[S1E2] No Strangers Here
While this is happening, Riven is with Bellatrix and calls Dane pathetic but, in reality, the only one pathetic is him. And I have to say I like Bellatrix here because she calls Riven for what he is: a bully. Just a bully.
[S1E2] No Strangers Here
Later that day, Bloom returned to the Stone Circle in order to practice channeling her magic through the Vessel. Stella found her there and taught Bloom to draw on strong, negative emotions to tap into her magic more effectively. In doing so, Bloom was able to successfully conjure a fire through the Vessel.[1]
On their first day of class, Dowling helps the first years to channel their powers at the circle of stone. There we see air fairy Beatrix (Sadie Soverall), mind fairy Musa (Elisha Applebaum), water fairy Aisha (Precious Mustapha), and earth fairy Terra Harvey (Eliot Salt) channel their powers with no struggle. Bloom (Abigail Cowen), on the other hand, a fire fairy, could barely channel sparks.
Outside the barn, Musa, an empath, starts to feel pain, only for her and Terra to find the charred bodies of soldiers and a heavy cut-up Silva. Terra and Musa give Silva the Zanbaq oil to help with the spreading infection and decide to take him back to school when Aisha realizes that Bloom isn't anywhere to be seen. Bloom, who later says she wandered because she felt a connection to that "thing", goes into the forest and ends up face to face with a Burned One. This time though, she is able to channel her powers with fire, and with Aisha's (who had found her as Stella went back to Alfea for help) water cannon, they were able to kill Burned One and get Stella's ring back.
We've parsed through every scene of "Stranger Things 2" to find the biggest callbacks to season one or revelations hidden in the corners of sets. For this roundup, we're looking at important moments within the "Stranger Things" universe itself, but you can read our breakdown of the best '80s movies references here.
Eleven remembered Hopper reading to her. And not only was it the same book he used to read to his daughter, "Anne of Green Gables," but the passage chosen for the scene was telling. It was a section of the book where Anne describes her state as a orphan to a friend.
While Dr. Owens wasn't sitting in the precise same corner where we saw Hopper curled up, the handrails are a dead match. While it is possible the "Stranger Things" crew just re-used a set for the flashback and for Hawkins, we believe this might be the first concrete hint that Hopper's past is darker than previously believed.
"Maybe we can go to the Snow Ball together," Mike told Eleven on the first season. "It's this cheesy school dance where you go in the gym and dance to music and stuff. I've never been, but I know you're not supposed to go with your sister."
"At the end of the series you'll see that Jim is not wearing [the bracelet] anymore, but I don't want to to get too into that because that's something we may talk about sometime in season three," Harbour said. "It's something we'll delve more into in terms of Jim's daughter and him confronting this Eleven relationship and what that means ... there's more to be revealed there."
In Fate: The Winx Saga season 1, four of the six episodes includes a steady dose of music. Incidentally, there's an organic feel that benefits the storyline, all the while establishing a youthful tone as well. When the music slows down, it's in favor of character development, which then allows the narrative tone to ramp up again.
The series was originally known as Montauk, as the setting of the script was in Montauk, New York and nearby Long Beach locations.[18][20] The brothers had chosen Montauk as it had further Spielberg ties with the film Jaws, where Montauk was used for the fictional setting of Amity Island.[21] After deciding to change the narrative of the series to take place in the fictional town of Hawkins instead, the brothers felt they could now do things to the town, such as placing it under quarantine, that they really could not envision with a real location.[21] With the change in location, they had to come up with a new title for the series under the direction from Netflix's Ted Sarandos so that they could start marketing it to the public. The brothers started by using a copy of Stephen King's Firestarter novel to consider the title's font and appearance and came up with a long list of potential alternatives. Stranger Things came about as it sounded similar to another King novel, Needful Things, though Matt noted they still had a "lot of heated arguments" over this final title.[22]
With Netflix as the platform, The Duffer Brothers were not limited to a typical 22-episode format, opting for the eight-episode approach. They had been concerned that a 22-episode season on broadcast television would be difficult to "tell a cinematic story" with that many episodes. Eight episodes allowed them to give time to characterization in addition to narrative development; if they had less time available, they would have had to remain committed to telling a horror film as soon as the monster was introduced and abandon the characterization.[16] Within the eight episodes, the brothers aimed to make the first season "feel like a big movie" with all the major plot lines completed so that "the audience feels satisfied", but left enough unresolved to indicate "there's a bigger mythology, and there's a lot of dangling threads at the end", something that could be explored in further seasons if Netflix opted to create more.[33]
To create the aged effect for the series, a film grain was added over the footage, which was captured by scanning in film stock from the 1980s.[34] The Duffers wanted to scare the audience, but not to necessarily make the show violent or gory, following in line with how the 1980s Amblin Entertainment films drove the creation of the PG-13 movie rating. It was "much more about mood and atmosphere and suspense and dread than they are about gore", though they were not afraid to push into more scary elements, particularly towards the end of the first season.[34] The brothers had wanted to avoid any computer-generated effects for the monster and other parts of the series and stay with practical effects. However, the six-month filming time left them little time to plan out and test practical effects rigs for some of the shots. They went with a middle ground of using constructed props including one for the monster whenever they could, but for other shots, such as when the monster bursts through a wall, they opted to use digital effects. Post-production on the first season was completed the week before it was released on Netflix.[15]
In addition to original music, Stranger Things features period music from artists including The Clash, Toto, New Order, The Bangles, Foreigner, Echo and the Bunnymen, Peter Gabriel and Corey Hart, as well as excerpts from Tangerine Dream, John Carpenter and Vangelis.[52][53] In particular, The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go" was specifically picked to play at pivotal moments of the story, such as when Will is trying to communicate with Joyce from the Upside Down.[52] Music supervisor Nora Felder felt the song "furthered the story" and called it an additional, unseen, main character of the season.[54]
IGN gave the score of 8 out of 10 and called the series "Great" saying, "Stranger Things is an easy recommendation, offering viewers an atmospheric and endearing series that is a nostalgic throwback without feeling like a simple copy."[64] In a review of San Francisco Chronicle Dave Wiegand wrote: "Stranger Things reminds us of a time marked by a kind of no-strings escapism. And as it does so, we find ourselves yearning for it because the Duffers have made it so irresistibly appealing. There may be other equally great shows to watch this summer, but I guarantee you won't have more fun watching any of them than you will watching Stranger Things."[65] Joshua Alston of The A.V. Club also reviewed it positively saying, "Balancing style and substance is always challenging for a series like Stranger Things, but the show is perfectly calibrated. It feels like watching a show produced during the era in which it's set, but with the craft of today's prestige television."[66] Reviewing for HitFix, Alan Sepinwall said, "Over the course of the eight hours, the story and characters take on enough life of their own so that the references don't feel self-indulgent, and so that the series can be appreciated even if you don't know the plot of E.T. or the title font of Stephen King's early novels (a huge influence on the show's own opening credits) by heart."[67]
Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker also applauded the series and wrote, "This is astoundingly efficient storytelling, eight hours that pass in a blink, with even minor characters getting sharp dialogue, dark humor, or moments of pathos."[68] Television critic Mary McNamara of Los Angeles Times said, "For the most part, and in absolute defiance of the odds, Stranger Things honors its source material in the best way possible: By telling a sweet 'n' scary story in which monsters are real but so are the transformative powers of love and fealty."[69] The Wall Street Journal's Brian Kelly said, "Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer, brothers and the show's creators, have done their homework when it comes to '80s cinema. Whether you're a fan of John Carpenter's The Thing or The Goonies is more your speed, there's plenty to like in Stranger Things."[70] Angus McFadzean of Columbia University Press compared Stranger Things to The Goonies, Stand By Me, Russkies, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.[71]
While the Super Duff Bros. rightfully suggest "turning off anything that says motion," that's just the tip of the iceberg. Promoting your TV from court jester to crown prince is actually pretty easy to do: here's a step-by-step guide even a Demogorgon could follow, so push your glasses up your nose and get to work. 041b061a72