I got questions...

I rationalize that they.used the dirt from the tunnels to make the concrete for the mall

i. they weren't having sex so they needed a release

using a lot of speculation

ii. well at the end of season 3 it was kind of shown they may of had Teleportation tech and known the laser doesn't kill you
since the American might be Jim or maybe they flew in and in states around Indiana

iii. it was built with the mall and continued to be built miles down with the power of Communism
they had a mall above them they shopped there they could of walked around

iv destroying the U.S. was not their order working where there was a weak point to the upside down was
well a mall getting shipments wouldn't raise any eyebrows so some of the stuff got shipped to them maybe they used a couple of Russians to get the stuff and ship and they were trained to sound and be American

v. the government in the stranger things universe has a lot of power

vi. nothing was wrong till the fourth of July and since the mall burned down they perished in the fire creating a very tragic footnote in the history of Hawkins

Hopper has the closest thing to a normal domestic life he's had in years, longer than we've known him. And after season 1 David Harbour revealed that Hopper and Joyce were high school sweethearts. No more details about it, but you can imagine that this might've been the girl he married had he stayed in Hawkins.


"i. This freaking huge underground complex. How was it built without anyone knowing, or seeing it built? The sheer amount of excavating would have required years -- maybe decades -- of heavy machinery at work. No one noticed?"

If there was a decommissioned mine at that location it would've simplified construction. No decades of heavy machinery. All those rooms and long corridors would be built inside the old caverns and tunnels. As far as no one noticing that would depend on local officials being vigilant in enforcing building codes and supervising construction activities. Lucky for the Russians there's a corrupt mayor in town willing to look the other way for $$$.



"ii. The Russians. How did all these Russians descend on Hawkins with no one noticing? And are we to assume that once they arrived they all lived underground and never once came to the surface to buy groceries, rent homes, go for nature walks, etc?"

Who notices a few more truckloads of groceries a week being delivered to the mall? Yeah, pretty much - soldiers get to live underground, no renting homes, no nature walks. Remember that guard made a joke about saying goodbye to the sun, or something along those lines?



"iii. How did they get even into the country without raising eyebrows? In the 80s, the Cold War was still a thing and hundreds and hundreds of Russian soldiers and scientists arriving would have been noteworthy."

Land small boats from a stealth submarine parked off a remote part of the US coastline. Provide road transportation from there.


"If they were smuggled in, or they sneaked in undetected, they could just as easily brought in heavy NBC weaponry to threaten and/or destroy the US, or a good chunk of it."

Yeah, an act of aggression that would trigger World War III. Good idea. We had more than enough nukes based outside US territory to destroy the Soviet Union. There's a reason neither side tried a stunt like that during the Cold War!



"iv. How did all those soldiers smuggle in their UNIFORMS as well as weapons? In fact, WHY did they smuggle in uniforms, risking discovery? No need to, if they intended to remain undetected underground."

One extra truck delivering clothes to the mall. At the side entrance where it all goes downstairs. It's not like there are town inspectors who stop clothing trucks to check for Russian uniforms. And if there were ... crooked mayor. Why does the military insist on uniforms, barracks inspections, and a stiff salute? Discipline. Even at remote listening posts soldiers are expected to report for duty in neat clean uniforms.



"v. Why/how do our heroes maintain their silence about the events around the town? Three times now the world has been threatened by demonic inter-dimensional beings, and they say nothing to family, media or authorities afterwards."

Probably the same reason I'd say nothing if I was abducted by aliens one night and realized hey, this stuff is actually real! Unless I had some damn impressive proof to back me up.



"Some people will reply: Well, the government is forcing their silence. But that doesn't explain why they are then allowed to move about and go about their lives unsupervised and unmonitored."

The mob does the same thing all the time. They can't slaughter every single potential witness against them. You know damn well what'll happen to you (and possibly your family) if you cross them. And 'unmonitored' may just mean successfully concealed monitoring.



"vi. In this series we see dozens of the town's citizens, possessed and eventually absorbed into the super-monster. How do their disappearances not catch the ongoing attention, or concern of the rest of their family, friends and authority figures in the rest of the town, nearby towns and state? All these people just disappear and the people of Hawkins collectively just seem to shrug it off."

This time around all the deaths were alleged to have occurred at the mall. A lot of the locals probably don't buy it for a second. I'd be surprised if we don't learn in season 4 that the town is dying. Too much bizarre stuff has happened, too many people have died under suspicious circumstances, and it doesn't take a genius or a paranoid conspiracy theorist to realize information about the strange happenings are being concealed by their Uncle Sam. The DOD should make Hawkins into an exclusion zone and relocate its residents after this last incident. Should've done it sooner but definitely now.

"i. Did Hopper seem a little shouty this season?
In S1 and S2, he's this morose, cynical buttoned-down character who communicates in growls.
In this season, he's fretting and yelling from the first episode. He and Joyce are shouting at each other like a couple that have grown tired of each other after decades of marriage."

A teenage daughter with/without a boyfriend will do that to you.

The Soviets were a sneaky lot. They could take advantage of the fact that many of them resemble average, white Americans, and taught many of their spies how to speak English with an American accent, about our current culture at the time, dress, and mannerisms, so they could blend in perfectly.

You will note they did shady business with the Mayor through 2nd or even 3rd party people. You would also be surprised at how efficient the Soviets were at building the stuff that was important to their govt, such as secret military bases. (It was the only thing they were efficient at building, to tell the truth. Anything else was shoddy because it wasn't considered "important" by the ruling govt. at the time).

They probably used the fake shipping labels just like you saw with the panda boxes. Nobody in rural Indiana at the time was going to look twice at a bunch of white guys pushing shipping crates towards the construction site of a new shopping mall. The construction of the mall probably was used as much of a cover as the later building was. However, I don't see the long, long hallway as very efficient for a military base, to be honest.

Although, now that I think about it, the timing is kind of off. The machine going kaput during the season opener happened in 1984, the same year El closed the enlarged gate and foiled the Mind-Flayer. She did it in early November. The mall opened in early July the following year, meaning they must have gotten started on construction very soon after the lab closed. So that means 9 months had passed between El closing the gate, and the mall opening.

You're right, 9 months is too short a time to set up something that big. However, I think I know of a timeline that works better. According to Alexi, his fellow scientists had already been researching and experimenting in punching through to the other dimension, possibly before the events of Season 1. I have a sneaking suspicion that this was why the people at the lab where El had been kept were trying to do: spy on the Russians and learn about their inter-dimensional experiments. That might explain how El came across the Demigorgon when she was first spying on the Russians in the Void. It was a combination of her being hyper-focused on the Russian scientist they wanted her to see, her abilities, the barrier between worlds being thin in Hawkins, Indiana, and the Demigorgon being in that area on his side of the dimensional barrier.

Based on what Alexi said about the barrier finally being breached in Hawkins (referring to what happened in Season 1), that means several things:

1 - there was a Russian spy in that lab, possibly more than one.
2 - it's entirely possible they began construction of the mall and buying up all that land immediately that year. So that means they had 2 years to prepare for starting up that lab under the mall.

2 years makes much more sense than having only 9 months for constructing that mall and underground lab. Plus, that inter-dimensional "cannon" was probably already being worked on before the events of 1983 in Hawkins ever happened.

The answer to all your questions is simple: Hollyweird!

😎

One explanation could be that the secret base is NOT underneath the Hawkins mall.

It could be that the lift (elevator) shaft is some sort of portal itself. Remember how it seemed to travel at a terrific speed? The annoying black kid (forget her name) calculated it would take weeks to climb back up, or something.

The Russians have somehow managed to create some sort of teleportation system instead, which allows them to come and go freely in the USA. They have the technology to open the interdimensional gate to the Upside Down, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that they have some sort of technology that can transport between Russia and the USA as well.

This way, they can build the underground base in Russia without suspicion. The Mind Flayer is somehow not constrained by the location of the portal, and can appear in Hawkins (rather than Russia) if so directed by the scientists.