The trailer for Stranger Things 4 dropped today, and with it came a lot of questions about the future of Hawkins, Indiana and our favorite characters. With an intense ’80s feel throughout, mainly due to the inclusion of Journey’s “Separate Ways,” the trailer gave us even more questions to answer as we head back to Hawkins with Eleven, Mike, Will, Lucas, Dustin, and the rest of the kids.
Taking a deep dive into the trailer, there are some important things to unpack and figure out how they’re going to play into the future of the show and the journey everyone is going to go through. So, let’s unpack what’s happening.
Max is going through it
Max Mayfield came to Hawkins and instantly found friends in Eleven, Lucas, Dustin, Mike, and Will. She became a central part of their friend group, but she also watched as her step-brother became the villain of Hawkins in both his living and Upside Down existence. In the season 4 trailer, we see Max sitting in front of Billy’s grave, talking about what’s been happening since his death on July 4.
But putting her seeming powers aside for a second, there is something weird going on with Billy’s grave, too. In the beginning of the trailer, it says “Billy Hargrove,” but when we see Max floating above Steve, Lucas, and Dustin, it says “William Hargrove.”
Is that a trick from the Upside Down? Is this something deeper, or is this all just a dream that is changing the gravestone back and forth?
These powers seem to be connected in some way to the Creel Clock that we saw counting down yesterday to the trailer, because Max comes in contact with it and sees it in the walls of the high school.
Which does come seemingly after the entire group heads to the house that holds the clock. Or could this finally be why they’re looking for answers there?
Lucas’ new uniform
What has always been a central part of Stranger Things is the friendship between Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will. It’s what drove them to finding answers in season 1 and what has carried them through relationships and mysteries, and now that seems to be challenged with Lucas joining the basketball team.
When he’s walking out onto the court, we see Mike, Dustin, and Max in the stands watching him and seeming a little upset that he’s on the team at all. While the boys have fought in the past, it is weird to see how mad Max seems to be at him (when the two were together), but then again, they do fight, so it could just be tied to that.
With the way Mike is reacting, we have to assume that this basketball “betrayal” has to be tied to something bigger that Mike is trying to figure out, and putting his upset onto Lucas instead of figuring it out on his own, because that’s sort of the dynamic that Mike and Lucas have always had with each other. But I hope that it isn’t something that carries throughout the season, because their friendship is more important than a fight between them.
What’s happening with Steve Harrington?
Steve Harrington is easily my favorite character on Stranger Things. He went from the school douche to someone that everyone knows they can rely on, and while his relationship with Nancy Wheeler didn’t work out, the two talking to each other and working together in the new trailer gives me hope that they can at least start to mend their relationship with each other (even if it is just as friends).
But then the trailer shows Steve Harrington fighting off creatures from the Upside Down, and the above image frightens me for what it means for Steve as a character.
Because this specific shot gives me anxiety.
Is he willing to sacrifice himself to protect those he cares about? Is he going to die and that’s why he’s making amends?
Anyway.
Hopper is willing to sacrifice himself
“I was convinced I was put here for some other reason. Maybe I can still help,” Hopper says. “Even if it’s the last thing I do.” The last we saw of him, he was seemingly dead, but at the end of Stranger Things 3, we hear Russian prison guards say that “the American” is there, hinting to fans that Hopper was fine even if everyone he cares about thinks he’s dead.
In this new trailer, though, it seems as if Hopper is almost training to take on Demogorgons and creatures from the Upside Down while in Russia, and tied to that, it seems like Joyce is maybe clued into Hopper being alive at some point in the season.
Who is this new big bad?
There’s a voice talking throughout the trailer, saying, “You’ve broken everything. Your suffering is almost at an end.” But then, as the trailer goes on and our favorite teens in Hawkins head into the Upside Down, the creature seems to be taking them on headfirst, saying, “You have lost,” and emerging at the end of the trailer.
Is this someone who has been lost to the Upside Down and turned into a new creature for them to fight? Is this who has been behind what’s going on in Hawkins all along? The Duffer Brothers did confirm the name of this new villain, though.
Mike and Eleven
It’s been a rough go of it for the two lovebirds who met in season 1, when Eleven lived in Mike’s basement, and they finally danced together and kissed in season 2. Season 3 was more of a struggle with their relationship, between Hopper hating them being together all the time and then Eleven moving with the Byers to California, but it seems from all the footage out there that the two are still just as in love with each other as before.
But does that mean it’s easy for them? Clearly not. We see in the trailer that Eleven is being taken away in a van and standing in the middle of the street is Mike, watching she’s taken from him yet again.
Eleven lost her powers
Eleven is talking with Paul Reiser’s character, Dr. Sam Owens, who first appeared in Stranger Things 2, and we learn that the only way to defeat the Upside Down is with Eleven, and it seems to be the answer even though she admits to no longer having her powers.
Does that mean she still has the ability to use them but they’re repressed, or did she completely lose her powers and has to find a way to save Hawkins without them?
Joyce gets a package
We haven’t seen a lot of Joyce in the trailers for season 4, as she’s kind of been a central figure in trying to let the kids still have some freedom as teenagers. But even though she escaped to California with her family, she’s sent a package.
On the package seem to be stamps from Russia, confirming (to me at least) that she has some idea of Hopper’s whereabouts or at least that there’s something still going on with Russia, and maybe she’ll be the tie to bringing him back into the fold with everyone in Hawkins.
Everyone’s still working together
The last few seasons have had the team all divided into their separate groups as they’re all trying to figure out what’s going on, and while they do normally come together at some point, this seems to be a more continued arc where everyone is working with one another to try to figure out what is happening to Hawkin now.
In fact, it looks like they all go into the Upside Down to stop what is happening to Hawkins.
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There are so many questions left unanswered in this trailer, and it seems like we’re going to be in for a wild ride in the upcoming Stranger Things 4, and we can’t wait!
(featured image: Netflix)
