I admit I was lukewarm on the first season of Netflix's spooky darling, Stranger Things, when it premiered last year, enjoying the acting and theme but finding the plot constantly tripping over itself. I'm happy to say that the Duffer Brothers' second season has dramatically improved, presumably thanks to a better special effects budget and writing team.
Firstly, the acting, while already solid in the first line of episodes, has improved dramatically. For the child actors, Wolfhard, McLaughlin, and Brown really excelled this season, while I still feel sorry for Will's actor, Noah Schnapp, consistently getting limited chances to shine. Ryder, Harbour, Dyer, and Keery are excellent as always, and the new members (Sean Astin, Montogmery, and Gelman) were all great additions to an already closely-knit cast, with Sadie Sink's new member to the "party" being my favorite. The characters are written to play off each other better than before, in addition to moments of complex tension being constantly thrown into the mix.
The special effects have also stepped up drastically, with the CGI for the Upside-Down and the horrors it spawns meshing well with the sleepy small-town setting (and damn, this season's finale sequence puts the previous year's school-setting to shame). My only complaint was the seventh episode, "The Lost Sister", which provided some interesting development for Eleven but felt unnecessarily tied down to the uninteresting punk characters and Chicago setting for an entire episode.
If you were iffy after the first season, the second improves on all fronts massively, presenting a twisting mystery begging to be solved by an incredible cast of characters.
Firstly, the acting, while already solid in the first line of episodes, has improved dramatically. For the child actors, Wolfhard, McLaughlin, and Brown really excelled this season, while I still feel sorry for Will's actor, Noah Schnapp, consistently getting limited chances to shine. Ryder, Harbour, Dyer, and Keery are excellent as always, and the new members (Sean Astin, Montogmery, and Gelman) were all great additions to an already closely-knit cast, with Sadie Sink's new member to the "party" being my favorite. The characters are written to play off each other better than before, in addition to moments of complex tension being constantly thrown into the mix.
The special effects have also stepped up drastically, with the CGI for the Upside-Down and the horrors it spawns meshing well with the sleepy small-town setting (and damn, this season's finale sequence puts the previous year's school-setting to shame). My only complaint was the seventh episode, "The Lost Sister", which provided some interesting development for Eleven but felt unnecessarily tied down to the uninteresting punk characters and Chicago setting for an entire episode.
If you were iffy after the first season, the second improves on all fronts massively, presenting a twisting mystery begging to be solved by an incredible cast of characters.