Let's Speculate On The Meaning Of The Episode Titles For Stranger Things 4

Season 4 of "Stranger Things" is coming in the summer of 2022, which must mean that things are once again coming to a head with the Hawkins gang and whatever the latest threat from the Upside Down is. Now, we know more than ever about the new season — up to and very much including its episode titles.  

The new "title tease" video for "Stranger Things" Season 4 is exactly what it proclaims to be, since it essentially just rattles off a list of the upcoming season's episode titles. It looks like the nine new episodes will be called "The Hellfire Club," "Vecna's Curse," "The Monster and the Superhero," "Dear Billy," "The Nina Project," "The Dive," "The Massacre at Hawkins Lab," "Papa," and "The Piggyback." Of course, knowing the titles is only half the battle. The real fun is trying to find out what they actually mean. With that in mind, let's take a moment to speculate on the meaning of the episode titles for "Stranger Things 4."

There's a lot to unpack in those "Stranger Things" Season 4 episode titles, and while they might just be poking fun at the viewers, there's a decent chance that they carry heaps of hidden meaning that'll only make sense once you actually see the episode in question. The Hellfire Club is simply a cool name to the Hawkins High School role-playing club. Vecna, however, is a massively powerful god-monster from the Forgotten Realms campaign of Dungeons & Dragons, which seems to continue the show's trend to name its villains after powerful RPG monsters. "Dear Billy" is a pretty clear allusion to Dacre Montgomery's Billy Hargrove, who passed away in Season 3, so the episode will probably focus on Sadie Sink's Max. On the other hand, there's no character called Nina in "Stranger Things," but knowing the series' track record with girls and shady projects, "The Nina Project" might focus on some aspect of the same experiments that created Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). 

Beyond those episodes, things are a little harder to predict. The show certainly has its share of monsters, and if Eleven ends up getting her powers back, she certainly qualifies as a superhero. "The Dive," "Papa," and "The Piggyback" are all pretty ominous titles, but it remains to be seen what their meaning is. However, Episode 7, "The Massacre at Hawkins Lab," leaves little room for imagination. As every season of the show has readily proved, lab work is extremely dangerous in Hawkins, Indiana, and all attempts to tinker with the Upside Down and its creatures tend to end in a, well, massacre at a Hawkins lab. Unless the title is a clever misdirection, it seems that Season 4 of "Stranger Things" intends to uphold the grisly tradition.