[metal clanging]

[creature screeching]

Maya Hawke: That may be my favorite moment, is between us. I'm trying to save all of our lives. 

Do I care about our lives more or her life?

Maya: It's life or death on both sides for you.

Shawn Levy: You've got this dynamic, propulsive sequence. I knew that it would be both challenging and fun. Kind of a director's playground. Come on, come on, action! 

I didn't even see her face. It was like that. That's how it looked on the day. I mean, what a perfect punctuation mark on an incredible scene.

[theme music playing]

[monitor clicks] As episode six climaxes, there is this attempt to bring Max out of her trance state and back into the real world. Vecna sends demo dogs to kill Max as our team that's there are trying to survive.

Caleb: The last time she was unconscious, he effed up. This time, he's like, "I'm gonna carry her out of here." I'm gonna make sure we get to safety, no matter what it takes. 

I asked the team, "Can you just have Caleb pick up Sadie in the parking lot and see if he can run from A to B?" And so they sent this test video of Caleb showing us that, indeed, he's very strong.

Maya: Oh my God, you carrying Sadie! 

This happened, like, I think three weeks before we actually filmed the actual scene. And I remember at that moment, I was like, "Yeah, I need to start working on my biceps."

[man] And, lift!

Caleb: With Shawn, he's not like, “Do you need a break?” He's like, "Let's go again!"

"You can do it! Right, man?"

Yeah, I know! He's like, "You're good."

"You got it? Need a little massage?

I know.

"You got this, man!" Come on! Come on, action!

Running, kick!

[grunts]

Caleb: Shawn brings out a competitive spirit in me. He's like, "I don't think you could do another take." To where I'm like, "Oh, of course I can."

And you're like, "Yes, I can!"

"I can!" And Sadie's like, "Ugh, Jesus."

[Shawn yelling] Button, button, button, button, button, button, kick!

[creature roaring]

Caleb: I was like, "Should I do a side kick, front kick, back kick?" And you see Sadie laughing, because, I think, I was just joking. 

So, so friggin' cute!

[Shawn and Caleb laughing]

[man] I like the back kick.

Ross Duffer: We always wanted to bring the Demo-dogs back. We haven't seen them since season two. And we wanted the season to include all of our monsters to a degree over the course of the season, because this is really the final battle.

Although there are no Demobats.

No Demo There were Demo-bats at a certain point, but there was just… it was too much.

Sean Ames: For Demo-dogs, we were able to use some of our stunt performers to get that space and timing and to help the director and the camera operators visualize what was happening. 

So even though we'll replace them completely, their performance ends up mattering quite a bit to this final scene.

JD Garcia: Being that I'm running on all fours, and trying to go fast as I can, I don't want to restrict my movement. So I actually don't have pads when I'm slamming into that cart right there.

[screeches]

[cart crashes]

[chuckles] I'm like, "Yeah, they're bruises." You know, they're gonna heal after a few weeks.

[dramatic note plays]

JD: There was one shot where the camera's actually behind me. The camera operator was like, "I can't really see with all this camera equipment here, so just go as fast as you can, and I'm gonna be following you." And I actually burned through my knee pads. They used to be really nice… nice knee pads, but, yeah, now they got a hole through 'em.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Brett] Something that Shawn and I talked about in prep was creating this one-er. We didn't want to break this action up. We wanted to really experience this moment in real time with the characters as they were experiencing it. 

"Look! Left, there's a dog! Run this way, there's another dog!" "Turn around, come through the door." And it really felt like we were all really operating as an ensemble in that moment. And that's what I love about one-ers so much is you really start to operate that way.

[loud bang]

[gasping]

Chris Trujillo: Normally, that would be a set we would lean into building, but we just had so much else going on on stages. We decided we were gonna be best off searching out a practical location. Ultimately, we found this place, and it was essentially just two huge rooms. 

This is a location with nothing in it, so I can start in my mind to build out, "Okay, like, one, two, three, four, I probably need like eight machines." We spread out our search across the country looking for laundromats that were going out of business who had older stuff.

[loud banging]

[hammer banging] When we were talking about it with our writers, the initial inspiration was Jurassic Park. And, obviously, looking back at the raptors, specifically the scene in the kitchen where we really wanted it to be about our characters hiding from these creatures that are smart, and they're much stealthier in a way than a fully grown Demogorgon.

[pop music playing on boombox] That may be my favorite moment is between us where I'm like… You have to turn it off.

Exactly.

You're like, "I will not turn it off!" The boombox is what she's hearing.

[whispers] We can't! We can't! No! No, Max is coming back! We have to.

Caleb: Do I care about our lives more or her life?

Maya: It's life or death on both sides for you in this scene. It's beautiful. It's like these two couples, but one couple doesn't know that the other two people are a couple. And the stakes of the life and death situation are so high that Vickie and Robin can let go a little bit of hiding their relationship and are holding hands. 

The fact that you and Vicky have a communication, but then there's still some type of like barrier, or… world where you guys can't and be comfortable. And then Lucas not being able to communicate with Max in her world…

[Maya] That was one of my favorite performance moments just because of how fueled it was. It's always fun when you're doing a big action sequence to have it be so brimming with emotional stakes.

Shh!

[creature chitters]

[alarm buzzing]

[creature screeches]

[growls] I mean, yeah, it's always fun to do explosions because it's… I mean, I don't want to say that it's easy, but I mean, you get a big bang for your buck, no pun intended, you know?

[Man 1: Ear protection is in now, please.

Man 2: Cut!

Man 1]:We're hot and ready. 

Even though visual effects can do anything, if you can do it for real, it's just gonna look better, and feel more visceral.

Chris: We've got these awesome windows, and we need a cool explosion, so we should blow these windows up, right?

[laughing] And everybody was… everybody was on board. It was pretty awesome.

[man] Three, two, one, go.

[booming]

[man] Go! Go!

Maya: Oh my God.

This looks sick. This looks amazing.

Brett: We wanted to have a frame where we could see the characters and the explosion at the same time. 

But how are we gonna explode a dryer with the actors 15 feet away?

Shawn: And what we ultimately concluded is that real Sadie, real Caleb, and real Amybeth would be safe. But, just in case, we wanted a stunt Robin to replace Maya Hawke, 'cause she's the human shield from all that debris that's getting blasted.

Mark: We made it look like a violent explosion, but it was all done with mortar devices that had the high-pressure air, rubber glass blasting through, pushing the whole facade out. 

We went back with our special effects team and shot elements passes of the crew, shoving a dryer full of explosives and setting it off for real. We'll take this element and use it either as a direct comp or as a reference for our artists.

[metal clanking]

[creatures chittering]

[boom]

[all gasping] We added a feeling of a hotter core of a fire and more black smoke. And, of course, lots of little body parts of Demo-dogs got added as well.

[spray gun hissing]

Shawn: And then there's post-explosion. And for the art department to make it look like a dryer has exploded, there was a lot of what we call "a redress." 

When we switched over from the pre-to-post-explosion look, it was supposed to be overnight, that we had that much time, but it ended up being on their lunch break.

Chris: Everybody kinda just got into it and got really dirty. I remember half a dozen people being, literally, they look like chimney sweeps. 

We're all throwing stuff and pushing stuff around to where it feels natural. Paint is aging, the char on the wall there that you see.

Mark: And then we had spot fires and Demo-dog parts where they just got blown to smithereens that were on fire.

Shawn: And they pulled it off. They, in one hour over the course of a lunch break, made it look like there had been this cataclysmic explosion.

Ross: "Slowly, they stand up from behind the dryer and take in the destruction." "The room is on fire and the dogs are scattered about in charred pieces." "Dead. Very, very dead." Then out of the curtain of black smoke, a figure. Karen fucking Wheeler.

[all laughing and cheering] Yeah, Karen fucking Wheeler.

[Karen groans]

[gasps] Oh my God, that is so cool! I love this BTS because all I saw was the other side. I did not realize she was bangin' out a set of pushups on the other side.

Amy: The cool thing about Cara Buono is she didn't mind being barefoot. In fact, she was like, "I think I should be." We would have had comfort shoes or nude shoes to put on her had she wanted them, but she's hardcore and she did it without.

[dramatic music playing]

Maya: Awesome!

She was walking in. I didn't even see her face. It was literally like that. That's how it looked on the day. It was just her silhouette. She's limping. And then you had the heroic music playing and it felt real. 

I mean, what a perfect punctuation mark on an incredible scene. I know that she has been waiting to get involved in all of this for so… for ten years! I mean, she just looks amazing, and it was awesome. 

I had kind of resigned myself to the fact that Karen was gonna be the epitome of the clueless '80s mom. So when the scene came up and I read it, I was beyond excited that they had written this for me. I hadn't really acted with the other cast in this capacity where I was part of the action. Everyone was so shocked to see Karen kinda like Hulk in there and create all this devastation. I've loved everything I've been part of in the show because she has been a pillar of strength for her kids.

Shawn: These opportunities to rally the actors so that you all feel like, "We're doing something hard, but we're gonna stick with it, because if we get this right, it's a cheer moment."

Maya: I love this group of people. There's a lot of unspoken things in this scene that were beautiful dynamics to play with. 

This whole week, honestly, it was my favorite week of filming.

[dramatic music playing]

[music fades]