Stranger Things – Season 2 Review

Genre: Sci-fi, Horror, Drama

Date: October 27, 2017

Creator: Matt and Ross Duffer

Writer: Matt and Ross Duffer

Producer: Matt and Ross Duffer, Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen

Starring: Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Milllie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalie Dyer, Noah Schnapp and many others

Runtime: 42 – 60 minutes (9 episodes, varies per episode)

 

“Friends don’t lie!”

 

I never got around to fully reviewing the first season of Netflix’s Stranger Things. It was a love letter to the 80’s, not super compelling or subversive, but beautifully capturing the sense of nostalgia and adventure that was recurring in much of the media and fictional stories of that era. Even though I didn’t grow up in the time period, many iconic and influential films of that decade still leave a lingering mark on our contemporary media landscape; from John Carpenter’s The Thing to Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and beyond to the likes of Ghostbuters or The Terminator. And the Duffer brothers managed to effectively recreate that feeling of wonder, mystery and horror that many people who grew up with such films can relate to. You could say it was using nostalgia as a crutch, but it was still an entertaining romp that could be quite moving at times, especially with the performances on display from the impressive ensemble cast of mostly unknowns. With all that said, season 2 is more of the same good stuff, with slight expansions to its own universe.

After the events of the first season, Will Byer (Schnapp) is now seeing disturbing visions of the “Upside Down” that continue to haunt him after his time spent there. It’s clear that some powerful entity from the other dimension wants something from him, but what exactly we can’t be sure. Meanwhile, life goes on as usual for just about everyone else in quiet fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana. Our merry band of nerds made up of Will, Mike (Wolfhard), Dusitn (Matarazzo) and Lucas (McLaughlin) have their exclusive group dynamic thrown into chaos when a new skateboarding tomboy girl called Max (Sadie Sink) arrives at school and has Lucas and Dustin pining for her interest. Will’s older sister Nancy (Dyer) still mourns for the death of her best friend Barbara, and it puts a strain on her relationship with Steve (Joey Keery). Will’s mother Joyce is now dating the tech savy Bob Newby (Sean Astin), an old high school friend. But her concern over Will’s condition has her in frequent contact with overworked local Police Chief Jim Hopper (Harbour), who has been secretly harbouring the young telekinetic girl “El” (Brown), who is alive after her apparent sacrificial death at the end of the last season. But the very first thing we see in this new outing is that El isn’t the only one out there with supernatural “gifts”, thanks unsurprisingly to the nearby Hawkins National Laboratory, which continues to engage in unethical experiments with the paranormal Upside Down, still hoping to gain a greater understanding even when under new leadership.

The massive ensemble cast all do a great job, but the standouts from the last season largely remain the same. Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven (or El for short) is still my favourite part of Stranger Things. In her performance, she comes to embody everything great about the show: the sweet humanity of the child characters, the loss of innocence from cruel adults and their arrogant meddling, and the badass supernatural action that allows her to transcend her victim status. Her character is involved in some of the most tragic and epic parts of the season, and her performance is consistently compelling. Coming up close behind are Winona Ryder and David Harbour, the only adults the kids can trust in the town to believe them. Both of their characters have been through a lot of crap, and despite all the hardship they still come out being decent (but flawed) people. Compared to most of the other blissfully ignorant adults of the town, they seem like actual human beings instead of one-note cartoons. The kids are also still great in their parts, among some of the rare child actors to not grate on my nerves. While some of their actions throughout the season aren’t the most logical or well-reasoned, their heart is always in the right place, and Wolfhard, Matarazzo, McLaughlin, Schnapp and newcomer Sadie Sink all fantastically personify that innocent floundering. The teen characters are all fine, but their stories and character arcs are the least interesting of the bunch, focusing mostly on romantic troubles. Natalie Dyer, Joey Keery and Charlie Heaten as Will’s older brother Johnathan manage to play off a love triangle that doesn’t lean toward petty drama, but newcomer Dacre Montgomery as Max’s vain and psychotic older brother Billy mostly comes across as an obnoxious villain from a teen movie, even when backstory revelations paint it in a more serious light. But aside from that, the newcomers slot nicely into the Stranger Things universe, especially Sean Astin as Joyce’s kind but dorky new love interest, Brett Gelman as a former journalist turned conspiracy theorist and Linnea Berthelsen as another escaped test subject of the Hawkins Laboratory who shares supernatural abilities with El.

This season is also still dripping with the same stylistic odes to the 80’s as the previous one. Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein return with another awesome synth heavy electronic soundtrack that maintains a constant retro vibe, sharing the weight in carrying the themes of innocence, awe and terror. The cinematography by Tim Ives and Tod Campbell is good, but nothing super out of the ordinary to write home about. The episode length leans a bit towards the long side, but at only 9 episodes it’s still pretty digestible. The CGI still isn’t up to most modern standards, but because I was more invested in the characters and the story and the feelings they continued to evoke in me, I was able to once again give it a free pass.

Stranger Things is a weird beast, in that its appeal is mostly a surface level one by all accounts, but it’s still able to sincerely move people. The series’ blatant pandering to nerdy viewers who grew up in the 80’s is hard to deny, and its overarching story isn’t super original either. But what makes it all work it’s the combined package of these characters, the soundtrack, the setting and the overall loving care that the Duffer brothers have invested into this series. Seeing these kids and the adults who believe them go on these crazy adventures, even though it’s the second time around, still managed to make me care. Just based on the world building alone, I may have ended up enjoying this season more than the fist. Either way, if you seriously enjoyed the first season, you’ll probably love the opportunity to spend more time with all these characters and retro vibes again. Stranger Things has solidified itself as one of Netflix’s best weapons in the TV streaming marketplace.

Tags: Netflix, Review, Stranger Things, TV

• October 30, 2017
• Review
• 2 Comments