Stranger Things re-review: my verdict on season 2 episode 1 & 2 of Netflix hit

It is time to head back to Hawkins for the second season of Stranger Things. We meet new friends, catch-up with old buddies and take a trip to the arcade.

Will is back from his ordeal in the Upside Down, but is that terrifying shadow realm done with our heroes yet? Of course not, we wouldn’t be back for series two if it was.

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So join me, as we begin Halloween season in Hawkins. We will be re-reviewing season two episode one and two.

Chapter One: MADMAX

Synopsis: As the town preps for Halloween, a high-scoring rival shakes things up at the arcade, and a skeptical Hopper inspects a field of rotting pumpkins.

A question that has been ringing around my head this last week, as I waited to hit play on Stranger Things again, was how would the show go about justifying its return for season two. Threads had been left dangling in the series one finale but what would a multi-season version of the show actually look like?

Turns out, it is very much the same as it did back in those initial episodes just with the scope being expanded a smidge. We get a tease of the season’s most controversial plotline, the other psychic kids, and see some action outside Hawkins in the opening moments.

But the way the show goes about broadening its scope is in expanding the town itself. We see the Arcade, we go into Dustin and Lucas’ houses and meet parents that aren’t the Wheelers or Joyce Byers.

Some new faces are introduced in the form of Bob Newby played by Sean Astin - an icon of 1980s cinema. We also see Max for the first time, albeit from the perspective of our established DnD group without a sense of her own interiority yet.

Billy is also briefly introduced and in a fun little twist, he is the bombshell sex symbol. Instead of it being a female character, which is not often the norm.

But beyond seeming more of the town and some new faces, the show very much feels like itself. It is still so confident in its characters that it lets them bounce off each other with only the briefest hint of plot.

A pumpkin field has been poisoned, Will has some flashes back into the Upside Down, and a shady “journalist” is poking around looking for Barb. It is a gentle re-entry into the world of Hawkins, and I think it is kind-of brilliant.

Stranger Things is better when it focuses on its characters and not the bang, wallop, explosive set pieces. Even if those are fun when it earns them.

Chapter Two: Trick or Treat, Freak

Synopsis: After Will sees something terrible on trick-or-treat night, Mike wonders whether Eleven's still out there. Nancy wrestles with the truth about Barb.

I have mentioned a number of times already in the re-review project, not least of all in the above section, that what stands out to me about Stranger Things is the way it really drills in on its characters. How it lets them bounce off each other, prioritising that than out of the gate capital P plot.

In this vein, an interesting early thread I’ve picked up on through these first two episodes is a theme about growing up: and more specifically, the sadness associated with that. It is most in your face in this episode with the boys heading to school in Halloween costumes only to discover no-one else is dressed up.

Going back more years than I’d care to admit, I remember the final year I went trick-or-treating with my friends. It was just after we started secondary school and it just suddenly didn’t feel the same, the excitement it sparked had slipped through our fingers and was lost.

The march of time means change and it can be good, it can be bad. But Stranger Things adds in the wrinkle of how the trauma of the first season impacts this process in its young characters.

Nancy is unable to let her hair down at the party because of her guilt over Barb. Will feels constrained by the way people treat him with kid gloves because of what happened, but he doesn’t feel like a little child anymore.

Mike struggles at the idea of Max joining the group, potentially filling the void left by Eleven’s disappearance. Speaking of El, she is growing increasingly frustrated with Hopper and how she misses out on childhood moments like going Trick or Treating.

Stranger Things is a nostalgic show, drawing from the iconography of the 1980s but also from the feelings of childhood. We have all had to grow up at one point or another, and this episode is reckoning with that in some interesting ways.

We also get a glimpse of the story from Max’s point of view, instead of her simply being observed in the first episode. It offers a much more fractured version of a family than we’ve seen in the show before, especially with the way Billy taunts her.

But enough of my ramblings, what do you think? Let me know by email: [email protected].

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