Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Season 2 debuts September 17 on Netflix.
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, Netflix’s animated series spin-off of their Stranger Things live-action series, returns for a Valentine’s Day-themed season set in early February 1985. After the events of Season 1, Nikki Baxter (Odessa A’zion) is now a full-fledged member of Dustin’s (Braxton Quinney) Hawkins Investigators Club or HIC. He remains the ever-enthusiastic adventurer dedicated to their club even though nightly group hunts for the weird and supernatural have unearthed nothing. But Hawkins doesn’t stay quiet for long — a petty robbery at the Palace Arcade coincides with the disappearance of town delinquent Charlie Dandridge (Benjamin Valic) and a field of ominous bioluminescent flowers popping up in the woods.
Intrigued, the HIC quickly discover that the flowers are actually Audrey II-looking critters being harvested by glowing blue “hate sprites,” as dubbed by Max, and they’re not friendly. In fact, they’re harbingers of a bigger ghost-like creature that’s on the hunt for humans. Across the eight episodes of this season, the kids will determine why they’ve shown up, how they tie into the lore of Hawkins’ founding, and deal with some other unfinished business from last season.
On the character front, the impending romantic holiday brings out the worst in Max (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport), who picks plenty of fights with Lucas (Elisha “EJ” Williams), which ties into their canon on again/off again status referred to in Season 3 of the live-action series. Eleven (Brooklyn Davey Norstedt) and Mike (Luca Diaz) also continue to figure out what they are, even though Eleven remains as fiercely protective of Mike as ever.
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Season 2 is more focused on the core crew of characters and integrates Nikki nicely into the friend dynamic. Parents don’t factor into their late-night roamings, and even Steve Harrington is MIA. While the new mystery involves some unknown town history and an important character from Season 1, overall the scripts continue to pale in comparison to the live-action series. Characterization is kept simple, with problems stemming from one-note issues like financial troubles in Nikki’s household or Max being upset with her absent father. Instead of trying — or being allowed — to fill in the blanks with this ensemble, the majority of the season is just interested in moving the plot along or setting up big action beats. While an animated series is usually the medium for big ideas to be brought to life, this second season is an example of “more is not more.” It’s actually a bit exhausting to watch fight after fight and chase upon chase when we know the core kids are safe from anything serious happening to them because of where these stories live in the timeline.
Season 2 makes it more clear than ever that a season-long mystery of even a truncated eight episodes feels too long. The set pieces remain frustratingly winnable and repetitive, while the characters only advance in minuscule ways. In truth, Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 might have been better conceived as a “case of the week” series à la Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, where each episode was more focused on the kids pairing up for individualized creative mysteries tailored to the tone and personalities of the characters. Unfortunately, this current format is not meeting the high writing standards of the Stranger Things franchise.
Where it does excel is in the quality of its animation. Flying Bark Productions executes some very cool creatures this season with the sprites, ethereal bugs, and a “Big Bad” that is striking to see in action. The animated performances of each of the cast members also remain strong and in keeping with their live-action counterparts. Jolie Hoang-Rappaport as Max and Braxton Quinney as Dustin remain the vocal MVPs, adding a lot of energy to the season even when the story gets stuck in ruts or unnecessary side missions.
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Season 2 isn’t so much a sophomore slump as it is a status quo continuation of the good and the less-than-great from Season 1. This season’s mystery is a little more interesting, but it doesn’t have the kind of emotional weight or originality in story we expect from this franchise.
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