"Chapter Seven: The Lost Sister" is the seventh episode of the second season of the American science fiction horror drama television series Stranger Things. Written by Justin Doble and directed by Rebecca Thomas, it was originally released on Netflix in the United States on October 27, 2017, along with the rest of the second season.
Created by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things is set in the 1980s, and follows the supernatural happenings within the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana. In "The Lost Sister", Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) discovers from her comatose mother that there is another girl who, like her, was taken by Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine) to be given supernatural powers. Eleven meets the girl, Kali (Linnea Berthelsen), in Chicago, along with her group of punk friends, who help Kali get revenge on the people that assisted Dr. Brenner in his experiments.
The episode was written mainly out of the Duffers' admiration for Brown's acting in the first season, which they felt could lend itself to a separate storyline about Eleven. They also wished to further explore Eleven's childhood in a way that would ultimately benefit her narrative in the season, helping to build the theme of Eleven mastering her powers. With a different tone than the rest of the series at that point, the idea of it being the second half of the season finale instead of a standalone episode was brainstormed, but ultimately decided against. The look for Kali and Eleven were both heavily scrutinized, with Brown's outfit being partially based on Madonna's style. Upon release, the episode received generally mixed reviews from both critics and fans, with most agreeing that it was the worst episode of the series up to that point. The main reason for the criticism was for its disruption of the narrative that the season had been building up. Berthelsen would go on to reprise her role as Kali in the fifth and final season.
Background Stranger Things is set in the 1980s, and follows the supernatural happenings occurring in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana. It contains an ensemble cast of varying ages, including the adolescent Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). A girl taken by the villainous Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine)—who works at the government agency Hawkins National Laboratory—for tests and experiments, Eleven has telekinetic powers. She is one of the many children Dr. Brenner took from their mothers at birth to develop abnormal powers into.
After disappearing at the end of season one, she goes into hiding in a cabin in the woods with Hopper (David Harbour), the Hawkins chief of police who shields her from the government workers. After an argument, Eleven escapes from the cabin while Hopper is out and goes in search of her birth mother, Terry Ives (Aimee Mullins). Terry lives with her sister, Becky (Amy Seimetz), who was told by the doctors who assisted with the birth that Eleven had died during it. Eleven finds Terry in a comatose-like state, and, by going into her mind and going through her memories, realizes that Dr. Brenner stole her away from Terry, who was electrically shocked into being catatonic. This all happens concurrently with the rest of the season's plot, involving the introduction of a new villain, the Mind Flayer, who has infiltrated the body and subconscious of Eleven's friend, Will (Noah Schnapp), and is planning to destroy Hawkins.
Plot In Terry's memories, Eleven sees a toddler version of herself sitting next to another girl at Hawkins Lab. Eleven, believing this is what Terry has been subconsciously trying to show her, goes through files that Terry kept with Becky. Soon thereafter, they find one regarding the girl. Seeing Becky call for Child Protective Services to take her, Eleven leaves for Chicago in search of the girl. A gang of punks come and threaten her, when one of them, Kali (Linnea Berthelsen), goes to meet her. Eleven recognizes her as the girl, and Kali reveals herself as Eight. Kali shows Eleven her powers, where she can create advanced illusions which alter the perception of others, and the two bond. Kali shows Eleven their hideout, and the gang realizes Eleven's potential to find people's whereabouts just from a photograph. They decide to use this to find an old Hawkins Lab worker and murder him, as revenge for taking children.
Kali introduces the gang to Eleven, who realizes that the rest of them were not from Hawkins Lab, and are outcasts trying to help Kali get vengeance. Kali helps Eleven unlock her potential by thinking of a bad memory, and, utilizing that to strengthen her telekinesis, successfully moves a railcar. Eleven tracks down the worker, Ray (Pruitt Taylor Vince), and the gang quickly robs a market for supplies. At Ray's seemingly empty apartment, the gang find and mug him, with Eleven and Kali condemning him for taking them. He attempts to give them information about Dr. Brenner in exchange for being spared, but Eleven begins to choke Ray. The gang comes in, saying that they found young children in another room that have called the police.
Eleven stops Kali from shooting Ray, and the gang rushes to their hideout. Kali tells Eleven that she is free to go if she pleases, but makes a false illusion of Dr. Brenner to try and manipulate her into staying. Eleven sobs, and has a vision that her friends in Hawkins are in danger from the Mind Flayer. The police raid them, and they all drive away in their van, with Kali creating the illusion of a metal wall coming out of the ground to block the pursuit. Overwhelmed, Eleven runs off, catching a train to Hawkins. An elderly woman asks Eleven where she's going by herself, and she answers that she's going home.
Production Development and writing
"The Lost Sister" was written by Justin Doble, and was the fourth and final episode of Stranger Things that he wrote. Series creators Matt and Ross Duffer were pleased with Millie Bobby Brown's "great" acting in season one and wanted to give her a storyline set entirely around Eleven for season two. They also cited an urge to further explore Eleven's childhood and possible siblings as a catalyst for the episode.
During this period, Kali's character was named Roman, and was described as having a supernatural connection to the events of Hawkins Lab. The episode's tone was reminiscent of urban films from the 1970s-80s like The Terminator (1984), something distinct for the series. This could not be done for an episode set in Hawkins, so the Duffers were able to "play with" theming that they never touched on before. Finn Wolfhard, who portrays Eleven's boyfriend Mike Wheeler, later stated that he was not told about Eleven's storyline in the season, including "The Lost Sister", while he filmed his scenes with the other kids. He asserted, "It was kind of cool, actually. I didn't really know what Millie was doing in her storyline. I was in the dark, and she was in the dark about our storyline, too. It was cool to see it all come together". It was "locked in" to be the seventh episode of the season, according to Matt. This was because Eleven was not present for episode six and was largely absent for eight, so they felt that giving her a standalone installment was a logical continuation. They played with the idea of discarding the episode entirely, but when looking at Eleven's ending for the season, it did not feel earned, and so they considered the episode to be necessary.
They also brainstormed that the episode could be a smaller part of "Chapter Nine: The Gate", the ninth and final episode of the season, where the plot would come into the narrative directly after Eleven closes the gate to the Upside Down—the dirty, alternate dimension where the monsters tormenting Hawkins reside that mirrors the real world. Then, she would spend an hour visiting Chicago to find her sibling before returning in time to go with Mike to the Snow Ball dance. The Duffers asserted that they knew early on that doing an episode akin to "a whole [other] pilot episode" would be a controversial move amongst fans of the series, but enjoyed the writing and casting of the episode. Instead of going with the plan of making it a part of another episode, the Duffers considered the idea of the narrative having its own episode to be smarter, as a "building block" for Eleven's plot.
Casting In October 2016, Linnea Berthelsen was given an audition for the series two days after watching Stranger Things for the first time with her boyfriend. To prepare for the role, she researched which movies were used as inspiration for the first season, basing much of her performance off of the Star Wars franchise. Her audition was for a character not yet brainstormed, who was to be finalized when casting concluded. Early on, the episode was titled "The Lost Brother" and Eleven's sibling was meant to be a 30-year-old male who grew up homeless, with the part being cast with a gender neutral actor in mind. In November, it was announced that she had officially joined the cast of the second Stranger Things season. The episode included several guest stars: Kai Greene as Funshine, James Landry Hébert as Axel, Anna Jacoby-Heron as Dottie, and Gabrielle Maiden as Mick, retrospectively, the other members of Kali's punk gang. Matthew Modine appears in "The Lost Sister" as Dr. Martin Brenner, reprising his role for an illusion by Kali after seemingly dying in "Chapter Eight: The Upside Down". Aside from Eleven, the episode contained no other main character from the series, instead introducing new one–off characters.
Directing and costume design "The Lost Sister" was directed by Rebecca Thomas. The Duffers chose Thomas for the episode as a result of them wanting to bring in "new talent" to direct episodes. They also took into consideration that Thomas worked on Electrick Children (2012), an independent film which had a similar plot to "The Lost Sister". The song "Runaway" by Bon Jovi is played upon Eleven's arrival in Chicago; there were many songs considered for the scene, but "Runaway" fit it better than any other, so it was chosen. However, the sequence that accompanies the song did not have enough footage, requiring the editors to stretch out the scenes as much as possible to "get [it] to work". This caused Matt to somewhat dislike the song.
According to the season's costume designer Kim Wilcox, the goal for Eleven's makeover was for her to be "slightly more pop culture but still punk", and took inspiration from singer Madonna's use of punk-like clothing, such as blazers, during the 1980s. She called this style a "hand-me-down", and felt it fit Eleven's character arc in the episode, since she was being given her new clothes by the gang. Wilcox was keen on getting a "strong" jacket for Eleven to sport, and wanted something reminiscent of the 1960s, but still in-style for the 1980s. A jacket that fit this description was eventually found, but it was a modern jacket that was aged by the crew. Brown enjoyed getting to wear a new outfit, especially after wearing the same clothes for all of the first season and the majority of the second.
Berthelsen helped to brainstorm her "dramatic" haircut in the episode. After it was taking a while to settle on one, she told the hair department, "You can go crazy, I don't care". Taking this advice, the hair stylist began to shave her hair, and Brown, who was sitting next to her and had previously shaved her hair for her look in the first season, told her, "You're in for a treat[,] Linnea". The violet part of her hair proved difficult to get "just right", as attempted green and lavender blazes proved to look more innocent than wanted. Berthelsen recalled that she, after returning to her hometown of Copenhagen, had to dye her hair back to black and flip it to cover the shaved part, as to not spoil her role on the series.
Themes and analysis