The first half of Stranger Things Season 4 is set to drop on Netflix on May 27. We won’t have to wait long for the second half of the season to follow, as it’s scheduled for a July 1 release. Since Season 4 contains nine episodes, it won’t be an even split, with the first five hitting Netflix in May and the final four coming to our screens in July.
The many teasers and trailers that have been released so far give a solid idea of where our core characters are at the start of Season 4. El (Millie Bobby Brown) and the Byers are living in California after leaving Hawkins last season, and it looks like El isn’t adjusting to school particularly well. Meanwhile, there appears to be a mystery at a new/old location, shown in a teaser titled “Creel House,” where Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Steve (Joe Keery), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), and Max (Sadie Sink) are doing a bit of breaking and entering to investigate.
And it looks like those four won’t be the only ones looking into the past. Another teaser shows what appears to be a flashback to El’s time at the Hawkins lab, before the events of Season 1. The scope of Season 4 in terms of place and time appears to be bigger than ever, with Hopper (David Harbour) stuck all the way in Russia.
But before we go there, we’re taking a look back at the very eventful Season 3, which premiered all the way back in the summer of 2019. It was summer in Hawkins, and Hopper was very much struggling with his daughter’s romantic relationship with Mike (Finn Wolfhard). After Hopper threatened to keep Mike from seeing El altogether if he didn’t stop coming over to their house so much, Mike lied to El about why he couldn’t hang out with her.
Confused, El went to an expert, Max, and from that a beautiful (female!) friendship was born. Max promptly advised her new friend to dump her boyfriend and start hanging out with her. The girls used El’s powers to spy on Max’s brother Billy (Dacre Montgomery), and discovered him behaving suspiciously.
Of course, this is Hawkins, after all, so there was something going on. Will (Noah Schnapp) had been feeling the familiar presence of the Mind Flayer once again, and the monster had begun possessing the citizens of Hawkins, starting with Billy. The girls reach out to Lucas, Mike, and Will for help with a plan to see if Billy is possessed.
After a fight with Billy, the kids reach out to Will’s brother Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Mike’s sister Nancy (Natalia Dyer), who’d been busy investigating strange goings-on at the home of an elderly woman who had also been possessed by the Mind Flayer. They discover that those who were possessed began to consume dangerous chemicals that cause them to melt down into a liquid-y mass that can separate and combine at the will of the Mind Flayer.
Two men possessed by the Mind Flayer attack Jonathan and Nancy at the hospital, before melting down and combining to create a creature that only El is strong enough to fight. El uses her powers once again to locate Billy in an attempt to figure out what the Mind Flayer’s plan is, and in the process she sees a series of memories from Billy’s childhood before the Mind Flayer discovers her presence and threatens to kill her and her friends.
Several possessed people in Hawkins come together to form a huge monster in the form of the Mind Flayer’s likeness, which comes straight for El, wounding her by attaching a piece of itself inside her leg. Elsewhere in Hawkins, things aren’t going much better for Dustin, who’s been notably absent from this side of the story.
After accidentally intercepting a Russian transmission, Dustin teams up with Steve and his new coworker Robin (Maya Hawke) to translate the message, which turns out to be a code. They enlist Lucas’s little sister Erica (Priah Ferguson) to climb into the vents and spy on what they believe to be some sort of nefarious drop site.
The four find a secret elevator that goes below the newly built Starcourt Mall, and find themselves trapped in a Russian lab underground Hawkins. While they look for a way out, they discover the Russians attempting to open what appears to be another gate to the Upside Down. Robin and Steve are caught by Russian soldiers, drugged, beaten and interrogated, before Dustin and Erica come to their rescue.
While every kid in Hawkins is busy getting into the most trouble imaginable, Joyce’s (Winona Ryder) magnets are falling off of her fridge. She convinces Hopper to take her to the Hawkins lab to see if anything has started up again, and the two are attacked by a Russian soldier named Grigori (Andrey Ivchenko).
Hopper recalls seeing Grigori visiting Mayor Kline’s office, so he and Joyce take matters into their own hands and interrogate Kline (Cary Elwes), who reveals that the Russians own Starcourt Mall and have been buying land all over Hawkins. They go to one of the properties and discover an underground lab being manned by a Russian scientist named Alexei (Alec Utgoff). They kidnap him and bring him to Murray (Brett Gelman) for some Russian-to-English translation.
With Murray’s help, Joyce and Hopper get caught up on the Russians’ plan to open a new portal to the Upside Down. They call Owens (Paul Reiser) and head straight for Hawkins and their kids. Murray and Alexei enjoy a bit of very American bonding before the latter is shot and killed by Grigori, who then has a Terminator vs. Magnum P.I. showdown with Hopper.
Hopper, Joyce, and Murray intercept a Russian radio transmission about a group of kids cornered at Starcourt. The kids in question are of course theirs, as El had used her powers to locate Dustin, Erica, Robin, and Steve at the mall before coming to their rescue. After saving them, El collapses in pain from the piece of the Mind Flayer that had attached itself to her. The strain of removing it from her leg appears to have rendered her powerless just as the adults arrive.
With everyone caught up to speed and in the same place, our heroes form a plan for the big finale. Dustin and Erica navigate via walkie talkie from a safe location aboveground so that Hopper, Joyce, and Murray can find their way through the underground tunnels and close the gate.
Meanwhile, the rest of the kids have a plan to hole up at Murray’s, but they’re stopped by Billy and the Mind Flayer. The kids fight the monster as long as they can, while El uses what she saw in Billy’s mind to free him of the Mind Flayer’s control. Once he’s free, he sacrifices himself to save his sister and her friends.
Before Hopper and Joyce can close the gate and kill the Mind Flayer, Grigori arrives, and a fight breaks out. Hopper kills Grigori, but not before getting trapped on the other side of an energy field near the portal. Joyce has no choice but to close the gate, seemingly killing Hopper in the process.
Owens shows up with the U.S. military for operation cleanup, effectively covering everything up, shutting down the mall, and arresting Mayor Kline. El’s powers don’t return, and the Byers take her in before moving away from Hawkins. In Russia, we see a demogorgon in a cage and hear of a prisoner referred to as “The American."
Clearly, a lot that was established in Season 3 will carry over to Season 4. For one thing, Erica is now a certified member of the gang, as is Steve’s new best friend Robin. El’s powerless and living in California with the Byers, and Hopper is stuck being a Russian prisoner. The relationship between Hopper and Joyce had progressed in Season 3 just before he was thought dead, so his reunion with El isn’t the only highly anticipated one this upcoming season.
Season 4 won’t be the last season of the hit Netflix series, but it looks like it’s going to be the penultimate one. The Duffer brothers have said from the start that they envisioned a four-or-five season arc, and it looks like the season after this one will be the last.