Hawkins Again

Feels like it’s been years since Stranger Things aired a new season. I’d bailed on Game of Thrones after the obvious point—you know the season, the one where everything fell apart—and somehow the Duffer brothers’ thing became my stand-in. It’s got none of the scope, none of the dragons and blood and political machinery collapsing, but there’s something about a show set in a dying small town with kids being hunted by something from the dark that lands heavier than it probably should.

There aren’t many details about season three yet. One trailer showed a shopping mall planted in the middle of the eighties. At the Game Awards last year, Matt and Ross Duffer said they’d had to push everything back because they couldn’t stop playing Red Dead Redemption 2. I’m telling myself that’s a joke.

The new trailer’s here now. It shows what happens next in Hawkins. Last season ended with the kids barely closing the gate to the other side. But in that final scene at the school dance, you see it: the shadow monster’s still there, still alive, still watching. Still watching all of them.

July 4th is when it starts. If you’ve never gotten into Stranger Things—whether you’ve been too lazy about it or just had other things to do—now’s the time. Before the summer gets swallowed by eighties nostalgia again.