Netflix renews Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 for Season 2 despite its worst-ever franchise ratings

For context, Tales From ’85 is a spin-off of the original Stranger Things franchise, set in the winter of 1985 in Hawkins, Indiana. It follows the Hawkins Investigators Club as they face paranormal threats in an animated format separate from the live-action series.

What happened at the end of Tales From ’85 season 1?

[Spoiler warning: please skip this section if you have not finished season 1 yet.]

Season 1 threw a lot at the Hawkins Investigators Club as they came face to face with a snow shark and a group of sinister pumpkin monsters called the Gourd Horde.

The real threat, however, was the Horde Queen, a creature that evolved from an Upside Down vine after Hawkins Food Mart clerk Daniel Fischer conducted secret experiments using Mrs. Baxter’s stolen research.

His green serum combined years of botanical science with extracted Upside Down vine DNA, creating something far beyond what he bargained for. The gang managed to stop the Queen from opening a new gate to the Upside Down, with Eleven sealing it shut using the creature’s own body.

But the finale left one ominous image burned into viewers’ minds. In the Upside Down, a stem burst through the Queen’s corpse and unfurled into a glowing flower with the maw of a Demogorgon.

What to expect from Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 season 2?

Season 1 ended with the Hawkins Investigators Club uncovering a genuinely terrifying mystery, and season 2 is picking up that thread with a brand new paranormal threat.

Showrunner Eric Robles confirmed that the glowing flower is the beginning of a whole new mystery. The threat in season 2 apparently emerges from Hawkins’ abandoned silver mines. The mysterious blue flower spotted blooming in the Upside Down at the end of season 1 is also set to play a significant role going forward.

Robles has also been clear that the seasons of the Stranger Things spinoff series are not standalone stories. They are directly connected, which means every detail from season 1 will matter heading into the next chapter. Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max, and Nikki will all be returning.

Why did Netflix renew Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 despite mixed reviews?

Season 1 just dropped a few days ago, and Netflix did not waste any time with the renewal announcement. However, the spinoff received a divisive reception, to put it mildly. It currently holds the lowest Rotten Tomatoes scores of any entry in the Stranger Things franchise, sitting at 63% from critics and 54% from audiences. Meanwhile, on IMDB, the show received only 5.7/10.

Common complaints pointed to unlikable characters, particularly newcomer Nikki, and uneven plotting. Despite all of that, Netflix moved ahead with the renewal anyway, and did so just four days after season 1 debuted. The deciding factor appears to have been viewership.

The series pulled in 2.8 million views in its opening weekend and landed at number 7 on Netflix’s global Top 10, also securing a spot in the platform’s top 15 animated series debuts of all time. That kind of traction, regardless of critical reception, was enough to greenlight a second season.