It's less of a mystery and more action and campy fun. Most of the horror sequences are solidly intense and had me on the edge of my seats (although I'm not too keen on some of the gratuitous jump scares towards the end). The whole season feels like one cohesive long movie, with wonderfully inspired editing and great visuals. In terms of character development, it is good if a little uneven. Steve was pretty interesting in the first season, and is even better here; Jim Hopper is really likable even with bad parenting skills; Bob is just really wholesome. However, while I can accept Bob's death, the execution feels little soapy for me. As for the girls, while I appreciate the effort put on fleshing out the character of Eleven, her characterization still ends up murky and artificial. Max's character feels a liitle flat for me; we get teased about her being fierce and cool, but in the end all she did was tag along and be a love interest for the boys, and her problem with her family and her need to belong are mentioned without further exploration. Overall, it's still a great season, and I'm looking forward to binging through the next season.
PS a minor gripe I had with the color grading: the excessive cyan-ish tone in the daylight exterior scenes really distracts me from focusing on the image.
Review by JiyuBlockedParentSpoilers2020-02-22T15:20:53Z
It's less of a mystery and more action and campy fun. Most of the horror sequences are solidly intense and had me on the edge of my seats (although I'm not too keen on some of the gratuitous jump scares towards the end). The whole season feels like one cohesive long movie, with wonderfully inspired editing and great visuals.
In terms of character development, it is good if a little uneven. Steve was pretty interesting in the first season, and is even better here; Jim Hopper is really likable even with bad parenting skills; Bob is just really wholesome. However, while I can accept Bob's death, the execution feels little soapy for me. As for the girls, while I appreciate the effort put on fleshing out the character of Eleven, her characterization still ends up murky and artificial. Max's character feels a liitle flat for me; we get teased about her being fierce and cool, but in the end all she did was tag along and be a love interest for the boys, and her problem with her family and her need to belong are mentioned without further exploration.
Overall, it's still a great season, and I'm looking forward to binging through the next season.
PS a minor gripe I had with the color grading: the excessive cyan-ish tone in the daylight exterior scenes really distracts me from focusing on the image.