Stranger Things creators address the most common complaint about Season 2

Plenty of fans have felt like their life was turned upside down.

Still haven't finished the new season of Stranger Things? Well, pretend that we're the Demogorgon and run away to your nearest TV. That's a nice way of saying spoiler alert. We'll even say it again...SPOILER ALERT! In the history of successful TV shows, books and films, no story has ever improved in quality by staying stagnant and slavishly repeating what made the original so beloved. The Lord of the Rings decided to split their fellowship in The Two Towers, George Lucas sent the galaxy's best most beloved heroes on different adventures in The Empire Strikes Back and Game of Thrones is still adding new cast members, despite the fact that it's entering its final season. Simply put, change is inevitable but as we've detailed before, there was something rotten about The Lost Sister, that's episode 7 from Season2 of Stranger Things. Again, we're massive fans of the new season but that episode just felt so out of place. Granted, we're all in favour of moving the story outside of Hawkins but Eleven's new allies - those kids that look like a strange mix of The Warriors and Hook - aren't very likeable or interesting. Also, given how well the Duffer Brothers have developed characters throughout the show, this new group of people just felt very forced and rushed. Did anyone else feel like they were watching a really bad episode of Heroes? Aside from Kali - Eleven's old ally that also has psychic powers - even the most hardcore Stranger Things fan would struggle to care about this group. Granted, in that episode we learn more about the Mind Flayer and get a cool look at Eleven harnessing her powers - even if that scene ripped off  X-Men: First Class - but the show's creators were very aware that this episode was going to be divisive. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Matt Duffer said: "Eleven's relationship with the boys was a big part of why people loved the first season, so it was a little bit scary to lose that and say no, we're not going to do that this year. But we felt that if we were going to do another season, we would want it to feel different, and we would want to try other things — whether they work or not — instead of rehashing what we had done before. We wanted her to have her own journey of self-discovery, in a way that wasn't tied at all to the boys. We wanted her to go out on her own. We wanted to open up the world a little bit. It's something we wanted to do from very early on. Are there other numbers out there? Does she have 'siblings' somewhere?" https://twitter.com/Emily_graceffa/status/924059567318634496

Producer Shawn Levy adds: "It was an outlier by design. It's a bit of a big swing at a very different kind of episode, that includes only one series regular, and all-new actors everywhere else in the episode. We wanted to take a chance. We knew that if we could pull it off, it would not only give a different taste in season two, but it would also be a slingshot that sends Eleven back to her friends and back to her home to protect those that she's come to love in a really satisfying way."

Regarding the narrative inspiration for this episode, Duffer said that The Empire Strikes Back was the film that they had in mind. "When you look at The Empire Strikes Back, Luke has to go on his own journey separate from everyone else in order to defeat this evil. What we got excited about early on is this idea of Eleven as a fish out of water adjusting to a new world in season one, and now it's more about Eleven growing up outside of the lab. How does she deal with the trauma of what happened to her, just as everyone else has been dealing with their trauma? And does she use that experience for good or for bad? It's her growing up that allows her to succeed in the end. That was the hope with the Eleven journey. It allowed us to explore relationships we wouldn't have been allowed to explore otherwise," he said.