'Stranger Things 2' Early Reviews Are In and Describes Yet Another Binge-Worthy Sequel

It’s only a matter of days before we’re finally taken back to Hawkins, Indiana. “Stranger Things” Season 2 is coming this Friday, October 27 and the wait couldn’t be more exciting.
The series is a prime example of an effective show that was banked by word-of-mouth. It introduced us to a nostalgic trip back to the 80s and made us love the adventurous group of friends made up of Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Eleven and Will. For Season 2, however, expectations are high. “Stranger Things” is one of the most-anticipated shows this year, and fans and critics alike are looking for more answers on the unresolved plotlines of the previous season.

As for the show’s timeline, we do know that it will pick up exactly a year after the events of the first season, specifically during the 1984 Halloween season. New monsters are set to appear along with new characters as well. And based on the official trailer, Will suffers from PTSD and encounter the Upside Down back in the real world this time.

‘Stranger Things’ Season 2 early review roundup

For those who cannot wait on how the show would go, a slew of early reviews has been posted by different media outfits this week—albeit spoiler-free. And based on the collective voice of the reviews, it looks like Netflix has yet again made a good show for everyone to obsess over in the following months. “Stranger Things” Season 2 looks to be another great Netflix title that promises many good things.
Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter describes it as “a satisfying second season.” Fienberg also went on by saying, “Netflix has a litany of things they don’t want to be revealed, including at least one thing that can’t be spoiled relating to the first scene of the entire season and just about anything relating to the still-exceptional Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven, such as what she’s been up to since the first season or where we find her to start the second season, but I think it’s fair to say that she’s not assimilated into the Hawkins social scene or the local school district. And she’s still prone to nosebleeds.”

“It’s rare for a TV series to come out of the gate as self-assured and as well-received as Stranger Things did, and even rarer for it to be able to maintain that into a second season,” says Allison Keene of Collider. “But somehow, The Duffer Brothers have again managed to wield their particular alchemy and create a follow-up worthy of the hype created by its predecessor. Stranger Things is not reinventing television, but it does once again provide a highly entertaining, extremely bingeable, and even surprisingly heartwarming viewing experience.”
Stuart McGurk of British GQ describes “Stranger Things” season 2 as something that “feels less like a nostalgia-tinged romp, and more like a theme park with a ride from every scary Eighties and Nineties movie ever made.”

“The new season is often more engrossing and tense than the first, and veers much further into the horror genre,” says Kelly Lawler of USA Today. “There’s a noticeable uptick in jump-scares, and the threat of death is more palpable. A midseason episode that finds several characters running from a threat in a locked building is tense and genuinely terrifying.”
Variety’s Maureen Ryan says that “there are missteps in the second season, many of them revolving around thin or unfortunate writing for some of the new characters.” However, Ryan adds that “once you get past the clunky first few installments — which largely restate much of what occurred last season and set up plot points that were easily inferred from the trailers — the drama’s momentum picks up noticeably. As fine as the show’s justly lauded young cast is, the adult actors — especially Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton and Joe Keery — anchor every psychological nuance with subtle skill and ease.”

“Stranger Things 2 may be a safe move, but it’s a smart one. Founded in the familiar, it’s allowed to put to the side any temptation that might arise by show’s enormous success,” says Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent. “Namely, we don’t get a season that becomes too wrapped up in its own mythology: in the origins of the Upside Down, or the history of the lab. There is power in that mystery, and in that simplicity we can revel in what Stranger Things does best – nostalgia in its sweetest, most wistful form.”