A bit of a downfall from the excellent pilot, you can see that this is an 'matching plots' episode. There's less substance but it's enjoyable nevertheless.
Although it's a lesser episode than the previous one, it does have better individual scenes. We get too ridiculously tender scenes: one with Mike and El on the sofa and another with Jonathan and Will listening to The Clash. And then we get a tremendously powerful scene about an El's flashback from the lab. Millie Bobbie Brown gives a mouthdropping performance on this episode, as well as Winona Ryder which shines in a scene involving Will trying to communicate with her. That being said, she's still being a little to over the top.
Moving on to the negatives, this episode is filled with clichéd moments. The ones you saw on the pilot get worse here. We get some cheesy lines ("this isn't you"), more stereotypical characters (shitty father), but the worst thing about the episode is that it propels very little the plot. I still don't think that Nancy's story line has anything to do with the rest of the show. I mean, in the end they made the monster take Barb, but that's no way to connect the stories. And also the tone is kind of all over the place. On the pilot we got a fun tone with a darker one underneath but here it's not fun or dark. I mean, when the monster appears on the Byers' house it does ring weird. It wasn't set up or even hinted in the whole episode.
Overall, an enjoyable filler but an inferior to the pilot.
Although it's a lesser episode than the previous one, it does have better individual scenes. We get too ridiculously tender scenes: one with Mike and El on the sofa and another with Jonathan and Will listening to The Clash. And then we get a tremendously powerful scene about an El's flashback from the lab. Millie Bobbie Brown gives a mouthdropping performance on this episode, as well as Winona Ryder which shines in a scene involving Will trying to communicate with her. That being said, she's still being a little to over the top.
Moving on to the negatives, this episode is filled with clichéd moments. The ones you saw on the pilot get worse here. We get some cheesy lines ("this isn't you"), more stereotypical characters (shitty father), but the worst thing about the episode is that it propels very little the plot. I still don't think that Nancy's story line has anything to do with the rest of the show. I mean, in the end they made the monster take Barb, but that's no way to connect the stories. And also the tone is kind of all over the place. On the pilot we got a fun tone with a darker one underneath but here it's not fun or dark. I mean, when the monster appears on the Byers' house it does ring weird. It wasn't set up or even hinted in the whole episode.
Overall, an enjoyable filler but an inferior to the pilot.