Breaking Down The New Stranger Things Season 4 Teaser

The "Stranger Things" franchise has become hugely popular since the show first premiered in 2016. The science-fiction horror series centers around friends Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin), and Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) who meet a mysterious young girl that they call Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). When Will goes missing, the friends band together to save him from supernatural forces and figure out what other crazy things are going on in their small town.

Though not much is known about "Stranger Things" Season 4, fans are anxiously waiting for news, and today, Netflix delivered. A new teaser trailer just dropped, which gives us a pretty creepy look into the upcoming trials facing El and the gang. We left off Season 3 with Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) seemingly dying, Eleven disconnected from her powers, and the super best friends divided. No specific plot points for Season 4 are known, but the young stars have promised it will be the darkest yet. 

Let's take a look at the new teaser, and break down everything that's going on.

The teaser starts with shots of a clock and a video camera that looks like it has the number five on its lens, before cutting to two kids playing on a painted rainbow on the floor of what looks like a hospital room. Fans who've watched previous seasons may recognize this as part of the Rainbow Room, a creepily named research facility where Eleven and other kids were imprisoned for experimentation. The children in the teaser also have buzzed haircuts, much like Eleven did in Season 1.

Next we see shots of different toys: Plinko, a chess game with strange pieces, a magic 8-ball that says "Signs point to yes," standard blocks. Considering the camera shot from earlier, it looks like the kids are being monitored as they play with different intellectually stimulating games. The Plinko disc lands on the number seven, which may allude to a new test subject who will become a focal point in Season 4. Back in Season 2, Eleven met Eight (Linnea Berthelsen), another product of the Rainbow Room. The disjointed numbering suggests there should be at least a few more superpowered youths on the loose. 

The magic 8-ball may actually be a clue in and of itself that Eight — aka Kali — will return, since she has clairvoyance and other psychic abilities. 

We get a wide shot of the Rainbow Room, complete with a giant rainbow mural on the wall and drab benches adorned with sullen-looking children. Suddenly, a man walks into the room, though we only see his backside. He enters, and we hear him say "Good morning, children," before the kids answer in unison, "Good morning, Papa." 

Papa is the name of Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine), who raised and trained Eleven and the other powerful children. Dr. Brenner continues to talk to the kids off-screen, and he tells them he has something very special planned for them as the camera pans to a shot of another door in the hallway. We hear heavy breathing, as the door slowly moves closer in frame. At this point, the sign on the door is clear: 11.

The screen goes black and Dr. Brenner asks "Eleven, are you listening?" Suddenly, Eleven opens her eyes with a gasp. It isn't quite clear if Eleven is remembering events from her past, tracking Dr. Brenner in the present, or even with Dr. Brenner in an attempt to get her powers back, but it looks like we're going to get to learn more about Eleven's past in the upcoming season.

The day before the newest teaser dropped for "Stranger Things" Season 4, the "Stranger Things" YouTube account released a different teaser, which was even more cryptic. While people originally seemed confused by the images of random objects on a set of control room screens, upon closer inspection we see that many of those objects appear in the newest trailer as well. One disturbing difference, however, is that the first teaser now seems to be an "after" image, as in "after" the Rainbow Room is destroyed.

We see shots of a door handle, the Rainbow Room with flickering lights, a blood-spattered table, a bloody chess board with its pieces scattered, a bloody magic 8-ball, what looks like a bunch of sticky notes, and blood on the ground next to numbered dice. The unexplained shots are rendered even creepier in light of the new teaser. Did Dr. Brenner's "special plan" cause the destruction? Was it Eleven or the other children? 

Either way, something horrible seems to have happened, and we're anxious to find out what it was.