At the opening of Season 2, while everyone assumes the monster is defeated, Hopper and Joyce are deeply worried about Will who has returned from the Upside Down with what appears to be severe psychological damage. Will is receiving treatment for this in the government laboratory.
Season 2 Episode 1
Acting Aid. To express the tension simmering beneath the surface, the Duffer Brothers show both adult protagonists smoking throughout Episode 1. The season opens with Hopper walking into the police station with cigarette in mouth.
Narrative bookends. Just like how the previous season began and ended, his secretary plucks the cigarette from Hopper's lips.
Hopper, obviously, cannot be helped. A minute later he lights up in his office while having a conversation with a new character, former investigating journalist and "conspiracy theorist" Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman).
Joyce waits for Will in front of the school to bring him to therapy. Her expression, body language, and the cigarette in hand reveals her frame of mind.
Hopper meets Joyce and Will at the government laboratory, taking a quick drag before they all go in. After the therapy session, Joyce explains her doubts about the government psychiatrist to Hopper with cigarette in hand. Hopper tries to reassure her, but after she leaves, he reveals to the audience that he is worried too by the way he looks and smokes his cigarette.
Season 2, Episode 2
Action prop. Joyce and Hopper keep discussing Will's ongoing treatment for trauma. Sitting at the kitchen table, Joyce wants to light up but realizes her Camel Lights pack is empty. She asks Hopper for a drag of the unfiltered Camel he is smoking. The smoke of the straight cigarette is harsher than what she is used to. She coughs and removes shreds of loose tobacco from her lips. Her facial impression indicates puzzlement at how Hopper can smoke unfiltered cigarettes. They both laugh--a much-needed comic relief for the sustained tension they, and thereby the audience, have been experiencing so far in the season. The conversation becomes personal: Nostalgically, Hopper recalls how they used to sneak cigarettes in high school. At this point, they stare at each other, with palpable sexual tension, revealing not only the probability of a teenage "hook-up," but also foreshadowing a romantic relationship that begins in the final episode of Season Three.
Character development. Billy (Dacre Montgomery), the new macho high-school student, smokes Marlboro. Note the iconic Marlboro red sticking out of the pocket of his (Levi's) jeans jacket. His appearance, behavior--and not least, his Chevrolet Camaro--all mesh with the long-established personality of the best-selling cigarette in the world.
Season 2, Episode 4
Character reinforcement. Hopper lights up a Camel in his SUV.
Acting aid. Joyce is slowly losing her mind, or so it seems. She smokes standing in the middle of the dark house (glowing ember of the cigarette tip shines on right) giving Hopper a jump scare.
Season 2, Episode 5
Action prop. Hopper enters a complex underground labyrinth. In a homage to Steven Spileberg's ET--The Extraterrestrial (1982), in which the child hero, Elliott builds a trail of Reese's Pieces to lure the alien out of hiding and into his bedroom, the police chief breaks his beloved Camels in twos and drops them along the route to make sure he will find his way out.
Character reinforcement and action prop. When he is incapacitated by inhaling the noxious gas lingering in the labyrinth, Hopper, as the final act in life, decides to light up. Because the main characters have "plot armor," the cavalry--Joyce and her Season 2 boyfriend (Sean Astin)--arrives just in time by following the markers.
Season 2, Episode 6
Character reinforcement. Billy is so tough that he can do biceps curls with 70 pounds on the bar while smoking.
Season 2, Episode 7
Verisimilitude. In an unusual episode of Stranger Things that breaks from the main story, the Duffer Brothers take Eleven--and the audience--to a trip to visit another escaped human test subject, Eight, in Chicago. Eight is a vigilante gang leader whose fellow cyberpunks rob a gas station in the episode. To recreate the "reality" of the 1980s, historically authentic cigarette packs and point-of-sale material dominate the set design.
Season 2, Episode 9
Action prop. In the final episode of the season, Joyce and Hopper smoke together again--reminiscing of the past is used anew to strengthen the emotional bond between the two adult protagonists. While the kids are inside at a dance, Hopper arrives to the school parking lot to commiserate with Joyce, whose Season 2 boyfriend was killed. Joyce goes through the motions again--smokes, coughs, grimaces, smiles. After sharing the cigarette throughout their heart-rending conversation about grief, Hopper puts his arm gently around Joyce's shoulders.