Stranger Things 2

Yes, the second season of Stranger Things is officially called Stranger Things 2, as if it is a sequel rather than a continuation of a cohesive story. In this day and age, when serialized storytelling is the norm, and we have a lot of big-screen films that feel more like episodes of an ongoing narrative than self-contained plots, the line between sequels and continuations is blurry.

Spoilers Ahead:





The first season of Stranger Things is actually pretty remarkably self-contained. One way in which it is self-contained is the fact that practically all the action takes place in Hawkins, Indiana, or its alternate-dimension counterpart.

In true 80s movie fashion, the second season or sequel expands the scope. It brings in new characters and locations, a far larger eldritch horror threat by making the big monster of the first season just one member of a malevolent ecosystem dominated by season two's monster, and giving a lot of the first season's cast their own storylines.

Some of the show's secondary characters, like Dustin and Lucas, get their own plotlines that go beyond sidekicking Mike. Eleven goes on her own journey of discovery and Will gets to be an actual character instead of a human McGuffin (and Noah Schapp, who didn't have much of an opportunity to prove himself in the first season really knocks it out of the park here, showing that Stranger Things has one of the all-time best cast of child actors.)

But the downside of all these plot threads is that the cast gets separated a lot. I wonder if there were some scheduling issues that drove the division of the cast, and while that yields some really great unexpected character pairings - like getting Steve and Dustin to hang out a lot, which is actually delightful - the breaking-up of the cast calls attention to itself.

The relationship between Mike and Eleven in season one was, I think, the emotional core of the season, and in this season it takes a back seat to other plot developments, but we get very little of it in this season as the two characters spend most of the season doing their own things (actually, Mike doesn't get that much to do, which was a bit surprising given that he was the closest thing the first season had to a main character - not hero, mind you, because that's obviously Eleven.)

Still, the second season manages to be scarier and funnier over all, and the continuing danger that Will Byers finds himself in raises a lot of questions about just how safe everyone is after the season ends, not to mention the little sequel hook in the final shot, which has a less specific threat than season one's scene of Will puking up a slug-monster and flashing back to the Upside Down, but reminds us that the door the monster took to get in may be closed, but that doesn't mean it's not gone.

Still, aside from the weirdly standalone episode that takes place in Chicago, it's more Stranger Things with the characters we love from the first season. I'll be eager to see the third season when it comes out.