The Nina Project

After their escape from the US military ambush, agent Harmon is slowly dying from the gunshot wound while Jonathan urges Argyle to drive to an hospital. The wounded man rejects this idea and tells the kids to warn Owens of the impending attack. He gives the boys a pen and and utters the word NINA before succumbing to his injuries. Back at the Byers residence, Sullivan and his soldiers search the place. Agent Wallace survives the attack, albeit heavily injured. He is asked the location of Eleven by colonel Jack Sullivan.

Having driven across the desert, Eleven and Owens arrive at an secret facility in Nevada and enter through a door leading to an elevator. Inside, she discovers the facility is a lab and meets many scientists who have given up their normal lives in order to work on the same project as Owens. This project, Eleven discovers, is called the NINA project, and she is shocked to find that Dr. Martin Brenner is still alive and working with Dr. Owens. Brenner states that he knows why she lost her powers, but that he also knows a way to regain them. He asks Eleven to work with him once more. Recalling her traumatic memories of him, Eleven turns and runs, but in her attempt to escape, she is captured and sedated by several personnel.

In Kamchatka, Hopper is beaten and dragged to another cell where Antonov is also being held. Angry, Hopper confronts Antonov for breaking his vow in being able to trust Yuri who had betrayed both of them for his own benefit. After their confrontation, Antonov tries to bribe another guard to let them out, but fails when Hopper shows little hope of escaping. Hoping to reignite Hopper's spirit, Antonov tells him that he still needs to save Joyce, but Hopper deduces that the closer Joyce gets to him, the more he is putting her at risk. Hopper believes he is cursed and recalls his past, telling Antonov of how he was assigned to the Chemical Corp at 18 and forced to mix agent orange, a chemical mix which he was told was harmless, but which had lasting effects after he and many others inhaled it. After an period of time, Hopper and his co-workers tried to return to their normal lives and raise families, but time and time again, their children were born as still borns or had deformities. Diane and Hopper were lucky in that their daughter Sara was born healthy, but as a child, she suffered and died of cancer. Hopper never revealed the agent inside him. Diane eventually left him and Hopper drowned his sorrow in drugs and alcohol until Joyce and El came into his life. Hopper recalls that while he had believed them to have needed him, it was actually he who needed them. In his desire to protect Joyce, he regrets his decision to send her the package as it put her in danger again, and he worries that he will accidentally kill her just like he did with Sara. Hopper realizes that he is not cursed but the curse itself.

In Fish n' Fly, Yuri loads his prisoners Joyce and Murray in his plane and sets out for Russia where he intends to hand them off to the KGB and use the money to support his family. During their trip, Murray tries to attract Yuri's attention, but gets not response. Joyce realizes that Yuri cannot hear anything over the noise of the plane. Hopeful again, she tries to cut them loose by using a shard from the peanut butter jar, and she and Murry hatch a plan to overpower Yuri. Their escape is foiled, however, when a peanut butter jar rolls beside Yuri's foot, altering him to their actions. Yuri holds Joyce at gunpoint but Murray manages to free himself and fight Yuri using his karate training from before. Murray succeeds in knocking the smuggler out, but this leaves the plane without its pilot. Struggling to gain altitude, Joyce and Murray crash the plane in a nearby forest.

Eddie's presence at Reefer Rick's is noticed by two fishermen who think that Rick has been released from jail. Eddie calls the group and requests another food delivery due to a food shortage at Reefer Rick's house.

At the Wheelers' residence, Max draws several pictures which depict the nightmare that she had been trapped in by Vecna. Nancy and Dustin examine the drawings, trying to make sense of them. Max tells the pair about the things that she saw and experienced, and Dustin theorizes that she accidentally infiltrated Vecna's mind. One of the pictures captures Nancy's interest as it depicts a stained glass window that she remembers having seen before. Nancy begins to piece together the pictures and draws the outline to reveal it is the Creel House, albeit in pieces.

After being sedated, Eleven awakens to find she is back in her room in the Hawkins lab. Her head is shaved and she is wearing a hospital gown. Leaving her room, she tries to escape the facility but winds up in the Rainbow Room where all the other children are playing. A friend orderly reminds her of the activities. Eleven tries to leave but repeatedly finds herself back in the same room, repeating the same moment repeating over and over. The scientists monitor her from outside the "facility" -- Eleven is actually dreaming in NINA. Owens realizes that she is rejecting the NINA program and is concerned for her safety, but Brenner assures him that she will find a way within the simulation.

Stopping at an automobile junkyard, Mike, Will, and Jonathan bury Harmon's corpse while Argyle panics, believing that they should report his death to the authorities. Needing his friend calm again, Jonathan sends him to the car to get high again. Mike and Will reflecs on the past and on the recent events. Argyle tries to pay respect to the dead agent by turning a pizza box into a head stone for him, but he finds the pen is not working. Noticing this, Mike remembers that Harmon had given them the pen before he died, and realizes that the pen contains a slip of paper. On the paper is a phone number -- the phone number the agent had been trying to give them before he passed.

At the Munson trailer, Wayne is visited by the agents who proceed to examine his house and find an oozing crack on the ceiling where Chrissy had died. Wayne is asked to relocate.

At Chrissy's funeral, the residents of Hawkins express their grief at her death and the survival of her murderer, whom they presumeb to be Eddie. Jason and his basketball mates are present, and as he sits in the pew, surrounded by his friends, Patrick catches a glimpse of the grandfather clock in the backroom. After the funeral, Jason and his team theorize that the Hellfire club is hiding Eddie. Patrick believes the matter should be handled by cops, but Jason insists on finding him themselves. He pulls out a list of all the places that the club had been to, and adds Reefer Rick's when one of the boys mentions that someone had recently noticed activity within it.

After Nancy informs the group of her discovery, they arrive at the Creel house and investigate the building while leaving Dustin's bag -- and walkie talkie -- in the main hall. Max finds the grandfather clock which repeatedly appeared in her hallucinations. The group decides to split into groups of two and search the entire house for leads; as they go their separate ways, no one notices the chandelier blinking over the stairwell.

After Eleven tries and fails to escape, she notices the younger image of herself through the mirror in the Rainbow Room. Through a speaker, Brenner tells her that she has buried the memories of a traumatic incident and then instructs her to find her way out. Left with no other choice, Eleven proceeds to remember her first fragment of the lost memories. In one of them, Eleven and the other fifteen kids are trained to move the lights in a circular motion using their mind. Eleven struggles with this exercise, and the other kids, (Two in particular), whisper that she is a waste of time. Suddenly, Eleven is traversed back to that fateful day in 1979 where the massacre took place, and the memory causes her body to go into cardiac arrest. Owens commands the scientists to remove her from NINA.

Finding a phone booth alongside the road, the California group dials the number from the pen only to hear a random sequence of noises. Will realizes that they are not calling a person but a computer. Realizing that they need a hacker, Mike maps out their drive to Salt Lake City, Utah, to meet Suzie Bingham who had previously contributed in closing the portal and destroying the Mind Flayer the summer before.

Back in Hawkins, Eddie realizes that Jason, Patrick and Andy have tracked him down to Reefer Rick's place. The boys investigate the inside of the house and discover traces of Eddie's cooking. Frantic, Eddie calls Dustin but gets no reponse; the walkie talkie has been left along with the bag in the main hall of the Creel House. In one of the rooms, Steve discovers jars containing black widows hidden beneath a grate in the floor. Elsewhere in the house, Lucas and Max discover a trail of lights flickering that seem to move as they move. The group gathers around the flickering chandelier and concludes that Vecna is in the room, but "on the other side." Nancy formulates a plan and directs everyone to spread out across the house with their flashlights turned off. Robin is the first to pick up Vecna's trail, with Steve finding it again and leading the group towards the attic.

Still searching for Eddie, Jason notices that they have not yet checked the boat house and goes out to investigate with Patrick. Inside, he notices the missing boat as Eddie paddles it to the middle of Lovers Lake. When he sees Jason jumping into the water, Eddie attempts to start the engine but fails as the boys go swimming after him. In the Creel House attic, the group gathers around a single flickering light with their flashlights blinking on as Vecna prepares to kill his next victim. As Jason and Patrick nearly catch Eddie, Patrick is pulled under the surface of the water and suddenly levitates as all of his bones snap and his eyes are gouged out. At this moment, all the other lights in the attic pop.

Back in the facility, Eleven regains conciousness after her first experience in the NINA nearly ends in death. Eleven smacks Brenner in the face with a defibrillator and tries to escape, running toward the elevator. Guards once again hold her down, but under stress, Eleven manages to unleash a powerful telekinetic force and knocks them unconscious. As Brenner approaches her, Eleven attempts to user her powers against him, but fails to repeat her action. Brenner gestures for Eleven to come back with him, pointing out that fully regaining her powers would not be "that easy." Deflated but understanding, she willingly takes his hand.