[S4E3] Where My Body Stops Or Begins

Dennison was Judge Garr's lover. That night, she visited his house, and at some point, they must have ordered a pizza. Just before Julio Alvarez arrived, a particularly brutal fight broke out. Dennison cornered Garr and beat her to death in the bathroom with a baseball bat. Moments later, Julio showed up. He must have seen Dennison attacking Garr, and tried to intervene, and in the heat of the moment, Dennison subsequently beat him to death as well. This put Dennison in a troubling position: the pizzeria knew Julio's route. If Julio went missing, the police investigation would have focused on his death and the cops would start asking enough questions that they'd determine Dennison as their suspect. To divert attention from himself, Dennison needed someone else to be the last person to see Julio alive. To do this, he disguised himself with a jacket, baseball cap and sunglasses, put Julio's body in the passenger seat, and drove Julio's car to deliver Natalie's pizza, which was the next stop on Julio's run. He then ditched the car and body in a location where it would be more easily found.

Mike convinces his mother to let him stay home and contacts Lucas Sinclair, ordering him to come over and bring Dustin Henderson. Jonathan Byers wakes his sleeping mother (who she initially sees as Will) to take her to the morgue. Hopper is told the usual morgue worker was stopped from doing Will's autopsy, and that a state worker did it for him. Jonathan and Hopper discuss Joyce's mental state, both believing she will tough her way through it as Joyce storms out, insisting that the body on the table is not her son. Jonathan argues with her in public, where she insists that he is still alive. Nancy Wheeler tells Steve Harrington about her findings in his backyard, but he is more concerned about getting in trouble with his parents, to her disgust.

Hopper interrogates local coroner Gary, who explains that several state workers forced him out while they brought in Will's body. As the kids converge on the A.V. room, Scott Clarke stops them, confused as to why they are not attending Will's memorial service in the gym and curious about Eleven. The boys pass her off as "Eleanor", a relative of Mike's, and Clarke takes the four to the gym. Nancy and Karen argue over her lying to the police, and she storms up to her room. Taking out Jonathan's picture of Barb, she reassembles it and notices a dark figure standing behind her. Inside the fissure, Shepard describes his surroundings as "eroded" and "covered in blood" before realizing there is something stalking him. As he screams to be pulled out, his line suddenly goes slack, and the scientists reel in his empty, bloody connector.

Mike notices Troy Walsh and James Dante mocking Will during the service and publicly confronts them. When Troy makes another comment about Will's sexuality, Mike shoves him to the ground. Eleven stops Troy from attacking Mike by freezing him in place and making him wet his pants in front of the crowd. Nancy approaches Jonathan while he examines coffins for Will. She shows him the reassembled picture and he recounts seeing Barb vanish, as well as his mother's account of the Demogorgon in the wall. Hopper follows David O'Bannon, the state trooper that found Will's body, to a bar. When O'Bannon becomes annoyed with Hopper's questioning and leaves, Hopper beats him behind the bar and gets him to confess that finding the body was staged. Hopper notices a car watching them and O'Bannon warns him that he will get them both killed. The car and O'Bannon both flee.

Izzy throws out his back lifting weights, and ends up in the hospital, soon joined by his own son and father. That's bad news for the Mandelbaum crepe franchise, which now needs people to roll the crepes. There to fill the void are several Dominican cigar rollers sourced by Kramer. As if that wasn't enough plot already, the episode also features a storyline where George begins dating a woman far out of his league after she mistakes him for a previous boyfriend.

At the same time, Murphy suffers a likely concussion in a corridor collapse, but Emori suffers an injured leg and impalement by a piece of rebar. With Jackson unable to save Emori on Earth, the group begins searching the rec room for the missing Anomaly Stone in the hopes of getting Emori to Sanctum in time to save her life. Murphy and Raven discover an Azgeda symbol burned into the floor, suggesting that the Ice Nation had something to do with the disappearance of the Anomaly Stone and begin excavating the spot with sledgehammers. As Emori's heart stops and Jackson performs CPR, Raven and Murphy uncover the buried Anomaly Stone. Using the Disciple helmet, Raven enters the code for Sanctum, causing the Stone to shoot into the air and hover over the floor once again. The Anomaly opens nearby and with Emori's life on the line, Raven, Murphy and Jackson rush her through it on a gurney. 781b155fdc