We’re on the verge of getting new Stranger Things episodes—part one of season four arrives May 27; the rest on July 1—and honestly, you’re not alone if your memories of season three have gotten fuzzy. July 2019 does feel like decades ago. With that in mind, we’re here to get our priorities in order for season four.
Of course, Netflix hopes that even the foggiest brains will recall where we left things back in Hawkins, Indiana, circa the summer of 1985: Eleven (Millie Bobbie Brown) was without her powers after battling the Mind Flayer. Hawkins’ shiny new mall, which had a secret Russian research facility lurking beneath it, was destroyed during that battle, so Robin (Maya Hawke) and Steve (Joe Keery) got new jobs at the local video store. With Hopper (David Harbour) presumed dead, Eleven moved to California with Joyce (Winona Ryder) and her kids Will (Noah Schnapp) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), leaving the heartbroken Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Mike behind, along with the rest of the gang: Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), and Max (Sadie Sink). Caleb’s sister, Erica (Priah Ferguson) got the Dungeons & Dragons books Will left behind. And Hopper—well, he was revealed to be alive but stuck in an isolated Russian prison… where a Demogorgon was also being held captive.
The new season picks up just six months after that fateful Fourth of July weekend. The young’uns are in high school now, and—as we’ve seen in the season four trailer—things in Hawkins, a town distressingly prone to dimensional rifts and the furious monsters that dwell in them, have not settled down one bit. While we don’t know any specific plot points or what to expect from characters old and new this season, here are seven things we’re hoping to see in the episodes ahead.
