Overview
When July 2021 came and went, it marked two years since Stranger Things last graced our streaming queues. That's two years of wondering what's become of Hawkins' beloved police chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour, Black Widow) — and where everyone else we've all come to know and love in the hit Netflix series has washed up, too. Sorry fans, you'll have to keep pondering for the rest of this year as well, as the streaming platform has officially announced that its 80s-set sci-fi series won't be returning till 2022.
Fancy a sneak peek in the interim? In revealing that Stranger Things will finally make a comeback next year, Netflix has also dropped a new glimpse at what's in store. The platform has done so a few times already since the beginning of 2020, providing an initial clip back at the beginning of last year — which now seems like a lifetime ago — and a couple more teasers in May 2021. But hey, when you're hanging out for anything and everything related to the show's fourth season, each trailer and teaser drop is exciting.
From that first 2020 teaser, we already know what happened after season three's big cliffhanger and Russian-set post-script — when Hopper, the mind flayer, the Russian lab below Starcourt Mall and that pesky gate to the Upside Down all had a run-in. And, we know that Hawkins Laboratory is going to feature again moving forward, with the last two clips focusing on Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown, Godzilla vs Kong) and Dr Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine, Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal).
The new sneak peek combines both new and old footage, so parts of it will look familiar — and parts of it tease what's to come. There's little narrative detail provided, but that usually comes with the territory anyway. You already know you'd prefer to discover Stranger Things' secrets by binging your way through it as soon as new episodes become available to stream.
Of course, it's worth remembering that when Netflix announced the show's renewal for a fourth season back in 2019, it did so with the catchphrase "we're not in Hawkins anymore". Naturally, we'll have to wait to see what that really means for its cast of characters — including not only Hopper and Eleven, the latter of which was last seen leaving town with Joyce (Winona Ryder, The Plot Against America), Will (Noah Schnapp, Hubie Halloween) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton, The New Mutants), but also for Mike (Finn Wolfhard, The Goldfinch), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo, The Angry Birds Movie 2), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin, Concrete Cowboy), Max (Sadie Sink, The Last Castle), Steve (Joe Keery, Spree) and Nancy (Natalia Dyer, Things Seen & Heard).
Check out the new Stranger Things season four sneak peek below:
Stranger Things season four will be able to stream via Netflix sometime in 2022 — we'll update you with an exact date when one is announced.