The first official Stranger Things spinoff TV series, Tales From ’85 ends with clear setup for Season 2. Just four months ago, Netflix’s biggest ever TV show came to a dramatic conclusion. Reactions to Stranger Things Season 5 were mixed, but it certainly wasn’t a Game of Thrones situation; there was a lot to like between the stumbles. Still, that leaves a gaping hole in Netflix programming, one the streamer is determined to fill in part through spinoffs. Tales From ’85 is the first of these, an animated series set between the main show’s second and third seasons.
This naturally means the spinoff only has a limited room to maneuver. It does so with skill, though, introducing the perfect Mind Flayer replacement as a monster that can potentially return in a new, further-evolved form. Even more impressively, it’s abundantly clear this story is designed to run on; in fact, several plot threads are begging for future exploration. But will Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Season 2 actually happen?
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Hasn’t Been Officially Renewed By Netflix
Netflix has yet to make a decision on Stranger Things: Tales From ’85. That’s pretty standard for the streaming giant, with decision-makers tending to wait until viewership figures come in. The key metric is what Netflix call “completion,” the number of viewers who finish the show in its opening month. Netflix will be looking to see whether Tales From ’85 hits pre-set “completion milestones,” so everything rests on the viewership. We’ll likely know more within the next month or so.
Tales From ’85 is very much an experiment for Netflix. Although it pays homage to the main show (with a smart theme riffing on the classic one), it’s a very different project; the older characters take a back-seat and drift in and out of the plot, there’s a whole new voice cast, and the animated medium potentially appeals to different audiences. Netflix will be carefully monitoring the outcome.
Tales From ’85’s Creative Team Already Have Plans For Season 2
Showrunner Eric Robles is certainly hoping for Season 2. Speaking to IGN, wouldn’t confirm whether he’s worked on scripts just yet – but he’ll be able to hit the ground running all the same. “I know exactly where we’re going with this,” he said. “If I get that call, and then everybody’s ready to do this, there’s zero hesitation… I know exactly from day one where we’re going… Animation does take a while. It gives me time to really marinate on this stuff and really think things out and what the potentials are.”
According to Robles, a second season would operate in the same time-gap. “We are frozen in time between these two seasons, two and three,” he noted. “But within this frozen time, we’re now going to expand this… mini-universe of Tales From ’85 in a way [if] it does go big.” This potentially means there could be up to five seasons, one set in each month between Stranger Things seasons 2 and 3.
How Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Sets Up Season 2
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 wraps up smartly, setting up two important elements for the future. The Hawkins gang has a new member, Nikki Baxter, who’s still in town along with her mom, the unwise scientist Anna. This naturally means something else has to happen between this story and Stranger Things Season 3, but the show deliberately writes in that Anna tends to drift from place to place. Nikki is operating under the assumption she’s in Hawkins for a limited time, and will subsequently drift off to somewhere else, losing her friendships here. No plot holes will be created there if Netflix fail to renew the spinoff.
More intriguing, though, is the way the story wraps up for the Upside Down. The show’s big monster, dubbed “the Queen” (after bees) and “Horde Prime” (because Dustin likes She-Ra) is apparently killed by Eleven even as it tries to get back to the Upside Down, but half of its body is left there. Chillingly, we see a blue flower growing from its body at an accelerated rate, hinting that the super-evolving monster isn’t really gone. Robles considers that blue flower particularly important.
“It really says a lot, that color,” he noted. “If everything goes accordingly, that would be a really big deal. And you also have to keep this in mind, what we are dealing with now is not just the Upside Down, it’s Upside Down science meets Upside Down matter. This is an amalgamation now of something new… If everything goes accordingly, it really is going to open up a whole new Pandora’s box that I don’t think anybody is ready for, because we’ve never seen anything like that.”
When Would Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Release?
Assuming Netflix choose to renew Stranger Things: Tales From ’85, don’t expect the show to stream anytime soon; it takes time to make an animation of this quality. The most likely scenario is that Season 2 would air in at least two years’ time, in 2028. If Netflix’s experiment pays off, then we’ll still be getting Stranger Things for years to come.
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