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I was very excited about the trailer, but I didn't want to develop theories while it was still fresh. What for? The obvious was to be told anyway, with or without me, while I needed some time to dig a little deeper. Ultimately I put all the teasers and the trailer together and rewatched them a few times, frame by frame.
What can I say?
First of all, I do like the ‘Stranger Things’ promo-campaign. It’s amazing. The authors have managed to turn it into a fascinating interactive detective game and they don’t idle about, on the contrary they are dropping hints and planting evidence. In other words they are having fun for all it’s worth. Of course, all the fans have joined the game and started puzzling it out. It’s the greatest promo I’ve ever seen. That’s what happens when authors know their target audience well.
Second, the main plot seems to be divided into three key lines. For the sake of simplicity let’s call them ‘Eleven and the Lab’, ‘Max and the haunted house’ and ‘Joyce and Kamchatka’.
Off the top of my head, the line of Joyce seems the clearest one. An unknown friend brings her a Russian doll from Kamchatka, then Joyce hangs on Murray like grim death and… Welcome to the rodeo! The mission ‘Saving Chief Hopper’ starts off.
The question is how Hopper got into a labour camp in the first place and what kind of research is being conducted there. It’s still shrouded. Before the trailer I had taken the risk to imagine that Soviet scientists were trying to cross a human and a demogorgon, but according to the trailer they seem to be training the demogorgon as a hunting dog and, in the meantime, feeding it with criminals and dissidents. The problem is it wouldn’t work with one or two demogorgons, they would need packs of them, a legion; and, therefore, they need fresh supplies.
I can’t help wondering who is that jack-of-all-trades helping Hopper on Kamchatka and what their incentive is. Probably It’is a scientist who considers this experiment dangerous and inhumane and wants to stop it. Also they could be an American spy, by way of a side-line job. The references to ‘The Shape of Water’ hint at that.
The line of the Lab and Indigo Children seems more complex. They are not totally forgotten but there is a feeling - highly likely false - that a bloodbath at the Lab is a matter of yore. As if they aren’t going to return to the subject except some flashbacks. It might be the reason Kali and her gang haven’t been shown in the trailer although they have been sighted on the set more than once. It suggests Kali keeps wagging her vendetta, and Joyce with the kids didn’t move across the country just on a whim. Dr Owens, to all appearances, knows more than he lets on, and he relocated them to California deliberately. As far from Hawkins as he could.
I won’t be surprised to learn that Kali has found other superpower refugees and she is preparing a terroristic sabotage or even a confrontation of people against the so-called ‘mutants’. It is highly likely if you remember that the name of the first episode refers to the Men-X comic. Or do you think Dr Owens is being melodramatic when he is talking about a war coming?
Also there is an unknown in that equation. It’s a mysterious woman wearing stilettos. Nobody knows who she is, but the frame from the teaser is paralleled with Billy’s first appearance, so many people think she is his villainess mother. Like she left her kid and sold herself to the government.
Basically it might be true. Unlike fathers, mothers in Stranger Things look like a power of light but I guess it’s not a problem. Because if Hopper represents a positive father figure in the series, what on earth bars the authors from creating a dark mother figure as a counterweight to Joyce, Karen etc.? Billy’s mother fits that role perfectly.
Especially if you dig, you’ll find every key character has a dark counterpart. Moreover it is not necessary for them to be a villain. Neither Kali nor Billy are bad enough to be a villain. They are just lost kids who had never been given a helping hand when they needed it so much. I guess it’s not a secret that adults are not much different, they are the same lost kids plus a lot of wrinkles.
Strictly speaking I can see only one person who I can call a real villain. It’s Dr Brenner. But in my opinion he is not just a devious and ruthless manipulator who will stop at nothing. He represents a government that is fine with stepping over its own citizens to get ahead.
But let’s return to the stiletto lady. If the Californian plot-line is connected with the Lab we may suggest she is engaged in it. And that means we are at the crossroads again. Because she might work for NSA or be the mastermind of a local analogue of Hellfire Club who pushes Kali to the way of terror. Who knows? We have no evidence yet, so from now on it’s all guesswork.
And finally the plot line of Max and the haunted house. The most mysterious and fascinating one. For me at least. Also there is a big chance it is a hinge. After all, not for nothing did the broken clock become the symbol of season 4 well before the premiere! Not to mention the trailer opens with a scene with Max talking to Billy on his grave. I hope you'll agree it speaks a lot. At least it sets the tone for the whole story.
The scene is eerie, by the way. It looks like a nightmare, you can see it from a mile away. All that spring idyll: silence, greenery, birds and loneliness. Looks like a shrivelled black hand might pop out of the grave and seize Max on her throat any minute. And it may be for real. It seems to me the Duffer Brothers emphasised Max’s face while watching the movie at the beginning of season 3 deliberately. Mark my words, she will remember that scene.
And as for the inconsistency with the inscription on the gravestone, I guess it has been done deliberately to emphasise the unreality of the situation. I’m not sure if it’s okay to inscribe a hypocoristic on a gravestone, but I suppose, for Max, her step-brother is not William. He’s Billy. Always. At least, as a sign of gratitude for calling her Max as she prefers, not Maxine, as her step-dad does all the time. So I can assume in her dreams she keeps calling him that way.
However even if it is a dream, there is no doubt that the subsequent events happen in reality. We can see Max levitating over the grave while her friends are staring at her, we can see her running away from some monster - probably, Veckna - to the dazzling light on the horizon where we can see some silhouettes of her friends and her own silhouette.
It’s not a dream at all. It looks rather like Will’s visions at the beginning of season 2. As if the character has one foot in another dimension and can see the things other people can’t. Or even can hear something.
Both the scenes with Max seeing the broken clock in a school hall and the ones with her wearing her earphones all the time hint at it. You should agree it looks weird. But if we remember the way The Party listened to Will’s singing in season 1 after the fake body was found and there was no hope left, Max’s earphones suddenly make sense. Well, anyway. Even if I’m wrong in details, there are all reasons to believe that Max is destined to become a clairvoyant.
Anyway, it’s just rings in the water. Meantime there is a really interesting detail buried in the graveyard scene. It’s Billy’s birthday. As it happens, of all characters we know the exact dates only for two of them - Billy’s and Will’s. Notably, they were born just a week apart. And by a strange and lovely coincidence that week matches Easter holidays in the USA in 1986 and the events of season 4.
Accordingly, we can assume it will take Friday to get started. The main action will begin on Saturday, on Will's birthday, and will have finished in a week hence, on Billy's birthday. Or on Sunday, it will be even more fun, because it’s the main Сhristian holiday - Easter. The day when Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
I’m not hinting at anything but it suggests the analogy. Don’t think it’s just a coincidence, the USA gives the impression of too religious a country to neglect that allusion. Besides, it is reinforced by visuals - and I came to a conclusion that nothing in that show is filmed for… well… just for show.
As Dacre Montomery said in an interview, the filming team are interested in everything on the set, down to the colour of your shoe laces. So, does it make sense to try persuading yourself that the crucified figure at the ending of season 4 is no more than a mere coincidence?
Let alone the fact that the new character, Eddie Munson, is coded as Billy’s evil twin. In other words, as Antichrist. The trailer even hints at it rather bluntly.
If you pause the trailer at 1:59 you can see something like a group of little portals with time-codes. Someone on Reddit did some research and found that there is an enciphered sentence ‘I am Hell’s Master’.
Sounds a bit brassy but provides food for thought anyway. We don’t know who exactly it is but beggars can’t be choosers. It must be either Veckna or Eddie Munson, rocking out with his guitar in the Upside Down, covered with satanic attributes from head to toe and cosplaying Eric from “The Crow”. There is a chance it’s a fake and the Duffer Brothers have sent us on a wild goose chase. But for lack of better ideas, I’m going to suspect Eddie. He’s just a fictional character, he doesn’t care anyway.
Simultaneously, there is a glimmering ray of hope that Steve and Billy might become a couple even if it doesn’t happen in season 4, but maybe later. It’s kind of offtopic but I beg to let me explain myself.
As it has been said previously, there are no haphazard frames in that show. So if they shot the first encounter of Billy and Steve as the initial meeting of Romeo and Juliet and the basketball scene as a coition, they did for a good reason. I reject the idea of fanservice as an ignominious one. So what does that leave us with?
The parallels between Will and Billy. You remember them, don’t you?
Two disadvantaged children, both alike in their observancy and interest in art (Will draws and Billy reads an autobiography of a famous satirical artist), both branded as queers and faggots by their fathers… Birds of a feather, don’t you think? The only difference is that while Will was raised by his devoted mother-bear, Billy grew up as a wild weed, turning into Will’s antipode.
Since season 2, the idea of Will being hopelessly in love with Mike haunts the fandom, with them being mirrored by Billy and Steve. Should we be surprised? I don’t think so. In my opinion, Billy and Will are coded as two different cliches about gays. A quiet intellectual, an artistic soul - and a hothead, a muscle Mary from California. Different sides of the same coin, aren’t they?
To be honest, at first I’ve missed the hints of Will’s presumable homosexuality, because I was squinting at Billy too hard, but now I have to admit those hints do exist although they are very discreet. But considering how many parallels there are between Will and Billy, I can guess ST fans weren’t seeing things in both cases.
If we could guess after season 2 that both crushes would never become a mutual thing, as neither Steve nor Mike gave a handle to reckon they might, the third season did destroy all fans’ hopes. But now I start having second guesses about that.
Unfortunately I still think Will’s chances are pretty thin on the ground, and even the flashing frame from the trailer breaks my heart. However, there is a great difference in Billy’s case.
That thought has been inspired by the trailer scene where Steve is sitting next to Billy’s gravestone, almost hugging it. At first sight it might look like a cruel mickey but it’s still a trailer, not a whole season. And I should remind you that Nancy and Jonathan became a couple not nearly straight away. Everyone thought they would at the end of season one, but they kept beating around the bush almost till the middle of season 2. Not to speak of Hopper and Joyce. Their affair had been awaited since the very first season, but they wouldn’t say a word to each other about their feelings right down to season 3 albeit the feeling that they would be together had been in the air since the very beginning.
So, as you can see, the Duffer Brothers are adding drama drop by drop, being tantalisingly slow about it. They let you get your hopes high, the next moment pushing you over the edge, and then a dim ray of hope beckons to you, lying on the bottom of an abyss of despair. I have to say, hand on heart, I completely agree with them. The secret of a good story-teller is being a conjurer. If you aspire to tell a good story you should surprise your audience. You should give people what they want to see, but on your own terms.
The chemistry between Billy and Steve was so powerful that it possessed not only the fandom, but broke free into the wider world. You might not remember that but after season 2 there were many magazine articles on homoerotic subtle between Billy and Steve, during the promo-campaign the actors were asked questions about that and so on.
It’s logical to expect them to keep developing that plot-line as long as it hit the target so well. But in season 3 it suddenly stopped dead, bewildering the fandom. Obviously, we might suspect the authors of abusing their power, but it’s disrespectful and unfair. So I prefer to reckon that the authors are decent people and they are just weaving an intricate scheme.
If the conflict between Lucas and the Party that I predicted before season 3 has brewed eventually, other Chekhov’s guns (whole-heartedly loaded ages ago) might soon start shooting too.
Besides, even if previously Steve didn’t think about gay relationships at all, it just never occured to him… Well, now he has got not-a-typical-but-helpful gay friend. And if we see sparks in the air again, you know who will open Steve’s eyes and tell him he is an idiot who is too blind even to find his own…er…nose.
However, I’m known to be a partial person, so take my speculations lightly. As long as Billy is Schrödinger's cat all of it is only theoretical, and I take them with irony myself, although it’s my own actual thoughts. But it won’t be long anyway and I’m full of optimism.
Have a nice watching! I