13 Clues the 'Stranger Things' Creators Have Given Us for Season 2
Here are the details that creators Matt and Ross Duffer have revealed.
When Stranger Things debuted and became a summer hit in July, creators Ross and Matt Duffer might been tempted to tease out Season 2. But Netflix hadn’t officially announced anything, so any about about Eleven and the Upside-Down was officially non-binding. While Stranger Things doesn’t need a second season, it was just a matter of time until one was confirmed.
On Wednesday, the Stranger Things Season 2 teaser landed with news that the nine-episode series premieres in 2017. All the things the Duffer brothers said about the story now feel more like previews instead of hypothetical. Those comments take on a slightly different light. Here are all the things the Duffer brothers have said about Stranger Things Season 2.
1. Season 2 will be about the fallout from Season 1.
Matt Duffer told IGN about the no-longer-hypothetical Season 2:
So part of what we want to do with hypothetical Season 2 is to explore the repercussions of everything that happened.
2. We’ll get to know a lot more about the Upside-Down.
Matt Duffer told EW that we’ll be spending a lot more time in another dimension:
Will was living in this Upside-Down, this other dimension, for about a week, so the repercussions of that can’t be good. [The] inter-dimensional rift is still very much open, so that also can’t be good… There’s a bigger mythology behind what happened. It’s open-ended in a way that if people wanted it, if Netflix wanted it, we could explore and continue this storyline.”
We'll get way more of this.
3. Season 2 is chronological for a reason.
Season 1 was in 1983, and naturally Season 2 is in 1984:
“Yeah, you have to do the Harry Potter thing, Matt Duffer explained. “You have to jump a year. Because, like, Gaten [Matarazzo, who plays Dustin in the series], his voice has already dropped quite a bit, to the point where we couldn’t even do ADR [automated dialogue replacement] with him. We had to pitch it way up. It’s dropped. He’s grown. As much as I would love to have it be Christmas right after that, it’s just not feasible, so we’re going to skip a year. They’ll be a year older, and all their changes they’re going through, well take that into account and kind of work that into the show.
4. Season 2 gets an extra episode.
Ross Duffer explained that nine episodes instead of eight is purely because the new story requires it:
When we first pitched it to Netflix, we said, “This is an eight-episode story,” and they were like, “Great!” That’s the amazing thing about Netflix. They do not dictate. They don’t tell anyone that it should be 10 episodes or 13 episodes. They just say, “What do you need to tell your story?” and that’s an amazing freedom that most storytellers who are working in film or TV haven’t had.
5. There will be a different structure to Season 2.
Matt Duffer told EW they want to switch the storytelling up this time around:
It’s going to have a different structure… We want to retain the tone, but all our favorite sequels feel a little different. Its not about just taking another monster and it’s a bigger, badder monster. We want it to feel a little bit different, maybe a little bit darker, but still have the sense of fun that we had.
6. James Cameron will be a big influence.
Matt Duffer cited the director and how his sequels will have an impact on the new season:
I know movie sequels get a lot of [shit], but the ones we look up to aspire to pivot and do something different,” explains Matt. There’s Temple of Doom, Aliens, Terminator 2. I guess a lot of this is James Cameron. But he’s brilliant. And I think one of the reasons his sequels are as successful as they are is he makes them feel very different without losing what we loved about the original. So I think we kinda looked to him and what he does and tried to capture a little bit of the magic of his work.
There's gotta be even creepier government experiments outside of Hawkins.
7. It won’t completely take place in Hawkins.
Matt Duffer says Season 2 ventures outside the city limits:
We will venture a little bit outside of Hawkins. I will say the opening scene [of the premiere] does not take place in Hawkins.
Does this mean we'll get more of Mike's dad?
8. New characters don’t mean we have to say goodbye to the old ones.
Season 2 gets four new characters, but Matt Duffer stressed it’ll still focus on the Season 1 group:
We fell in love with the kids and all of our actors, so we want to stay with them. And now we know what they’re capable of. I know that I could throw David Harbour (Chief Jim Hopper) the craziest fastball, and he’ll hit it out of the park. I think we’ll have a lot of fun, if they let us do it.
Will Byers is still in deep shit.
9. Will Byers isn’t off the hook from his time in the Upside Down.
Ross Duffer said that slug he coughed up is going to be a major problem:
We love the idea that [the Upside Down] is an environment that is not a great place for a human being to be living in. Will’s been there for an entire week, and it’s had some kind of effect on him, both emotionally and perhaps physically. The idea is he’s escaped this nightmare place, but has he really? Thats a place we wanted to go and potentially explore in season two. What effect does living in there for a week have on him? And what has been done to him? It’s not good, obviously.
10. Barb is definitely dead!
Sorry, but Matt Duffer confirmed it:
I can’t see it [Barb’s return] happening. But Barb will not be forgotten. We’ll make sure there’s some justice for Barb. People get very frustrated, understandably, that the town doesn’t seem to be really dealing with Barb. That stuff is all happening. We’re just not spending any screen time on it.
Barb, we hardly knew ye.
11. Dr. Brenner is definitely not dead.
The Season 1 baddie might have been disfigured by the Demogorgon, but Matt Duffer says it didn’t kill him:
If we were going to kill Brenner… as an audience member watching the show, if that was his death, that would be very unsatisfying to me when the monster jumps on him and we cut away. He would deserve much more than that as an ending. So yes, there’s a possibility of seeing him again.
12. Hopper and El will team-up…kind of.
Hopper sold Eleven out to the government, but Matt Duffer said it will be a point of contention in Season 2:
Obviously something happened to her when she destroyed and killed that monster and we don’t know what she went. Hopper is left with this guilt because he sold her out. We wanted to leave it sort of mysterious exactly what he knows… Have there been sightings in the woods or is he hoping she’s out there or has he already made contact with her? We don’t answer any of that, but we like the idea of potentially putting her and Hopper together.
Why did you sell Eleven out, Hop?
13. We’ll get an explanation about Hopper’s government ties.
According to Ross Duffer, one of Season 1’s most contentious moments will become more clear:
The intention in the scene when he gets in the car and we want to get into this in the next season – is the clean up of what happened and the mess of all this and Will dying and coming back to life, whatever happened at the school, and the dead bodies… This is not a simple clean-up job. It’s complicated. We have all these characters that know that these crazy things happen. We liked the idea that, sort of lead by Hopper, our characters are drawn closer to the government, in terms of having to make a bit of a deal with the devil. To us, that’s an exciting place to take our story.
