Stranger things second season disappointing

#STRANGER THINGS SECOND SEASON DISAPPOINTING SERIES#

As for poor Eleven, you probably noticed the sweetest Halloween reference was her heartbreaking attempt to disguise herself as a white-sheeted ghost so she could enjoy Halloween like a normal kid. Speaking of the Mind Flayer, this Lovecraftian entity served as a more than able antagonist for the showвЂ™s second season, its insidious, shadowy nature acted as a natural counterpart to the more feral Demogorgon of season one. As one would expect, Halloween didnвЂ™t turn out too happily for anyone, as WillвЂ™s connection to the Mind Flayer began to fully manifest itself and Eleven was once again left marooned and starved of companionship.

From porch shots and forest sequences that evoked the splatterhouse classic, The Evil Dead to the maggot-ridden rotting pumpkins that were visually redolent of the slightly less celebrated Halloween III: Season Of The Witch, the creeping sense of dread was cleverly managed, by riffing on an iconography that we all instinctively understand. Going back to those horror roots for a moment though, the opening episodes successfully used visual tropes of the genre to great effect, slowly building up a simmering sense of atmosphere. For some no doubt, the slower pacing in season two may have been an issue, but getting to see Mike and Nancy squabble like normal siblings, the boys hanging out at the Palace Arcade playing DragonвЂ™s Lair, (the perfect video game to foreshadow a couple of season twoвЂ™s key plotlines) and cosplaying the Ghostbusters on a schoolday when nobody else at Hawkins Middle School bothered to dress up was lots of fun, especially because it wasnвЂ™t overshadowed by a missing friend or a rampaging alien beastie from another dimension.

As for the audience? We simply enjoy the opportunity to simply revel in experiencing a childhood that may not be our own, but in many ways is equally familiar, as weвЂ™ve experienced its transcendent power through endless movies, books and TV. Of course, PriceвЂ™s macabre guffaws featured in the trailer because Stranger Things 2 channels the horror genre with which he was synonymous: perhaps realizing that much of the showвЂ™s initial charm relied on a spellbinding sense of nostalgia, Stranger Things 2вЂ™s autumn rescheduling doubles down on that as we revisit Hawkins during Halloween and the slower-burning structure of this season, (especially in comparison to the first) means that the Duffers really give the town and its inhabitants time to breathe during this creepy holiday season. Somehow, Stranger Things has emerged triumphantly with a second season that in lots of ways, improves upon the first. With that in mind, it makes the decision of the Duffer Brothers to lean so heavily into sequel-style elements, those same elements that have been portents ofвЂ¦ well, if not doom then at least diminished success, for so many iconic franchises that have come before, all the more praiseworthy. Think about it: Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Gremlins, three beloved franchises that Stranger ThingsвЂ™ second season borrows from, all of which suffered from DSAS.

#STRANGER THINGS SECOND SEASON DISAPPOINTING SERIES#

After all, Difficult Second Album Syndrome is a real thing, (it has to be, IвЂ™ve already started capitalizing it nowвЂ¦ at this rate itвЂ™ll be an acronym before long) and there are many bands out there, The Clash included, who found it impossible to deliver on the promise of their breakthrough success second time around.ДЇor a series in the vein of Stranger Things, where homage and intertextuality are part of the very fabric of the show, the self-awareness of a вЂњsophomore slumpвЂќ must have been pretty deafening. Our spoiler-free review is here.Д¬onsidering their affinity for the punk rhythms of The Clash, the creative team behind Stranger Things would have been very aware of the trickiness of that вЂњdifficult second albumвЂќ following a smash-hit first season on Netflix that earned the show rapturous critical and commercial praise.

Stranger things second season disappointing