By Melody Ortiz
“Stranger Things 2” both pleased and shocked fans by expanding and darkening the world inside the series.
Creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, AKA the Duffer Brothers, delivered a satisfactory second season with much material worth discussing, from racism to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The season’s plot was supported with amazing special effects and left viewers analyzing each episode.
Though there were a few references to season one, the writers, luckily didn’t milk anything too hard. The humor was as good as ever and the performance by such young actors was phenomenal. Neither were too overdone or took away from any serious scenes. “Stranger Things 2” had the perfect balance of each element.
The season focuses on Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), almost a year after he was rescued from the Upside-Down.
In the show, he is diagnosed with PTSD and his friends and family struggle to find the best way to deal with it. Will’s mother Joyce (Winona Ryder) struggles the most, as she seems to have trauma issues as well.
Each episode becomes more sinister. A few scenes even turn the show from science fiction to paranormal horror.
Some of the best things about this season are the fact that the show begins to focus more on secondary characters and the new alliances formed by them. It gives most of its characters big personality developments and introduces interesting new ones.
The character of Bob, played by “The Goonies” actor Sean Astin, brought mixed feelings. His nerd-like humor and slight annoyance had the potential to make him a good guy, bad guy, or textbook victim that gets swept under the rug.
Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) story expands and deepens to the point where fans even hope for a spin-off series. The introduction of the new characters opens more doors and questions for the series.
A few things that the season could have done without were the predictability and teasers.
The chemistry between Joyce and Jim Hopper (David Harbour) is obvious but seemed like the writers want them to be an item that fans have to wait years for. The love triangle like the one between Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Steve (Joe Keery), and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) has been seen many times. Though Steve’s character development was a surprise, other factors and outcomes were not.
Nothing was more annoying than the constant dangling of certain hopes. The writers dragged out the obvious and inevitable event just for no real reason other than to tease viewers.
Though the season finale left viewers content, there are too many questions left unanswered and problems to resolve to assume the characters won’t have more problems coming soon.
With an 8.9/10 rating on the International Movie Database (IMDb) and a 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, the Netflix’s original series already has a huge fan base and will, no doubt, one day be a cult classic.