Errrmaaahgerd.
A second season of the Netflix smash hit Stranger Things is in the works. While the show hasn’t been given the green light from producers just yet, the Duffer brothers have confirmed that they are busy working on the next installment.
The fine people over at IGN interviewed the shows creators, Matt and Ross Duffer who confirmed that they are already busy working on season two. If you haven’t finished the first season yet, it’s advisable to look away now (and hurry up, what could possibly be taking you so long?)
Here is what we know so far.
The second season is guaranteed to be totally different from the first.
(Temple of Doom via YouTube)
Although it will only take place a year after the first season, the Duffer brothers have confirmed that the overall feel of the show will be different. Believe it or not, it’s going to be ever weirder and darker. The brothers have professed an aesthetic admiration for the year 1984 in terms of pop culture references which they plan on tying into the show. Think Ghostbusters, Temple of Doom, Karate Kid and The Gremlins. Their modus operandi is to mess with peoples heads.
“[Temple of Doom] messed up a lot of kids, and I love that about the film-that it really traumatised some children. Not saying that we want to traumatise children, just that we want to get a little darker and weirder”
It will be called Stranger Things 2
The brothers are treating the second season as a sequel. The focus and tension will be different from that of the first, of course there are, as Mark Duffer, says “lingering questions” but “the idea with season two is there’s a new tension and the goal is can the characters resolve that tension by the end.”
Cult favourite Barb is gone, but not forgotten… #Im with barb
Since the show aired, over a month ago (where does the time go?) Barb, full name Barbara Holland has been the surprise stand-out. The internet just bloody loves this awkward wallflower, and part of the reason is that we can all see a bit of ourselves in the frumpy, loyal friend. Journalist Brian Moylan has hypothesised it best by saying
“Nancy is an archetype created through an evil conspiracy launched by Wes Craven, John Hughes, and Molly Ringwald sometime during the Reagan administration. It’s a conspiracy more dangerous than nuclear proliferation, because everyone is still trying to be Nancy and hating who they really are: Barb”
Fair. While the Duffer brothers have confirmed that Barb is well and truly gone, they do plan on acknowledging her death a little more in season two, because to be honest, no one (bar Nancy) actually gave any fucks about Barb.
The Jonathan/Nancy/Steve love triangle continues.
So, at the end of season one there were a few important and surprising character arcs. The total transformation of the douche bag jock Steve, most notable as he goes from being the quintessential jealous asshole to somewhat of a hero. We were all sort of rooting for loner Jonathan to get with Nancy at the end, but as the brothers explain, they wanted the show to be as realistic to the teenage experience as possible.
Ross “even though Nancy and Jonathan were making a connection, we really wanted Steve to make that hero turn in the end…Part of that was because Joe Keery who played him was just supposed to be this obnoxious douche bag but he was so likable that he gave the character such dimensions that we wanted to give him an arc at the end”
Matt relates to Jonathan a lot more, he talks about how unrealistic a Nancy/Jonathan coupling would’ve been in season one, but doesn’t rule it out for future seasons
“I never got a girl in High School. It didn’t happen. If Jonathan ends up getting Nancy that’s like a fantasy to me-it doesn’t feel very realistic. But maybe we can build to that”.
Season two probably won’t be the last season.
Eeek! The brothers have confirmed that while they don’t see Stranger Things spanning six or seven seasons they do have a few more stories up their sleeve.
“I feel like we have a story we want to tell. We have an ending that we want to get to and I guess the question is just how long do we need to get there… We do want to be really truthful in terms of how the characters react and respond to things. And it feels like they would leave Hawkins.”
