It's still a long while until we'll see Season 2 of Netflix's Stranger Things, but since the election's not over yet, any diversion is welcome.
Today's diversion comes in the form of an announcement from EW of two of the show's new cast members: Samwise Gamgee and Carter Burke. My apologies—you may know them better as Rudy from Rudy and the Republican dad from My Two Dads (their agents refer to them as Sean Astin and Paul Reiser).
Samwise, the pluckiest of all the plucky Hobbits-that-could in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Burke, the slimy corporate lackey from Aliens, are perhaps surprising additions to Stranger Things, a show that seemed to exist within a self-contained universe without significant star power (Winona Ryder and Matthew Modine notwithstanding). But remember that these two appeared in formative works that are essential to Stranger Things' DNA—specifically, The Goonies and Aliens. One imagines that after the success of the first season, the show's creators, the Duffer Brothers, were invited to make a long wish list for actors to include in Season 2, and they did not abuse the privilege.
Sean Astin (The Goonies, Lord of the Rings trilogy) will play Bob Newby, “a kindhearted former nerd who went to high school with Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Hopper (David Harbour) and now manages the local Hawkins RadioShack.”The announcement also includes the addition of Danish newcomer Linnea Berthelsen, but the real excitement is Astin as a RadioShack manager (hopefully Mr. Clarke, the mustachioed science teacher, has not been replaced altogether) and Reiser as another potentially slimy corporate lackey. Season 2 is just starting production and it sounds like things are shaping up nicely. We'll find out for sure in the summer of 2017, when all will be warm and well, and this election will be a strange and distant memory. I can't wait.Paul Reiser (Aliens, Whiplash) has been cast as Dr. Owens, “a high-ranking member within the Department of Energy on a ‘clean-up’ assignment, tasked with containing the events of last year.”
