Mark your calendars, Hawkins fans. Stranger Things: Tales From '85 launches its second season on September 17th, and the official trailer that arrived Monday confirms the animated prequel is going all-in on a supernatural mystery.
Hawkins can't even have a normal Valentine's Day!
That's when Season 2 is set, and the town is in rough shape. It starts with flowers: a strange blue rose that Max and newcomer Nikki try to sell around Hawkins, which spreads faster than either of them intended. Soon Hawkins has a proper haunting on its hands, with apparitions drifting through the woods and a swarm of creatures the show calls hate sprites causing chaos. The trailer points toward the town's abandoned silver mines as the source, and for a franchise built on the Upside Down, a possible second gateway is about as ominous as a tease gets.
Even Eleven looks rattled this time.
Season 1 landed with ten episodes running roughly half an hour each, and Season 2 tightens that to eight, which suggests a single serialized mystery rather than the looser monster-of-the-week rhythm the first run leaned on.
Then there's the blue entity at the heart of the trailer, which stands there unmoved while Eleven strains against it. Critics dinged the first season for keeping its stakes gentle, and putting a threat in front of Eleven that simply doesn't respond to her is a direct answer to that. It also hands the animated series its own monster mythology to develop, separate from anything in the live-action canon.
Chronologically, the series occupies the winter and spring of 1985, the stretch that separates the live-action show's second season from its third. The Mind Flayer has been driven out; Starcourt Mall hasn't happened yet. Hopper, voiced here by Brett Gipson, is still walking his beat while the kids do the actual investigating.
Prepare for some familiar voices and a few new ones. Brooklyn Davey Norstedt returns as Eleven alongside Luca Diaz's Mike, Braxton Quinney's Dustin, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport's Max, and Jeremy Jordan's Steve Harrington, while Season 2 recruits Janeane Garofalo, Lou Diamond Phillips, Valeria Rodriguez, Jack Griffo, and Odessa A'zion as Nikki Baxter. Eric Robles remains the showrunner, animation duties stay with Sydney-based Flying Bark Productions (whose crews work out of Los Angeles and Madrid as well), and Matt and Ross Duffer executive produce with Shawn Levy. Robles built the show's look on the same Saturday-morning cartoons the live-action series spent five seasons paying tribute to, so the animated spin-off reads as a homecoming for the property.
Season 1 premiered April 23rd with ten half-hour episodes that eased the party back into ordinary Hawkins life, all D&D campaigns and snowball fights, before something paranormal stirred under the winter ice.
The season earned its renewal within five days, even though critics were split on the softer tone. Eight new episodes are on the way this time. With the live-action saga finished, only this show and the stage play The First Shadow, which moved from the West End to Broadway, are still producing new Hawkins stories, and animation can hold these kids at this age for as long as the writers keep finding material. Hard to believe the original series premiered a full decade ago this summer!
New to the animated side? The Season 1 trailer is a quick way to see whether the retro Saturday-morning style is for you:
All eight episodes of Tales From '85 Season 2 stream September 17th on Netflix, with Season 1 available now for a catch-up binge.
Are you still following the animated side of Hawkins? Share your thoughts on the trailer down in the comments!
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