With the fourth season of Stranger Things just five days away, Netflix revealed the first eight minutes of episode one this past Friday, May 20th. Yes you read that right. Eight…Full…Minutes!
The TV show, which is one of Netflix’s flagship projects, is a supernatural fantasy horror-story whose plot is set back in the 1980s and follows the on-goings in the fictional town of Hawkins – Indiana, which is terrorized by monsters that emerge from a parallel (bizarre) dimension known as the Upside Down.
Taking you back to before the beginning
This 8 minute clip uploaded by the official Stranger Things You Tube channel, acts as a prologue to season four, jumping back to the morning of September 8th 1979, before the events of the inaugural season 1.
It focuses entirely on Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine) — you know, the scientist who used to experiment on unfortunate kids at the Hawkins National Laboratories — and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) at the Hawkins lab.
There is however a brief glimpse of Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) doing his usual morning thing of delivering newspapers to people’s houses.
The footage kicks off on what appears to be a beautiful sunny day in Hawkins with Brenner picking up the morning paper from his doorstep and timing himself on a crossword puzzle before getting ready for work at the Hawkins National Laboratories.
Over at the lab, Dr. Brenner is busy running tests on a child who resembles Eleven but then some unusual things start happening when he starts hearing screams coming from within the facility.
As he begins investigating, everything suddenly goes dark. Brenner later wakes up, bloody and injured, seemingly having been hit and knocked out cold by the metal door to the room he was in.
He wanders around to find the source of the disturbance, only to come across a horrific scene with dead people everywhere and blood smeared all over the walls, eventually discovering a young Eleven angry and bleeding from her eyes and nose with her hospital gown covered in blood.
“What have you done?” A visibly terrified Dr. Brenner asks Eleven. Did Eleven just murder all those people in the lab? It sure looks like it.
I might have spoiled the ending for you there, but its definitely one way to kick off a new season.
Although a large portion of the Stranger Things cast is not featured in this 8 minute prologue, it’s setting up as an exploration of Eleven’s backstory that will likely have major consequences for everyone in Hawkins.
Having been confirmed that Matthew Modine will be appearing in multiple episodes of the season (previously present in season 1 & 2), it’s possible he might not appear in this season’s main timeline as he’s playing in a recurring role, separate from the main cast.
If that’s the case, then it means the season will be periodically returning to flashbacks of the time following Eleven’s violent outburst and providing fans with more information on her origins than they’ve ever had before.
Season 4 picks up where its predecessor left off
Season four takes place 6 months after the Battle Of Starcourt, where Eleven and her group of friends successfully took down the Mind Flayer (but not without casualties of course as Billy Hargrove – Max’s step brother, ended up dying in the gruesome encounter).
It finds the main cast of the tv series split up across multiple locations. This includes a section in Russia where police chief Jim Hopper (played by David Harbour), whom I initially thought didn’t survive the Battle Of Starcourt, must be rescued from a villainous Russian group that has their own Demogorgon.
Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) and his younger brother Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) are on their part, dealing with the separation from their friends as they start school across the country in California.
Meanwhile, back in Hawkins, a terrifying new monster will surface, potentially coming from a portal connecting to the Upside Down located in the attic of a supposedly haunted residence called Creel House.
When do I get to watch the 4th season of Stranger Things?
First off, Season 4 is a split season, divided into two “volumes” and Netflix has revealed the number of episodes that’ll be in each volume.
Volume One, which is what premieres next week, May 27th, will have seven episodes.
Volume Two which debuts over a month later on July 1st, has two episodes.
The longest season yet
Stranger Things season 4 is the most supersized ever, and according to Netflix’s fan website Tudum, its nine episodes add up to roughly 13 hours of Upside Down madness, with every episode lasting longer than an hour and running at an average 75 minutes or more. So how does that split up?
Three of season four’s episodes are long enough to be feature films of their own. Chapter Seven: The Massacre At Hawkins Lab will run for 1 hour and 38 minutes.
Chapter Eight: Papa is 1 hour and 25 minutes, with the finale, Chapter Nine: The Piggyback approaching two and a half hours of runtime.
Overall, this upcoming season is almost five hours longer than the previous three seasons.
The plan to split this season into two parts was first announced by the show’s creators Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer this February, in an open letter to the show’s fans posted on Netflix’s official website.
At the time, the Duffer Brothers explained the decision was as a result of the length of the season, which is nearly twice as long as the other previous installments (1, 2 & 3).
They described the split as a way of providing fans with new episodes as soon as possible after Covid-19 which caused production delays resulted in a nearly three year gap between seasons after Season 3 premiered way back on July 4th, 2019.
Will Stranger Things have another season after this?
In addition to the two volumes for season 4, Stranger Things has been renewed for a fifth and final season.
A release timeline for Season 5 has yet to be confirmed. Production hasn’t started just yet and so casting calls haven’t been made.
Cast members for Stranger Things Season 4
Reprising their roles for yet another stab against the nightmares of the mysterious Upside down include; Millie Bobby Brown (as Eleven), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Brett Gelman (Murray Bauman) and the man with the super great hair – Joe Keery (Steve Harrington).
Stranger Things Season 4 is set to feature a ton of new faces too as Jamie Campbell Bower, Joseph Quinn, Eduardo Franco, Amybeth McNulty, Myles Truitt, Sherman Augustus, Mason Dye, Nikola Duricko, Regina Ting Chen, Grace Van Dien and Robert Englund all join the cast.
