New Images of Eleven and the Gang Tease Details from ‘Stranger Thing’s Season 4 finale
There will be more trouble from the Upside Down…
If, by now you’ve finished watching the approximately 576 hours of ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 Volume 1 (okay, more like nearly nine hours), two things are probably true: you have Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” stuck in your head and you’re eagerly anticipating the next Volume.
Netflix is throwing us all a tiny tease of what we can expect via some new pictures from Volume 2 which, let’s not forget, comprises two episodes running nearly four hours when watched together.
Picking up a year or so after the explosive end of Season 3, the first volume’s episodes find Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) and his family living in Southern California, having made the smart choice to move away from Hawkins, Indiana. While Eleven is having trouble fitting into a new school, she’s soon informed by Sam Owens (Paul Reiser) that her particular set of mysterious skills are needed back in Hawkins.
There’s just one small problem with that plan: she doesn’t have them anymore. Yet back in Hawkins, things continue to be, well, strange. Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) are facing their own challenges, moving on up to Hawkins high school and all the potential bullying, hormonal issues and fashion challenges that presents.
But possibly having an even harder time is Sadie Sink’s Max Mayfield, who is still grieving the death of brother Billy (Dacre Montgomery), who sacrificed himself in the big battle.
They’ll need real help, as something even more terrifying is on the way and a giant conflict is bubbling away, with some of it tied to the creepy new location of the Creel House. Then there’s poor old Jim Hopper (David Harbour), locked away in a prison in Kamchatka, Russia. At least he’s alive, but for how long?
The end of Season 4’s first volume saw Mike’s sister Nancy (Natalia Dyer) trapped in the Upside Down by new big bad Vecna and friend Steve (Joe Keery) in a bad way after being attacked by bat creatures.
These new pictures could be considered a spoiler – unless the shot of Nancy with the gang is a flashback – but show the various storylines we’ve been following, including Mike and friends’ attempt to find Eleven, her digging into her tragic lab past alongside Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine), Hopper and Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) trying to get out of Russia alive and the characters in Hawkins making plans to take on Vecna (who, it is revealed, also has ties to Eleven’s past).
“The final episode has more FX shots than the entirety of Season 3,” co-creator Matt Duffer told Empire magazine after the first Volume dropped.
“There’s an hour-long chunk in the final episode that just doesn’t stop,” adds his brother and fellow show boss Ross. “It’s the most complicated thing we’ve ever attempted to do. It's all tension and dread, with a run-time that would be long even for a movie. Then – well, everything goes to hell…”
Yeah, because life is always so peachy keen and easy for the Hawkins crew! ‘Stranger Things 4’ Volume 2 lands on Netflix on July 1st.