- As Hopper braces to battle a monster, Dustin dissects Vecna's motives -- and decodes a message from beyond. El finds strength in a distant memory.
- El relives the events at Hawkins Lab that led to the massacre of the other children... and the creation of Vecna. Meanwhile, Dustin, Max, Lucas, and Erica make contact with the others in the Upside Down and Nancy learns what really happened in the Creel house decades ago.—Gislef
- In the Upside Down, the bats continue stinging and choking Steve. Nancy, Robin, and Eddie arrive and knock the bats off, and Nancy confirms that Steve is bleeding but okay. They see more of the creatures approaching and run to the nearby wood.
Sullivan's soldiers take Wallace out of his confinement, and Sullivan repeats asking where El is. Wallace finally asks Sullivan to promise he won't kill El, and Sullivan agrees.
El sits in a room and tries to summon her power on a pop can. Banner and Owens watch through one-way glass, and Owens say that they're running out of time. Unimpressed, Banner says that he understands the stakes and Owens reminds him that Banner said it was all the only way but they haven't had any progress.
Later, El is taken to her room. Brenner goes there and tells her that she has to face her good and bad to become whole. He asks her to trust him, and journey into the past one last time. El agrees to go into the tank
The police and their parents question Dustin, Lucas, and Max, and Dustin claims they went to the lake for a midnight swim. Erica accuses them of all lying, and Sullivan talks to Max on her own.
In the Upside Down, the others successfully hide in the woods and Nancy binds Steve's wounds. Robin says that she has guns in her room and thus in its version in the Upside Down. Everything shakes, and something roars in the distance, and the group heads out.
At the prison, Hopper and Dmitri talk about their children, and how children never want anything to do with their parents. Hopper wonders if he was put there to kill the Demogorgon and help El.
Joyce, Murray, and Yuri arrive at the prison gates in a van, and Murray convinces the guard that he's Yuri and bringing in Joyce and Yuri as prisoners.
In the past, Brenner examines El and then takes her to the testing chamber where the other children are. He demands that the ones responsible for El's injuries speak up, and Two suggests that El fell. Brenner has an orderly put a collar on Two, and then tortures Two for the truth.
In the present, Steve thanks Eddie for saving his life. Eddie tells Steve that Dustin worships him, and Eddie is jealous. He only came to help Steve because the girls did, and Nancy didn't hesitate. Eddie tells Steve that it's a sign of true love. The world shakes, and Nancy leads the others to the Upside Down version of her house.
Dustin goes to the bathroom and tries to call Steve on the walkie. He gets no answer, goes to the kitchen, and tells Lucas. Erica overhears them and tells Lucas to tell her what happened, or she'll tell Dustin what she found under her brother's bed. Lucas caves and says that Vecna is a dark wizard from the Upside Down, and they found a gate at the lake. Erica wonders why there'd be a gate at the lake, and Dustin figures she's right to wonder. He figures Vecna has psychic powers like El, and has been using the psychic power from his victims to create gates and send his Demogorgon foot soldiers through to take over the world.
The porch light flickers as Nancy and the others enter the alternate version of the house. She leads them to her room and discovers it's all from the past, and the guns aren't there. Steve has hung back, hearing Dustin on the other side and yelled to him. The others come back and can also hear Dustin, and Steve points out that an overhead light is lit up. Nancy waves her fingers through the sparkles surrounding it, and the others join in. Eddie knows Morse code for SOS.
In the real world, Erica notices the overhead light flickering and points it out to the boys. Dustin works out the SOS.
In the prison, the warden comes to see the trio and wonders where "Murray" is, jokingly says that he's heard that Yuri has a screw loose. Murray plays along and says that he has many screws loose, then takes them to the pit where Hopper and the other prisoners have been lined up. The guard gives them a key to a nearby weapon locker and tells them they can use any weapons there.
In the past, El tries to direct the disc in the pachinko board, and notices the children that attacked her are all glaring at her. The Orderly asks if she wants to try something more challenging, and plays a game of chess with her. He tells her that when Two is released from the infirmary, he and the others will try and kill El. and Brenner wants it to happen. Brenner maneuvered them to do what he wants, because he knows El is more powerful than the others, and he can't control her. The Orderly tells her she must escape immediately, and it's time she's free from the lab. He slips El a key card where the cameras can't see.
The trio "borrow" Holly's Lite-Brite, set it up in Mike's room, and uses it to communicate with the older kids. The tens say that they're stuck in the Upside Down because "Watergate" is guarded, and Dustin yells that they should go to the gate at Eddie's trailer where Chrissy was killed
Dustin calls Max up to the room. Callahan goes up to get them and finds them out the window. Erica punctures the tires on the cars and rides off on her bike the others, while the older kids ride Nancy's bikes to the trailer as well. A bat sees them go and Vecna sees through its eyes.
In her memories, Brenner comes and takes one of the children to lessons. El convinces an orderly to take her to the infirmary, and she slips away and uses the card to open a door and get to the boiler room. The Orderly is there, leads to her a sewer grille, and tells her the pipe will take her out. He says that he's staying behind because Brenner put a tracking chip in his neck, El offers to remove the implant.
In the present at the prison, Dmitri tells the other prisoners to stick to the plan. When the sirens go off, Dmitri grabs the keys and all the prisoners run to the weapons locker. They arm themselves while Hopper wraps a cloth around his spear. The guards open the door on the Demogorgon, and Hopper pours the vodka on the cloth and the warden tells the head guard to find out what Hopper is doing. Murray jabs his hidden gun into the warden's side, while Hopper discovers the lighter doesn't work. The warden says that Hopper is already dead.
The Demogorgon charges out and rips through the prisoners. The warden refuses to tell his guards to shoot it, saying to Murray that if he does then they'll shoot him as a traitor. While Murray takes the warden to the guards, Hooper lights his spear and fends off the Demogorgon. It leaps away and bites off a prisoner's head, while Murray uses the warden as a hostage and has a guard throw down his gun. Joyce picks it up, and Murray tells another guard to open the gates. The warden warns the guard that6 if he does, the Demogorgon will kill them all.
Hooper and Dmitri retreat into the tunnel the Demogorgon came from, while one guard prepares to shoot them but the head guard tells him not to waste the bullet because they'll never get through the locked gates. The guard at the control refuses to open the gate, and Murray knocks out the warden and several guards. He then gets his glasses from Yuri so he can see and work the gate controls, and Joyce just presses away. The gate opens, and Jim and Dmitri duck through before Joyce manages to close it. The Demogorgon pries the doors open, and Hooper throws the spear into its head. The internal doors open, and Hooper comes out to find Joyce and Murray there. Joyce hugs Hooper and he smiles and hugs her back.
The teens see the Creel house in the distance, and arrive at the version of Eddie's trailer. Inside, they find another gate and Dustin and others poke through the membrane with a stick.
In the past, the Orderly tells El that she can't hurt him more than Brenner and his people already have. she telekinetically pulls the implant out, and the Orderly thanks her. They run as lab guards break in, but get out only to find MPs surrounding them. The Orderly telekinetically blasts them into the walls and ceiling, and snaps the neck of the leader. He leads El into a washroom and shows her his 001 tattoo, and goes to find a way out.
In the present, Dustin and the others rig a rope out of bedsheets to let the others climb through, and a mattress to break their fall. Robin climbs through first, flipping over and landing on the mattress. Eddie and Robin climb/flip through. When Nancy goes through, she falls through a void into a pit in the Upside Down. Back in the Creel House, Nancy goes into a trance that Steve can't get her out of,
Nancy finds a vine-enshrouded corpse in the pit, and Vecna's voice echoes, asking her if she's forgotten what she did. Blood pours into the pit, and Nancy realizes she's in an empty pool.
El hears an alarm and goes out in the hallway. She picks up a walkie from one of the dead soldiers and hears people screaming, and goes to the Rainbow Room. She finds corpses and blood everywhere, and in the Rainbow Room she finds more corpses and One killing Two. He finishes off Two, and telekinetically seals the doors when El tries to run. One wonders how she can cry for the dead after what they did to her, and says that he knows what it's like to be alone in the world.
Nany climbs out of the pool and finds herself in the ruins of house. Vecna tells her that she was close to finding him, and asks if Victor missed him. The corpses of Fred and the others are there, and she finds herself in the house when Victor and his family first arrived.
One tells El that everyone said he was broken, and his parents thought that a fresh start in Hawkins would possibly cure him. One--Victor's son Henry--walked off on his own and, as Nancy watches, the boy finds a nest of black widow spiders. He found them fascinating, and put them in jars and kept them imprisoned while drawing pictures of them. One realized that humans were the pests infesting the world, and they were all waiting for it to be over. Henry couldn't pretend to be one of them, or had to, and could restore balance to a broken world.
Nancy watches as Henry hones his powers, killing small animals. One tells El that he reached into his parent's memories and learned that they weren't good, so he showed them who they really were. Nancy watches as Henry's mother realizes the truth and called a doctor to lock Henry away, so Henry had no choice but to kill her and his sister, but he didn't know his limits and taking their essences into himself nearly killed him. Victor was arrest and blamed for the death of his wife and sister, just as Henry planned, and Henry woke up in Brenner's care. Brenner tried to control Henry. When he realized he couldn't control Henry, he tried to recreate him with the other children. El was one of them, and One is glad she was.
One says that the others' minds are within him, and El tells One that he tricked her. He insists that he saved her, and she is superior to the others. If she comes with One, she'll be free for the first time in her life and together they can remake the world into whatever they want. El refuses to join him and telekinetically shoves him back, One gets up and they use their powers against each other, and El starts to slide back. She draws on her own memories of her past to strengthen herself, but One throws her back then slides her along the floor. One lifts her into the air and starts to snap her body, and El screams in pain.
El relives the moment of her birth and her mother saying that she loves her. Drawing on the memory, El breaks free of One's telekinetic grip and throws him back through the one-way observation window. The monitors in the chamber room go wild, and Brenner calmly says that it's happening.
In El's memories, she advances on the immobilized One and incinerates him. A gate to the Upside Down opens, and One is cast into the other world. His skin is burned away, making him Vecna,
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What is the Canadian French language plot outline for Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab (2022)?
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