Stranger Things Already Gets a Third Season, and Season Four Might Be Its End

As Stranger Things ramps up to its second season premiere in October, the Duffer brothers are already thinking ahead to the just-confirmed season three. What’s more, they’ve also been thinking about season four, which, to them, would mark the series’ end. It’s mostly for practical reasons, according to Ross Duffer, who told Vulture, “They’re going to have to get the fuck out of this town. It’s ridiculous!” I mean, that just makes sense, right? There’s only so many horrors you can watch these poor kids go through before it becomes just egregious.

Personally speaking, I was a bit happy thinking that the first season may be its only one—it was a complete, concise, almost neatly-wrapped story. But as is the case with most Netflix shows (and television shows in general, I suppose), that’s not enough of a reason to just let a show go, sometimes; in fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Obviously we don’t have too many details about what those hopeful third or fourth seasons might be, but we’re pretty clued in to what to expect with regards to what we’re getting in October. The Duffer brothers also mentioned that they’re looking at this next season as a movie sequel, rather than a second season per se. Ross said, “I told Matt, ‘I don’t want to call it season two, I just want it to feel like a movie sequel.’ If you have a successful movie, No. 2 is always a little bit bigger.” Thing is, if this is going to be an 80’s movie sequel, then let’s just hope that it’s more Empire Strikes Back rather than, I don’t know, Temple of Doom, huh?

David Harbour, who plays Hawkins town sheriff Jim Hopper, mentioned that this next season might actually piss off fans and that he’ll essentially be playing a darker version of his Hopper character. He told Deadline:

In terms of Hopper, it plays to a lot of darker themes. Even though in Season 1 he certainly had his darkness, it plays to a lot of his struggles, and it sort of peels the onion back of how he struggles to deal with the pressures of feeling like you have saved a kid, and now who does that make you?

It’s all supposedly for a purpose, and I think the Duffer brothers have certainly earned some trust here with taking a few risks with a story only to have it all pay off (in spades) a bit later. At the very least, Harbour and the Duffer brothers’ chats with Deadline have served their purpose, at least for me: my interest is certainly piqued, and if there really is a hard end in sight, I think the story’s in good hands, then.

(via: Polygon, image: Netflix)

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