James Oconner 
Anil Krishna 
Jonathan Millar 
Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 Season 2 Review: Leaving the Upside Down Behind Was a Good Idea
The more I watched Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 Season 2, the more I kept thinking that this show probably should have arrived a little earlier. It’s a fun, surprisingly creative animated spinoff, and the animation itself looks great in places. The frustrating part is that it feels like not enough people are talking about it, which might have something to do with when Netflix decided to release it.
Season 2 arrives just five months after the show’s April debut, but the story itself moves forward only by a month. The Hawkins kids have made it through the freezing January weather, and now they’re dealing with Valentine’s Day. Which, as it turns out, gives the writers plenty of room to play around with the characters and introduce some rather unexpected ideas.
There are some genuinely sweet moments between Eleven (Brooklyn Davey Norstedt) and Mike (Luca Diaz), but Lucas (Elisha Williams) and Max (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) get the more interesting storyline this time around. Things between them are a little messy, and they don’t always see eye to eye. Still, watching them try to figure out what they want from each other leads to some lovely moments. And then there are the flowers, which somehow become a surprisingly important part of the show’s expanding mythology. Yes, flowers.
New Mysteries, Old Fears
Season 2 kicks off with two mysteries happening at once. Strange, glowing flowers start appearing all over Hawkins, and they aren’t exactly harmless. Anyone who gets too close seems to have their energy drained by them. Meanwhile, the kids stumble across another mystery while working on a school history project.
That second mystery involves Bloody Bill, a supposed murderer whose story is tied to an abandoned mine in town. There’s a ghost, there’s a creepy local legend, and, naturally, the kids can’t just leave it alone.
This is where the season really starts to work. Rather than sending the characters back into another enormous Upside Down crisis, head writers Joshua Pruett (Phineas and Ferb) and Jennifer Muro (Star Trek: Prodigy) focus on something a little closer to home. The Bloody Bill storyline draws on those old childhood fears that can make an abandoned building or a creepy story feel much scarier than it probably should.
It also helps that the show knows when to be funny. The ghost story has some properly spooky moments, but a lot of the fun comes from watching the kids try to act brave when they’re very obviously not feeling brave at all. They’re still kids, after all, and their attempts to impress each other make the whole thing even more entertaining.
Mike Gets a Chance to Grow
Mike gets a particularly nice storyline this season, with much of it built around his struggle to face things that scare him. It’s not the most complicated character arc in the world, but it works because it feels connected to the kind of person Mike eventually becomes.
The animated series doesn’t necessarily fit neatly into the live-action show’s canon, but that doesn’t make his development here any less satisfying. There are moments when you can see how this version of Mike could grow into the character audiences know from Season 3. It’s a small detail, perhaps, but it gives his story a bit more weight.
Dustin (Braxton Quinney), meanwhile, takes charge of the investigation and does what Dustin usually does best: talk a lot, get excited about things, and somehow make the situation even more chaotic. He’s joined by Charlie (Benjamin Valic), a new character who’s a little misunderstood and turns out to be a great partner for him.
The two have a fun dynamic, and thankfully, the show doesn’t try to turn Charlie into another Steve. That would have been the easy route, especially with Steve not appearing this season, but the writers give Dustin a different kind of friendship to work with instead. It’s a welcome change.
Will Gets Left Behind
The biggest weakness in the season is probably Will (Benjamin Plessala). He had some good material in Season 1, particularly in his scenes with Nikki (Odessa A’zion), but he doesn’t get nearly as much to do this time around.
It’s not that his storyline is terrible or anything. There just isn’t much there that sticks with you after the episode ends. Considering how much potential Will had after the first season, his role here feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. The other characters get chances to grow or discover something new, while Will is mostly left on the sidelines.
A Fun Detour for Stranger Things
Even with that issue, Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 Season 2 is a step up from the first season. The show has a better sense of what it wants to be now, and moving away from the Upside Down for a while gives it room to try things that might not have worked in the main series.
The new folklore, the strange creatures, and the bright, energetic animation all add something to the experience. But the biggest reason the season works is that it still understands these characters. Beneath all the supernatural chaos, they’re just a bunch of kids trying to deal with their problems, occasionally making terrible decisions along the way.
It feels like a fun little side adventure rather than another attempt to recreate the main Stranger Things story. And honestly, that’s probably exactly what this spinoff needed.
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