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‘Stranger Things’ Season 2: Familiar 80s Faces Join Cast, Plot Details Revealed [Spoilers]

By Amie LaFleur
Published on: 08:29 PST, Nov 13, 2016

Warning: This article could contain Stranger Things Season 2 spoilers.

Stranger Things Season 2 announced it had begun production in Atlanta earlier this month with a cool tweet that payed homage to the Upside Down realm introduced in the Netflix thriller’s smash first season.

Now more casting news is popping up. Entertainment Weekly reports some familiar ’80s faces will be appearing in Stranger Things Season 2. The first is Sean Astin, who made a name for himself in 1985’s The Goonies long before hitting the big time in Lord of the Rings. Astin will be playing Bob Newby, “a kindhearted former nerd who went to high school with Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Hopper (David Harbour).” Next is Paul Reiser, who played a jerk in the 1986 classic Aliens before appearing in 1990s TV hit Mad About You. He will play Dr. Owens, “a high-ranking member within the Department of Energy on a ‘clean-up’ assignment, tasked with containing the events of last year.'”

Finally, Danish actress Linnea Berthelsen will play Roman, “an emotionally damaged, magnetic young woman who suffered a great loss as a child. Although she does not live in Hawkins, she is mysteriously connected to the supernatural events at the lab.”

In other Stranger Things Season 2 news, Season 1 director Shawn Levy told Collider that he will again be directing Season 2 alongside series creators Matt and Ross Duffer.

The website asked Levy if Netflix gave the Stranger Things crew a heads up before officially renewing the series.

“We were given the wink-wink, ‘You guys should seriously start thinking about what you wanna have happen in Season 2’ before it was announced,'” he explained.

Levy also addressed the big reveal that Millie Bobbie Brown (Eleven) was indeed returning for Season 2, which had been a tightly-guarded secret.

“We are filming in Atlanta again,” he said. “I feel like that’s how the Millie Brown thing leaked because someone saw her trick-or-treating in Atlanta. I was so bummed about that because Netflix had this really clever idea of taking a picture at our table read last week and posting it upside down, which is what we did. But then like two days before our clever idea got to debut, a bunch of places were reporting that Millie was going to be a part of Season 2.”

As for where Stranger Things Season 2 will pick up and other key plot points, Levy was coy.

“I’m not gonna say how much time has gone by. It is not the next day, I’ll say that. And there are several new characters who I think several of them are going to be new fan favorites because they’re great, great new characters. But we are definitely sticking primarily with our core group, and what is different, how are they changed from the experience of last season… maybe ‘normal’ is never possible again.”

However, the director did hint Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) and his family will have a tough go of it in Season 2.

“Will Byers was in that Upside Down for a while,” Levy said. “So Season 2 is about this determined desire to return to normalcy in Hawkins, in the Byers family, in that group of friends, and it’s the struggle to reclaim normalcy and maybe the impossibility of it.”

[Image via Netflix]

So now that production has begun, when can fans expect to see Stranger Things Season 2?

“That I can’t say. I do have a sense of it. It was promised when we announced that we were picked up for Season 2, and we gave those chapter headings, I believe it ended with ‘Coming in 2017,’ and that much is true. You can do a little bit of math, we’re not magicians, so there’s no way it launches in spring, since I just admitted we started filming today (Nov. 7), and we’re doing nine.”

What do you think of the latest cast additions to Stranger Things Season 2?

Stranger Things Season 2 returns to Netflix in 2017.

[Image via Netflix]

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