Stranger Things 2 Review: The Abyss Stares Back.

Has it been a year already? No. It's been a year, 3 months, and 12 days since Stranger Things burrowed deep into my genre fiction loving heart. It's officially a big frikkin' deal now. One of those things you have to see. I personally made a bunch of my friends sit down and watch it. Even threw in two 5ths of vodka for free. I don't evangelize very often but then a show like this is exceedingly rare even for peak TV.

There's an old adage for film students to never make kids your protagonists. Good actors are rare enough. Good child actors even more so. I don't know what kind of sacrificial ritual it took to stack this show's deck so full but I'm not questioning providence. Even the teenagers are killer and only one of them looks 30-ish. You wanna pick apart ST's interdimensional shenanigans, fine. I'll admit the plotting this year was a bit repetitive. My point is I'd watch this cast do damn near anything. So what did they do this time?

Hawkins Indiana has done what all small towns do when a when a tragedy sweeps through, they forget as hard as they can. Will Byers is alive! Fantastic. Why did we have a funeral for him? Who cares. Who was the kid they fished out of the quarry? Doesn't matter! What about Barb? She ran away and that's that. Now close the curtain.

I wish my 7th grade science teacher taught me about Phineas Gage

The return to relative normalcy gives the show a chance to flesh out Lucas and Dustin a bit more and that really made me smile. Lucas's family is delightful and Matarazzo is a budding comic god. There's a scene where Dustin has to convince his mom to leave the house and while nothing he says on paper is "funny" I had to rewind twice to drink it all in. He could sell snow to a polar bear, I guess is what I'm saying. It's also nice to see Lucas's race inform his character more than last year. He gets a crush on a white girl in a story line that gets depressingly realistic as it goes along and there's an argument between him and Mike about why Mike doesn't want to be Winston Zeddemore for Halloween that gets Real.

Just about the only folks who drift into the background this year are Mike and Johnathan. But Mike's got "It" going on and Johnathan... dude's got problems IRL. The true MVP is Noah Schnapp's stunning commitment to the ever suffering Will. You don't see a lot of stories about kids with PTSD because there just arn't a bunch of 13 year olds that can break your heart like this. He is asked to do some truly crazy sh*t. Flashbacks, teary eyed breakdowns, seizures, and multiple poss-...nope that's a  spoiler. Out of everyone in the best ensemble cast since Firefly this guy deserves the Emmy. You just wanna to reach through the screen and hug em'.

On the plot oriented front I was a fan of a number of changes. The newer, friendlier, face of government run mad science (an outstanding Paul Reiser) helps muddy the motives of what exactly Hawkins Power and Light wants. I love how Joyce's new relationship (Sean Astin) starts in media res, Eleven's current living situation is brilliant, and I like how Mike turned into a mopey little jerk since El left him. I can relate.

Pay no attention to the only legible word in that foreshadowing graffiti...

The new kids in town have their detractors, Max is kinda Mary Sue-ish and Billy is a bit of a one note bully. Who's clearly in his early 20's. But I do like where both of their characters end up at the end of the season, arc wise, and their performances are solid. You do get the sense that her need to hang out with the D&D party is less story driven and has more to do with loneliness. Plus when they push her away she pushes right back. Billy is also a hell of a lot better than last season's stab at the Stephen King bully and the scene he shares with Mike's mom near the end was so funny I was gasping for air. You make me laugh like that once a season... you can stay.

I'm also grateful the central conflict isn't just the same stuff but bigger. The creature from the upside down is smarter and angrier. It knows how it failed last time and adapts. A force of nature villain with a personally sadistic twist. I would have loved to know more about the Mind Flayer, though I understand I'm asking series finale type questions here. We're only halfway done at the very least. Heck, maybe the less we know the better.

Then there's episode 7. Maybe you've heard about it. It uhhhhhh, it is not great. The show decides to  have a pilot for a spin off right after the season's biggest cliffhanger. After watching it a second time I don't dislike it as much. But also I wouldn't be heartbroken if we never see any of those new characters again. ST's casting black magic had to wear out some time and it didn't help that the writing quality dipped sharply too. Though Eleven does make some important character choices, I did appreciate that. But come on Duffers, if you use those guys in the future you gotta tighten that dialogue up. Otherwise I'd recommend introducing 06 or 07 instead.

So my buddy Will likes to... draw.

But the last 2 episodes are a roller coaster. So good that I broke my one promise to myself to take at least 24 hours to finish. It's very much Aliens to season 1's Alien and it was scrumptious. Once again everybody gets something to do and it doesn't all revolve around a big glowing hole in the sky. I mean... it is 25% that but the climax has a lot more on it's mind than most. Particularly a scene where everyone shares a personal story about Will. Joyce tells one about a box of crayons she got him for his 8th birthday and it utterly, utterly, wreaked me. Stuff like that cuts straight to the heart of what I get from this show that I don't see anywhere else. Sincerity.

These characters deal with sci fi scenarios like I imagine most people would. There aren't any pithy monologues about saving the world. There's finger pointing, arguing, and name calling. When a 3 story shadow monster bears down on Will, he cries. When the gang is surrounded by monsters they run. When they are about to face certain death... they hold hands. The presence of these life threatening scenarios realistically wears them down and I emphasize with them more than any other cast on the air.

Maybe it's corny. Certainly some of it is, there's a "it's not your fault" type scene in ep 9 I'm not crazy about. But I love it because it hits so much more than it misses and I'm glad I'm not alone. So sit down, mix a vodka tonic, and have some whipped cream'n'Halloween candy suicide waffles.

My treat.