all the time. What was that from? I don't remember. It was all in a snow.

Just Blane (28:26)
What show was that?

St. Elsewhere,

Elsewhere was this great show. Went on for a couple seasons and then you find out the whole thing happened inside of this snow globe that this little girl had. You're like, wait, what? Yeah, that's a spoiler alert.

Courtney Pearl (28:39)
Well, you know, people are still talking

about the show Lost and people are still talking about like, were they all dead? What was that island? That show had a lot of like time travel and otherworldly and where are those people exactly? And some people aged and some people didn't and why, and I don't even know. I watched Lost and I still don't know. I'm still lost.

Just Blane (29:04)
We should add

that to our list. We should do Lost because I've seen Lost at least five times and I've seen it two times chronologically. Somebody out there years ago put Lost chronological order scene by scene and I've watched it that way too. I am all about some Lost. I've talked to Maggie, she, I've talked to a couple of these people from the show. We'll talk about Lost. Let's get back to this.

Courtney Pearl (29:23)
Wow.

Throw that forward.

Just Blane (29:33)
Let's get back to the Stranger Things one. Have you ever had an experience where you went through a portal or something like that, like you're talking about?

Courtney Pearl (29:40)
I am obsessed with portals. I'm obsessed. I truly believe that there is an energetic shift that happens when we walk through any kind of portal. And I mean doorways. I don't know if I've shown you, but I have a series of paintings that I did that's not finished. It's in a process. But I took so many pictures of doorways, archways, bridges, staircases.

When I went on my pilgrimage in England, I obsessed with portals and I call it portals, my series of paintings that I did. Because truly, and this isn't just Celtic folklore, but this is, you know, across the board. I'm sure you can go into every culture and find some references to portals, to doorways, to...

Just Blane (30:13)
Yeah, okay.

Courtney Pearl (30:37)
Crossing a river a river being a barrier right anything that's a barrier that means you're crossing from one realm into another and I mean, why does it happen? Neurologically what happens in our brain when we walk from one room to another? Say you're going from the living room to the kitchen you walk in there and you go why was I here? What was it that I was getting? Why does it happen? Think about it?

Just Blane (30:55)
Yeah.

Courtney Pearl (30:59)
You walked through a doorway, you walked through a portal, you walked through a space where one space was meant for something and that space is meant for something else. And your brain completely shifts. That's real. That's not like magical, you know, Hollywood, whatever. That's real. Right?

Just Blane (31:17)
You got me,

I usually chalk it up to ADHD, but you got me thinking now, like, maybe it's not.

Courtney Pearl (31:23)
There is something,

no, they've studied it too. I mean, there's something neurological that happens where your brain has a certain frequency that it's on when it's in a room for a purpose. Like if you're in the kitchen, your purpose there is to cook and to eat food and whatever. But when you walk into a living room, your brain shifts because the purpose of that room is different. So if you were walking into the living room to get your phone or something, but you were in the kitchen when you thought of it,

Just Blane (31:37)
Yeah.

Courtney Pearl (31:51)
You have to go back to the kitchen to remember what it was that you were trying to get. And I think that's incredible. I think that's just one example of how shifts and things can happen. And yeah, there's a ton of different ways you can look at that. But definitely I'm obsessed with Fortress. Yeah. Oh yeah. And if you look, if you notice, there are kind of...

Just Blane (31:55)
Yep.

That's fun to think about. That's really fun to think about. What was your favorite?

Courtney Pearl (32:21)
these little hints to portals and I don't know if that's conscious or if that's something that the the ⁓ words are not coming. The Daffer brothers, I don't know if they were like conscious about doing that, but you'll notice that they put some emphasis on doorways and things like that in Stranger Things. There was one scene where they were looking for Will in episode one and you're seeing it from inside Byers Castle.

Just Blane (32:33)
Yeah.

Yeah

Courtney Pearl (32:51)
know, where it's inside the castle and you're looking out through the doorway at Jonathan and Joyce who are calling for Will, right? I just noticed that and I was kind of making notes of like all the different times in the show if you notice portals, doorways, windows, mirrors, things are emphasized.

Just Blane (33:12)
love that. Great point. I'm gonna have to start looking for that. Who's your favorite character or favorite episode from season one?

Courtney Pearl (33:18)
⁓ so glad you asked. say Dustin has to be my favorite. I love that they wrote in his... ⁓

Just Blane (33:21)
Yeah?

Dustin.

Courtney Pearl (33:30)
condition into the script and into his character and I don't know he's kind of the comedy relief super lovable and I don't know he's just my favorite

Just Blane (33:31)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah, he really does. What is it that he has? It's something with his teeth and it's got a crazy name. ⁓

Courtney Pearl (33:51)
⁓ something

displeased. I'm going to look it up because I don't want to say.

Just Blane (33:57)
Yeah, but

Gaten Matarazzo, that's his name. It's ⁓ Clenocranial Dysplasia, that's what it was. It was written into the show. It was written into the show by the Duffer Brothers to raise awareness. I don't think I'd ever heard of it. I don't think I'd ever heard of it before. ⁓

Courtney Pearl (34:02)
Yes.

Yes.

You know, we probably know people that have had it. I mean, I don't know how rare it is, but like we probably come across people not even realized and wouldn't have realized and so great for the show to put that out there so that when people do come across people with it, they they're super aware. They're just like, oh, yeah, like Dustin on Stranger Things. Nope.

Just Blane (34:32)
Yeah, like Dustin, exactly.

And they made him a cool character, cool kid, you know, all that kind of stuff. He grows up real fast. He starts dropping death bombs later on seasons, but this one, they're all still the kids. Yeah, yeah, but I think he is a really strong character. And all the kids were, all the kids in this melee body brown as Eleven.

Courtney Pearl (34:44)
And I love him for that too.

can't help. ⁓

Hmm.

Just Blane (35:01)
Apparently she nailed the audition in front of the Duffer Brothers and they were like, yep, that's our pick, you She's still crushing it out there today doing stuff and I think she really only got better as it all went on, you know?

Courtney Pearl (35:15)
Hello.

yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's just the best to go back and rewatch again, season one after, you know, all the seasons that have come out, go back season one and you see her as that little tiny girl and she's just, you know, in the zone, the stare that she gives when she's, ⁓ when she first arrives at Benny's diner and he's talking to her and she's just like silent and staring at her with those big brown eyes.

Just Blane (35:42)
Yeah.

Courtney Pearl (35:49)
It kills me. Kills me!

Just Blane (35:52)
Finn Wolfhard,

Finn Wolfhard is Mike, comes out of the gate, crushes it too. They're believable, that's the crazy thing. These are kids at the time of filming this and every one of them in there is totally believable to me. Finn, you had Gaten, Caleb McLaughlin, he played Lucas, plays Lucas. They all crushed it.

Courtney Pearl (35:57)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, they're chemistry together.

Yeah, when they're sitting on the couch and Hopper's ⁓ interviewing them, ⁓ like trying to find Will, and the three boys are just like fighting and Hopper can't get a word in. And, you know, every time he asks a question, they start like picking at each other and fighting with each other. And it's arguing. I watched that scene as a mom of three boys. And I was like, this is so familiar to me. It's almost triggering.

Just Blane (36:47)
That's funny. And Hopper played by David Harbour. He's another incredible actor and fills this role perfectly. They couldn't cast a better person than him. He was going through some hard times before he got cast as Hopper. You know, down low, just desperate, just going through some mental stuff. And him cast as Hopper gave him an arc in life. Like it really did.

Courtney Pearl (37:05)
Mmm.

Just Blane (37:17)
I have seen multiple interviews and stuff about that, and I think that's also incredible that a fictional story by the Duffer Brothers gave this man basically a reason to live in some ways. ⁓ I think that's really telling to the storytelling again and to the writing. They're acting, all of it, you know? But he's incredible, too. Who else are we leaving out for the actors for this?

Courtney Pearl (37:46)
Yeah, well who stands out for you like top of the cream of the crop?

Just Blane (37:51)
Cream of the crop for me and it comes from a specific episode in season one and that's episode three, Holly Jolly. This is the one that makes cultural moments galore. It's the Christmas lights. Joyce Byers Wynonna Ryder to me is the standout. She's in full panic mode. thinks she's losing her mind but basically she's

Courtney Pearl (38:05)
Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

I was like, I'm not crazy.

Just Blane (38:20)
But honestly, she's just got a mother's intuition to know that her son is still alive.

Courtney Pearl (38:25)
my gosh, yes. There's a-

Just Blane (38:26)
So what's she doing in this episode?

She strings up the Christmas lights all over the house, paints letters on the wall, will spells out run from the upside down. This is all nightmare fuel right here to me. All of this happened on set and behind the scenes, why Nona, so committed to Joyce's character that she wrote pages of backstory for. She wanted Joyce to feel real. She wanted it to be a single mom who's been through hell and refuses to give up.

Courtney Pearl (38:49)
Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Just Blane (38:55)
Her desperation's

real, like that's crazy to me. This episode also gave us a ⁓ great hashtag. Hashtag justiceforbarb. Became a cultural meme phenomenon here because Barb Disappears, you know, it's wild, but yeah, Ronona to me crushed this season and I think she rubbed off on everybody else too. I think it really did. When you got somebody over there writing

Courtney Pearl (39:08)
I know.

Bye.

Yeah.

Just Blane (39:25)
pages of backstory, it would be hard for you as a young actor wanting to maybe do this for career to not look across there and say, huh, I better learn from her.

Courtney Pearl (39:37)
Yeah, yeah, she really gives, and again, this isn't just her, it's the whole vibe of the show, I think, is realistic in that as a single mom trying to raise these boys, trying to work enough to, know, so they can survive, I mean, you just feel it. You feel the exhaustion and the realness. I mean, she's not, ⁓

I don't know, she's not all dolled up. definitely is like this mom. You get this vibe that she's like the real mom, like the real single mom trying to make it work. And it gives me this throwback to, ⁓ I love sitcoms. I know you do too. I can't help myself, but it gives me ⁓ Roseanne. Roseanne was my favorite, my favorite sitcom growing up, but I loved that they didn't pretty anything up.

Just Blane (40:20)
yeah.

yes.

Courtney Pearl (40:33)
Do you know what I mean? Like they showed a real American lower middle-class family, like trying to survive one bill at a time, you just trying to make their bills that month kind of a family. And that's kind of the vibe I got like Joyce and Jonathan. The whole reason that they didn't know Will was missing until the next morning was because Joyce was working a shift and Jonathan decided to work a shift too. And she gets mad at him cause she's like, we're not supposed to work shifts at the same time. And he's like,

Just Blane (40:40)
Yeah

Yeah.

Courtney Pearl (41:03)
I'm just trying to earn some more money. And you just feel it. You feel it. It's real.

Just Blane (41:09)
That's that desperation with fighting monsters makes this place almost miserable. But at the same time, we want to be there. We want to be in Hawkins. Like we we as a viewer, you yeah, as a viewer, you want to help. Somehow you want to get in the Hawkins and you want to help. You feel like you're a fly on the wall watching this stuff happen and you're like, oh my gosh, no, no, no, you got to do this guy.

Courtney Pearl (41:23)
Yeah. Salt of the Earth, people.

MWAH

Just Blane (41:38)
But I think that's part of it is, that's part of the whole appeal is that you feel like you're a part of it. We put ourselves into the posters for the recap and I look at those and I'm like, it looks like we were in the show.

Courtney Pearl (41:54)
Yeah, I'm not sure it even really looks like me, but I'll go with it. Yeah, those iconic, just iconic things. ⁓ The Eggo waffles ⁓ and Eleven's obsession with Eggo waffles. I totally relate. I think I had an obsession with Eggo waffles when I was that age too. So relatable while also being just an absolute

Just Blane (41:57)
me either but yeah but you know like it's it's close enough what else

Yes.

Yep.

Courtney Pearl (42:23)
break from reality completely.

Just Blane (42:25)
yeah,

yeah, and we didn't get into some of the other characters, but they become more prominent in the other seasons. And I think we should do this for season two, three, and four. What do you think?

Courtney Pearl (42:37)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Just Blane (42:39)
And then we can talk about Nancy, Jonathan, Joe Carey's Steve. What a flip and an arc of a character. One of the biggest flips in-

Courtney Pearl (42:47)
Right, because not likable

in season one. I'm like, what a jerk.

Just Blane (42:51)
And now,

by season five, you're like, my god, everybody's bowing down to this guy, you know? But it doesn't take long to see this incredible arc. I think it's one of the craziest arcs in a TV character's history, really, to see him go from what he is in season one, and we won't spoil the rest of it, but yeah, I wanna get into him a little bit deeper. But Stranger Things season one, like it's a one more time cultural phenomenon.

once in a lifetime, call it all of those things. You know, we hear that a lot these days too, once in a lifetime, but this might actually been one of those that doesn't come around very often. It doesn't come around that a show can make you feel this way. And you know what? It doesn't come around where I talk about a show for this long. So.

Courtney Pearl (43:42)
That you can have conversations last almost an hour for just one season. And that's why we wanted to do this deep dive into it. Not just so that you can learn about the show. know, listeners, we know you've seen it. We don't want to like do that for you. But I am hoping people will. ⁓

give us their stuff. Like I want to hear their favorite characters and why I want to hear their thoughts. I want an answer to my question whether or not the scientists actually named the creatures themselves. And I have one more question for fans because we're talking about season one. I want to know. Because we know what happens later, right? And if you don't, I'm spoiling something. So just FYI. So we know that Vecna or one or Henry gets

pushed into that other dimension. He's in that other dimension we call the upside down, right? I wanna know, were the monsters like the Demogorgon already there when he got there? Or are they somehow his creation? And if they were already there, is he just using his powers to get into all their minds and use them to his will? Is that what's happening? Cause I'm not.

Totally clear on that and I want listeners to write in. I want to know what you know. Give me your stuff.

Just Blane (45:02)
I love that. I'll throw a theory out there for you right now since the Duffer Brothers love to pull from all the other 80s stuff and all that. Maybe, just maybe, Vecna is similar to Pennywise the Clown from It and he feeds off the fear and D &D Demogorgons and all that stuff. That would be the biggest fear of those kids. That's their biggest thing in their life.

So maybe he's got some similar powers to Pennywise. They like that Stephen King, they like the Stephen King stuff and that's Pennywise's, that's his whole gimmick, know, he feeds off the fear. So there's a crazy theory for you, I don't know, I'm sorry I'm already out there, but yeah.

Courtney Pearl (45:32)
right.

Yeah!

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Yeah, I can see that. I can see that making

sense because I've been asking myself why he can make himself look like he looks in the later seasons. So we'll get to that. We'll throw that forward to our next episode.

Just Blane (45:58)
I love it.

Let's wrap this one up. Hit us up with those answers to the questions. Parallel frequencies, that looks like what we're rolling with. We'll probably have an Instagram channel, something out there soon. You'll see all this on our own channels. Just be on the lookout and hit that subscribe button for us. We'd appreciate it.

That was fun.