After a first episode that took the series back to a quiet base line, I’d wouldn’t be surprised if some viewers were a little disgruntled that things started a bit too slow. However, starting things slowly (other than the disappearance of a local boy into an alternative hell-verse) is how the first season operated before gradually snowballing into a full blown monster mash dripping with slime and government conspiracy and it seems that The Duffer Brothers are dead set on recreating that feeling with season 2. If the first episode was something of a welcome back to the people of Hawkins, the second also isn’t in much of a rush to get the ball moving as it even takes a couple of steps backwards to cover some of the unseen ground that occurred between seasons. Is the Stranger Things gang moving too slowly, or should we just shut up, sit down and pay attention while streaming’s hottest show gets it’s hands dirty with some solid character work? Who gives a crap when we have the pitch perfect sight of the kids dressed as Ghostbusters!
It’s Halloween in Hawkins, and the boys can’t wait to head out in their newly made Ghostbusters costumes to obtain large quantities of candy once they make it through a day of school, but after some teething issues (they’re the only ones at school in costume, both Mike and Lucas have both came dressed as Peter Venkman), soon the evening arrives and the candy hording can soon begin. However, not everyone is free to just head out and beg door to door for sweets and Eleven is feeling extra confined as a protective Hopper has forbid her to go out trick or treating.
Timely flashbacks reveal what exactly happened after Eleven vanished after her battle with the Demogorgon about a year ago and we discover that after the destruction of the petal-faced beast, the girl woke up in the Upside-Down and ultimately found her way back to our world by a dimensional opening she finds in the school. However, after returning to Mike’s house, she finds the place crawling with goverment men assaulting the Wheelers with cover stories and warnings to report to them if Eleven should return – so she retreats back into the woods to try and scrape out an existence in the wild. But while she’s certainly experiencing a far more comfortable life with Hopper, her tekekinetic powered teen angst is starting to go into overdrive as he breaks his promise to take her out. In Hopper’s defence, he’s been following up a strange occurance that’s seen the pumpkin crops of multiple farmers rot virtually overnight, but while this could certainly be a worrying omen of things to come, once again it’s poor old Will who is baring the major brunt. Simply put, his visions of a shadowy cloud monster that looms over the sky of the Upside-Down are getting worse, and the fact that it’s being written of as PTSD means that disaster may not be too far away.
OK, yes. Stranger Things 2 is moving incredibly slow and boldly violating the notion that all sequels have to be instantly faster and more intense as we’re already familiar with the various cast members, but the Duffer Brothers obviously want to keep that sense of a multi-pronged, slowly unfurling mystery that manages to ensnare different people with spread out trigger point. For a start, we’ve already got Hopper looking into fields of blackened, rotten pumpkins that are buzzing with swarms of flies, Will’s multi-dimensional freak-outs and whatever the hell is living in Dustin’s trash can – but the Duffers obviously want to ensure that we get as much time with their characters as humanly possible before the Upside-Down shit hits the Hawkins fan. It’s a savvy play, after all, of the main reasons the first season hit so well is because the show took time to make you care about everyone before things got all Lovecraftian and stuff. The fact that they’re trying to do it again and carry these people into new emotional territory is genuinely admirable while a more impatient viewer may start to shuffle uncomfortably in their seat, there’s gold here that needs to be recognised.
The first main thread that needs to be address is the apparent collapse of Nancy and Steve’s relationship during a Halloween party as the continuing guilt over Barb’s death and a copious amount of spiked punch allows Nancy to act out. It’s not only the fact that Barb’s parents are holding out hope that their very dead daughter is still alive that’s doing Nancy in, it’s the guilt that Nancy ditched her to have sex with Steve the night the Demogorgon took her and it’s interesting that in the wake of the #justiceforbarb movement that popped up on social media, the show is wisely showing the emotional issues that linger after a horrible death.
Not only does it make our characters more human, but it also makes dying in Stranger Things mean something that has genuine ramifications which is something of a Holy Grail when it comes to ensemble pieces that dance between sci-fi and horror. Also experiencing a character shift is Mike, who has become something of a dick since Eleven’s disappearance. Becoming openly jealous of Dustin and Lucus inviting Max along trick or treating and overly protective of Will during his latest “flashback”, Mike’s always gotten a bit pissy when things don’t go his way, but his pain of missing Eleven matches his sisters pangs of guilt to prove that the siblings are far more alike than they’d care to admit.
Elsewhere, we find that Hopper’s second shot a being a protector/father to a young girl is proving tougher than he’d like. Trying to get a restless young girl to stay in for a strict curfew is going enough, but when that girl has spent her life as a lab rat and has tekekinetic powers, that job becomes nigh impossible, but watching them both try has quickly become the emotional centre of the series considering they both carry some pretty tragic pasts around with them. There’s also a sense of that continuing vibe that Hopper and Joyce had in season one and that her dating increasingly nice-guy Bob is just the tightly mother looking for stability and calm after what happened to her family last year. But in a really nice micro-moment, it’s nice that the highly empathic Will sticks up for Bob’s cheesy nature as he’s glad his put-upon mother actually is in a stable – if boring – relationship.
With all that being said, while all this character time is invaluable, I kinda would like to see the sci-fi end of the show get a more overt push next episode. I mean, there’s certainly issues that’s already cause for concern – Max’s hyper jacked and super intense brother Billy seems aggressively out of his fucking mind and seems to have some serious hate issues with his sibling; and failing that, there’s always whatever is lurking in Dustin’s bins. But whatever the first major threat proves to be, at least we know that Stranger Things 2 isn’t planning on sacrificing character in favour of just diving headlong into the Upside-Down with reckless abandon.
Of course on the flip side, the 80s worship has actually accelerated into the stratosphere with the Ghostbusters stuff and when it comes to forthright nostalgia, we always know who we’re gonna call…
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