It’s been two years since season three of Netflix’s Stranger Things and fans have grown impatient and curious about the release of a new season. In September 2019 Netflix green-lit a fourth season of Stranger Things. Production for season four began in February of 2020, however, coming to a halt soon thereafter due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Since then, it has been mostly radio silence regarding release dates and shooting progress, until now.

To recap, we last saw our beloved residents of Hawkins, Indiana in the season three finale “The Battle of Starcourt”. Things left off with Jim Hopper (David Harbour) presumed dead, the Byers family relocating, taking Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) in as part of their family and Max (Sadie Sink) brother-less after the mind flayer killed Billy (Dacre Montgomery).

However, fans have many questions surrounding this coming season. What I want to know is what the directors will do with Robin (Maya Hawke)? Did Steve (Joe Keery) end up going to college? If not, will he be getting a haircut and ditching that mullet (if it’s not the 80s anymore…). Will there be more disruption from the Russians? Is Hopper still alive? And, most importantly, how’s Dustin’s relationship with Susie going?

In an interview with Variety, director Shawn Levy says he has spent the last couple of months shooting a large portion of the season.

“I shot in Lithuania right before the pandemic. We have filmed in Georgia, Lithuania and New Mexico, so suffice to say Season 4 is sprawling,” Shawn Levy told Variety. “It’s visually and narratively very ambitious, much more ambitious than the prior three seasons.”

Filming resumed on the shows set in Georgia in September 2020.

Adding on, “the delay is due in large measure to COVID and the pace at which we have to work to do so safely, but it also happens to be the season that we chose to go much bigger. It’s the scale of this season and the multi-settings of Season 4,” Levy said to Variety. 

In May 2021 Netflix released a minute long teaser trailer that shows what appears to be a facility housing gifted and/or experimented on kids. Will we be getting more of an origin story on El? Or perhaps is this a signal that there are more scientific experiments with children being done? The possibilities are endless, but one thing is for sure, we know whatever comes is going to be “bigger than ever”.