Costume designer Kimberly Adams designed the garment^*21 based on the style of the Polly Flinders brand that was popular in the 1970s. Typically these dresses had elastic smocking across the chest, Peter Pan collars, and sleeves gathered with elastic at the wrists. “Every little girl had the Polly Flinders,” Adams says. “We did many of those dresses. We found a fit that felt right for the character and then played with the wigs so we could marry the whole look. The embroidery was all hand-done.

“I went to the fabric store wanting to find [a fabric that] was not quite pink, not quite peach, not too hot pink, and settled on what was, to me, almost like in between peachy and pink. It just felt sweet enough. But then the twist with the Chucks^*22 and the stripy socks helps make it more for Eleven.”

Eleven’s trip to the middle school allowed the Duffers to introduce levity into a relatively intense episode. “We wanted that classic fish-out-of-water scene,” Matt Duffer says. “Obviously, it led to the humor of them having to try to make her look a little more like a typical student, but also having the boys create what they think a typical female student looks like.”

As filming progressed, the young actors flourished under the direction of Levy and the Duffers. Wolfhard and Brown found a way to convey the shared understanding between Mike and Eleven and their profound affection for one another. “I think what’s cool is there’s a story arc for Mike,” Wolfhard says. “At first, he finds this girl and he treats it like, ‘Oh, I discovered something really cool.’ Then he kind of realizes halfway through the second episode [that] this is an actual girl. It’s not E.T.^*23 It’s a person. He’s never even really talked to a girl, and now he’s teaching a girl to talk.

“I think he’s just drawn to her because one, she’s the first girl that’s ever had interest in him, and two, he has crazy interest in her and what’s going on in her brain,” Wolfhard continues. “He just feels bad for her, too, that she’s gone through all this. It’s very cathartic for both of them. They talk to each other and they vent because Mike and Eleven are sort of outsiders.”

Offers Brown, “Mike doesn’t really need anything from her. He just loves her for who she is.”

The connection among the boys also developed in surprising, unexpected ways. “Some of the actors came with their roles and parts baked in, and some were totally a revelation,” recalls co–executive producer Iain Paterson. “For instance, Finn had been written as kind of the leader of the group, and so that was baked into his character. Lucas was wonderful, too. He was really terrific bringing his brand of comedy, which is quite different from Gaten’s, to the table. There’s always that kind of Three Musketeers^*24 weird comedy between the three kids. Finding that in the first season was one of the great joys.”