The Season 2 Stranger Things monster: the demodogs and the Mind Flayer, explained
Season 2 · The monsters · October–December 1984
Season 2 does not have one monster but two, and that is its central idea: an immense shadow that thinks, and a pack of creatures that obeys. Understanding that the two are one is what makes it possible to win. Here are the Mind Flayer and the demodogs of 1984.
The essentials
- The brain: the Mind Flayer, spider-shadow of the Upside Down
- The members: the demodogs, young four-legged Demogorgons
- The host: Will, possessed from October 30 to the finale
- The solution: drive the shadow out with heat, close the gate
Contents
The Mind Flayer: a shadow that thinks
Will sees it before everyone: a red sky, a storm, and in the middle a many-legged shape, high as a mountain, looking at him. His visions become a possession on Halloween night, when the shadow enters him. Dustin finds him a name in the Dungeons & Dragons manual: the Mind Flayer, a creature that enslaves minds and commands an army.
You do not fight the shadow physically: it is on the other side. It acts through Will, sees through his eyes, and makes him suffer when its tunnels burn. Dr. Owens compares the possession to a virus; Joyce understands that heat drives it out.
The demodog T-shirt, for Dart's friends.
In the shopMen's Demogorgon sketch T-shirt39,90 €See the product
The demodogs: the pack
Dart, Dustin's tadpole, grows in a few days and becomes a demodog: a dog-sized quadruped, with the petal head of the Demogorgon. It is not alone. The tunnels the shadow digs under Hawkins shelter dozens of them, which attack in a pack and obey the Mind Flayer like limbs to a brain.
They wipe out the lab in episode 8, kill Bob, and besiege the Byers house. They are only beaten by the closing of the gate: cut off from their master, they all die at the same time.
| Creature | What she does | How you beat it |
|---|---|---|
| the Mind Flayer | Possesses Will, commands the tunnels and the pack | Expelled by heat; locked behind the gate |
| The demodogs | Hunt in a pack, invade the lab | Die when the gate closes |
| Dart | Grows at Dustin's, escapes, comes back in the tunnels | Spares the party, dies with the others |
The hive mind
The idea of the season sits in one image, found by Dustin: the Mind Flayer is a brain, the demodogs are its hands, the tunnels its veins. Everything is connected; hurting one part affects the whole. That is what Will, possessed, feels when the soldiers burn the tunnels. And that is what makes closing the gate decisive: cutting the connection kills everything on this side.
That rule will stay valid for the whole show: in season 3 for the flesh monster, in season 4 for the demobats, and in season 5 for the final battle.
Why Will does not die when the gate closesBecause Joyce, Nancy and Jonathan drive the shadow out of his body first, in Hopper's cabin, with space heaters. If he had still been possessed at the moment of the closing, he would have died with the demodogs.
What Season 2 leaves
The Mind Flayer is not dead: the last shot shows it above the middle school, in the Upside Down, during the Snow Ball. It has lost its creatures and its host, not its will. Season 3 will give it a new way in: a fragment left on this side, and a new host, Billy.
Dart, the demodog Dustin raised
The most endearing monster of the season is a little tadpole found in a trash can. Dustin names it Dart, after the D'Artagnan character from The Three Musketeers, and feeds it chocolate bars. In a few days, the creature molts, loses its tail, grows legs, and Dustin understands, too late, that he has raised a young Demogorgon. Dart eats his mother's cat, Mews, and escapes.
But Dart does not forget. In the tunnels, in the last episode, when the group runs into him, Dustin steps forward, talks to him, offers him one last chocolate bar, and the creature lets them pass. It is the only time in the show a monster from the Upside Down spares a human out of attachment, and the scene says something about the hive: the demodogs obey the shadow, but an individual bond can, for a moment, win out.
The Mind Flayer figure, shadow version.
In the shopLego Demogorgon mini figure14,90 €See the product
Why "Mind Flayer"
The name comes from Dungeons & Dragons, like the Demogorgon's. In the game, the mind flayer, or illithid, is an octopus-headed creature that controls minds and directs slaves from the shadows. When Dustin tries to understand what is possessing Will, he finds the monster's sheet in the handbook: a hive master, who sees through its servants' eyes. The comparison sets the show's vocabulary for two seasons.
In the French versions, the name oscillates between a French calque and “Mind Flayer”; the dubs use the first. The monster itself has no name in the Upside Down: it is a giant, spider-like shadow, which Will draws on dozens of sheets and which the show only shows in full from the other world, above the middle school.
The monster scenes, episode by episode
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Episode 1
Will sees the shadow for the first time, on the football field, from the arcade. Dart is still only a noise in a trash can.
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Episode 3
Dart molts in Dustin's room. Will, on Bob's advice, faces the shadow: it enters him.
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Episode 5
Hopper, down in the tunnels, is trapped by the roots. Will locates him thanks to the “memories of today.”
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Episode 6
The lab soldiers enter the tunnels; the demodogs are waiting. Will, the spy, lied for the hive.
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Episode 8
The assault on the lab: Bob runs for the exit, the demodogs catch him in the lobby.
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Episode 9
The tunnels burn, Dart lets the group through, Eleven closes the gate, and the shadow stays on the other side.
What the 1984 monster announces
With the hindsight of the last season, the shadow of 1984 changes meaning. Season 4 reveals that Henry Creel, exiled in the Upside Down in 1979, commands the creatures of the other world. The last chapter goes further: Henry and the entity the show called the Mind Flayer are one, since he opened, as a child, a briefcase in a mine.
Will's possession then takes on another dimension. It is not by chance that the shadow chose him: Henry had already touched him in 1983, during his week in the Upside Down. Season 2 was telling, without saying it, Henry's second attempt on the same child.
The Demogorgon keychain, in a compact format.
In the shopBeige Demogorgon Park sweater63,90 €See the product
TakeawayTwo linked threats: the shadow (the brain) and the demodogs (the hands). Will is possessed from Halloween to the finale, then freed by heat. Closing the gate kills all the demodogs at once. The Mind Flayer survives, on the other side.
Frequently asked questions
What is the season 2 monster?
The Mind Flayer, the giant shadow that possesses Will, and the demodogs, its four-legged creatures.
What is a demodog?
A young Demogorgon, the size of a dog, that hunts in a pack. The word is Dustin's, who raises one, Dart, without knowing it.
How is Will freed?
Through heat: Joyce, Nancy and Jonathan tie him in Hopper's cabin and raise the temperature until the shadow comes out of his body.
Does the Mind Flayer die at the end of Season 2?
No. He loses his demodogs when Eleven closes the gate, but he stays in the Upside Down, above the middle school.
Where does Dart's name come from?
From d'Artagnan, the hero of The Three Musketeers: that is how Dustin names the tadpole he finds in his trash and feeds chocolate bars.
Why does Dart let the group pass in the tunnels?
Because Dustin raised him. He steps forward, talks to him and offers him one last chocolate bar: it is the only time in the show a creature from the Upside Down spares a human out of attachment.