'Stranger Things' Creators Tease Season 2 'Sequel' Details
This post contains minor spoilers for Netflix's Stranger Things Season 1.
The first season of Netflix's sci-fi series Stranger Things left us with many questions. Why did Eleven disappear? Are there more monsters hiding out in the Upside Down dimension? Is Barb coming back? Luckily, the creators, the mysterious-sounding Duffer Brothers, were released from whatever underground bunker Netflix was keeping them in to provide some answers.
In a new interview with Variety, the brothers speak candidly about the planning of the show's mythology and tease possibilities of what season two could hold. While the show has yet to be officially renewed for a second season -- come on Netflix, even Lilyhammer got multiple seasons -- the acclaim, fan excitement, and wild speculation surrounding the show suggests that another season is inevitable. Thankfully, it sounds like they have a plan.
"Even with the Upside Down, we have a 30-page document that is pretty intricate in terms of what it all means, and where this monster actually came from, and why aren’t there more monsters " says Ross Duffer in the interview. "We have all this stuff that we just didn’t have time for, or we didn’t feel like we needed to get into in season one, because of the main tension of Will."
The story of Will is at the heart of season one, but as fans know, his journey wasn't neatly resolved. The ending of Season 1 suggests that the once-missing boy carries some part of the Upside Down world with him -- or perhaps it was a part of him all along?
"Will’s been there for an entire week, and it’s had some kind of effect on him, both emotionally and perhaps physically," says Ross Duffer. "The idea is he’s escaped this nightmare place, but has he really? That’s a place we wanted to go and potentially explore in season two. What effect does living in there for a week have on him? And what has been done to him? It’s not good, obviously."
That's good to know -- but what about the show's clear fan favorite, the deadly Eleven?
"Obviously something happened to her when she destroyed and killed that monster and we don’t know what she went," says Matt Duffer. "Hopper is left with this guilt because he sold her out. We wanted to leave it sort of mysterious exactly what he knows… Have there been sightings in the woods or is he hoping she’s out there or has he already made contact with her? We don’t answer any of that, but we like the idea of potentially putting her and Hopper together."
An interview with IGN suggests that a second season would continue on with the Season 1 story, versus an American Horror Story or True Detective-style anthology series, as many speculated. "The hope is that it feels satisfying but that we left room and that if people respond to it we can go back into this world," Matt Duffer explains. "But if we do get to go back, it’s not a second season as much as a sequel."
That doesn't mean the next season will necessarily be a re-hash of all Stephen King and Steven Spielberg tropes -- or "really dark Amblin" as the brothers put it in the interview -- of Season 1. After all, there are plenty of other '80s movies and TV shows to mine for maximum nostalgia. Our only request: make sure the show still has Toto songs!
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