- Mike Wheeler: [to Will; tearfully] Do you remember the first day that we met? It was... it was the first day of kindergarten. I knew nobody. I had no friends... and I just felt so alone and so scared but I saw you on the swings and you were alone too. You were just swinging by yourself and I just walked up to you and I asked... I asked if you wanted to be my friend. And you said yes. You said yes. It was the best thing I've ever done.
- Dustin Henderson: The Hive Mind. A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism.
- Mike Wheeler: And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain.
- Dustin Henderson: Like the Mind Flayer.
- Nancy Wheeler: Okay, so this... Mind Flamer thing...
- Dustin Henderson: Flayer. Mind Flayer.
- Nancy Wheeler: ...what does it want?
- Dustin Henderson: To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race.
- Steve Harrington: Like the, like the Germans.
- Dustin Henderson: Uh, the Nazis?
- Steve Harrington: Yeah, yeah, the Nazis.
- Dustin Henderson: Uh, if the Nazis were from another dimension, totally. It views other races, like us, as inferior to itself.
- Mike Wheeler: It wants to spread and taker over other dimensions.
- Lucas Sinclair: We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it!
- Steve Harrington: [sarcastic] That's great! That's great, that's really great.
- Nancy Wheeler: Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it...
- Mike Wheeler: We kill everything it controls.
- Dustin Henderson: We win.
- Lucas Sinclair: Theoretically.
- Jim Hopper: [looking in the D&D manual] Alright great, so how do you kill this thing, do you shoot it with fireballs or something?
- Dustin Henderson: No, no, no fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army because, uh, zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the Mind Flayer, it likes brains...
- [awkward pause]
- Dustin Henderson: It's just a game. It's a game.
- Max Mayfield: No, no, no.
- Max Mayfield: Hey, guys?
- Max Mayfield: Why are you headed TOWARDS the sound?