WARNING: There are lots of Stranger Things 2 spoilers ahead, so turn back now if you haven't finished it.
OK, so you know that Bob Newby (Sean Astin) is the best new character of Season 2.
And that he saved the day in Episode 8...
...only to be tackled and eaten by Demodogs in what was easily the most gruesome Stranger Things death yet.
HE DESERVED BETTER. But regardless, we chatted with Christina and Paul Graff, who headed up visual effects this season, about how they filmed Bob's big death scene.
"When you do a creature, basically everything is [computer graphics]," Paul Graff explained. "It’s one thing if you put a creature in a shot somewhere, but it’s a whole different ball game when you have a creature that’s heavily interacting with the actors."
Since the Demodogs, ya know, attack and then eat Bob, they needed some sort of stand-in for the scene that they could erase later and sub in with the Demodog computer graphics.
Originally, they were going to use a real dog as a stand-in, but then Stranger Things 2 writer Kate Trefry volunteered to step in. "She’s really muscular, just the right size, and had the enthusiasm. So we put her in a black ninja suit and had her lay into Bob. We knew we had something when we saw Kate’s hands all full of blood, glistening in the light," Graff laughed.
For the even more horrific overhead shot of Bob being eaten by the Demodogs, there weren't any stand-ins pretending to eat Sean Astin. Instead, they used a couple of poles with tennis balls on the end to poke and prod the actor.
So the next time you're watching Bob's horrific death scene, just think of Sean Astin being affectionately prodded in the gut by a tennis ball, and be (a little) comforted.
