Chapter Two: Trick or Treat, Freak
Dang. If you want a great hour of television, who you gonna call? The Duffers! Or so it seems. I'm gonna take this review by characters in an effort to mix things up at least a little bit for you.
The episode opens with a flashback to Eleven as we left her at the end of the last season, immediately answering a potential criticism of the previous episode. I love that. It's a confident show that doesn't feel the need to drag out answers in an attempt to create false intrigue. We know that Elle is back, we pretty quickly know how. It's not a grand or epic thing, her time in the upside down unexpectedly lasting minutes. And it could seem that her escape was too easy, given the tension built last season around the loss of Will, but then the show makes clear that it's only really possible due to Eleven's unique abilities so I'll give it a bare pass. We flash back a couple of times using clever framing devices to provoke Elle's uncomfortable memories and learn that she survived in the woods for a time, presumably by virtue of Hopper's snacks (tying up that cliffhanger nicely) and her developing psychic abilities, which we see somewhat brutally employed. We also get very intriguing glimpses of what seems like the upside down bleeding through to our reality (poor squirrel) which seem to be a central theme. More on that later. Finally it's good to see that along with her supernatural abilities Elle is growing her regular intellect too; words of the day, learning Morse Code and good old television contributing to a developing character whose awkwardness is still very well played even as she becomes richer and more interesting. There's a perfectly sensible explanation for her being in hiding and not approaching her old friends and all this culminates in a beautiful but heartbreaking scene when she repeats the sensory deprivation experiment from season one to reach out to Mike, so close but worlds away and with terrible timing. A shot of her with both blood from her nose and tears from her eyes being a directing and acting masterclass.
As I touched upon, the next most intriguing character continues to be young Will Byers. His disturbing flashes of the upside down developing further and revealing the extent of the creature which is presumably this season's threat. Initially coming across as a gigantic Lovecraftian nightmare Will himself specifies that it is made out of shadow and is coming for him. Interestingly contradicting his line last episode that it was actually coming for "everybody else". His conflict and anguish are played brilliantly, both in social settings and his continued "visions". And he gets a super touching scene with Mike where they confide in each other about their pain.
Speaking of Mike he doesn't get much else to do but what's there is great, if redundant. We already knew he was utterly devoted to Eleven and misses her terribly, the only new thing we learn is his distaste of new girl Max. The other boys' story consists of chasing after her affections through wonderful comedy scenes involving a lot of Ghostbusters references, some misunderstood English, a little social commentary and continued "adorkableness".
Moving on to Max we get tantalising hints of her and her brother's story that are brief but very intriguing. We essentially find out that something happened which forced the family to move, and which he sees as totally her fault, and she quietly blames on him. We now also establish that he is a real asshole; drinking, smoking, abusing his sister and almost running over three of our main child group. Interesting developments all. His story links us to what I'm calling the tween storyline too as he attends a party that Nancy and Steve are at, even seemingly competing with the latter. This plotline is the episode's weak link for me. It seems like the writers are using Barb's death to rehash the love triangle from last season almost verbatim. The idea of exploring Nancy's guilt (she literally says that she and Steve killed Barb) is intriguing but using it to have Steve leave in a strop and Jonathan step in is repetitive and already tired. And this whole plot is the type of Dawson's Creek, teen soap-opera bullshit that a show of this quality should really be above. I hope it develops into a wild left turn but on this evidence that seems unlikely.
Hitting the other minor beats then, the stuff we get with Hopper examining the continuing mystery of the poisoned pumpkins is interesting, as is his relationship with "the kid" Elle. His connection to Joyce is less so. We don't need another love triangle (see above) and the idea that they alone know what they do and are weirdly fine with it just lampshades the absurdity. Speaking of the absurd we get a brief scene with Reiser and co again sending someone through a dimensional breach, which seems to imply that they are somehow leeching power from the upside down. And that Reiser believes Will's portents of doom and is starting to worry, despite himself. Brief but excellent development. Finally Sean Astin's Bob continues to seem as bland as possible. This constant reinforcement has me convinced that he is either hiding a dark and sinister secret or true nature. Or that he is a dead man walking, potentially this season's sacrificial lamb.
The episode ends with a bit of a damp squib cliffhanger if you've seen any promotion for this season. If not I'll just say that Dustin discovers an unseen something and it seems weird. Avoid episode three's title if you really don't want to know. The idea of ending by playing the full Ghostbusters theme over the end credits left me pumped and reinforcing the party atmosphere of the Halloween celebrations but ultimately also seemed like a case of having paid for the rights to everything about this movie and wanting to get value for money.
In conclusion a solid episode with cracks beginning to show but still a lot of promise, flawless directing, outstanding acting and continually intriguing storytelling.
**** (4/5)
MM
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