Stranger Things gets a huge kick in The Goonies

SPOILER ALERT Stranger Things Season 2 Episode 5 gets a big kick in The Goonies as things go downhill in Hawkins.

STRANGER Things cops a big kick in The Goonies — and life in Hawkins is going to get a little nutty.

Get set for a spoiler-filled review of Episode 5, titled “Dig, Dug”.

What is the go with Max and her “brother” Billy? Are they key to the plot or a giant red herring?

Hopper falls into the classic trap of the science fiction hero by going off to explore the creepy Upside Down tunnels by himself. Naturally it doesn’t end well. He gets sprayed by something and then creepers try to strangle him.

Frankly, they don’t do a great job of it and if this Shadow Monster has dreams of taking over Hawkins, it needs to lift its game a bit.

Anyway, luckily for Hopper, Will is able to use his connection to the monster to see he is in trouble. With the help of mum Joyce’s boyfriend Bob, they work out exactly where Hopper is trapped. This is a lovely throwback to Sean Astin’s role in The Goonies, that legendary 1980s show, where he was the young kid trying to figure out a pirate treasure map to save his town.

Bob helps Joyce, Will and Mike decipher Will’s map, in a nod to The Goonies.

Meanwhile, Lucas decides to tell Max everything, which seems pretty stupid but that pales into insignificance when compared to Dustin’s idiocy.

Having discovered that Dart is not some cute lizard but actually a Demogorgon spawn that has killed his cat, he decides to imprison it in the cellar. Like that’s going to end well.

However, give him credit, he does send his dumb mum off in another direction, pad up like an ice hockey goalie and trick Dart out of the house and lock it in the cellar. Then he goes off to get his mates to help him deal with it — because the four of them were so effective at killing a Demogorgon in the last series. Instead he ends up with Steve, which could be interesting.

Dustin believes that Demogorgons can’t play ice hockey.

Nancy and Jonathan, meanwhile, are bonding and trying to persuade a crazy journalist that their tape recording of Dr Carter Burke (still my name for him until he proves he’s not a villain) revealing his evil plan will outrage America.

Instead, cleverly, they decide to pretend a chemical leak killed Barbara. That could work …

Finally we have Eleven, who had been hiding out pointlessly for a year but, when they really need her, has now gone off to look for her birth mother.

Jonathan and Nancy try to convince Murray about the evil in Hawkins.

She finds her, and finds the truth about her ‘Poppa’ and how he took her. What she does with that is another story.

Back in Hawkins, Hopper is rescued in the nick of time but as the lab boys turn the flamethrower on the Shadow Monster vines, in a classic nod back to Aliens, it leaves poor Will screaming in pain.

Now we are getting somewhere …