It’s been three horrendously long years since we last made the trip to Hawkins but now, at long last, it’s finally time to visit to some old friends.
On Tuesday, the trailer for Stranger Things 4 dropped, and those sweet three-minutes-and-16-seconds of footage did not disappoint.
So, in a bid to kill some time between now and May 27 when the series drops, it’s time to pour over every single individual frame to see what clues can be gathered — and what questions remain.
What is the Hellfire Club?
Credit: Screenshot: YouTube / Netflix
We see it on a t-shirt worn by Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) as he and Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) watch Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin) on the basketball court, and we know it’s the title of the series’ first episode — but what exactly is The Hellfire Club? Well, a bit of digging on Twitter tells us that it’s the Hawkins High official D&D club, run by a new character called Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn) — more on him later.
Maybe The Hellfire Club will serve as the new base of operations for the gang in Season 4? At least those remaining in Hawkins, that is — the Byers and Eleven can be seen in the trailer walking into Lenora Hills High School.
What’s that package Joyce receives?
Credit: Screenshot: YouTube / Netflix
At one point in the trailer we see Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) staring with confusion at a package she’s just received in the mail — but what’s the significance, and who’s it from? Well, judging by the large volume of postage stamps, it would seem that it’s come from a long way away — and if we look closer we see from the stamp design that these are actually Russian kon stamps, which means it’s almost certainly been sent to her by Jim Hopper (David Harbour). We knew he wasn’t dead at the end of Season 3!
Why is Max levitating?
Uhhhh…Max?
Credit: Screenshot: YouTube / Netflix
Could Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) be set to take a more central role in Stranger Things 4? It’s her we hear at the beginning of the trailer, speaking to her dead brother, Billy, at his graveside, and she’s clearly still haunted by the memory of what happened to him — remember he met an untimely end sacrificing himself to the Mind Flayer in the Starcourt Mall.
But what’s with the shot of her levitating while the others look on in shock? Has Max picked up some of Eleven’s powers? Or is she being tormented by something calling out to her from the Upside-Down?
Why was that guy playing guitar in the Upside-Down?
Credit: Screenshot: YouTube / Netflix
The Upside-Down doesn’t seem like the safest place for a jamming session, does it? What exactly is going on here? We can’t tell you the why, but we can make a good guess at the who. Judging by the length of the character’s hair, we’d guess that it’s the previously mentioned D&D club president Eddie Munson, pictured below. Maybe he’s having one last blowout in the scene before he dies? Or perhaps he’s discovered that music has a way of repelling those nasty flying creatures in the Upside-Down?
Into D&D *and* playing metal on the roof in the Upside-Down.
Credit: Screenshot: YouTube / Netflix
What (or who) exactly is the monster we see at the end?
Credit: Screenshot: YouTube / Netflix
It seems pretty obvious from the trailer that the main antagonist of Season 4 is going to be the fairly unpleasant looking, humanoid chap whose voiceover we hear growling threats at the begging and end of the trailer. But is the monster just another one of the Upside-Down’s many unpleasant inhabitants? Or could it be a warped incarnation of a character we’ve previously lost?
Surely it couldn’t be…Billy, could it?
