2017 just got stranger

Ashton Baysden
A&E Editor

The Super Bowl LI commercials were hits for many different reasons, but of the sixty-five brands that were advertised during America’s favorite sporting event, none started quite the social media firestorm that the Netflix original series Stranger Things did. A teaser for the second season of the supernatural drama was unveiled during Sunday’s Super Bowl and generated 307,000 tweets within a four and a half hour timeslot.  

Stranger Things took the world by storm the second the first season hit Netflix on July 15, 2016. Standing at an astonishingly-high approval rating of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, the drama was one of the most critically-acclaimed shows of 2016. Set in the 1980s, the show takes place in the fictional town Hawkins, Indiana where young friends Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), and Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin) reside. When Will disappears, the young friends set out to follow a trail of supernatural clues to find him. Along the way, they encounter malevolent forces, dark government agencies, a new dimension called the Upside Down, and a mysterious young girl named Eleven. 

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The first season of the popular show only had eight episodes and left viewers craving more; now that the next installment of the series is within reach, the public is going crazy. While the teaser trailer is vague, it still features the thrill that viewers became addicted to during the first season. The trailer is a compilation of quickly-flashing images ranging from close-ups of the characters to shots of horrifying drawings; the combination of suspenseful music with an audio of a girl breathing heavily creates feelings of both horror and intrigue in a way that only Stranger Things can do. Topping it all off with a slogan saying, “The world is turning upside down,” anyone who sees the trailer will be sucked into the void of curiosity the show creates.

​The cast everyone has come to know and love is returning for the second season, including (spoiler alert) Will who has been promoted to a series regular now that he is back from the Upside Down. Little has been confirmed as to what the plot of the second season will be. One thing is for certain, based on what is known from last season and what the trailer shows: something is very wrong with Will. Everyone knows that something was off with Will when he returned from the Upside Down last season, and in the trailer he can be seen in a hospital gown connected to several wires while a few men study him via surveillance footage. Given how little everyone actually knows about what else will happen in this upcoming season, the world can expect the second season of Stranger Things to be even more unpredictable and wild than the first. The new season will hit Netflix on Halloween 2017.