Star David Harbour, who plays Police Chief Jim Hopper, says anyone who might have avoided season one because they heard the show was science fiction, ought to use season two as an excuse to reconsider.

“We’re really creating a world of real, ordinary people who are struggling to go through life, and then you get the added benefit of, like, a monster popping up,” Harbor said.

So, about that “struggling to go through life” — star Natalia Dyer, who plays the older high school teen sister Nancy Wheeler, says season two finds all the characters struggling to cope with the events of season one.

“I think we see everyone looking for that new normal,” she said, “…just trying to keep on carrying on, find safety, find normalcy, but we know there’s no really going back to where they started. So we kind of that that begin to unravel in the beginning of season two.”

No character is unraveling more than that of Will Byers, who spent most of season one lost among scary creatures in the alternative universe of the Upside Down.  Show co-creator Matt Duffer explained Will’s mental state at the start of season two.

“He has this vision of the Upside Down and a storm in the Upside Down, so the question is, is that in his head? Does he have post-traumatic stress disorder? Is he having hallucinations? Or is it something real?” Duffer says.

Stranger Things being Stranger Things, it’s probably safe to assume that there’s something real, and nasty, coming our heroes’ way.

Says Harbour, “Something clearly is out there that’s coming back in a bigger, badder way for this season.”

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