Stranger Things Season 03 episode 2

 

The second episode of Stranger Things' third season, "The Mall Rats," is the show's nineteenth overall. The launch date was July 4, 2019.Max and Eleven go shopping, Steve and Robin enlist in a covert mission, and Nancy and Jonathan pursue a lead. Billy, shaken, sees unsettling sights.

After being attacked, Billy Hargrove leaves the Brimborn Steel Works basement and heads to the closest phone booth. He remembers the fleshy tendril that seized him and attached itself to his mouth as he contacts the police. Just as the light starts to flicker, he abruptly transforms into the Upside Down. He yells at a shadowy bunch of people approaching and asks them what they want. When a figure approaches him, he recognises it as a more presentable, unharmed version of himself. Eleven phones Mike Wheeler to let him know that he will be arriving to retrieve her in fifteen minutes, and he tells Chief Jim Hopper's falsehood of his grandmother's illness. But Hopper assured her that Mike's grandmother was safe and that it was just a false alarm.

When Dustin Henderson and Steve Harrington joyfully reconnect at Scoops Ahoy ice cream parlour, Dustin tells Steve about his new girlfriend. He informs Steve about the message he recorded in Russian and how, if they figure it out, they might be regarded as heroes. Steve is asked to assist him in translating it. Eleven worries that Mike is lying to her, and Max Mayfield validates her suspicions. Eleven is instructed by mom to dump Mike if he doesn't apologise and to freeze him out. Mike confides in Lucas Sinclair about his concerns at the same moment, claiming that Hopper had threatened him. Max takes her to Starcourt for some fun, while Lucas brings Mike there to help make amends with Eleven. The mothers were at the Hawkins Community Pool.

Jonathan and Nancy meet an elderly single woman named Driscoll. She blames rabid rats for the destruction and consumption of sacks of fertiliser in her cellar. Until Driscoll shows them one of the rats she trapped, Nancy is sceptical. A big man in motorcycle gear comes out of Mayor Larry Kline's office while Hopper waits to speak with him. Hopper is instructed to remove the protestors by Kline, who informs him that they do not have a permit to demonstrate. Hopper cautions him that putting down the demonstration might make it more difficult for him to win reelection, but Kline is certain that his planned Fourth of July Fun Fair will win them over. Max and Eleven get to Starcourt. 

While Max works to give Eleven a makeover, Mike and Lucas are unsuccessful and turn down Will's plea to give up and play Dungeons & Dragons. First line of Russian code translated by Dustin and Robin is "The week is long." Steve gives Eleven and Max some ice cream, and when Steve inquires as to Eleven's permission to go outside, the two run off giggling. When Eleven confronts Mike for lying to her and dumps him, surprising the other males and making Max happy, they run into the lads outside the mall. Joyce stands Hopper up after he gets a new shirt for their supper together. She went to Mr. Scott Clarke to get help with the town's magnet problem, and now she is occupied with him.

Thus far, Dustin, Steve, and Robin have translated. "The week is long, the silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west." After closing up shop, Steve walks past a mechanical horse and notices the music emanating from it is the same music he heard on the tape, confirming that the message originated from the mall itself. Dustin and Robin get along well because they both have a curiosity-driven personality. Furious at being let down, Hopper consumes too much wine at the restaurant and, while leaving, runs across the same man from Kline's office, who turns out to be the assassin of the Russian scientist from the previous year. Billy gets into his trunk, drives to the mill, and pulls out a restrained and unconscious Heather.