I'm five episodes into season two. This show is so addictive. So far I'm liking it, but the wonder of discovery of season one is a bit missing. At this point, I sort of know already what to expect of this show.
I have finished season two. I liked it. I do have one big quibble: Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler It's total bullshit that Eleven is only reunited with her friends from season one at the very end of episode eight. I did really enjoy the "Time After Time" sequence at the Snowball, but then, I am a bit of a sap.
I looked at your spoiler even though I've only finished episode 3. I could have told you that. This great, glorious era of TV is very much dominated by paint-by-number plotting via finale.
Oops.... There's 9 episodes. This increases the interest level considerably. Now, I understand that Joyce lacks the wherewithal to leave and take Will away from the hellmouth, but geeze, once Samwise offers her a relocation, why oh why wouldn't she take it. I'd be out of Hawkins so fast....
HA! Dustin's hoodie is from the Science Museum of MN. I probably saw it in the gift shop when I went there as a kid. PioneerPressLink Loved season two. If episode 7 was a test for a spin off I am not that interested in it. Being a huge fan of the two seasons I have been thinking about what I would want in the future from the Duffer bros. and I'm not really sure if a third season with the same cast and setting wouldn't feel too familiar or repetitive. Though both seasons have been some of my favorite tv in awhile so what do I know.
I like this show. I do not love it. And I'm a little bemused by all the love this show has garnered. But, I've enjoyed watching. Until now. "On the Road With Eleven" has to be one of the bigger pieces of crap I've seen. E I E I O? This from a guy who is really wanted by the police, yet sports a ludicrous mohawk. It's like the show is trying too hard, way too hard, to pay homage to that other 80s touchstone film, The Warriors. Only, I'm not sure these guys ever actually watched The Warriors... NORML's hoping those guys don't become a spinoff. I'm hoping the police killed them and nip this BFF thing with Kali in the bud.
Am I the only one who didn't really mind Eleven's adventures in Chicago? I mean, it wasn't my favorite episode by any means but I didn't think it was as horrendous as everyone is making it out to be.
It didn't bother me, but i didn't understand what it does to the plot, unless they bring the sister back for S3. Overall, S1 was of course better, but I still got a kick out of this season.
I think the problem for me, is that I heard two interviews with Shawn Levy (producer) before I watched the show. He is clearly in love with his young actors, and to be honest, I wasn't that impressed. We've seen scads of young, engaging actors over the years; it's not like we're witnessing a young Elijah Woods here. This show, for me, is more plot driven than character driven. I liked the X-Files, I like the government cover-up here. But it's taken a while for me to "care about the characters", so a single episode introducing Kali and her friends, who do love her, feels like a distraction. El found her mother and Kali relatively easily and that rang false to me. I would rather have had her mother get more treatment in a stand alone episode. Kali and crew have been shoehorned into this episode. On a different note, the show Beyond Stranger Things has a certain charm to it. Once upon a time I listened to all the director's commentaries on films and I've long since given up on that. But this was fun.
Pretty much everything not involving Mike and Eleven was super fun. Pretty much everything involving Mike and Eleven was super awful.
Maybe she hadn't been cast as Kali at the time, but that actress (or her doppelganger) is seen in the background of Nancy's high school in S1 (I believe).
It seemed to have switched genres? No longer a really scary horror but more a John Hughes High School drama with lashings of Buffy fantasy genre The monsters were so not scary any more.
Agree. Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler The tropey-ness of this slack screen writing became hard to overlook. First Eleven is locked in the Cabin, then she goes on a quest, then she has to do the Yoda/KungFu master training interlude but then just at the right time she finds her friends are in trouble and calmly defeats the big bad. They openly riffed on this trope when Will has to be put to sleep to stop the big bad resolving the plot - and also gets selective amnesia Yeah - this was a real homage to the genre and very well done. I loved it.
Because I do a lot of writing, I kind of ruined these shows for myself because the tropes stick out from a technical perspective. This is basically a variation of the oh so lame amnesia trope. A main character has to prevented from knowing something that the audience/other characters know to avoid resolving the plot. The usual ways are for the character to forget the detail (amnesia), be asleep, be trapped/imprisoned or be on a side quest. So annoyingly, the show runners trap Eleven in Hopper's cabin for half the series, then send her on a quest To be fair I think it was done with a wink - e.g. Eleven is "the Mage" and another mage Gandalf was also prone to getting imprisoned/trapped and going on side quests, only to provide just in time solutions Eleven's mama is yet another example of the same trope. Ditto Will. To be fair this is always a problem in this genre as the big bad needs to go about his evil plan in "secret" even though we all know about it. Season 1 was easier because the big bad was largely concealed from everyone.
I had high hopes Mama/Kali was going to set up actual new plot elements - but it was just yoda+degobah training in Chicago And the way they then forced Mama's plot exit seemed like very bad writing. But yeah - i was actually interested in that stuff - i think they just cut it off in a dumb way. Surely we could have had less Jonathan / Nancy in order to have done Chicago better?
I never perceived it that way, but you are right. The thing with the train is even a perfect equivalent of Yoda telling Luke to lift the X-wing out of the swamp. On that note, the Duffer brothers did quote "Empire" as a big influence on them for season two.
All my Skywalker alarms were going off. I thought the Mama thing was going to get really good after they explained the words - but then we didn't get into the world she is trapped in I wonder if they are saving this for s3?
This review summaries my thoughts. Not bad but really falls down in the detail. Nancy & Jonathan's side quest is a good example. It feels like it will be a critical mistake that will trigger events - but nothing happens with that and in hindsight the only point was so they could hook up. https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/27/16548566/stranger-things-season-2-review-spoilers I get the feeling new characters like Kali, Billy and Moma are being saved for S3
http://uproxx.com/hitfix/stranger-things-bracelet-eleven-hopper/2/ Some people picked up on a tiny little detail that probably almost no one noticed.