Spoilers for Stranger Things season 1 episode 8.
Hopper bargains with Brenner for access to the gate, giving up Eleven's location in exchange for a chance to save Will. He and Joyce enter the Upside Down wearing protective suits. Nancy and Jonathan prepare the Byers house with traps, gasoline and their own blood as bait. Steve arrives to apologize and finds himself facing the creature. He initially flees, then returns with the spiked bat and helps drive it into a bear trap. Jonathan sets it alight, but the injured monster disappears before they can be sure it is dead. Hopper and Joyce keep searching the decaying town and find Will with a tendril down his throat. They remove it and revive him.
At the school, Mike invites Eleven to the Snow Ball and kisses her before Brenner's agents arrive. She kills the agents blocking their escape, leaving blood that draws the monster into the building. It attacks Brenner, and the children retreat to a classroom. Eleven faces it when the boys cannot stop it. She destroys the creature and vanishes, leaving Mike calling for her. Will returns home after recovering in hospital. A month later, the boys play Dungeons & Dragons again, Nancy is with Steve, and Jonathan receives a replacement camera. Hopper leaves food and frozen waffles in a box in the woods. At Christmas dinner, Will quietly excuses himself, coughs up a slug and briefly sees the Upside Down before returning to his family.