Join or Sign In
Sign in to customize your TV listings
By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.
Stranger Things Season 2 Plot Details Revealed!
Find out what's going to happen with Joyce, Hopper, Will and more
It's Stranger Things week at Entertainment Weekly. Wednesday saw the reveal of the cover and Eleven's (Millie Bobby Brown) new haircut, and now, the cast and crew are detailing the plot of the second installment of Netflix's retro sci-fi adventure.
Season 2 starts on Halloween (just like it will in real life), about a year after the events of Season 1. Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) is still struggling with the lasting effects of what happened to him in the Upside Down.
"He seems to be seeing images from the Upside Down--the question is whether they're real or not," says co-creator Matt Duffer. "So it seems like he's having some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder."
Winona Ryder, Stranger Things
Courtesy of Netflix
His mother Joyce (Winona Ryder) is dating a guy named Bob (Sean Astin), who she hopes can serve as a stabilizing father figure in Will and Jonathan's (Charlie Heaton) lives. Her ex, Chief Hopper (David Harbour), is trying to keep all the supernatural stuff secret.
"It kind of falls on Hopper to be the voice of authority to say, 'This did happen and this didn't happen,'" says Harbour. "He's struggling with the compromise that takes him to, having to lie and cover things up."
Things are hardest in the Wheeler household, where Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Nancy (Natalia Dyer) are mourning the deaths of their friends Eleven (presumed) and Barb (definitely).
Shannon Purser and Natalia Dyer, Stranger Things
Curtis Baker/Netflix
"She and Mike are both the most screwed-up because they're the ones who both lost someone," says Ross Duffer. "They're both grappling with that, and we see the effects."
Justice for Barb (Shannon Purser) is coming after all!
Matt Duffer says that new character Billy (Dacre Montgomery) will show off the show's Stephen King influence. "Stephen King always has really great human villains. The evil in the real world is often as bad or worse than the supernatural evil, so we wanted to introduce a character like that," he says.
And Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) gets a cute animal sidekick -- well, creature sidekick: "It's obviously not from this planet or this dimension," he says. Maybe it's a gift from the new guy running the Department of Energy lab, Dr. Owens (Paul Reiser)?
We'll learn about what's up with Eleven on Friday.
Stranger Things 2 premieres Friday, Oct. 27 on Netflix.