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The teasers for Stranger Things season 4 have shown the return of Dr. Brenner, the existence of more test subjects from Hawkins Lab, Eleven imprisoned at the lab, and a mysterious murder house which is connected to the Upside Down, but they have also featured hints at the story being all about time travel. Stranger Things took the world by surprise in 2016 and quickly became one of Netflix’s biggest hits thanks to its combination of sci-fi, horror, drama, and its references to the 1980s. Fans of Stranger Things are currently awaiting season 4, mostly as production had to be halted due to the coronavirus pandemic and because season 3 ended on a big cliffhanger. Anticipation only grew after a special video released on Valentine’s Day 2020 confirmed Jim Hopper (David Harbour) would still be alive.
Stranger Things season 1 was all about the disappearance of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) and Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) escape from Hawkins Lab, unleashing a series of strange and dangerous events in the town of Hawkins, Indiana. Season 2 went on to cover the aftermath of Will’s return and the effects of his time in the Upside Down, as well as Eleven’s return. Season 3 took the series on a different path by bringing Russians to Hawkins, who built an underground lab beneath the new Starcourt Mall in an attempt to open a portal to the Upside Down. By the end of Stranger Things season 3, Eleven, Will, and his family left Hawkins, Eleven was powerless, and Hopper was believed to be dead, but a post-credits scene teased his survival.
Details about Stranger Things season 4 have mostly been kept under wraps, but Netflix has been releasing a couple of teasers since February 2020, starting with the aforementioned Valentine’s Day teaser that revealed Hopper survived and ended up imprisoned in Russia. Other teasers revealed the return of Dr. Brenner (Matthew Modine), the existence of more test subjects, Eleven locked in a room at the lab again, and part of the group looking for clues at a haunted house known as “Creel House.” However, there’s one detail these teasers have in common, and it’s a suspicious emphasis on clocks, especially a grandfather clock seen in the season 4 announcement video and the Creel House teaser – and this, along with other details, has made fans consider the possibility of Stranger Things season 4 dealing with time travel, which fits quite well with the style of the show as well as some of its biggest inspirations.
Stranger Things Season 4 Marketing Keeps Hinting At Time Travel
The marketing for Stranger Things season 4 began in September 2019 with the announcement of the renewal for a new season, for which Netflix released a short teaser. In it, the series’ logo appeared along with a big four and the screen began to glitch. It then took the viewer to the Upside Down, where the logo and the four were slowly covered in tendrils and a clock, located on a tree on the left side of the screen, was heard ticking. The teaser ended with the caption “we’re not in Hawkins anymore,” with viewers later learning that season 4 will take them to the Upside Down, Russia, and possibly other places as well.
The clock in the Upside Down made way for various theories on how season 4 will deal with time travel, more so as season 3 had a couple of references to Back to the Future. As Stranger Things season 3 was set in 1985 and Back to the Future was the biggest release of that year, the series made sure to include a couple of nods to it, such as a poster at the local cinema, the Scoops Troop (Steve, Robin, Dustin, and Erica) hiding out in a screening of the movie, and a big part of the final battle taking place in a mall parking lot.
The hints at time travel in Stranger Things season 4 didn’t stop there, as a second teaser took viewers back to Hawkins Lab and focused on a clock marking 3 o’clock, with the ticking of it playing over half of the video. This teaser also reunited the audience with Dr. Brenner at the lab and showed other, young test subjects, as well as Eleven locked in her room, and these are events that should have taken place years ago. Then came the Creel House teaser, which had even more hints at time travel with multiple timelines being shown (as it goes back to the 1950s to show the mysterious events that took place there and back to the 1980s with the group) and, once more, the presence of a clock, also marking 3 o’clock. At the end of the teaser, the audience is taken to the attic, where a grandfather clock is shown before the setting changes to the Upside Down, and as the camera gets closer, the glass of the clock breaks, hinting at time being fractured. All this points at Stranger Things season 4 addressing time travel, and the clock at Creel House could be key due to its implied connection to the Upside Down.
Time Travel Fits With Stranger Things’ 1980s References
Back to the Future isn’t the only inspiration for Stranger Things that deals with time travel. Among the many references to 1980s movies pop culture in Stranger Things is The Terminator, mostly in season 3, where the character of Grigori (Andrey Ivchenko) was a very obvious reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous time-traveling character. Now, the writers of Stranger Things tend to tease fans on Twitter, and back in May 2020, they shared a photo of a board with all the movies they had been taking a look at for inspiration, and fans were surprised to see they weren’t all from the 1980s and there were more modern movies as well. Among those many inspirations are Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, which famously deals with time-travel with a good dose of humor; 12 Monkeys, in which a man is sent back in time to find the virus that wiped out almost all of humanity and help scientists develop a cure; and Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator: Dark Fate. Bringing time travel into the mix in season 4 would fit the series’ style and would feel like a natural step as it’s part of its essence to pay homage to some of the biggest movies from the 1980s, which in turn inspired all those on the list that came in the 1990s and later – and with the characters potentially traveling to other decades, inspirations from other years would make sense as well.
Why Stranger Things Could Involve Time Travel (& How)
There are many things that season 4 of Stranger Things has to solve, and time travel could come in handy for some. First, there’s the mystery of how Hopper survived the explosion and how he ended up in a Russian prison. Fans have theorized that Hopper either jumped through or was pulled by the gate at the Russian lab, which worked as a time travel tunnel and took him either back or forward in time, landing in Russia and leading to his arrest. A popular fan theory suggests the Upside Down is Hawkins in the future (a post-apocalyptic one), which would mean that the characters have been traveling through time since season 1.
The teaser set in Hawkins Lab might also show what time travel will be used for in Stranger Things season 4. As mentioned above, Brenner walking around Hawkins Lab and visiting other test subjects while Eleven is locked in her room at the lab is something that should have happened years ago, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Eleven, somehow, traveled back in time, either in hopes of getting her powers back, solving some of the biggest mysteries of her past, or by mistake. Last but not least, the connection between Creel House, the clock, and the Upside Down might be rooted in time travel, and the show will have to explain what’s so important about 3 o’clock that it has been shown in different teasers and settings. The glass of the grandfather clock breaking might be a big clue, as it could be pointing at time being fractured, possibly due to all the experiments related to the Upside Down and the gates opened by Brenner and company and the Russians as well. Even though time travel has been used over and over again in movies and TV shows in recent years, it seems like the most natural step for Stranger Things to take in its new season, and as it fits its tone and narrative, fans don’t have to worry about it being too hard to believe or feel like a big stretch.
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