Spoilers for this episode.
Dustin, Steve, Robin and Erica are trapped deep beneath Starcourt after their elevator ride. They hide from incoming workers, then escape into a long corridor. A cylinder used to hold the door breaks and spills liquid that eats into the floor. Following the Russian broadcast, they reach a communications room, where Steve overpowers a guard. From there they see an enormous machine firing at a crack in the wall: the Russians are trying to reopen the gate.
Hopper and Joyce search a Starcourt-owned farm and discover a hidden laboratory. They escape another attack by the motorcyclist with a Russian scientist, Alexei, in custody. Their damaged vehicle leaves them walking through the woods before they obtain another car. Unable to question Alexei themselves, they take him to Murray, whose Russian gives them a way to ask what the operation has to do with Joyce's magnets.
Nancy and Jonathan compare Mrs. Driscoll's behaviour with the children's experience of Billy, establishing that several people are being controlled together. They inspect the Holloway house and decide to follow Mrs. Driscoll back to the creature's base. At the hospital, however, she has vanished. Tom and Bruce attack Nancy and Jonathan, and injuries inflicted on one affect the other. Nancy and Jonathan kill their attackers with a fire extinguisher and surgical scissors. Their relief ends when the bodies liquefy, crawl together and become a new monster in the corridor.