The long-awaited Season 4 of the Netflix series Stranger Things is almost here, friends!!!
The Duffer brothers (AKA the creators of Stranger Things) have been drip-feeding us intel over nearly three years to build the hype for this monstrous season. So with all this in mind, here’s your complete roundup of what we know about the upcoming Season 4 of Stranger Things on Netflix.
When will Stranger Things Season 4 premiere in Australia?
After one million, trillion, billion years… we finally have a premiere date! Well, dates.
Netflix announced on February 18 that Season 4 of Stranger Things will be split into two volumes, and will be spaced out over a few months.
Volume 1 premieres on the streaming service on May 27, with Volume 2 following on July 1.
Stranger Things fans, at long last we can finally reveal when the new season will be premiering!!
Stranger Things 4 is coming to you in two parts: Volume 1 premieres May 27 & Volume 2 quickly follows on July 1. pic.twitter.com/FSG6UOE1yU
— Netflix (@netflix) February 17, 2022
Netflix said the reason why Season 4 is being released across two volumes and several months is because it’s the biggest instalment of the show to date.
“Nearly every episode is super-sized — literally!” Netflix tweeted.
“That means Season 4 is 2x as long as Season 3!”
Netflix also revealed why Season 4 is so monstrous in length — it’s because this ‘yuge season is the set up for Stranger Things‘ big finale. Yep, Season 5 has been confirmed, and it’s the very last season of the sci-fi horror series.
And the reason Season 4 is so jam-packed with new locations, new characters, and the biggest threat yet is because these episodes set up the show’s final act!
Yes, Season 5 will be the epic conclusion to this story — which is how the creators have always envisioned it. pic.twitter.com/zblOoFM5ba
— Netflix (@netflix) February 17, 2022
What will season 4 of Stranger Things be about?
Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer promised a huge payoff with the new season and its massive scope and run time. There is going to be a lot going on, and we’re finally going to get some answers.
“We kind of jokingly call it our Game of Thrones season because it’s so spread out, so I think that’s what’s unique or most unique about the season,” Matt said during Deadline’s Contenders Television panel.
“Joyce and Byers family left at the end of Season 3. They are in California – we’ve always wanted to have that like ‘E.T’.-esque suburb aesthetic, which we finally got to do this year in the desert; and then we have Hopper in Russia; and then of course we have a group remaining in Hawkins. So we have these three storylines, are all connected and kind of interwoven together, but it’s just very different tones.”
Stranger Things Season 4 photo dump! 2/3 pic.twitter.com/wg8YpOvebd
— Netflix (@netflix) March 23, 2022
The brothers revealed that this season, they’re finally going to explain some of the spooky happenings of Hawkins.
“Back when we did Season 1, Netflix just kept going ‘Can you explain all this mythology to us?’”said Ross.
“So we wrote this giant 20-page document, which talked about everything in terms of what was going on and what exactly the Upside Down was. And then each season we’re just sort of peeling back the layers of that onion, so to speak. But this season, we really wanted to really get into it and [revealing] some of those answers. But to do that properly, we needed time, so it just became bigger and bigger.”
Matt also revealed that the season has an “epic quality” to it and “a different feel” to the other seasons. Ugh, so excited!
As for what comes next, the Duffer brothers released a statement about the upcoming penultimate and final seasons on February 18. They teased that although Season 5 is the end of this particular story of Eleven and her mates, there are more stories within the Stranger Things realm to be told.
“There are still many more exciting stories to tell within the world of Stranger Things,” they wrote.
“New mysteries, new adventures, new unexpected heroes. But first, we hope that you stay with us as we finish this tale of a powerful girl named Eleven and her brave friends, of a broken police chief and a ferocious mom, of a small town called Hawkins and an alternate dimension known only as the Upside Down.”
uoos noʎ ǝǝs pic.twitter.com/pJ71dRgmo1
— Stranger Things (@Stranger_Things) February 17, 2022
What clues are in the Stranger Things Season 4 trailers?
Have a peek at the brand new trailer below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQEondeGvKo&feature=youtu.be
The first trailer is deliberately cryptic, and we really don’t get to see much. What we can see is at least part of the season will be set in some kind of Soviet Russian gulag (more on this later).
Meanwhile, the second trailer appears to show that Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine), the director of Hawkins National Laboratory and surrogate father of Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), is alive. That’s because we can hear him call out to Eleven at the very end of the clip.
The last we saw of him was in the Season 1 finale, so this is a pretty big revelation.
There’s also the first teaser, which really only showed a Stranger Things logo. But it was enough for fans to ruminate about the potential ways in which Jim Hopper (David Harbour) somehow survived the dramatic Season 3 finale.
The full trailer (004/004) for Season 4 dropped on November 7th, presented through the lens of Eleven writing a letter to Mike (Finn Wolfhard) from her new home in California. She tells him typical teenage white lies of her life on the west coast, saying that she’s loving school (debatable), got lots of friends (untrue), and is excited to see him for spring break (ok that one’s not a lie).
It all starts out pretty happy-clappy, like a typical teenage rom-com where the unpopular girl recounts a fake version of an idyllic life to her friend hours away. Things turn dark quickly when Eleven says she’ll see Mike for the “best spring break ever”, nodding at the idea that as soon as the pair are reunited, shit’s going to hit the fan real quick.
We see flashes of weird-ass dolls, gunfire, car chases, a door to nowhere (?) a helicopter circling the desert, the pizza van Eleven and Will pile into earlier in the trailer, an underground bunker-looking scene, Eleven being arrested, military people with machine guns, explosions, and a dial being notched up to seven.
Four posters for Stranger Things Season 4 dropped on February 18, showing the multiple places the show will likely go over Volume 1 and 2.
First up we have Russia, which looks like it’ll focus on the reunion of everyone’s mum and dad: Sherrif Jim Hopper (David Harbour) and Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder).
001. Russia. Getting the band back together. Bring a jacket. pic.twitter.com/NO4NHRLVDs
— Stranger Things (@Stranger_Things) February 17, 2022
The second poster shows Eleven back in the lab where it all began. She’s alone here, so maybe that’s a nod to her being separated from the rest of the group in some way, and only she can face these demons on her own.
002. The Lab. Every story starts somewhere. pic.twitter.com/trFwENrP4f
— Stranger Things (@Stranger_Things) February 17, 2022
Poster three shows the gang in the Creel House, which was inhabited by the Creel family in the late 50s and apparently mysterious circumstances resulted in the family’s patriarch murdering the whole family. It’s creepy as shit, and it sure looks like the gang find their way in there at some point.
003. Creel House. Tick-tock. pic.twitter.com/mhRfFfQYXU
— Stranger Things (@Stranger_Things) February 17, 2022
The final poster shows four characters, including Mike, walking up a deserted suburban street in California. We already know that Eleven moves there and starts going to high school in the sunny state, but it looks like that wasn’t enough to keep the terrors of the Upside Down at bay.
004. California. Hold onto your butts, brochachos. pic.twitter.com/2xRx3UMn1E
— Stranger Things (@Stranger_Things) February 17, 2022
In every poster here we see the same ominous feature: a glowing red pit with veins (tentacles? roots?) sneaking out of it, like some kind of parasitic rupture in the Earth’s surface — or between dimensions. Whatever that it, it does not look good.
Who is returning in Stranger Things Season 4?
Obviously, Eleven is still in the mix. And from the above trailers, it really does look like we’ll see her with Hopper in ~some capacity~ during Season 4.
Meanwhile, according to the cast list for the first episode (entitled “Chapter 1: The Hellfire Club”), we know Joyce Byers, Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, Will Byers, Max Mayfield, Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers and Steve Harrington will all be returning.
Whether they’ll play prominent parts throughout Season 4 remains to be seen, however.
Who are the new characters in Stranger Things Season 4?
With the second trailer appearing to be set in some kind of Soviet gulag, it’s no surprise to see a couple of Russian names among the new characters.
Among them are Dmitri (played by Game of Thrones‘ Tom Wlaschiha) and Yuri (played by Nikola Đuričko).
Meanwhile, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. actor Joel Stoffer will play Warden Hatch, while Sherman Augustus is set to play Lt. Colonel Sullivan.
Other recurring characters will be Victor Creel, a disturbed man who has been imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital, played by Robert Englund, and Virginia Creel, played by Tyner Rushing.
Variety has also reported on a few more recurring characters in and around Hawkins High School who are set to make their debut in Season 4.
They include Vickie, a “cool, fast-talking band nerd” and love interest played by Amybeth McNulty, Patrick, a popular basketball jock played by Myles Truitt, beloved guidance counsellor Ms. Kelly, played by Regina Ting Chen, and Chrissy, the most popular girl in school and its star cheerleader, played by Grace Van Dien.
Do we have any goss from the film set?
Yes! Potential spoilers ahead!
Page Six has obtained photos from filming which appear to show a mannequin of Eleven being hauled out of a building that supposedly exploded.
Other actors playing news crews, cops and firefighters were all also spotted on-set. There are also photos of a building that’s been reduced to rubble. Clearly, something big went down.
While we don’t actually know what’s going on in the scene, it’s safe to say MBB’s character is set to suffer a pretty severe injury sometime in Season 4 of Stranger Things.
What happened at the end of Season 3?
The last season of Stranger Things ended on a huge cliffhanger. In the season finale, we saw Hopper, Joyce, and Murray head into the secret Russian lab to turn off the machine attempting to re-open the portal.
However, this ultimately saw Hopper sacrifice his life in the process. The fact that the creators themselves have confirmed that Hopper is returning really makes you wonder what’s going to happen.
During the final credits, we were treated to a bonus scene set in Kamchatka, a cold and remote region in the far east of Russia. This setting sure looked like what we saw in the second trailer for Season 4.
Why there was such a delay for Season 4 of Stranger Things?
The production of Season 4 of Stranger Things has been plagued with delays due to the pandemic (no pun intended!).
In March 2020, the production of all Netflix original shows and movies was halted due to the coronavirus pandemic. Filming for Stranger Things wasn’t resumed until September of that year.
In late 2020, Natalia Dyer (who plays Nancy Wheeler) told Vogue that we need to strap in for the long haul.
“I can’t say a lot, except that it’s going to be a while before it comes out, [but] it will definitely be worth it,” she said.
The upside to this is that the Duffer brothers have had even more time to perfect their script.
“[The delays] impacted very positively by allowing the Duffer brothers, for the first time ever, to write the entire season before we shoot it and to have time to rewrite in a way that they rarely had before so the quality of these screenplays are exceptional, maybe better than ever,” executive producer (and occasional director) Shawn Levy told Collider.
What time period will Stranger Things Season 4 cover?
While the last three seasons of Stranger Things were set in the 1980s, there’s a possibility that Season 4 could jump forwards or backwards in time.
The second trailer does give off vibes slightly earlier than the 1980s, and the fact that it’s set to feature Hopper could mean that, if he really did die in the last episode of last season, then we’ll be seeing an earlier part of his life.
But, like with all things Stranger Things, we’ll really have to wait and see.
stranger things was THE cultural reset back in 2016
— bethany (@fiImgal) February 17, 2022
How old is the Stranger Things cast now?
The cast has aged a couple of years since Season 1 of Stranger Things., which can obviously make filming a show about a bunch of young school kids tricky.
Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) is 18, Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler) is 18, Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin) is 19, Noah Schnapp (Will Byers) is 17, and Season 2 newcomer Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield) is 20.
We’ll be sure to keep this article updated as more info about Season 4 of Stranger Things emerges. Watch this space!
