On Thursday, Netflix announced that it will release an official Stranger Things aftershow series alongside the release of the long-awaited second season—so this weekend's marathon binge-watching session just got a little longer.According to the Hollywood Reporter, the aftershow, called Beyond Stranger Things, will be hosted by Community's Jim Rash and will "explore the inspiration for the series, tell behind-the-scenes stories, and analyze every aspect of the second season, including answering all burning questions."Plenty of shows already have similar post-episode recaps—AMC has aftershows for Walking Dead and Better Call Saul, and HBO's Insecure has Wine Down—but this is the first time Netflix has given the format a try, and it's doing it a little differently.Netflix is releasing seven episodes of the aftershow, whereas the second season of Stranger Things will run for nine. In each, Rash will sit down with a rotating group of cast members and crew, including show creators the Duffer Brothers and actors Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard, to recap and obsessively dissect the new season.And because there will likely be some major spoilers thrown around in the discussions, Netflix wants people to binge season two in its entirety before diving in. The aftershow's first episode will apparently auto-play after you finish the last episode of season two, rather than play after the individual episodes.The new season of Stranger Things drops on Netflix this Friday, October 27, just in time for Halloween, and from the early reviews, it looks like it's been worth the wait. Variety called the last few episodes of season two "some of its most propulsive and emotionally effective storytelling" and the Verge suggests downing it all in a single weekend marathon.That might be a bit of a stretch now that we've got all these extra aftershow episodes to churn through, too.
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