Returning to The Upside Down: all the news, trailers and commentary about Stranger Things Season 2

The internet is filled with articles and Redditors pointing out the anachronisms of Netflix’s 1980s science fiction throwback series Stranger Things — from Barb’s Volkswagen car to the Demogorgon figurine. Now, scientists are joining the ranks of nitpicking nerdy fans.

Stranger Things season 2 spoilers ahead.

It’s been less than two weeks since Netflix released season 2 of Stranger Things, and the internet is still buzzing with memes and analyses of every detail in the hit series. Nielsen estimates that 15.8 million people tuned in to watch on the premiere weekend, and that 326,000 people streamed all nine episodes on the first day. The show has a huge following, and a confirmed third season on the way, but the aspects that had fans charging into season 2 might not be the same things that will draw them back to season 3.

Spoilers ahead for Stranger Things seasons 1 and 2.

In horror movies, it’s often necessary for institutions to fail. To make the audience scared, the characters have to be scared, which means they can’t just casually whistle up the authorities to take care of the roving maniac, the giant monster, or whatever else is on the loose. In both seasons of Netflix’s Stranger Things, it’s important that the government is a vaguely inimical, vaguely incompetent organization that permits cruel experiments with bad results, then lets the invasion of our world by the Upside Down get out of hand. But in season 1, at least, the local authority represented by Sheriff Jim Hopper slowly comes around to believing and helping the characters most threatened by the supernatural. He starts season 1 as a bitter, skeptical man with a bit of a drinking problem and a hefty load of personal baggage. But the series creators, the Duffer brothers, give him a redemption arc as he ultimately takes brave, dangerous steps to save the day.

So what the hell is wrong with him in season 2? Why are his decisions so profoundly and obviously awful?

This past Friday, Netflix released the second season of its hit series Stranger Things. Last year, the show appeared out of nowhere, catching pretty much everyone by surprise with its combination of retro-‘80s nostalgia and Steven Spielberg-meets-Stephen King storytelling. But this year, it was all about the expectations, with the streaming service creating a wave of hype that framed the show’s return as one of the must-watch entertainment events of the year.

Now that we’ve actually had a chance to see what series creators the Duffer brothers put together for the sequel, a group of us here at The Verge decided to sit down and discuss our feelings about Stranger Things season 2. The nostalgia, new characters like Eight, Billy, and Bob, and the unanswered questions — we’re going to dig into it all.

If you’ve caught Stranger Things at all during its first or second season, you’ll have seen how much it relies on the nostalgia factor. Old Ataris, Eggos, Three Musketeer candy bars at Halloween, and plenty of old 80’s music make the show feel like a trip in a time machine. The show also has plenty of VHS tapes, which its characters use to record important memories and re-watch favorite films.

Now, non-Netflix subscribers can check out the Stranger Things. To celebrate the show’s second season, Target released an exclusive collector’s Blu-Ray / DVD of the show’s first season, designed to look like a faded and worn VHS tape.

Netflix is launching a Stranger Things after show called Beyond Stranger Things, The Hollywood Reporter reports. This will be the first time Netflix has hosted an after show on its own platform.

The show, hosted by actor Jim Rash, will feature an analysis of each episode and roundtable discussions with the cast and crew, including Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, David Harbour, Brett Gelman, and show creators Ross and Matt Duffer.

Stranger Things returns on Friday, and the brands want us to know they’re just as excited as we are to get back to Hawkins, Indiana. The most recent attempt to capitalize on the show’s popularity comes from Lyft, with the launch of “Strange Mode.”

On Thursday, October 26th and Friday, October 27th, users nationwide will be able to opt into the mode from 6AM to 6PM, which will change Lyft’s map so that cars are represented by waffles, Christmas lights, trucker hats, and the Stranger Things logo. Then on October 27th and 28th, riders in Los Angeles and Philadelphia will be able to take a Stranger Things-themed ride from 4PM to 9PM. According to Deadline, it will feature “flickering lights, radio static, malfunctioning seats, a driver that vomits a slug in front of you, a pulsating ceiling, and an Eggo reward at the end.”

When Stranger Things debuted in 2016, it became an unexpected, massive hit that captivated legions of fans around the world. Now, with season 2 set to begin streaming on October 26th, it will be the end of a year of waiting to see what happens next. Netflix will make all nine season 2 episodes available at once, which means ambitious or addicted subscribers can take a day off work and get caught up with the entire story in a single day. But should they?

Andrew: When Stranger Things first hit, it seemed like it percolated for a couple of weeks before it really exploded in popularity. I picked up the show as this was happening, but ended up taking my time watching it. I purposefully only watched one episode a night, and by the end of the season, I feel like I got more out of it that way, rather than watching the entire thing in a sitting.

The nine-episode second season of Netflix’s Stranger Things will begin streaming on October 27th. It’s been more than a year since the kids from Hawkins first faced the otherworldly monsters from The Upside Down. The show was a huge success, and this new season faces enormous expectations from fans.

Stranger Things’ eight-episode first season leaves off after the Hawkins kids confront The Upside Down’s Demogorgon and a slew of federal agents trying to contain the situation. Meanwhile, Sheriff Hopper (David Harbour) and Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) travel to the other world, where they finally discover and rescue Joyce’s son Will. The monster discovers the kids, but Eleven destroys it and vanishes. The show then jumps forward a month, showing that everything is starting to get back to normal, until Will coughs up a slug-like creature and has a vision of the world he just escaped. It’s a clear setup for more dealings with The Upside Down and its creatures.

Remember in Minority Report, when Tom Cruise’s character tries to lose some pursuers in a crowded mall, but the sophisticated advertising technology of 2054 keeps identifying him by name and trying to sell him things? It’s a funny gag, and a useful plot point, since it means he can’t go anywhere without wall-holograms ratting him out to his enemies. But it’s also meant to be the sign of a dark future dystopia, where privacy has disappeared, and facial-recognition scanners and complicated algorithms target consumers individually.

The team behind the hit Netflix series Stranger Things has been taking us a step closer to that dark future lately, with a series of short Twitter “spoiler” videos aimed at calling out prominent individual fans of the show, and giving them tidbits about the next season. These micro-ads offer tailored reveals for single sources, like Nerdist’s Chris Hardwick:

We’re still two weeks out from Stranger Things’ season 2 premiere, but Netflix just released a new clip that should hit that sweet spot of dark, gooey, monster mystery until then.

The new scene above is short, but it gives us a pretty good look at the murky world of The Upside Down, and what it’s like to crawl out of it. In the clip, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) sees a hole in the wall of The Upside Down and fights her way through a sticky, slimy goo until she lands back in the halls of Hawkins High.

One of the unexpected delights of Stranger Things’ first season was its soundtrack, provided by Texas-based synth duo S U R V I V E. The band is returning to score the show’s second season, and the soundtrack will be digitally available on October 20th, a week before season 2 starts streaming.

Spin debuted the opening song of the soundtrack yesterday, a synth track called “Walkin’ in Hawkins,” and the rest of the 34-song tracklist teases out some intriguing hints about what to expect in the coming season with titles such as “Eulogy,” “Descent into the Rift,” “Symptoms,” “The Return,” and more. The album will also be released on CD, vinyl, and cassette tape at a later date.

It’s Friday the 13th, and appropriately, Netflix has released a new — and final — trailer for the second season of Stranger Things.

We got our last good look at the season back in July at San Diego Comic-Con, and we know that we can expect more nostalgia and bigger monsters in the upcoming season. Based on this new trailer, there’s that and a lot more.

One of the main appeals of Stranger Things was its close focus on paranormal events in the show’s stand-in for small town America: Hawkins, Indiana. With season 2 approaching, Netflix has released a viral video of a conspiracy theorist trying to tie the events of season 1 into much larger ones.

The short video has the look of a 1980s-era slide show, one that tries to connect Will Byer’s disappearance, supposed death, and discovery to much larger international events. The narrator brings up the Russian boycott of the 1984 Olympics, New Coke, Reagan’s Star Wars program, sunspots, and similar things as proof that the world is turning “upside-down.”

At the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con, audiences got their first look at two highly anticipated geek-culture properties. Stranger Things, Netflix’s ode to Steven Spielberg and Stephen King, got a second season trailer exploring the show’s expanding mythos, set to the iconic sounds of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” And Spielberg himself took to Comic-Con’s Hall H stage to reveal a teaser for Ready Player One, his adaptation of Ernest Cline’s best-selling pop-culture treasure-hunt adventure.

At first glance, they were perfect pieces of marketing for the Comic-Con crowds, both relying on the nostalgic pull that serves as the foundation for so much modern fandom. Stranger Things’ imagery of kids wearing Ghostbusters costumes, set to Vincent Price’s “Thriller” voiceover, seemed right in line with Ready Player One’s parade of DeLorean car chases, Freddy Krueger cameos, and Iron Giant reveals. But sit with both teasers for a while, and it quickly becomes clear that they aren’t the same thing at all. If there’s a right way and a wrong way to use nostalgia, these two trailers exemplify the opposing ends of the spectrum — raising the question of whether the makers of the Ready Player One adaptation even understand why the book worked in the first place.

Today at San Diego Comic Con, Netflix premiered a new trailer for it’s highly anticipated second season of its supernatural show Stranger Things. And from what we’ve seen, there’s plenty more ‘80s nostalgia. But the Upside-Down — and the monsters within it — is coming for Will Byers and everyone he loves.

We got our first glimpse of season 2 back in February during the Super Bowl. That brief teaser showed that the show was still mining the 1980s for nostalgic purposes, promising to turn the world upside-down, along with some bigger, stranger monsters.

The second season of Stranger Things has an official release date: October 27th, just a few days ahead of the originally teased Halloween debut. What’s even more exciting, though, is the new poster for the series. Featuring the core cast (sans Eleven, of course) and the spooky monster from the first trailer, it’s a perfect homage to classic Stephen King.

Stranger Things would be nothing without its genre inspirations. The first season already pulled from the likes of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Poltergeist, and Firestarter, just to name a few. The next season will surely pay homage to other beloved works. The poster alone seems to be inspired by artwork from King works like The Stand, The Mist, and Stand By Me, all while looking like something new (and terrifying). We’ve included a handful of covers below for comparison.

Ever since Netflix dropped its trailer for the second season of Stranger Things during the Super Bowl, there’s been an influx of details about what to expect, including one interesting detail: Wall-E and Finding Dory director Andrew Stanton will be directing two of the episodes, Entertainment Weekly reports.

“Andrew called me out of the blue and said, ‘I love it. I would be honored to be part of it,” the show’s executive producer, Shawn Levy, told EW.

There are few things as highly anticipated as the next season of Netflix’s Stranger Things. Ever since we finished binge-watching the show last summer, we’ve been left with all sorts of lingering questions. What happened to Eleven? What’s that thing that Will is coughing up? The first teaser trailer for the show’s second season aired during the Super Bowl, and we also now have a release date: Halloween.

The teaser shows off a reverence for all things nostalgia (Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Ghostbusters references, anyone?), and shows off glimpses of the gang, Eleven, Hop, and something very scary in the sky.

Netflix has officially granted Stranger Things a second season. We really dug the show and enjoyed the supernatural mystery that played out over the short eight-episode run, even as it raised a number of questions that will certainly play to a second season.

While we wait for the second season to arrive on Netflix, let’s go over what we’d like to see in the show’s sophomore season.

The second season of Netflix’s surprise summer hit Stranger Things is officially on its way. The streaming service just revealed on Twitter that the next run of episodes will premiere next year.

Today’s announcement comes with a video revealing what may or may not be the names of next season’s episodes, including such eerie titles as “The Pumpkin Patch” and “The Lost Brother.” We also learn that the plot will take place in the fall of 1984. (Will anyone in Hawkins, Indiana have brand new Macintoshes? We’ll find out soon enough!)