Poor Hawkins, Indiana will never be the same. "Stranger Things" Season 2 just started filming on Monday, November 7, and teases are already trickling out from the Upside Down. Collider recently talked to Shawn Levy, who confirmed the Season 2 start date, and discussed the plan for this season and (potentially) Season 3.

Levy directed Season 1's third and fourth episodes and plans to do the same for Season 2. (Charlie Heaton, aka Jonathan Byers, said Episode 4 will be a particularly big one, so keep that in mind.)

Season 2 will have nine episodes, one more than Season 1's eight. It has been reported that the story picks up a year later, to -- as Heaton recently put it -- let the story settle and acknowledge the real-life aging of the younger actors. Levy would not confirm the year time jump when talking about the timeline. He did, however, talk up the new characters joining the show, promising that fans will love them:

"I'm not gonna say how much time has gone by. It is not the next day, I'll say that. And there are several new characters who I think several of them are going to be new fan-favorites because they're great, great new characters. But we are definitely sticking primarily with our core group, and what is different, how are they changed from the experience of last season... maybe 'normal' is never possible again. [...] Will Byers was in that Upside Down for a while. So Season 2 is about this determined desire to return to normalcy in Hawkins, in the Byers family, in that group of friends, and it's the struggle to reclaim normalcy and maybe the impossibility of it."

Yeah, poor Will Byers. That kid is messed up for life. But at least he has a life. (Unlike Barb.) On a happier note, Levy said he and the Duffer brothers are "optimistic" about Season 3, and are already thinking ahead about that story, for if/when Netflix does the obvious and gives it a green light. And since they started with eight episodes, then went up to nine, here's hoping Season 3 goes to 10. And then Season 4 can fulfill the destiny of "Stranger Things" by going to Eleven.

Here's more about the new characters headed to Hawkins. "Stranger Things" Season 2 will be ready for streaming on Netflix in 2017.

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