Stranger Things season 4: episode names, new cast members, and final trailer breakdown

Now that the new Season 4 trailer for Stranger Things is released and the premier is just over a month away (after THREE YEARS), it is time to talk about everything we know so far about Stranger Things Season 4.  First, Netflix is giving us eight episodes split into two parts, the first four premier on May 27th, and the second four will be released July 1st (my birthday!).  If you haven’t seen the previous season 4 trailer, here is a break down of Welcome to California.

Netflix revealed the episode titles back in November, 2021:
Episode 1: The Hellfire Club
Episode 2: Vecna’s Curse
Episode 3: The Monster and the Superhero
Episode 4: Dear Billy
Episode 5: The Nina Project
Episode 6: The Dive
Episode 7: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab
Episode 8: Papa

Where are we now?  Billy’s dead, Eleven lost her powers and broke up with Mike, Hopper is presumed dead, and they can’t cover up the supernatural events in Hawkins anymore.

The trailer opens playing Separate Ways by Journey (quintessential 80’s band), which is significant because the group has gone their separate ways with the Byers and Eleven in California, Hopper (he’s not dead!) in Russia, and those still in Hawkins doing their own things.  The first voice we hear as we look at the destroyed portal gun underneath the mall is that of vecna, the new adversary, saying “You’ve broken everything, your suffering is almost at an end.”  Then we see the grandfather clock in the attic of the Creel house (where the group found the portal to the Upside Down) counting down to….something.  This is where we get our first glimpse of vecna (dubbed the Freddy Krueger of the Stranger Things universe) opening his eyes.

Cut to Max at Billy’s grave reading a letter she wrote to him that clearly indicates they are all still suffering the trauma from the events of the first three seasons, particularly the mall disaster. There is a quick shot of the Upside Down flipping to reveal a blockade at a trailer park where onlookers (including Steve, Robin, and Dustin pulling up in a car) watching someone in a body bag being wheeled to an ambulance.  We see at a pep rally that Lucas has joined the basketball team, and Mike and Dustin don’t look thrilled cheering in the bleachers – maybe Lucas has left the Hellfire Club behind? Next we see El, Will, Argyle (a new character played by Eduardo Franco), and Jonathan arriving at a California High School where El is given the cold shoulder in the hallway.  In a creepy turn, we see Max in Hawkins High alone at night encountering the Creel clock cemented into the wall – real or fevered dream?

Next we’re in Russia with Hopper, and we see Sam Owens (played by Paul Reiser) is back, and in a diner asking El to help him.  Joyce receives a package with Russian postage, and a helicopter lands in front of a safe house (?) with some of the Hellfire Club inside, and we hear Sam’s voice saying that a war is coming and “your friends and Hawkins are very much in the eye of the storm.”  There is a shot of the gang entering the Creel house when their flashlights start flickering, then back to the diner when El tells Sam she doesn’t have her powers followed by a shot of El being driven away from Mike in a van, and Sam telling El that they’re going to need her and her powers to win this war and save the world.

The Stranger Things season 4 trailer is filled with Easter eggs.

DID YOU SEE THE FOUR PORTALS WITH FOUR TIME STAMPS AT 1:59?  Me either!

• 1:46 – Mike looking at El being driven away in the van.
• 2:30 – New character Eddie (played by Joseph Quinn), the new leader of the Hellfire Club
•   :33 – Max at Billy’s grave
•   :52 – Mike and Dustin in the bleachers at the pep rally

What do all of these have in common?  I have NO IDEA.  If you have some insight, please sound off in the comments below!

Then we have bats (that don’t look like normal bats) swarming around the Creel house in the Upside Down, then Steve and Nancy saying to each other “I’ll see you on the other side” as they grab a bedsheet rope (maybe the same one the kids used in a previous season to climb into one of the portals to the Upside Down made by the Demogorgon) in a room with thick vines on the walls indicating a serious Upside Down infection.  Does one of them not return?

Next the kids are riding their bikes toward the Mind Flayer in the Upside Down, cut to Hopper (still with his hair, so probably right after the Russian’s captured him) restrained and bloody with a gas mask being put over his head.  We get a glimpse of the work camp, and then Hopper’s in a giant courtyard with other prisoners and igniting his spear just as the gate opens and releases a Demogorgon that immediately attacks.

Next we see the gang with Max at Billy’s grave, and the aforementioned Eddie inviting us to play D&D.  There’s a flashback to young El and the massacre at Hawkins, and Erica (Lucas’ sister played by Priah Ferguson) in the Creel house.  We see Steve underwater in front of a portal, and Max LEVITATING in front of Billy’s grave which now says William instead of Billy!  We hear Dustin saying “some people say Hawkins is cursed” in a voice over, and what looks like current day El with her head shaved using her powers to get free from soldiers.  Back in the Upside Down, Steve is knocking bats out of the sky, and Eddie is playing guitar on an RV.

Close up of a man with his eyes gouged out – this is Victor Creel (owner of the Creel house that murdered his entire family inside), played by the one and only Robert Englund.  His younger self, portrayed by Kevin L. Johnson also has a recurring role this season.   Next we see Joyce and Murray crashing a plane in Russia, a quick shot of Dustin with a weapon, some Russian soldiers being blown up, El being pushed backwards, someone being thrown out of a portal, vecna’s hand in front of a girl that is gagged, Mrs. Wheeler and Mike’s little sister Holly being attacked (no one is safe from the Upside Down this season), Lucas screaming, Nancy leading the fight with Steve and Robin right behind her, Max running from vecna in some new dimension that isn’t the real world and isn’t the Upside Down (at 2:48 you can see the silhouettes of Steve, Dustin, and Lucas watching her levitate in the real world).  Vecna says “it’s time” as the bats are swarming the Creel house in the Upside Down, and finally a full body shot of vecna (straight out of a horror movie) suspended by vines who says “you have lost.”

WHEW!  So we have the entire main cast from season three returning: Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin, Sadie Sink, Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, and Maya Hawke, as well as three new series regulars: Jamie Campbell Bower, Eduardo Franco.  Joseph Quinn, Robert Englund, Tom Wlaschiha, Nikola Duričko, Joel Stoffer, Sherman Augustus, Mason Dye, Tyner Rushing, Joe Chrest, Amybeth McNulty, Myles Truitt, Regina Ting Chen, and Grace Van Dien all play recurring roles. Thank you Collider for all those names!

What are you most excited to see in Season 4 of Stranger Things?  Sound off in the comments!