TSTP 86- Welcome to Hawkins, New Kid

The Stranger Things Podcast

Golden Spiral Media

Tv & Film, Society & Culture

4.5 • 687 Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2026

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hawkins, Indiana never stays quiet for long, and in the dead of winter 1985, it's already getting weird again. Darrell and Addi are diving headfirst into Stranger Things: Tales From '85, the brand-new animated spinoff from the Duffer Brothers and showrunner Eric Robles, set between the events of Seasons 2 and 3 of the original series. In this premiere episode, the gang's innocent plan to shovel snow for some extra cash gets derailed fast when a surprising new threat rears its head, and a mysterious cool new kid steps into the picture, pulling Eleven, Mike, Dustin, Max, Will, and Lucas closer to something they probably should have been running from.

In this episode, Darrell and Addi break down everything that makes this animated premiere tick. They start with the chilling cold open that wastes no time pulling you back into the eerie atmosphere of Hawkins, then move into the fresh voice cast stepping into iconic roles (Brooklyn Davey Norstedt as Eleven, Luca Diaz as Mike, Braxton Quinney as Dustin, and more). They dig into what it means to revisit these beloved characters as younger versions of themselves, unpack the interdimensional threat already bubbling beneath the surface of this snowbound small town, and weigh in on the spinoff's tone, animation style, and whether Tales From '85 captures the magic of the original. Plus, who exactly is this new kid, and what are they really doing in Hawkins?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Stranger Things Podcast episode number 86.
0:05.3	Tales from 85, Chapter 1.
0:08.6	Welcome to Hawkins, New Kid.
0:18.2	Hello, and welcome to The Stranger Things podcast, a fan podcast dedicated to the Netflix
0:25.6	original series.
0:28.4	Tales of 85.
0:31.4	It's funny, this is episode 86.
0:33.6	Like, we were so close.
0:34.7	If we hadn't done the documentary or had quite so much feedback or talk to Tiffany or, I don't know, any of the amazing things that we did in the regular, the final season of the regular show.
0:45.3	Maybe we would have worked out.
0:46.8	But here we are, 86 episode for Tales from 85 kickoff.
0:53.2	You know what I forgot to do? What? No. You're Daryl. And I'm disappointed. Yeah. How you doing disappointed? Disappointed. Yeah. What's given to you? Am I just going to call you disappointed all day? Am I going to call you? I guess you can call me Addy if you so wish. All right. I can call you it. No. That's what you called me when I was born. Call it what you want. Okay. Well, how are you doing? It's been, it's been a minute since we talk stranger things. Yeah, it's been, it's been nice locking you in the, our household household dungeon while you're not in use.
1:30.0	I see.
1:30.5	Yes, I do get locked away in the dungeon.
1:33.2	These are better days when I get to come out and talk stranger things with you than the days when I'm stuck in the dungeon.
1:39.5	Yeah.
1:40.0	Yeah.
1:41.0	So anyway.
1:43.9	Yeah, I'm excited to be talking Stranger Things again with you.
1:46.8	You know, I didn't know what to expect with this new show.
1:49.9	I know nobody did.
1:50.9	They were, it was weird to me because like I kept checking Wikipedia and just
	...

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