After over a year long wait, the next season of Stranger Things has been released on Netflix. The first episode, titled MADMAX, introduces a few new characters, while also familiarizing and catching up the audience with last seasons characters.
The episode starts off by showing that there is another girl who has runaway and possesses similar powers to those of Eleven’s. This new character’s name is Eight, and she seems to abuse her powers to help commit crime. After the show’s title sequence, we are back with the boys. They go to the arcade and to their surprise, someone under the name MADMAX has beaten Dustin’s high score on the game Dig Dug.
The next day, there is a new girl at school, and she goes by the name Max. The boys, specifically Dustin and Lucas, are intrigued to see if she is the one that holds the new high score. While the boys try to befriend Max, Mike tries to find Eleven. He misses her and tries to contact her on his walkie-talkie her every night. He believes that she is in the Upside Down, a place where Will is unable to mentally escape…
Although Will is safe and back at home, he unintentionally and involuntarily goes back and forth between the Upside Down. He sees a doctor for his trauma, but the Doctor seems very suspicious since he works at the Hawkins Lab. Later, we see that Barbra has not returned still, and Nancy misses her dearly.
Finally, we see Eleven! She resides with police officer, Jim Hopper, who we discovered last season has lost his daughter. I am so relieved to see that Eleven is safe, with a full head of curly hair, and Hopper has a little girl again. The episode concludes with Hopper and Eleven sitting down and eating their TV dinners together.
This first episode did not disappoint, but it did leave me with so many questions. When will the boys find out that Eleven has escaped the Upside Down? Is the new girl Max going to join the squad? Is Will safe? Will there ever be justice for Barbara? I guess I’ll be spending the next 8 hours watching the rest of the season, and hopefully getting the answers to these questions!