The Duffer Brothers’ “Stranger Things” is coming back next year. And we have some new details.
As part of Stranger Things Day, the annual celebration of all things Hawkins, Indiana (and, indeed, the Upside Down) that coincides with the day that Will Bowers disappeared, Netflix announced when the new season will take place, and crucially, the titles for the final eight episodes of the beloved series. Watch the teaser below and we will break it down.
“In the fall of 1987,” the teaser states, “one last adventure begins.” (There had been speculation that the final season would take place at Christmas – could it be so epic that it stretches from the fall to the winter?) Interestingly, 1987 was the year of “The Lost Boys,” “Spaceballs,” “Robocop,” “Adventures in Babysitting” and “Batteries Not Included” – all, undoubtedly, hallmarks for the series. Some of the top 10 songs from that year included “Walk Like an Egyptian” by The Bangles, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston and “Shakedown” by Bob Seger. It was also the year of Heart’s “Alone,” which you know is going to soundtrack some spectacular break-up scene.
The episode titles were also revealed Wednesday. Well, mostly. “Stranger Things 5” episodes are called “The Crawl,” “The Vanishing of [Redacted],” “The Turnbow Trap,” “Sorcerer,” “Shock Jock,” “Escape From Camazotz,” “The Bridge,” and the series finale is called, appropriately, “The Rightside Up.”
Who do we think goes missing? Online detectives have uncovered that the missing person is a Wheeler, which still leaves the debate open – could Nancy disappear? Mike? Their mother Karen? (This episode is directed by the Duffer Brothers themselves.)
“The Turnbow Trap,” directed by “The Shawshank Redemption” filmmaker and “Walking Dead” creator Frank Darabont, refers to a real estate company (Turnbow Land Development & Realty) that was seen in the Upside Down. And “Shock Jock” apparently refers to WSQK, a radio station and the kids’ new hangout in Season 5.
“Escape from Camazotz” is harder to figure out. Camazotz was a planet in “A Wrinkle in Time,” the 1962 sci-fi novel by Madeleine L’Engle. It is also a bat-faced Mayan god who serves the lords of the underworld. There were some pretty scary bat-type creatures in “Stranger Things 4.”
And “Sorcerer” clearly is a reference to “Dungeons & Dragons,” a frequent touchstone for the series, but could also harken back to William Friedkin’s 1977 masterpiece of the same name.
While the mainline series is coming to an end, the world of “Stranger Things” will still exist, for many years, in many different forms.
The stage production, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” will move from London’s West End to Broadway next spring. A live-action spin-off is in development, as is an animated series from Australian studio Flying Bark Productions that is said to be in the vein of classic Saturday morning cartoons. Netflix previewed some visual development art from the animated series at an event earlier this year.
