Those of us who are fans of Stranger Things have already binged the entire second season and are impatiently awaiting the next season. The bad news is, we won’t know when Matt and Ross Duffer will bless Netflix with the third installment of the show. The good news is, they’re already working on it.
The other bad news is, the Duffer brothers have previously said the show will end after the fourth season. “We’re thinking it will be a four-season thing and then out,” they told Vulture, since by that time the cast of young actors will have hit puberty and graduated high school. Also, the creators can’t justify “something bad happening to the kids once a year” nor the fact that nobody in town is leaving Hawkins despite all the batshit crazy nonsense constantly going down. Stretches credibility too much, which is saying a lot for a show that leans quite heavily on suspension of disbelief.
So when will season 3 drop?
The first season hit Netflix in July 2016 and the second was timed to coincide with Halloween 2017, but Netflix had commissioned it way before it landed. While creators have not given an exact date, many are expecting season three to arrive no sooner than October 2018.
Who’s in it?
Although the second season didn’t end with as much of a cliffhanger as the first, it did indicate the presence of the Mind Flayer in season three. It seems as though the shadowy monster has it out for Eleven. Ross Duffer told The Hollywood Reporter:
“They’ve shut the door on the Mind Flayer, but not only is it still there in the Upside Down, it’s very much aware of the kids, and particularly Eleven. It had not encountered her and her powers until that final episode. Now, it knows that she’s out there. We wanted to end on a little bit of an ominous note.”
Will it leave the upside down via…Will? What role will Eight play in any of this? Will the Duffers leave her as an antagonist or bring her over from the dark side, like they did with Steve Harrington? Speaking of Steve, are they just going to let him graduate and leave Hawkins? Something tells us, probably not.
On the bright side, the Duffers confirmed that Lucas’ sister Erica will be getting more screen time (hallelujah!).
“I love Erica,” Matt Duffer told Yahoo!.[Priah] was just a local hire we made in Atlanta. Erica wasn’t even supposed to be in [season two] as much as she was. We fell in love with this girl. I thought she’s very GIF-able, if that’s a word.”
Plot theories?
The Duffer bros confirmed that, just as with the first two seasons, there will be a one-year time jump between seasons two and three. Matt Duffer told The Hollywood Reporter: “Even if we wanted to hop into the action faster, we couldn’t. Our kids are ageing.
“We can only write and produce the show so fast. They’re going to be almost a year older by the time we start shooting season three. It provides certain challenges. You can’t start right after season two ended.
“It forces you to do a time jump. But what I like is that it makes you evolve the show.”
As far as what will actually happen, the creators gave out some teasers but remained mostly coy. They mentioned the third season would consist of “something almost weirdly more intimate” and “a lot of fun”. Development and expansion of the character’s personal journeys will be a large focus of the third season.
In the meantime, we’ll be over here wondering if Eleven and Will are destined to meet and if we will finally be rid of Barb once and for all (sorry, Barb).