31 "Stranger Things" Season 4, Vol. 2 Details That Are Small, Smart, And Prove It Was One Heck Of A Finale
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🚨 There are MASSIVE — and I really mean massive — SPOILERS ahead for Stranger Things 4, Vol. 2. So, if you have NOT watched yet, do not keep reading and save this for later! 🚨
1.First, while rummaging through the room to find music after Nancy’s trapped by Vecna, and Eddie screams, "This is music," you'll notice that he's holding a cassette for Iron Maiden's 1983 album, Piece of Mind.
2.When Joyce, Hopper, and Murray are trying to escape the Russian prison, you'll notice giant tubes that are housing several Demogorgons. Whether intentional or not, the moment mirrors a scene from Alien: Resurrection (1997) when Ripley finds the clone lab. Winona Ryder starred in this movie alongside Sigourney Weaver.
3.When Will shows Mike his painting, you can spot that it features a red dragon. In Dungeons & Dragons, there's a red dragon named Borys, aka The Dragon, and he's one of the most powerful DnD creatures.
4.When flipping through the yellow pages to find "The War Zone" advertisement, you can also spot an ad for "Gipson construction." Mike Gipson was the lighting technician on Stranger Things Season 4.
5.When Eddie asks Max if she has a bandanna or ski mask, she gives him a Michael Myers mask. In Season 2, Max wore this exact mask when she scared Lucas, Dustin, Mike, and Will while trick-or-treating.
6.Steve tells Nancy about the future he always envisioned for himself and how he always thought he and his future wife would have "six lil nuggets." In the show, Steve always babysits and looks after six children: Eleven, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will, and Max.
7.When Lucas adorably asks Max if he's in her good memories, Max's response mirrors the first real conversation she had with Lucas and Dustin in Season 2.
8.When Robin spots Vickie at the gun store, you can see that Vickie's wearing a brown jacket and a hat. Her ensemble and haircut mirrors Molly Ringwald's look in Sixteen Candles (1984).
9.Also, when Robin looks on as Vickie kisses her boyfriend, the shot mirrors later in the episode when Will stands back and watches Eleven and Mike reunite in the desert.
10.When Papa tries to carry Eleven to safety after Sullivan and his army attack the Nina Project, the moment is a nod to the scene from Season 1 when Papa carries Eleven through Hawkins Lab.
11.When the army arrives at the Nina Project to try and kill Eleven, you can hear one of the soldiers named Hicks being directed to search the upper level. This is a direct nod to a line in Aliens (1986) when Lt. Gorman says the same thing. Paul Reiser, who plays Owens, also starred in Aliens.
12.Dustin's outfit that he wears while venturing into the Upside Down with Eddie, Steve, Nancy, and Robin mirrors Jed Eckert's outfit in Red Dawn (1984). Of course, Red Dawn chronicles when the Soviet Union invades the US and starts Word War III.
13.When Joyce and Hopper are changing into new clothes after escaping the Russian prison, you'll notice the T-shirts they put on feature Hulk Hogan, who was the most popular wrestler in the 1980s.
14.When Joyce, Hopper, and Murray go back to the Russian prison to try and take down the Demogorgons, Murray mentions that he thinks this might be a really bad idea. Murray's line echos Han Solo's iconic line from Star Wars.
15.When Max agrees to go to the movies with Lucas and she draws a cute picture of the two of them, they are sitting the same way they sat in Season 3, when everyone went to the movies at the Starcourt Mall.
16.Also, Lucas and Max deciding to go to the movies on Friday, and sadly never being able to go, is similar to when Joyce and Hopper made their date for Enzo's on Friday night in Season 3, but then Hopper was captured.
17.Eddie notably plays Metallica's "Master of Puppets" while trying to distract the demobats. The song was released on March 3, 1986, with the events of this season of Stranger Things happening around March 22, 1986, meaning Eddie learned the song in a little over two weeks.
18.When Eleven enters Max's memory, a younger version of Max flips off a fellow skateboarder, which is a nod to Max doing the same thing in Season 2 and Season 3.
19.When Vecna eventually infiltrates Max's good memory of the Snow Ball dance, it's very reminiscent of the movie Carrie from 1976. In the film, there's also exploding balloons filled with blood at Carrie's prom.
20.When Vecna explains to Eleven how he created the Mind Flayer after being banished to the Upside Down, we see Henry Creel drawing the Mind Flayer, which is similar to Season 2 when Will was possessed and drawing the same creature.
21.When Hopper is lying on the ground and trying to ward off one of the Demodogs, Joyce comes in and saves him. This moment mirrors Bob's death from Season 2, only this time Joyce was able to save the person that she loves.
22.After Robin, Steve, and Nancy are saved from the tentacles in the Upside Down, Robin mentions how their being saved had to be some divine intervention. The line is similar to Samuel L. Jackson's iconic line from Pulp Fiction (1994). Of course, Maya Hawke's mom, Uma Thurman, starred in Pulp Fiction, too.
23.The sword Hopper uses to slay the Demogorgon in the Russian prison was the same one used in Conan the Barbarian (1982). According to David Harbour, the Stranger Things props department managed to get a hold of the real sword used in the movie and it was "heavy as hell."
24.Also, the sword actually made its first appearance in Season 4, Episode 7, when Enzo unlocks the cabinet filled with weapons before the inmates fight the Demogorgon. It can be seen hanging in in the cabinet.
25.And, in Dungeons & Dragons, the Sword of Kas plays a big role in defeating Vecna. The sword was wielded by Kas, who once served Vecna until he betrayed him, and Mike mentions this battle between Kas and Vecna earlier in Season 4.
26.When Nancy, Steve, and Robin attack Vecna by throwing molotov cocktails at him and shooting him, Vecna flies out of the Creel house and lands in the yard. Vecna's "death" here is similar to Halloween (1978) when Michael Myers "died" in a similar way. In both cases, their bodies are not outside in the end because they actually survived (somehow).
27.Eddie's heartbreaking death at the hands of the demobats was foreshadowed by one of his tattoos. If you look closely, you can see that Eddie has a tattoo of a cluster of bats on his arm.
28.The song playing during Eddie's final conversation with Dustin is "When It's Cold I'd Like to Die" by Moby. The song previously played in Season 1 when Joyce and Hopper find Will and try to save him in the Upside Down while Hopper has flashbacks to Sara's death.
29.Now, I know there are a ton of great theories as to how Eddie could maybe possibly come back from the dead, but the best one I can think of is the fact that in Dungeons & Dragons, Kas the Bloody-Handed, who betrays and fights Vecna, does become a vampire at one point. Eddie was attacked by bats...so maybe?!?!
30.When Robin and Steve are unloading the donation from the car, the shot looking up at them mirrors the memorable camera angle used in numerous Quentin Tarantino movies. Again, I don't know if this was intentional, but Maya Hawke's mom, Uma Thurman, starred in Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill films, while Maya appeared in Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
31.And finally, in the hospital, you can see that Lucas is reading Stephen King's 1984 novel, The Talisman, which is about a boy who goes on a mission to obtain artifacts that'll hopefully save his mother's life. The Duffer brothers are actually adapting this book into a series.
