What Is L484? Fear Street Part 2 Mystery Drug Explained

In Fear Street, Part 2: 1978, Camp Nightwing’s teens try to get high off a mysterious white pill labeled “L484” – but they won’t have much luck. The thrill-seeking teens of Camp Nightwing try to …

What Is L484 Fear Street Part 2 Mystery Drug Explained

In Fear Street, Part 2: 1978, Camp Nightwing’s teens try to get high off a mysterious white pill labeled “L484” – but they won’t have much luck.

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 this common painkiller 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 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 battle – 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, L484 is popularly sold under the brand name 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 drug and its label “L484” (which is repeated in the 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.