'Stranger Things' Bits: The Return Of Kali, Season 2's Scientific Error, Fan Art, And More
In this edition of Stranger Things Bits:
Here's Joe Keery (Steve Harrington) and Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson) answering the web's most-searched Stranger Things questions. These guys work so well together, and even in a goofy video like this, you can tell there's genuine affection between them.
We've covered Butcher Billy's fan art book covers in a previous Stranger Things Bits, but he's also created some Atari video game covers for each episode of season two. The ones seen above are my favorites.
Remember Dustin's purple brontosaurus sweatshirt from the second season? Of course you do. It's a retro hoodie that The Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul (the organization emblazoned on the front of the sweatshirt) used to sell in the '80s, and with the popularity of Stranger Things, they ramped up sales again to give fans a chance to buy their own. io9 reports that 18,000 sweatshirts were sold in the first day, totaling an impressive $600,000 for the non-profit organization. Very cool.
Actor David Harbour, who plays Chief Jim Hopper, spoke with Business Insider about a tiny detail you may not have noticed: how the character is always wearing his daughter's hair tie as a bracelet. We've already written a full piece about this, but here's Harbour in his own words:
"It's something subtle we do, and in fact if you watch the first [scene] of Jim Hopper in Season 1, he wakes up in the morning and before he even checks his watch he touches that bracelet on his arm. It's the first thing that he does every morning because he never wants to forget her. Sara and the death of his daughter is his grounding place for reality. You'll see in the first flashback with Sara that she has her hair up in these little pigtails and she's wearing these blue hair ties. And then when you see me with her in the hospital after she's going through chemo, and we've shaved her head, he's wearing it on his right wrist when he's reading to her.
So it's this bracelet that was her hair tie, and he wanted to wear it since she couldn't wear it in her hair anymore — it was a little thing between them. And then it becomes a thing that's like a security blanket for him, it's a reminder for him. And you'll notice throughout the series I will occasionally play with it like when I'm talking to Eleven or going through a difficult time."
And here's a tease for what that could mean in season three:
"At the end of the [season] you'll see that Jim is not wearing it anymore, but I don't want to to get too into that because that's something we may talk about sometime in season three," Harbour said. "It's something we'll delve more into in terms of Jim's daughter and him confronting this Eleven relationship and what that means ... there's more to be revealed there."
During Dustin's explanation about tadpoles and pollywogs in season 2, he refers to a species of frogs whose tadpoles develop outside the water called Indirana semipalmata. But in an interview with The Verge, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences' paleontology curator Christian Kammer points out that particular genus hadn't been discovered yet:
While the error is real, at least Kammerer has enough of a sense of humor to realize that his comment "may be the most nitpick-y and pedantic comment about anachronisms that has been made thus far."
GeekTyrant points out that Stranger Things: The Game gave pychic blast powers to Max, the new female character introduced this season, when that character wasn't shown to have any powers in the actual show itself. Is this foreshadowing something more from her in season 3? Probably not, since her "damage" move has since been swapped out with a decidedly less supernatural "coin toss" move.
During Vulture Festival in Los Angeles this past weekend, the Duffer Brothers teased the return of Kali (aka Eight), Eleven's secret lab sister who appeared in season 2's most controversial episode. Here's what they said (via Indiewire):
"It would feel weird that we wouldn't resolve that storyline," said Matt Duffer. "Chances are high that she comes back."
Ross Duffer added, "We're in very early days of Season 3...That's not an official announcement."
Dart's hungry. Give him a snack. He'll eat anything. Or anyone... https://t.co/eKURd20F29 pic.twitter.com/y5sOZtqT7G
— Stranger Things (@Stranger_Things) November 8, 2017
If you find yourself with literally nothing else to do, you can head over to FeedDart.com and upload photos of your friends, loved ones, or pets to have a digital Dart take a bite out of them.
And finally, BleedingCool has a list of some new Stranger Things merch that fans will soon be able to get their hands on, including brand new Funko Pops and a plush nesting version of Dart in which smaller versions of Dustin's beloved pet Demogorgon fit inside each other.