When we look back at season four of STRANGER THINGS, I wonder if the scene that will be remembered as the most scary and traumatic won't be one of the many insane horror moments but the scene in episode 402 of Andrea and her friends publicly shaming Jane at the roller rink. It doesn't really seem on par with I don't know, massacring a lab filled with children? And yet in practice it really hits hard. How do the Duffer Brothers do that?
Here's a couple of the ways they build the sense of horror in that sequence:
1) Establish the Stakes and Conflict Immediately: The roller rink sequence actually has a whole bunch of beats to it. First it's Mike and El and Will going to the rink. And even as they let the initial moment very much have that fun teen roller skating vibe, the Duffer Brothers fold in tension right away, via the fiction Jane insists on that she has friends and this is some place they go. When Mike steps away Will calls her on it, and her reaction conveys just how much pressure she feels for this to go well. Andrea hasn't even entered the scene yet but we've already got a sense of the stakes.
2) Give the Nightmare Many Parts: It's really interesting how many distinct beats there are in the Andrea shames Jane sequence. First there's just Andrea showing up at the table; right then and there she could ruin everything for Jane by revealing they are not the friends Jane told Mike. Then we've got Andrea with Jane in the rink, skating her somewhere.
Then we've got what seems like the main event: Jane alone on the floor, the DJ dedicating a song to her as "the local snitch," a spotlight on her and dozens of girls circling her, imitating the hand gesture she threw at Andrea in 401 and telling her she's a freak.
But we keep adding elements. The guy videotaping the whole thing. The girls clasp hands, making it impossible for Jane to leave. The DJ won't turn the music off. The girls' spin around Jane is becoming so fast it's a blur. Then the DJ agrees to stop the song, shouts "Wipe out," and someone throws a milkshake on to her, causing her to fall to the ground.
AND STILL we're not done. We've got everyone laughing. Andrea stops and mocks her (in another perfectly pitched, "I think I'm so smart but God I'm dumb" line). And then she flees.
As an audience we've seen plenty of bullying sequences play out like this. I think what makes the Duffer Brothers version especially effective is their patience in adding new elements. There's never 2 or 3 things introduced at once; rather they build on what they have set up single step by single step. It keeps the sequence focused. And it gives it a sense of direction--we are headed toward something terrible.
3) Reactions are Everything: So much of the pain of the sequence is built out of how Jane responds, the building horror that she shows in response to what they're doing.
But they also use Will's reactions to this end. Even before Andrea has shown up, Will trails behind them on the skating ring, looking deeply troubled. Some of his troubles almost certainly have nothing to do with Jane lying to Mike and everything to do with he wants Mike for himself. But it doesn't matter; he's like a neon sign above their heads signaling their doom.
And then once the horrors begin, the camera repeatedly goes back to Will and Mike, who sit there absolutely stunned. And each time that camera choice underlines again how terrible this is.
4) Heroic Powerlessness is Also Everything: Characters are defined by their choices. When a character makes big, bold choices, it makes them attractive and compelling, even if they're bad guys.
And when characters do nothing, it tends to make them less attractive. And to some extent Will's paralysis here does have that effect. It's yet another in a series of the moments in STRANGER THINGS where we just want Will to do something (which I assume will pay off with him actually making some kind of big choice at the end of the season; all the frustration we feel now is intended to make that choice more cathartic).
But in general we expect Jane and Mike at least to act and act fast. And the fact that they don't, that our big choice heroes for some reason can't escape this, once again generates a feeling of horror. This situation is so bad even they can't get out of it.
5) Use Catharsis to Seal the Deal: This sequence could have ended with Jane fleeing the rink. But instead, the Duffer Brothers address the obvious question, the one we want to see answered: What's a badass like Eleven going to do after being paralyzed and humiliated?
She's finally going to stop performing as a normal kid and fuck some shit up, that's what.
For the first two episodes we've watched Jane withhold herself, basically, to try to be something she's not. And she has been trying so hard, but it has not felt right at all. So to see her finally throw all that off and take up her true identity is immediately satisfying. Lent is over. Finally we get chocolate again.
But that promise of catharsis hides within itself the final and worst horror of all: Jane seen (and seeing herself) as a monster once again.
Even as she's hitting Andrea in the face with a roller skate, I wanted to believe that would be the end of it. Andrea had it coming. Of course that's insane, because Jane HIT ANDREA IN THE FACE WITH A ROLLER SKATE. But that's what delayed gratification does, it gets us so invested in getting what's been withheld from us that we don't think too deeply about what catharsis will mean for the character.
The beginning of the rink sequence sets up that the most horrifying thing that could have happened was that Jane was publicly humiliated in front of Mike. But at the end in her attack we discover the Duffer Brothers had sold us a fake set of terms; the worst horror Jane could be asked to experience wasn't humiliation, it was being confronted again with her own sense of monstrosity.
