Yo, so, this season is better than the last one.
I continue to love David Harbour and Winona Ryrder, who are my favorite actors on the show. Winona Ryder continues to be a convincing mother teetering on the edge of sanity and David Harbour continues to be a surprisingly excellent detective who's never met a government conspiracy/monster flick he can't fistfight his way out of.
Of the kids, Eleven continues to be my favorite, with Dustin coming up in second. Will and Mike continue to be "Eh", especially now that I've seen Finn in IT and know he can be funny as fuck. Lucas was about 100000 times better this season, whereas in the last one I HATED him.
Steve was also a lot more bearable this season. He had his heroic moments, I felt bad for him a lot, and he was just a lot less of a douchebag than in the last season. When Nancy just unloads on him at that party, I felt so sorry for him. As for Johnathon and Nancy, I was like "eh." They were two characters I didn't care about in the first season, tand I continue to not care about them here.
Samwise Gamgee showing up was great, but the moment he stuck around too long, I knew he was gonna die. It was a shame, too, because he plays such an affable guy who's like "Your kid is haunted by Cthulhu? Fuck it, I'll help out". Better relationship material than me, I guess, I would've been OUT.
Speaking of affable guys, I really liked Paul Reiser as the not-really-villain. I thought he was gonna bite it, but he managed to pull through.
As for Eleven sneaking off to Chicago to meet up with Kali, I was kinda into it until she also ditched her. I was like "Why don't you ask her to come with you instead of just leaving her?"
I liked Mad Max, the thing with her brother, but the actor playing him looked a little too old to be a high schooler. That was a grown ass man hanging out at grade school, it was weird. Still, she was a good addition, thought she didn't get a lot of moments for herself. She felt a little too "just there".
The evil shit. I thought this one did a lot better at being horror than the last season, where it felt more Stephen Spielberg/Terminator-John-Carpenter and less Stephen King/Aliens-John-Carpenter. This one flipped 'em around, where the villain is...still not horrifying, but a lot more menacing. The dogs attacking the scientists compound for some reason reminded me of the Resident Evil movie, but otherwise, I liked this plot a lot more than I did the second one.
Lastly, Eleven showing up to save the day was perfect, and for that matter, I'm so glad that they didn't keep her hidden until later in the season, like I assumed they would. That said, I was kinda disappointed that Hop didn't kinda guide her out of the Upside Down with Eggos, which was what I assumed happened, and instead just kinda helped her escape the G-Men.
Anyways, excellent season, better than the first, and here's to hoping they have a good third season--if they make one.
EDIT: The song that plays a lot with Eleven, the one with the woman humming, sounded familiar to me. So I checked up, and it was from a video game I reviewed a while ago: There Comes an Echo. I've always wondered why movies and shows don't take more music from games.