Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Remember back when you were a kid your mom got the Christmas edition of the Sears catalog in September, and immediately you started making your wish list, because it was literally never too soon to start thinking about what you wanted for Christmas? …Wait, was that just me? Anyway, the point is this: it’s never too soon to start making a wish list. And so with Stranger Things still glowing brightly, like a string of colored lights surrounding letters on a wall, our thoughts turn to how excited we are for season 2.
Spoilers ahead for Season 1 of Stranger Things, obviously.
Stranger Things season 1 didn’t exactly leave off on a cliffhanger. The monster was slayed, the lost child returned, and while there was collateral damage left in its wake (more on that in a second), the season felt like a mostly-closed loop. Still, there were enough dangling threads — not to mention enough monster-movie influences to explore — that a second season feels ripe with possibility. Producer Shawn Levy told Slashfilm, “We definitely are hopeful to go several more seasons. And the plan is to continue with this set of characters while introducing a few critical key new ones next season. So I’ll just say that a lot of the big mysteries get answered at the end of Season 1, but we are very much kind of unearthing new problems and questions that merit future stories and future investigation in the most enjoyable way.”
So what are we itching to see in a second season of Stranger Things?
Where's Eleven?
In destroying the demogorgon in the season’s final episode, Eleven saved the day but disappeared. While it’s plausible that she was destroyed, making the ultimate sacrifice for her new friends, we’ve all watch a successful TV show before. Rare is the program that will get rid of one of their most popular character after one season. Plus, we saw Hopper bring some waffles out to the woods and leave them out there. And there’s only one waffle enthusiast we can think of on Stranger Things. If season 2 means we get Hopper being Eleven’s only connection with the outside world, that would be pretty cool. Also hopefully if/when she does come back, we get to know her even better.
Why Is Will Puking Slugs?
So in the closing moments of the final episode, Will excuses himself from a dinner of Mom’s runny mashed potatoes to go cough up a slug into the bathroom sink. Just like the slug that was in his throat when Joyce and Hopper found him. And then he gets a few scary flashes of the Upside Down. So is this just Will experiencing PTSD? Or did he come back wrong? Or does the Upside Down still have some kind of hold on him? Having Will absent for so much of season 1 has us hoping he’ll be around a lot more in season 2. Even if he is smuggling a demogorgon inside him.
The Steve Redemption
Are we the only ones who are kind of rooting for Steve? His mid-season detour into Jerk Boyfriend mode when he thought his relationship with Nancy was threatened was incredibly unfortunate, and he has a great face for high-school villainy, so the shoe seemed to fit. But in one of the finale’s better twists, Steve helped Nancy and Jonathan fend off the monster. Which made it kind of understandable that when the story flashes forward a few months at the end, Nancy is with Steve again. Even if you’re rooting for Nancy and Jonathan, it still makes sense. We say keep this Steve redemption going. He and Nancy don’t need to end up together, but he doesn’t have to revert to stock jerky ex either. One of the great things about the show is how easy it is to root for the characters. Let Steve bask in the warm glow of the audience’s well wishes!
A New Monster
As Stranger Things was so good at borrowing from its 1980s influences, here’s hoping that they prize serialization over continuation. We obviously want to see these characters go on, and obviously there are some throughlines (see above) that we want to pick up. But with the demogorgon defeated, let’s let another monster — maybe even another type of monster — be the threat next year. Buffy the Vampire Slayer always nailed serialization the best, keeping seasons cohesive and (mostly) closed-ended. The Pandora’s Box of medical and government experimentation has been opened — the possibilities for monsters are endless.
BARB!
Oh, Barb. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you. Season 1’s most tragic casualty, Barb should probably stay dead; if the show is to have any stakes, death has to mean something. But let’s find a way to have Barb participate in season 2 anyway. Flashbacks? A ghost? A new monster assuming Barb’s undead skin husk as a host? Again, let’s really explore the space on this one.
