Stranger Things season 1 episode 1: recap of "The Vanishing of Will Byers," the pilot
Season 1 · Episode 1 · The pilot
It all starts on November 6, 1983: a Dungeons and Dragons game in a basement, a bike abandoned on a road, and a mother calling a son who does not answer. The first episode of the show sets down in 48 minutes everything it will tell for nine years. Here is its recap, scene by scene.
The essentials
- Title: The Vanishing of Will Byers
- Release: July 15, 2016
- Runtime: 48 minutes
- Story date: November 6 and 7, 1983
Contents
The opening of episode 1: the lab
In a hallway of the national lab, a scientist runs, the night of November 6, 1983. He calls the elevator. Something takes him from above. Forty seconds, no monster visible, and the tone of the show is set: what scares is what you do not see.
The Will Byers T-shirt, the missing boy.
In the shopMen's 3/4-sleeve baseball Will Byers T-shirt44,90 €See the product
The game, and the bike
In the Wheelers' basement, Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas finish ten hours of Dungeons and Dragons. The dungeon master brings out the Demogorgon; Will rolls the die, misses, and the game stops because Karen calls. On the way home, alone in the woods, Will crosses a silhouette. He goes home, nobody. He runs into the shed, loads the shotgun, the light sputters, and he disappears.
The bike is found the next day on the road by Hopper. It is the image of the show: a child's bike lying in the leaves.
| Scene | What she installs |
|---|---|
| The lab | The place everything comes from |
| The D&D game | The group, and the monster's name |
| The bike on the road | The disappearance |
| Graduation | The Demogorgon, never shown |
| Dinner at Benny's | Eleven, and her waffle |
Joyce and Hopper
Joyce Byers, single mother, cashier, wakes the police chief, Jim Hopper, who lost his own daughter and drowns his days in beer. He starts by not believing her: boys run away. Then he finds the bike, and he looks. The show thus sets its two adults: the one who believes before anyone else, and the one who ends up believing.
The telephoneThat night, Joyce gets a call: a breath, then a crackle that burns the handset. It is the first time the Upside Down speaks. It will take her two episodes to understand that it is Will.
The girl in the rain
In the woods, a child with a shaved skull, in a hospital gown, comes out of the trees and steals fries at Benny's restaurant. He feeds her, calls social services; it is men from the lab who arrive, and they kill Benny. The girl flees in the rain. On her wrist, a tattoo: 011. The last shot of the episode shows her facing Mike, Dustin, and Lucas, gone to look for Will in the woods with flashlights.
Why this pilot matters
In 48 minutes, it installs the group, the town, the lab, the monster you do not see, the mother, the cop, and the girl. It shows nothing of the Upside Down, and yet you already know everything. Nine years later, the last season replayed its scenes: the abduction of a Wheeler child, a mirrored title, and an opening in November 1983 that finally shows what that first episode hid.
The Eleven figure, hospital gown.
In the shopLego Will Byers mini figure on a bike14,90 €See the product
Scene by scene
-
The lab, November 6, 1983
A scientist runs down a hallway, calls the elevator; the doors close, something snatches him from above. The first dead of the show has no name.
-
The Wheelers' basement
Ten minutes of Dungeons & Dragons. The Demogorgon appears on the table, Will rolls the die, nobody sees the result.
-
The road
Will bikes home alone. A silhouette on the road, the fall, the garden shed, the bulb that goes out.
-
The morning
Joyce finds the empty bed. Hopper, woken in the middle of his beers, treats the case lightly.
-
Benny's Burgers
A girl with a shaved head steals fries. Benny feeds her, calls social services; the men who arrive are not social services.
-
The night
The three boys go looking for Will in the rain. In the flashlight beam, a girl in a hospital gown.
What the pilot installs for the whole show
In 48 minutes, the episode sets everything the show will use for ten years. The lab and its gate, whose nature you will only see in episode 6. The role-playing game, the group's common language, which gives the monsters their names up to Vecna. The disappearance of November 6, a date the show will mark every year and that season 5 will choose for its finale. And the trio Joyce, Hopper, Eleven: a mother who refuses to believe, a cop who has lost his daughter, a child who does not know how to speak.
The pilot also sets up the Duffers' method: an image rather than an explanation. Nobody says what the lab is; you see a man die in an elevator. Nobody says who the girl is; you see a tattoo, 011, and a number. That economy stayed the show's rule, through the last chapter.
How the pilot was made
The episode is written and directed by the Duffer Brothers, like almost every first chapter of the show. Its script is, give or take, the one they had written to sell the show, and that many networks had turned down. Filming started on September 25, 2015 in Georgia; the Byers house, the Wheelers' street, Benny's restaurant are real places around Atlanta.
The episode's edit, credited to Dean Zimmerman, was nominated for the profession's awards, and the Duffers' direction for the directors' guild award. The script was nominated for the Bram Stoker Awards, the horror writers' prize. For a show's first episode, that is an unusual recognition, which says how well the pilot works as a complete short film.
How to rewatch it today
The pilot watches very well on its own, like a fifty-minute film, and it is the best way in for someone who is hesitating. It contains a single truly frightening scene, the garden shed, and no image of the monster: the show reveals the Demogorgon gradually, in touches, until the sixth episode.
For a fan, watching it again after the last chapter changes everything. The invisible dice roll in the basement finds its answer in the 1989 game; the November 6 disappearance is the date Henry chooses to act; and the first image of Will, alone in the shed, takes on another meaning when you know who was waiting for him on the other side, in the library of the Upside Down.
The Season 1 poster.
In the shop44 mm pin, Will's drawing9,90 €See the product
TakeawayNovember 6, 1983: the game, the bike, the shed. Joyce believes, Hopper searches. A girl with a shaved head, 011 on her wrist. 48 minutes that contain the whole show.
Frequently asked questions
What is the first episode of Stranger Things about?
Will Byers's disappearance, on November 6, 1983, after a Dungeons and Dragons game; the search led by Joyce and Hopper; and the appearance of a girl with a shaved skull, Eleven.
When did the first episode come out?
On July 15, 2016, with the seven other episodes of Season 1.
Do you see the Demogorgon in the first episode?
No. He takes a scientist in the opening and Will in the shed, without ever being shown.
Who dies in the first episode?
A lab scientist in the opening, and Benny, the restaurant owner, killed by the lab men.
Who directed the first episode?
The Duffer Brothers, who also wrote it. It is more or less the script they had used to sell the show in 2015.
Is the first episode scary?
Moderately: only one truly frightening scene, the one in the garden shed, and the monster is never shown. The series reveals it gradually through the sixth chapter.