Stranger Things: Tales from '85 Season 1

Stranger Things: Tales from '85

SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.

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101: Welcome to Hawkins, New Kid 2026 April 23
(First watched 2026-04-25) They talked about having cartoon adaptations from the '80s being an inspiration, but this seems pretty brutal compared to those. Multiple people getting murdered by creatures latching onto their face and/or being dragged through snow to places unknown? Unless they try to later say that these people have just been stored away from someplace where they can be rescued.

I think they pretty well nailed the look, given the source material and chosen style. The sound is a bit different, it is pretty weird hearing different voices for familiar characters. The new Dustin seems pretty close to the old one, though.

So, trying to get their secretly telekinetic friend to clear driveways of snow in broad daylight so they can make a few bucks to afford some more D&D goods? Boy that seems like a shit plan from a risk:reward standpoint.

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102: Bad Harvest 2026 April 23
(First watched 2026-04-26) OK, so the people aren't getting KILLED, just... being used as an... internal power source for hideous creature? Still a level of body horror you don't see much of in a show for kids.

So the new kid is the daughter of the teacher intended to be there just for a semester, giving them an easy out for why they're only a temporary addition to the group.

Pumpkin patch monster group was pretty crazy. Solved a bit easily, but I guess that's the kind of thing you can get away with on a show with a _slightly_ lighter tone than the main series.

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103: Evolution 2026 April 23
(First watched 2026-04-27) I feel like this take on evolution science is pretty bad, though not out of line for pop culture. Evolution works because there's a lot of things attempted and failed over a long period, not a small population needing new traits to survive and just... getting them.

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104: The Confession 2026 April 23
(First watched 2026-04-28) Starting to think none of the older characters would be more than a cameo, but at least Steve is now aware of the new monsters. Whiiiich they think they've taken care of, but with six more episodes left I kind of doubt it.

Eleven and Max got pissed about Mike deciding to tell Hopper, but... come on. Y'all are way over your heads here, and friends not letting friends get themselves killed can trump letting them do exactly what they choose.

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105: The Weekly Watcher 2026 April 23
(First watched 2026-04-29) Hawkins having its own Weekly World News-style local publication seems far-fetched... but the kind of far-fetched this show gets away with. I also considered the comparison of real-world Fairmount and Jim Davis, but I don't see that his Paws, Inc. studio was ever actually in that town.

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106: A Storm Is Coming 2026 April 23
(First watched 2026-04-30) OK, so whatever the stuff is that modified the Upside Down leftovers, it's got something to do with Nikki's mom's work on plant rejuvenation...

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107: Enter the Storm 2026 April 23
(First watched 2026-05-01) So at this point they've got monsters in multiple spots, able to reproduce and survive without human hosts, still some kind of hive mind or queen situation going on... and these kids still think it's best to keep it to themselves?

So far I think this series has been especially good to Will. He was MIA in season 1 and in season 2 largely being manipulated by the Mindflayer, so this is kind of the youngest we see him contributing. And he's doing things like making friends with Nikki and pushing back on Mike's worrying about him, pointing out things like that he's got way more experience running from monsters than the rest of them.

The weather map they showed had Hawkins approximately where I expected. Maybe a bit further south, but hard to be precise with a map that just showed a few towns in big letters and not specific points.

I'm a bit confused about the relationship between biology teacher and convenience store guy. He was a low level scientist at Hawkins Lab, so he's been in this area for some time. Teacher and Nikki are newly here for the semester. But their relationship already seems pretty well formed, so how long have they been together? When Nikki said they moved around a lot, was it just within like... a several county radius, so having a relationship with a guy at Hawkins Lab was no big feat of distance? Also, does his previously working there form a link between her plant serum and the testing done on Upside Down remnants that caused the current creature problem?

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108: The Party 2026 April 23
(First watched 2026-05-02) OK, so the searched-for view was in... the Baxters' bathroom. But what does this mean? Clearly Ms. Baxter has some connection, but she isn't literally the monster seen in the sewer. Something of her in the serum that started all this?

Also: Stranger Things has always been compared to Stephen King, with particular similarities to It. So it's pretty funny that after all these years the Stranger Things kids end up spending so much time tracking down the source of things in a sewer.

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109: The Suspect 2026 April 23
(First watched 2026-05-03) So Ms. Baxter was a red herring all along, and it was convenience store Dan using her work.

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110: Countdown 2026 April 23
(First watched 2026-05-04) OK, so Dan wasn't exactly an evil genius... just in over his head and too self-centered to survive in a show like this.

So at the end we see the Queen is not entirely dead. Or at least, is sprouting the next generation. So that answers my question about whether the future seasons would continue on with this threat or have to keep introducing even more bizarre things. Also presumably the future seasons are all fitting in between main series seasons 2 and 3, which doesn't leave a lot of room. The epilogue scene here is 3 weeks later, putting it in early February. And given Dustin's time away at camp, they've probably only got until late May to play with.

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Stranger Things: Tales from '85 Season 2