Stranger Things is back, but it’s not reinventing its own wheel. 

For many of those that bonded with the original run of Stranger Things, it felt like something close to perfect.

Far more than the sum of its tropes, it played with the ensemble cast and its stylistic influences in new and interesting ways, confounding what we thought we knew about it to surprise, amuse, and scare in equal measure. It was, even under the intense analysis of the internet and repeated viewings, an amazing run of thoroughly modern retro television.

Of course, the problem with creating something so pitch perfect, with such satisfying character arcs is that, when the finances of the modern media industry push you back to the well for another cup full, you have to try to achieve the same results without repeating yourself. Say hello to the peril of diminishing returns.

Of course, one way to stave this off is the introduction of new characters and dangers. Which brings us to the opening scene of Stranger Things 2.

This set piece also addresses perhaps the biggest season 2 set-up tactic used in the show’s first outing: if that’s 011, what happened to numbers 001-010, and are there potentially hundreds of kids like El? Thus we meet Kali, number 006, who is using her power to induce hallucinations to escape the police, following some unspecified crime for which she and her accomplices are being pursued.

Three cars in a high-speed chase, though? Must be pretty serious. Are they chasing her specifically, or all of the punk-rock-band looking gang? We’re going to have to wait to find out, as we don’t see her again in this episode.

We’re quickly told it’s October 26th, 1984. Almost a year after the events of season 1. There are a few changes in haircut, and Dustin has upgraded his walkie-talkie to a funky headset model, but essentially everything seems to have settled into an uneasy sense of normality in Hawkins. In this spirit Will – despite the obvious discomfort of Joyce –  Mike, Lucas and Dustin take a wonderfully referenced visit to the arcade (blimey this show knows how to push the right geek buttons).

There, we are introduced to the titular Madmax. Or at least we discover that it is, in fact, the Hi-Score handle of some as-yet-unseen Dig Dug ninja. Dustin being displaced from his perch atop his arcade’s roll of honour is not the only serious drama that happens during their evening out, though.

It takes less than nine minutes total for the normality of the boys’ lives to be upset in our eyes, when Will is zapped back into The Upside Down. It’s a moment of cloud tank goodness that would probably make a Richard Edlund showreel, had he not been doing it on Poltergeist 35 years earlier. It’s also the moment that reminds you of how good Stranger Things was, and is, and how disturbing its central ‘flea on a tightrope’ premise remains.

Will is now the flea, it would appear.

At that moment, almost any concerns I may have had about whether I would care enough about ST2 dissipated; especially as the moment that shatters the patina of the boys’ normality, also begins the process of slowly unpacking what’s really going on under the skin of the small town.

Thus, we re-meet Hopper, still chuffing on a Camel, trying to maintain his shabby air of not-giving-a-shit, fending off the enquiries and entreaties of an investigator who has half the truth about El. We see the work Hop’s doing to maintain the faustian pact he made with Hawkins lab to protect its secrets in exchange for Will, and in those efforts his commitment to Joyce’s family. That’s despite, as we later learn, the show circumventing the cliche that she and Hop pair-off.  They didn’t… In fact Joyce has a new beau, Mr. Frodo – the unnervingly normal Bob Newby, played by Sean Astin.

The investigator, we discover, is looking to resolve the great injustice of series 1 (#JusticeForBarb), at the behest of the lost teenager’s parents – who, in a low-key heartbreaking scene, reveal they are selling their house to fund the search for their missing daughter. That they explain this with such hope to two people who unequivocally know what her fate was is a great dramatic moment, and watching Nancy leave the table is the televisual equivalent of watching cracks in a dam slowly widen.

Steve, for his part, hasn’t quite completed his journey from high school sociopathic cliche to real human being, but he’s getting there, and he’s still trying. At this moment – tellingly – he smiles and awkwardly carries on, though.

The major outward indicator that something is – literally – rotten in the town of Hawkins is the blight affecting the town’s pumpkin crop. Though, in a typical moment of subtle Stranger Things character work (that it does so much to tell you about these people without words is, frankly, always a joy) our first encounter with this phenomenon does not lead to musings on whether ‘it’s all happening again’ in portentous tones.

It’s actually used to show just how on edge Hopper is in everyday life. I mean, seriously, he pulls his gun in a field of corn, in full daylight, while investigating pumpkins, because of a crow… This guy is on the edge, and we can see it plain as day.

Through a meeting with one former My Two Dads (claim your eighties reference bonus point), Paul Reiser, we discover that Will’s moments in The Upside Down are a fairly regular occurrence. We also discover that his character, Dr. Owens, and his air of scatty, pally-pally ambivalence (he calls Hopper Will’s “Pop” as if he doesn’t really know who he is – nice touch) is merely a cover for a new regime at the lab. What’s more, the new team is continuing to experiment in the basement – and Owens is, in fact, the main man.

That the newly installed powers-that-be are trying to pin Will’s visions on PTSD, while at the same time rigging him up to the same brain scanning device that El was regularly outputting to in s1, hints that Will is now a much bigger part of their plans, rather than just collateral damage.

By this point all the pieces are in place for the new drama. Other things happen: we discover that Madmax is, in fact, Maxine – a new girl in school that quickly becomes an object of obsession for Dustin and Lucas; that Mike keeps trying to contact El via his radio, and he may be hearing her voice; there’s some Will/Jonathan bonding; domestic ‘bliss’ at the Byers’ house; another encounter with the those clouds in the Upside Down for Will; and some strange activity in the Lab basement that hints things are on the move. Basically, set-up is complete, though.

Apart from, of course, one thing: what happened to El? This reveal is left to the end, when we find that Hopper has been looking after 011 in a cabin in the woods.

Watching the short scene of the two interacting in a quotidian, faux-domestic way is another beautiful layer of character progression for both. Hop’s caring for El is obviously a call-back to the loss of his daughter, and something that he needs – but he’s still a bit of a screw-up tied to his job. El, for her part, is learning to be a person, and in so-doing exposing all the ways in which she has been horribly stunted by her treatment. Bittersweet seems to be a word practically invented for this touching moment.

Anyone wondering if Stranger Things was going to reinvent its own wheel for season 2 will either be overjoyed or dismayed that this is resolutely the same offering as last time around. Personally, when something is as effectively put together and packaged as the first run of this show was, I have absolutely no problem with that.

There’s enough in ‘Madmax’ to show that these characters still have a ways to go in terms of us understanding them, and watching them grow and develop, and the mysteries of The Upside Down, still have the core power to grip and – yes – frighten.

Bear in mind that you should never be fooled by the look and feel of this show. It always was, and still is, far more than an 80s throwback. That’s just the icing on an impressively layered cake, which has manipulated our expectations at almost every turn.

If you think the new characters are predictable, just remember Steve going at the Demagorgon with a nail-filled baseball bat and trust that The Duffer Brothers have more of the same surprises and revelations in store for us this time around. ‘Madmax’ sketches out what we’re facing in broad strokes, while adding finer detail to people we think we already know.

As a season 2 opener, then, it ticks all the boxes.

Strange Things

• Terminator actually came out two days before the date this is set, so it’s place on the Cinema billboard is totally correct – it was the top-grossing movie in the US for two weeks after opening.  
• Dragon’s Lair was really temperamental ‘cause the frame rates were so low, it was expensive to play too – ‘cause it used Laserdisc technology.
• It looked amazing for the time, though, having been animated by Don Bluth. He worked for Disney, directed The Land Before Time and did the animation on Xanadu – that film with Olivia Newton John.
• He’s planning to turn Dragon’s Lair into a movie now, apparently.
• That guy who runs the arcade was in Jurassic World… He ran the hamster ball ride. He was in Selfie too, but we’ll forgive him that.
• Sean Astin was probably filming Goonies in 1984… I feel old.
• Mr. Mom was written by Jon Hughes. He didn’t direct it, though… It was Michael Keaton’s second feature film, but not his finest hour.
• Did you spot the guy from My Two Dads? If Greg Evigan turns up in this, I think I’ll explode.