The second season of Stranger Things brings back (most) of its main cast and reunites its main factions: There's the core four party of Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and the very scrambled Will; the love triangle of Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve (sorry, Barb); Joyce Byers, the walls of her house, and confused authority figures. The gangs are all back together.

**Spoiler Alert: If you haven't watched the second season of Stranger Things, you may want to hold off on reading this**

It's not a total rehash; thanks to the legacy of the first season's events and a few new cast members, the show's second go-round rearranges some plot points, scrambles up some existing group dynamics, and travels down a few new paths. But for fans of a show built on the power of teamwork and friendship, the reunions provide the comfort of familiarity. Where the Duffer Brothers' show best succeeds this season is in the new tandem it creates by bringing together the first season's two broken outsiders, Eleven and Chief Jim Hopper.

They're certainly an odd couple, on the surface. Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is mysterious, semi-mute girl who escapes years of torture and would not be out of place at Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Hopper is a bummed-out burnout police chief who lives on the fringes of a crappy small Indiana town, sworn to protect what seemed like a town that needed no particular protection. Their own true similarity is that they're both loners in a town where everybody knows everybody else's business.

The events of the first season drew each of them back into society and gave them new connections: Hopper became close again with Joyce, while Eleven tags along with Mike and his friends, alternately saving and perplexing them. But by the end of that season, when everyone's hugging and happy to be reunited with Will, whose disappearance drew them all into this strange odyssey, the missing link is filled, leaving no room for the newcomers.

One of the first season's last moments hints at what's to come: Hopper puts out Eggo waffles, Eleven's breakfast of choice, in an attempt to lure her back from the wild after the final showdown. And when the second season opens, Eleven is living with Hopper on the outskirts of town, creating an endearingly odd father-daughter relationship that, for all its supernatural complications and occasional unease, is the best part of the show.

Here are some of the moments that prove it.