Season 3 of Stranger Things includes various easter eggs and callbacks. Fans may have missed 10 items on their initial viewing.
Stranger Things has shown to be a program packed of wonderful details once again. And there are lots of fascinating background tidbits, callbacks, Easter eggs, and movie allusions (many of which are to films from the 1980s) that many viewers may have missed during their first binge of the season. And who knows what could happen? Perhaps this list will persuade viewers to revisit what has been dubbed the darkest season of Stranger Things to date. What greater incentive could there be to re-watch it?! But be cautious. Major spoilers await anybody who hasn’t finished watching this season yet.
Phoebe Cates is a fictional character created by Phoebe Cates.
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Dustin refers to his girlfriend Suzie as “hotter than Phoebe Cates” many times throughout the program, which anybody who grew up in the 1980s knows is high praise. In the season finale, there’s an easy-to-spot cardboard cut-out of her. Karen Wheeler, Mike’s mother, makes a more subtle allusion to her involvement in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And it’s a sequence that clearly alludes to Ms. Cates’ pool scene, which is the sole reason everybody remembers Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The same music that accompanied Cates in her classic pool scene, Moving in Stereo, plays when Karen steps out of the water to speak to Billy. Karen’s one-piece suit would still look wonderful in the twenty-first century, even if she didn’t wear a red bikini this time.
9 Stacey’s Retaliation
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Eleven and Max are having fun in the shoe shop until El falls down in her new high heels, which causes a few females to roll their eyes. El later discovers these girls in the food court and uses her abilities to blow up an Orange Julius held by the girl with the frizzy red hair.
This girl may have been Stacey, the girl who rudely rejected down Dustin at the Snow Ball in season two (no Neverending Story theme for her). It was well-deserved vengeance, whether it was for making Dustin weep or for her terrible haircut.
8 Employing Proper English
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The opening scene of Season 3 in Hawkins takes place in Eleven’s bedroom, where a now adolescent Mike and Eleven are making out to Corey Hart’s Never Surrender. The first pan shot actually shows the cassette tape next to Eleven’s stereo, before moving on to the newly hormonal pair and passing by a book titled Using Good English. This is a wonderful touch, and it’s a book that most likely contributed to Eleven’s transition from “evil dudes” to “I dump your ass.” And it’s a nice notion that Hopper helped her learn English by reading this book before supper and watching Miami Vice.
7 Hairspray Weaponized by Farrah Fawcett
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The group fools Dustin by having Eleven bring his toys to life in one of the first moments of season three. Dustin comes prepared with a bottle of Farrah Fawcett hairspray to protect himself in this Night of the Possible Toy Story Shout-out scenario. After a surprising surprise, hairspray splatters Lucas’ eyes.
The Farrah Fawcett hairspray is the same substance Steve warned Dustin about in season two, which resulted in Dustin’s head being covered in a bird nest at the Snow Ball. Dustin continues to rock the spray even after the dance, which is great to watch. One can only hope he brought a bottle to camp.
The Mews Bobblehead is number six.
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It’s great to see Dustin’s mother loved Mews so much that she now has a bobblehead to remember her. This orange tabby cat bobblehead may also be seen on Dustin’s mother’s dashboard when she drives him home from summer camp.
This bobblehead is a blatant allusion to d’Artagnan’s eating of Henderson’s tabby cat in season two. Even if another cat was brought in to take her place, it’s nice to see that Mews was remembered.
Poster #5: The Endless Summer
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A poster for The Endless Summer hangs in Max’s room. This film follows two California surfers as they traveled the globe in quest of the best waves for them and their boards. This Easter egg contributes to the development of Max’s character by demonstrating her nostalgic fondness for her native state. It might also be a personal link to her stepbrother Billy, who is shown in later episodes to be a former surfer with a promising future ahead of him if it weren’t for his violent father.
“Gag me with a spoon,” Max says when she stumbles across Billy’s Penthouse magazines, is another California term that pops out of Max’s lips. This idiom was popularized by valley girls in the 1970s and 1980s as a way of expressing anger or contempt.
4 The Hospital of Halloween II
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Close study reveals that the local hospital, Hawkins Memorial, has the same emblem as Haddonfield Memorial, the hospital where Laurie is transported following her meeting with Michael Myers in Halloween II. Stranger Things would be a season well worth watching if a character modeled on Michael Myers was introduced.
3 Tag for Telephone Extensions
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Karen Wheeler answers a phone call in the kitchen in season three, then exclaims that it’s for him. Mike switches to a different phone extension, and Karen, ever the ideal spy mother, does not hang up. As long as she doesn’t cough or sneeze, she can listen to the whole phone conversation while keeping him in the dark. After hearing important gossip, 80s youngsters were experts at the quiet hang-up. Karen clearly needs more experience in this area, as she nearly immediately exposes her cover. But, after hearing Mike’s obvious falsehoods, who can blame her?
E Pluribus Unum is a Latin phrase that means “all things are one.”
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The sixth episode’s title is a famous Latin phrase. “E Pluribus Unum” literally means “Out of many, one.” It may also be informally translated as “one among many.” The motto of the United States of America used to be E Pluribus Unum, which relates to the birth of a single country from the merger of thirteen lesser colonies. This is the United States’ historic slogan, as well as a reference to the various hosts that combine to produce Season 3’s primary monster.
The Flayed, the countless hosts under the Mind Flayer’s control, are transported to the Steel Works, where they are melted down and fused to produce the embodiment of the monster that would confront Eleven.
Daisy Bell No. 1
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Steve Harrington uses the music on a horse machine to find that the Russian transmission that he, Dustin, and Robin captured went out locally at the conclusion of episode two. Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two), a classic 1892 song penned by Harry Dacre and used in several films and television programs over the years, is playing on the machine.
Bowman deactivates the circuitry controlling HAL’s intellect in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is perhaps the most well-known example. On his way out, the rogue AI softly sings the tune. This iconic scene was a nod to the first demonstration of computer voice synthesis, which took place in 1961. Daisy Bell was performed by an IBM 704 at Bell Labs in this presentation. Arthur C. Clarke, a science fiction novelist, saw the experiment and mentioned it in his 1968 book and subsequent film.
