The march to Stranger Things Season 2 is the polar opposite of the promotional campaign that preceded Season 1, which largely consisted of a logline and Winona Ryder's casting announcement. The horror series became an instant hit on Netflix and the fandom was reignited thanks to the first trailer hitting during the Super Bowl. And now that we know some of what Season 2 will look like, the creators and cast have opened up about what to expect from the new batch of episodes. To start where Season 1 finished, co-creator Matt Duffer's surprising explanation for Will Byers' slug issues:
He seems to be seeing images from the Upside Down---the question is whether they're real or not. So it seems like he's having some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Aha! Although he uses the word "seems" twice, lessening this quote's potential as proof of anything in a court of law, Matt Duffer is saying that Will isn't actually going between the real world and the Upside Down in that last scene of Season 1, but that he might be having some sort of a mental flashback to his time there. That's about as interesting as Will actually being able to go back and forth at...will...since he likely wouldn't hop back over to the Upside Down as a willing volunteer, so we wouldn't get to see it much anyway.
I might not go so far as to say that Will was hallucinating that slug business that came out of his body, however, as Season 2 will feature other creatures that aren't normal by Earth standards, what with the rift still being open and supervised by Paul Reiser's new character. In fact, Dustin will get to partner up with a new otherworldly beast of his very own that he bonds with, according to EW.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Hopper is busy trying to build up a conspiracy within Hawkins, Indiana, as he's trying to keep all of the Upside Down stuff a secret, and having some inner turmoil over what lies he's telling citizens. Perhaps against Hopper's wishes, Joyce will be happily dating Sean Astin's Bob, who serves as a solid father figure for Will and Jonathan, but she's also got some big issues bubbling beneath the surface. Nancy and Mike, having lost both Barb and Eleven (temporarily, at least), will be "the most screwed-up," according to Ross Duffer.
And then there are the new characters! Dacre Montgomery's Billy and Sadie Sink's Max are siblings who will bring big changes to Hawkins and its population. Max fits in well with the younger group, with Dustin and Lucas both taking a keen eye to her in a more-than-friends kind of way, but Billy has a more nefarious arc planned. Stephen King, whose influence on Stranger Things was both apparent and admitted in Season 1, also inspired Billy's underpinnings, according to Matt Duffer.
Stephen King always has really great human villains. The evil in the real world is often as bad or worse than the supernatural evil, so we wanted to introduce a character like that.
Sometimes the biggest monsters are the ones we see in the mirror...and sometimes they're evil strangers from out of town. Find out how bad things will get when Stranger Things Season 2 hits Netflix on October 31, 2017, complete with Ghostbusters costumes. Head to our Netflix premiere schedule to see everything coming to the streaming service this year, and then check out all the other upcoming shows on our midseason premiere schedule.
