WARNING: SPOILERS BENEATH MEME.

The new season of Stranger Things truly lives up to its name, because it’s anything but ordinary. Fans have been squirming in their seats as those red letters appear jumbled on the screens, watching in apprehensive excitement as to what is hidden in the newest episode. The season begins almost a year after the last season ended, with a fairly normal episode portraying Will in recovery mode from last seasons traumatic events. With Will doing slightly better, despite having spooky visions of the upside down (similar to the one at the end of season one), the group is back together and doing well. Billy Hargrove and Max Mayfield, two step-siblings with a mysterious background, are introduced in the very first episode to heighten the attention of the shows Eggo-eating audience. Furthermore, we see the reemergence of several characters from season one with different attitudes. For example, we see Joyce Byers with a new sweetheart named Bob, who is the poster boy for everything pure and good in the world.    

Throughout the season, Will’s condition slowly gets worse, and thanks to advice from his new practically-dad Bob, he stands up to the dark presence he sees in his visions. This ultimately does not go well for him; thanks a ton Bob. This is in part due to the fact that Hawkins Lab, which caused all kinds of problems last season, is still running experiments on and in the upside down, which is causing tunnels to form under the outskirts of Hawkins. Will can see these tunnels in his visions, but doesn’t know what they’re about or how they affect him and his friends and family until later on in the season.

But what about Eleven? Its revealed in the second episode that she’s being kept by Hopper in a small cabin in the middle of the woods, where she stays for nearly a year until she catches a rebellious streak and goes off on her own towards the end of the season. Her motive: to find her mother. When she does, via a “nice man and a big truck”, she uncovers both her and “Mama’s” tragic backstory. After all of this, she goes to find another girl like her that was revealed in her mother’s memories, or as Eleven calls the girl, her “sister.”

Initiate rant about episode seven. The entire second season of Stranger Things is absolutely enthralling, with romance and action and even some tears; every aspect that a show needs to keep its viewers glued to the edge of their seats. Episode seven was, however, none of these things. Leading up to this disgrace, episode six was just as good as the rest of the season, with a cliffhanger ending that made you count down to the next forty-five minutes of…not-so-greatness. Episode seven was a huge letdown, and had very little to do at all with the overall plot. It was all about Eleven, or Jane (as we found out from her trips to Mama’s) increasing the amount of power with training from her “sister”, who was number Eight. Eight was mentioned in the very first five minutes of the first episode, and it almost felt like the Duffer Brothers had forgotten about her until then, and obligatorily had to throw her back into the show. Overall, the episode didn’t deepen the plot and beyond that, and was mostly unnecessary and distracting from the original story. It was, however, one of the only flaws in the second season, and is outweighed by the amount of greatness that came before and after it.  

Despite this, one bad episode doesn’t distract from what makes this season so good: character development, the addition of new characters, various plot twists, the skill of the actors, and how thick the plot became towards the end of the season. We see changes in Eleven and  Hopper especially, and even the group of boys. This seasons amazing qualities are also thanks to the fact that each age group is almost in a different genre of horror and suspense. The children of the show are in the average sci-fi/fantasy, coming of age story where they fight monsters that were never supposed to exist. The teenagers of the show (Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve) are in the horror movie, trying desperately to live normal lives with conflictual relationships (that definitely benefit Johnathan) while fighting monsters on the side. The adults are in a government conspiracy thriller in which they have to solve the mystery in order to protect their town, children, and loved ones. All of these genres come together at the end of the season, which is what makes Stranger Things as amazingly set up as it is.

All the tiny details and wonderfully thought-out plot make the Duffer Brothers’ creation as strange and attention-grabbing as it could possibly be. From Steve Harrington turning into (basically) a foster mother for the boys to an “adorable” demadog friend named D’artagnan, aka Dart, this season has it all and is debatably even better than the first. If you haven’t yet watched Stranger Things, it’s a must-see, so set aside some time this weekend. It only takes a little over 8 hours to binge the whole thing – or if you’re a normal human, maybe a week or so.