It’s getting less and less secret, him and Dustin were my favourite parts of season 2. Dustin’s still my favourite though him on his own at the dance before Nancy saved him got me right in my soft emotional under belly
For me the money quote of season 2 was the “you want me to teach you BASIC? I guess I should teach you French and German while I’m at it?” because of course BASIC is an essential disaster management skill in Stranger Things.
I don’t have any substantive complaints; I felt season 2 delivered on the promises of season 1. I guess I can agree episode 7 was a bit out of left field but not outlandishly so? I was only disappointed that the season ending cliffhanger was very, very meh. Barely even qualifies as a cliffhanger! Because you know they gotta get that season 3 going…
It is a damn shame Dustin didn’t get to dance with Dart at prom. 🕺
In “Beyond Stranger Things”, the Duffer brothers noted that they intentionally did not want to do a cliffhanger the way it was done for the previous season in order to have all options for the next season and not get boxed in by stuff they need to follow up on.
I believe the Duffers have said they plan on 4 seasons to the show.
Dunno if any award shows like the Golden Globes give out awards to whole casts but if they do just give it to this one and be done with it. Stellar from top to bottom anchored by the kids.
Serialized TV storytelling at its best.
And that is so very rare. Usually kid actors muff up what could be a good show/movie.
I just finished season 2 last night, and I was aware of the concerns around episode 7, but I loved it! Eleven finally gets to do stuff, and she finally makes her heroic choice of mercy. It was probably one of the defining moments of her life, and it had a lot of impact for me. The street gang was a little cliche, but I did enjoy the mid eighties Chicago slums setting.
I also think that most people’s dislike of the episode probably stems from binge watching the show. We watched about 2 episodes a week, and found episodes 1-6 a bit dull. Slow to get to a point, with a lot of the plot revolving around events from the previous season. It wasn’t till the Dartangion storyline that things picked up.
What I would love in season 3 is, the kids entering high school, and having a kind of invasion of the body snatchers vibe. They think that the teachers are under control or something, and their parents are like, yeah, high school is tough, deal with it. That would be the trope I would like to see.
I liked this season a lot. It was well done.
Mike’s gonna have some serious problems when his childhood fling with 11 inevitably goes south, given her crazy psychic powers.
Yeah I heard there was some mumbling about episode 7, and was nervous going into it, but I seriously think that it may have been the best episode of the show. It had a ton of thematic resonance, and it was (as my wife noted) incredibly important to Eleven’s character that she have the opportunity to see the world, and make a choice to stay in Hawkins. Otherwise, she’s somewhere between a prisoner and a lost puppy.
The representation of punk culture wasn’t historically accurate, but the 80’s of Stranger Things has never really been about historical accuracy. It’s about what “feels” like the 80s. So, the 80s portrayed in TV and movies more than what actually existed. And I think it landed that.
I’ve also heard people complain about the pacing, but that may be because of the way people binge-watched it. We watched 1-2 episodes a night for a week, so there was some space in between each episode anways. Maybe if you’re watching it as one 7 hour long movie, I could see being upset that we spend so long away from the lab, but it’s not like there was actual suspense about if they were all going to be eaten or not. Hopper’s going to be fine, guys. Let the show breathe a little bit. It’s like a bridge in a long song.
If we were going to complain about anything hurting the pacing of the show, I’d complain about the fake Hunter S. Thompson / conspiracy theorist road trip. I basically didn’t need any of that at all.
I quite liked episode 7. Myself.
Possible monster introductions we can look forward to in Season 3:
Abboleth
Vargoyle
Intellect Devourer
Thought Eater
Flumpf!
Grell
Githyanki (jk!)
I think Brenner is the Lich next season.
Maybe season 4 we get a Tarrasque.
We finished it up last night. Stranger Things is one of the few shows my entire family digs on together.
We liked it fine. I thought all of the child actors had improved immeasurably, but the plot was a little scattered compared to last season’s excellent pacing.
I thought that Sean Astin’s character was going to turn out to be a government plant. Nice to see that he turned out just to be a doomed nerd. Likewise, I thought that Paul Reiser had been recruited to reprise his role as Burke from Aliens. I kept expecting him to do something nefarious, but he the entire corrupt government agency turned out to be on the level. Doomed, but on the level.
Yeah, just like Eleven’s episode 7 was designed to get her out of Hawkins, this read trip was designed to get Jonathan and Nancy out of town as well. I expected both road trips to bear fruit in the climactic episode, but… nada. I guess they’ll both have repercussions next season?
Oh, and Steve. He redeemed himself at the tail end of last season, but this season he simply turned out to be awesome.
“No,” says Steve, “we’re not going to do this transparently stupid thing! What? Circumstances and other people’s stupidity have demanded that we do this moronic thing after all? Fine - hand me my badass bat; I’m taking point”
I ended season 2 thinking Nancy should dump Jonathan for Steve. Then I realized that Nancy did nothing this season to be worthy of Steve’s studliness. I assume he’ll hook up with the sexed-up upside-down reincarnation of Barb in season 3.
Definitely agree on Steve. I loved what they did with his character.
I actually preferred Season 2 to Season 1. I think there was a little too much Winona Ryder appearing to go crazy last season.
What’s the opposite of a method actor?
Really liked Episode 7, the show needed it. The only thing that didn’t work was the boob with the mohawk, like wearing a mask would hide that. Worst disguise since Clark Kent’s glasses. But the episode fit the story arc nicely, with Eleven breaking out and moving away from Hopper and Hawkins looking for family, finding Eight but seeing that her true family was back in Hawkins.
The episode I didn’t like was Ep 6, with the awful teen sex scenes in the dude’s house. That was so cringeworthy, but the rest of the season made up for it.
Steve kinda turned out to be a decent leader and a good guy, didn’t he? He wasn’t even that mad that his girlfriend left him for the guy he lashed out at last season in rage. He forgave him and moved on, growing into a leader in the process. He even got his ass kicked and then shrugged that off too without too much resentment.
I love it when characters actually change and evolve, we have way too little of that in fiction.
Steve ended up being favorite character of the season.
Finished season 2 over the weekend and thought it was great. I wasn’t a massive fan of the first show but I thought this was as good if not better and, as someone said up thread, certainly greater than the sum of its parts. The young actors were fantastic and I had no issues with pacing, episode 7 aside.
Spoilers below!
I was like ‘Oh, this is season 2’s version of Joyce’s crazy lights!’
Yeah, my alarm bells started ringing with that episode and the tattoo numbers (where are the others? What powers do they have?). It felt very ham-fisted, tedious and ‘off’ to me. A rag tag troop (or should that be trope?) of punks and misfits, channelling hate and anger and killing bad men indiscriminately.
This was one of many character quirks that irked me. There was Hopper and the hive, Dustin and hiding the demotadpole (and trying to equate that to Lucas telling Max their story), Samwise standing there like a numpty staring at Joyce when he could have been getting the hell out of there (and I thought Bob was a lovely bloke, too lovely to survive in fact), Max saying that her brother would kill them if she was found then they all sit there in the window when Steve goes outside to lie. I mean, wtf. Real team players, and poor Steve. And I get that Mike was supposed to be forlorn and full of angst in this series because of El, but god, he was often insufferable, especially his consistently shitty treatment of Max. And don’t get me started on El’s blanking of Max too near the end.
Yeah, agreed.
Don’t forget that in addition to the ‘stay frosty’ Aliens sequence, they had Burke in there too. So many of his mannerisms were similar.
I loved the bit with Nancy and Dustin at the ball. Very cool of her. As much as I hated Steve for slut-shaming Nancy in S1, he was brilliant this season and Dustin’s prom hair was a nice call back to a great moment in the show.
@TimElhajj Yes, that was a fantastic line. I also appreciated the Koyaanisqatsi/Philip Glass-like ‘sensory flood’ of momma’s memories.
Good observation.
One thing that really struck me about Beyond Stranger Things is that these child actors and a couple of the adult actors seem a lot more involved with the story and character motivations and plot twists than any other actors I’ve ever seen previously in interviews and documentaries. All these young actors really care about these characters a lot, and all the twists and turns of the plot. They’re actors, but they’re also fans of the show. It’s interesting. That’s got to be pretty rare, right?
I think it’s rare but not unheard of. In the case of Stranger Things I would bet the initial enthusiasm came from the young actors and spread to the older.
I bet it’s a little easier with something new like ST. With something more established like Harry Potter or any of the other book to movie franchises, it’s probably a little more toe the line.