Stranger Things Season 2: A Review

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Stranger Things 2 (henceforth ST2), released October 27 on Netflix exclusively, is the second season of the wildly successful TV show Stranger Things (ST), created by the Duffer Brothers (Matt and Ross Duffer). Given the incredibly positive reception of season one, the Duffer Brothers were in the difficult position of producing a second season that recaptured the success of the first while creating a story that stands on its own merits. Did they succeed? I'm afraid not.


One problem with ST2 lies in its monsters. The entire plot of ST was driven by the mystery of the monster, nicknamed the Demogorgon by the kids. The Demogorgon was terrifying throughout the season, and that's because of the rate at which information about it was revealed. The first glimpses of the monster were brief silhouettes, and the audience only got to see it full-on in the final episodes of the season. The Demogorgon was shown to be extremely resilient, surviving several assaults by the kids and governmental agents before finally succumbing to Eleven. In contrast, the monsters of ST2 are plentiful, and each looks like a smaller version of last season's monster, which makes them much less intimidating and interesting. The other monster, the "Mind Flayer" that Will sees in the Upside Down, is the only thing truly scary and alien about this season, but it's one of the first things the audience sees in the show, and everything that comes after the reveal feels like a bit of a letdown in comparison.


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One of the greatest strengths of ST was the strength of its core ensemble of child actors, and while the kids continue to have great chemistry in the second season, they are all drawn into their own private storylines, which gives them less screen time together as a group. Particularly vexing is the choice to completely separate Eleven from the rest of the group until the final two episodes of the season, because most of the drama among the kids in ST was caused by each character's unique relationship with Eleven. With Eleven separated from the boys, hiding out in Hopper's cabin, ST2 struggles to recapture the magic of its previous season by introducing a new female character, Max, to the friend group. Unfortunately, Max is never fully accepted into the group and spends most of the season feeling ostracized from the boys. What's more, Max is never really given the chance to do anything helpful for the group, other than become the romantic interest for Lucas, one of the boys in the group.

ST2 labors under the weight of its many storylines and side plots. While ST had one clear, distinct plot that was driven by one specific event (the monster stealing Will away), the second season begins with a directionless, bumbling plot. All the characters are attending to their own separate concerns, and the worst thing that happens is a few pumpkins dying--hardly a situation that spurs people to action. Even when the direction of the plot is finally revealed (a third of the way through the show) as Will is possessed by the Mind Flayer, the show continues to throw inconsequential plotlines at the audience, including an entire episode that exists only as filler. (More on that later.) The story with Max's older abusive brother is entirely uninteresting and clumsily done, and Barb's parents are dropped without a second thought after a couple episodes. Joyce's new love interest Bob is an entirely superfluous character, whose main accomplishments in the show are knowing the locations of some local bodies of water, wowing everyone with his computer programming skills, and dying gruesomely.

One of ST2's strengths is its cinematography, which is much more creative than the first season's. However, even beautiful, artistic shots are not enough to compensate for the whole season's abysmal pacing and editing. The show is so scattered and has so many storylines to follow that it can hardly spend any time on individual scenes, and cuts away just as something interesting is about to happen. You can count on any important conversation between main characters being interrupted by a jump cut to another scene right before the conversation gets interesting, which is just lazy writing. The scene near the end of the season, in which the characters are trying to win Will back from the Mind Flayer by reminding him of his favorite memories, comes as a breath of fresh air because it is longer, uninterrupted, and showcases better writing than what's found throughout the rest of the season.

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And then there's the problem of the whole episode set in Chicago. Why?! Eleven's sister is hastily retconned into the show, then left behind just as quickly as Eleven remembers that everything she really cares about is in Hawkins. Very little character development happens in this whole revenge-porn-fueled romp, and what does happen is negative. Eleven learns that she hasn't been hating people hard enough, so, like a Sith Lord, she learns to funnel her hatred into power. What's worse, this use of hatred is actually validated by the show's ending, in which Eleven uses her pent up rage to achieve a far too literal sense of closure. Surely hatred is a force that should stand in opposition to the evil Upside Down monsters that just want to kill everything in their path! It's through teamwork and trust and love that the team of kids is able to drive back the monster from season one, but now apparently those things aren't so important now because Eleven can just hate things until they die spectacularly, in great fits of CGI, while everyone else waits around impotently. This muddying of the thematic waters falls short of being compelling and settles for just being confusing.

A lot of these problems with ST2 come down to the Duffer Brothers' desire to pander to their base. By the end of the season, just about everyone has been paired up into happily heterosexual relationships, and there's an entire character created for the sole purpose of being a stand-in for the show's audience. The guy living in the bunker fulfills this role, nudging Nancy and Jonathan together and confidently confirming everyone's theories about the plot without providing any new information. At least Bunker Guy is entertaining, especially his pull-out joke.

The Duffer Brothers clearly had a good sense of what made ST so successful, but in their desire to recreate the success of the first season, they ended up watering down ST2 too much, playing it too safe with the story, and introducing new plot elements that just felt like filler. ST2 was certainly watchable, but it was also aggravating and felt clumsy by comparison to the expertly-crafted first season.