Stranger Things: Season 2 (2017)

WARNING: SPOILERS!  (There are definitely some specifics spoiled here, so come back to this when you finish watching it, or if you just don't care about spoilers.)

Admittedly, a follow up to last year's break-out Netflix show Stranger Things was always going to be in a tough spot. So much of the fun was how little anyone knew of it. The discovery and subsequent ability to pass it onto the next unsuspecting victim helped build an organic hype machine. That is inherently lost here, particularly since they chose to stick with the same cast of characters in the same town. Of course, that social aspect has no real bearing on the overall quality of a show.

It's probable fans will love this as well. Yet the second season follows a lot of trappings that most sequels fall into - too much rehashing of the first, unsatisfying explanations of past events, a little too much attention spent on comic relief, a problem with scaling, and some ambitious writing leading to inconsistent pacing. At the same time, it's the same trip down Nostalgia Lane (complete with some brilliant and subtle homages), with the same great characters, and surprisingly dark sci-fi elements mixed with in for good measure. Bears noting that the score might even be better than the first season's (which says a lot about S U R V I V E's capabilities).

The aforementioned sequel trappings are very much present, and it could be considered a problem depending on your stance. If you're inclined to believe that the Duffer Brothers trying to mimic their favorite sequels means something positive, then this won't be a problem. Conversely, if you think copying the worst aspects of Hollywood isn't exactly...great, these issues might stand out.

The ultimate weakness with the second season is in the structure and writing. It isn't that the dialogue is worse, although there is a bit too much comic relief at times and it is occasionally ham-fisted and corny beyond what it should be. It's just the amount of disconnected filler. Season 2 suffers from the the "More Problem."

Almost always, sequels try to improve upon the popular original material by going bigger and doing more. For example, how do you top the terror of a single xenomorph in Alien? Well, obviously, just throw in an entire swarm of them in Aliens! Just add more aliens! That is certainly the case here (instead of one humanoid creature to terrorize the town, they go with a hoard of canine-like versions). Additionally, there is just more stuff in general. Where season one was eight episodes at forty-five minutes a pop, season two is nine episodes that are all nearly an hour long. More space to fill, especially in Netflix shows, has generally meant a fair amount of dead air.

It isn't necessarily fair to compare the two seasons, but it is worth taking a moment to note the structural changes that weaken it. There are several different branches of story in the inaugural series. You've got Hopper doing his thing. Joyce does hers. The boys do their thing with Eleven. Nancy and Jonathan have their story. It's a splintered narrative, as most shows are. What makes it work so well is how connected they inherently are. All of the separated plot threads revolve around finding Will. So, when it comes time to have all plot lines converge on a single point, it happens pretty organically. This is entirely because each story is separate, but related.

Season two, however, has a lot of fat. Some of the story lines are connected, to be sure, but they hardly line up as well. Everyone is going after a different objective. Dustin, Lucas, Steve, and Max are trying to contain their Dart problem. Hopper, Joyce, and Mike are trying to figure out what's going on with Will and his visions. Nancy and Jonathan are searching for a way to expose the secret government lab in town. Eleven eventually ends up on a journey of self-discovery. It's all disjointed plot threads. By itself, that is not so much of a problem. It becomes one when all plot points try to converge on the same moment in the larger narrative. The organic melding of threads from the first season is abandoned for some contrived reasons to put everyone together at the end.

Even more, there are secondary story lines that hardly get any attention beyond set-up. They are abandoned, ignored, or - in some instances - lack any actual conclusion. Take, for instance, the character story arc of Mike and his animosity towards Max. This gets set up pretty early. There isn't much explanation for it. And by the end, Mike never has a moment of recognizing Max's worth, or acknowledging that he has been a prick to her. Another great example is the Lucas/Dustin competition for Max's attention, which gets set up early, is almost never explored in any depth, and then has one of the strangest "conclusions" (in that it makes no sense why Dustin would even think of Max romantically by the end, but apparently he still does). Worse: the Max/Billy relationship has an air of mystery around it, gets almost no exploration, doesn't answer some of the questions they ask, and all builds to just a small character moment for Max, who doesn't really add that much to the overall story in her own right (which is a shame since she's a solid character). It winds up feeling like a distraction. The entire Jonathan/Nancy plot seems to exist exclusively to pacify fans dissatisfied with both the fact they didn't wind up together, and that Barb had seemingly been forgotten.

Eleven suffers the worst in the new season. She is literally forced to the sidelines for the first two-thirds of the season. Her story is not inherently uninteresting, but it also has nothing to do with the central plot. She serves the season primarily as the deus ex machina. With no bearing on the story, she is brought in literally at the end just to save the day because she's the one with the powers. Her detour in episode seven is completely unnecessary, disruptive to the pacing, and causes a strange tonal shift. An entire episode away from the intense action episode six ended on, it winds up feeling like something out of an '80s UK comic book. While the whole season is likely to be viewed fondly, it might not be so unexpected if that episode winds up being a bit polarizing.

None of this is to suggest there aren't interesting or well-executed elements. Easily the smartest thing they did was re-shape Steve into an actual person, with redeemable qualities. His relationship with Dustin comes out of nowhere, but works surprisingly well. On top of that, everything they did with Paul Reiser's character was clever and subversive. A doctor at the secret evil government facility, it is easy to keep expecting the moment revealing his true intentions. Turns out, he doesn't really have any. He has moments that lack awareness, but he does seem to genuinely want to help these people. It puts a spin on the "evil government agency" trope that is actually pretty refreshing. The dynamic between Hopper and Joyce also serves as a strength. (There should be no question that the Duffer Brothers clearly think of those two characters as their bread and butter for pushing the larger story.) Splitting the kids up even breeds interesting elements to the narrative.

On a technical level, it holds up to the first season - minus a few things. The obsession with psych-out "jump scares" is incredible! Few shows have so heavily relied on the fake out. In fact, one scene uses the fake out to build up to...another fake out scare. There is a lack of genuine terror in season two that season one managed to pull off with the single demogorgon. Loud, startling noises are the bane of modern horror. Stranger Things uses the fake out quite excessively.

[As an aside: can writers please retire the old schtick of a character saying something like, "This isn't (insert fiction)! This is real life!" Every time a character says that, at least have the decency to have them turn to the camera, nod, and wink at the audience. Seriously, it wasn't that clever the first time someone did that "meta" joke. They use that line and a variation of it twice in the same episode.]

All in all, it'd be hard to argue season two was anywhere near the level of season one, but that should not be mistaken to mean it wasn't enjoyable. At times, it almost seemed reminiscent of Attack the Block, with a pretty obvious The Exorcist vibe by the end. There's a lot of stuff that really works.

It is probably worth noting that I was born in '87, which means I grew up in the '90s. I don't have the same nostalgia for all things '80s like a lot of other people seem to. The showrunners handle it well (although at times, a little clunkier than in season one), but occurring in that time period doesn't fill me with any deeper emotions. I understand that this aesthetic will touch others in a more personal fashion than it can for me. It's easy to see why some would gravitate towards the show's aesthetic and allow that to do a little more lifting than the writing. For me, personally, the comfort of nostalgia doesn't quite cover for the structural issues.

It's one of those things that, for me, the more I think about it, the more mediocre I think the second season is. However, the worst of Stranger Things is still better than a lot of things - especially from Netflix. I suspect I'll be in the minority on this. I liked it, but I do think when I revisit the show, I'll probably just stick with season one. I liked the ideas put forth by fans as to what the end of that season meant a lot more than what the Duffer Brothers actually did with it.

REDUCTIVE RATING: It's...fine.  (But I presume everyone else will think better of it.)