Phenomenal second season! The creators did a great job building up the characters while still focusing on the upside down. The events in the first season opened up a flood gate of questions and this season helped highlight and expand on the ramifications of their actions. Life cannot just go on as normal. There are consequences and it was great to see those portrayed realistically.
The introduction of Max I guess was inevitable considering their age and how eventually some of them will start dating. It will be interesting to see how their friendships survive in future seasons but I like how mature Dustin is watching his crush pair up with his best friend. Dustin and Steve's friendship is the best though and I hope they keep building that in future seasons.
The only episode I thought was a bomb was episode 7 Lost Sister. Unless they were using that as a tease to find interest in a spin-off, it was pointless. And if they wanted to show El's temptation to the dark side, we already saw that in season 1. If it's purpose was solely for another hairstyle change, there's MTV (for those that didn't grow up in the '80's, back then it really was Music Television). And please, in future seasons, please lose the slicked back '50's hairstyle for El...A Siouxie Sioux or Joan Jett hairstyle would look much better on her and would definitely hit the era more.
Over all, I want more please. :-)
Review by JiyuBlockedParentSpoilers2020-02-22T15:20:53Z
It's less of a mystery and more action and campy fun. Most of the horror sequences are solidly intense and had me on the edge of my seats (although I'm not too keen on some of the gratuitous jump scares towards the end). The whole season feels like one cohesive long movie, with wonderfully inspired editing and great visuals.
In terms of character development, it is good if a little uneven. Steve was pretty interesting in the first season, and is even better here; Jim Hopper is really likable even with bad parenting skills; Bob is just really wholesome. However, while I can accept Bob's death, the execution feels little soapy for me. As for the girls, while I appreciate the effort put on fleshing out the character of Eleven, her characterization still ends up murky and artificial. Max's character feels a liitle flat for me; we get teased about her being fierce and cool, but in the end all she did was tag along and be a love interest for the boys, and her problem with her family and her need to belong are mentioned without further exploration.
Overall, it's still a great season, and I'm looking forward to binging through the next season.
PS a minor gripe I had with the color grading: the excessive cyan-ish tone in the daylight exterior scenes really distracts me from focusing on the image.