Date of release: October 27, 2017 (Netflix)
Written by: Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer
Directed by: Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer
”Do you wanna be normal? Do you wanna be just like everyone else? Being a freak is the best.”
I love the fact that the previous season did not end with such a major cliffhanger that necessitated this episode having to go straight into the action. No, it was a calm affair, a teasing one at that, where the characters were repositioned on the chessboard of life in Hawkins, Indiana, with a new threat trying to establish itself behind the horizon. I loved that this episode was slow and almost uneventful enough, so I could ease my way back into the show and its premise without feeling overstimulated. Netflix already does not care about “Previously on” segments at the beginning of each episode, or a simple recap episode, similar to how ABC cut an hour of LOST together to catch up viewers and waste an hour in their primetime program without having to spend millions of dollars to do so. Why Netflix never figured to do something similar is beyond me – a 15-minute recap of a season of television should be doable, it's cheap, and it is audience-friendly. Or, do it like STRANGER THINGS and actually begin with what seems to be a new storyline, with a couple of new characters.
But because barely anything happened, and this hour was just for teasing the thrill of upcoming dangers, it was not much of a memorable episode. Max got introduced, and the boys fell in love with her – fine, but not really much to write home about. The Hawkins lab seems to be open to talk about the events that transpired last year, with Will giving a full account of what has been happening to him (and I thought he would keep his impromptu trips to the Upside Down a secret) – fine, but that doesn't mean the Hawkins scientists are allies now. Eleven is still alive and hiding at Hopper's place in the woods – fine, but meaningless, because El was otherwise unimportant to this hour, and the episode could have worked just as well without her appearance at the end. Joyce is dating someone – I hope she is going to be happy, and he is going to be a good guy to her (not me thinking that he might be a plant to constantly check on Will for the government). Steve is working on his college application – fine for him, but should I care?
Will turned out to be the biggest and most interesting character of the bunch at this stage – the one who has the least amount of screentime because he was stuck in the Upside Down, but the one who suffers most from what happened, and is now carrying that pain in his head for the rest of his life. It's a different way to depict post-traumatic stress, and it's the best drama plot the show currently has.
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| The party sees a pretty girl and is immediately distracted. |
