The thrill-seeking teens of Camp Nightwing try to get high off a mysterious drug called L484 in Fear Street Part 2: 1978, but they don't have much luck. Is the L484 pill just a red herring, or could there be another reason why Nurse Lane had it in her desk drawer before she tried to put an end to the curse of Sarah Fier?
Fear Street Part 2: 1978 is the middle chapter of the Netflix horror trilogy, which is based on the popular book series by R.L. Stine. In this prequel/sequel, the survivors of the killings in Fear Street Part 1: 1994 seek advice from C. Berman, a woman who survived the Camp Nightwing massacre 16 years previously. As the movie jumps back into the past, two Berman sisters are introduced: the angry rebel Ziggy Berman, and her prudish older sister Cindy Berman, who is trying desperately to escape her Shadyside roots. The town's curse catches up with her, however, when Nurse Lane - the mother of possessed killer Ruby Lane - tries to stab Cindy's boyfriend, Tommy Slater.
After Fear Street 2 character Nurse Lane is taken away by the authorities, Cindy and Tommy search the nurse's office for answers and find an unlabelled pill bottle in her desk. Cindy believes that the mystery drug inside this bottle — an oblong white pill with L484 on it — explains Nurse Lane's apparent psychotic break. But before she can take it to the police, her former friend Alice steals it and takes the pills with her boyfriend, Arnie, hoping to get high as they search for the body of Sarah Fier. L484 doesn't have any discernible effect, though, and Alice later realizes why: it's just acetaminophen, a common over-the-counter analgesic used to treat fever and mild pain. In the United States, the L484 pill is popularly sold under the brand name Tylenol.
The L484 Pill Could Represent Tylenol
Though it may not typically cause nurses to attack teenagers, Tylenol does have a horrifying chapter in its history. In 1982, a few years after the setting of Fear Street Part 2: 1978, seven people in the Chicago metropolitan area were killed after taking Tylenol that had been laced with potassium cyanide. A police investigation found that bottles of poisoned Tylenol had been placed in drug stores and supermarkets in the area, killing unsuspecting victims at random. The person responsible was never found, and the Chicago Tylenol murders remain a mystery to this day.
The odd focus that Fear Street Part 2: 1978 places on the L484 pill and its label, L484, (which is repeated in sing-song by Arnie) may simply be a nod to the real-life terror of the Tylenol murders, and a red herring in the mystery of Nurse Lane's attack. Given how much Nurse Lane was tormented by her daughter's killing spree and suicide, it wouldn't be at all surprising if she was troubled by regular headaches.
L484 Reflects The Time Period's The War On Drugs
The Fear Street trilogy tries to stay topical within the scope of the specific time period it's set, and the L484 pill could be a reference to the war on drugs. The entire drug storyline is particularly pertinent to the 1978 setting of the second film. Paranoia around drugs at the time was potent, and government legislation did nothing to assuage the public's fears. McCarthyism and The Red Scare are comparable to how the general population felt about drugs in the 1970s and 80s, and Fear Street Part 2: 1978 only builds on that historical accuracy. Synthetic drugs were particularly new at the time and generated a general panic – the media tended to create a false narrative around them, as shown by L484's benign nature. Quaaludes caused one of the biggest scares, as many parents believed that their children would take them and become addicts overnight. All in all, the L484 pill could represent the drug scare that happened during the 70s and 80s, and Fear Street tackles the subject well.
