Stranger Things fans will have to wait until Halloween to binge-watch the hotly anticipated second season of Netflix's breakout hit from last summer. This means you'll have plenty of time to enjoy Summer 2017 and bounce endless theories of the Upside Down off fellow viewers. Is Eleven really alive? What's that giant spider monster in the trailer? And is Barb still around?
1. There will be nine episodes. That's one more than season one, which means there's some leg room for the show to really tease out whatever's after Will and his friends.
2. It's officially called Stranger Things 2. According to co-creator Matt Duffer, the new season will behave much like the first: as a movie split into chapters. "I know movie sequels get a lot of sh**t, but the ones we look up to aspire to pivot and do something different," he tells Entertainment Weekly, citing Temple of Doom, Aliens, and Terminator 2 as inspirations.
3. The new episodes already have titles. They were revealed last August, when Netflix announced that the show was indeed back for a second round. But according to Duffer, some titles have since been changed to throw off fan theories. "You've seen it with Westworld — they figured it out! I've seen videos analyzing the chapter titles and they're right on a lot!" he tells EW. Don't expect him to tell you which ones have changed, though. Your guess is as good as a box of Eggos when Eleven is hangry.
4. Eleven is back. After what Eleven did to the Demogorgon in the science classroom at the end of the first season, it was unclear if she survived (based on the fact that her body did more than trigger a nosebleed). Millie Bobby Brown confirmed her return in November 2016 when she posted a photo of a table read on Twitter.
Netflix also confirmed her return to Hawkins in February, when the Stranger Things 2 trailer aired during the Super Bowl. No word on what her condition is, though. She might need more than a box of Eggos.
5. It's 1984. How else would you explain the boys' matching Ghostbusters outfits? This means it's approximately one year after Will is discovered alive and not that well. (See below).
6. Will's not doing so great. In an extremely brief moment from the trailer, Will can be seen sitting in an examination room with his mom and a doctor, who may or may not be real. It looks sketchy and Will looks like he doesn't want to be there with all these things attached to his head. Also, it's Oct. 30, 1984, one day before Halloween. Doesn't he know to never visit the doctor around All Hallows' Eve?
7. There's a new monster. And he looks much bigger than the Demogorgon. Super fans have identified this to be a "Thessalhydra" from Dungeons & Dragons. If the theory proves to be true, this monster has more than one head and chances are, you can't kill it with a can of Raid.
8. There are new human characters, too. Along with the original cast, sans Barb (more on Barb later), Hawkins will welcome Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings), who plays Bob, a former classmate of Joyce and Hopper, Paul Reiser (Mad About You), who plays a Department of Energy exec, and Brett Gelman (who recently played Dr. Greg in Love) as a conspiracy theorist and former journalist.
9. The new season will toy with your fears even more. Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike, tells Emmy Magazine (via Heroic Hollywood) that Stranger Things 2 will be "a lot darker" and "more horror oriented," which should make the Demogorgon look like Hello Kitty or a basket of puppies. "I think people are going to like it more than the first season," he says, adding that the characters will deal with more "disturbing" problems this time around.
10. Some of the characters will get more attention, aka screen time. "The great thing about this season is you get to see insights into each character on their own," Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin) tells Emmy Magazine. "You're going to see a lot more into the lives of how the characters are coping with what's been going on."
11. Barb is dead and will probably not pull a Jon Snow. In February, executive producer Shawn Levy squashed all hope for Barb fans when he told Variety, "No, no. She's dead. We saw a slug coming out of her throat. There's no coming back." But wait, there's a twist! "I will say that her memory and the search for justice for her is a part of season two." While he kept the specifics of her memory under wraps, it's nice to know that #JusticeforBarb will never die.
