Chapter One: MADMAX

This lays the groundwork very well. I have to admit I had to rack my brain to pull together the events of last season, but it didn't take long. We have our foursome trying to just be kids, but they seem to tempt fate. The episode starts with a car chase where the van being pursued vanishes into thing air, along with its occupants. We have the boy who disappeared and "came back to life" dealing with the nastiness of adolescence. A new character is introduced. She is Max, a redhead, who is a master game player and extremely formidable with others. The boys are immediately take with her, even though she leaves a message for these creeps to stop looking at her. Will has apocalyptic visions and it's obvious that the bad guys are still at work, messing with evil. Nice job.

Just in time for Halloween :D the "Stranger Things" is back, at the first couple of scenes you'd think the show appeared to be really fast and thrilling yet a bit disconnected especially with that new girl "number 008", but you won't wait longer till they rapidly hit us with a the new strong fast Multi-sub-plots still based on the wired unexplainable things that happen in that small Indiana town thing but feel so fresher and alive.

Still loving the visuals, it all feels so 80's , everything is on point, i mean like that moment with the crow in the "poisoned" field,right in the last part with the garbage bin scare !! it was so real ,, like for a show has a overall Mystery/Sci-Fi i hardly put it in the Horror genre but damn there are a couple of scenes really makes you jump your seat.

Will Byers character is still a big part of the story and this season he's having more time and big chunk of the story.

This season there are a new set of characters like number 008 and that Mad Max girl and Dr. Owens played by Paul Reiser and that weird bearded "Believer" Murray Bauman played unexpectedly by Brett Gelman but they all look to be adjusting and acclimating very well in the environment of "Stranger Things".

Finally Eleven appears in the last scene with her new look just makes you play the next episode right on.

Done with episode one and the events are steadily building up to hopefully a big finish as i'm planning to watch the whole season today, and that's why we love Netflix.

For over a year, people have been talking about Stranger Things. However, they are mostly talking about the characters. The 80s nostalgia is talked about, too, and so is the plot, but it's the characters everyone is praising. Therefore, I hoped that they would set up the characters. And did they! I enjoyed seeing what happened to the characters between 1983 and 1984 -- figuratively speaking. This episode is character development heavy. No plot heavy. But that's okay! I wanted to know that the characters have developed, and developed they have. I can't wait to see what happens next.

One of the first things we see in Hawkins is the introduction of the local penny arcade, and the advent of Dragon's Lair- one of the first video games which actually used a laserdisk, a dollar per play. It was very difficult to control "Dirk the dunderhead"- after wasting about $50 on that game I just gave up. It was practically impossible to beat.

Every season I was aghast at the realism that they poured into actually getting us to believe that this was the 80s, they nailed it.

We also get to see the introduction of "mad max" and Billy.

While everybody is recovering from the catastrophe of season one, a new catastrophe that is thousands of times worse is developing- right under their feet!

And Joyce is still driving that Pinto, I had a Pinto the exact color as that.

The hype leading into Season 2 was no laughing matter, and I think it was a stroke of genius to let this (re)introductory episode focus on the larger picture of Hawkins, Indiana. There isn't really a central character (yet, at least), and they're all just pieces on a game board.

To that end, it's an exciting board game to return to, and opens things up for new faces (Paul Reiser and Sean Astin); and the existing characters have just the right amount of familiarity. Dustin's efforts to maintain his Dig Dug high score made for some of the best scenes. To a great extent, this is just a big Welcome Back sign. While this show has been about creating eerie environment, it's a place I've been wanting to get back to. The soundtrack is fantastic, and the song selection really helps enhance the mood.

In the end, it's really that mood (not the '80s references) that pulls me time and again. This is a hell of a start to a new season.

8/10