New Stranger Things Season 4 Footage Goes Into Eleven's Past With Dr. Brenner, And I Cannot Wait

Well, well, well. Netflix decided to give fans something amazing to start off their Thursday, with a brand new Stranger Things video hitting the Internet and leaving a blazing trail of theories in its wake. Check out the video above, featuring Millie Bobby Brown's Eleven, Matthew Modine's fate-undecided Dr. Brenner, and quite a few other characters who will hopefully have a bigger presence elsewhere in Season 4, which David Harbour has already proclaimed is his favorite.

We're going to the Rainbow Room! We're going to the Rainbow Room! I don't know why I'm so celebratory about such a thing, since Stranger Things is probably going to get extremely disturbing within the walls of that room. Not to mention all of the other numbered rooms in that building. One big question now is: are we getting something of a full-blown flashback episode that will delve deeper into Eleven and Dr. Brenner's coinciding backstories, or will these jaunts to the past only occur in snippets and flashes inside Eleven's mind?

That question may be answered by the last shot of the teaser video, as it appears to be Millie Bobby Brown's Eleven from the current timeline snapping her eyes open, while implies that she was having either a memory-laden dream, or she totally zoned out. In that way, it seems like this might be the cold open to an episode, with the Stranger Things title card hitting soon after we see Eleven there. If that's the case, I'm hoping she pops those eyes shut again right after and drifts back into her memories, since I want to hang out and see what kind of playful shenanigans (i.e. horrifying nightmare situations) all those other kids get into.

The biggest moments in that video were obviously the flashback return of Dr. Brenner (who very likely isn't dead in the current timeline) and the return of most of Eleven's face, but because this is Stranger Things, there's a good chance that absolutely every detail in the clip are obsession-worthy clues. First we have the clock that's juuuust hitting 3:00, presumably in the afternoon, but it's not like there are windows around to clue us in on the real time of day. Then there's the ominous camera capturing everyone's movements in the Rainbow Room, where we see two of the patients/subjects playing with cars by telepathically moving them forward within the rainbow's colors.

Next up, we see one of the kids playing with a quasi-Plinko board, with the disc eventually tumbling into the 7 spot, leaving behind the 3, 5, and 6. So if we add 5 and 6 together, we get 11, which is easy enough, but is the 3 also included? Are they telling us here that the real threat of Stranger Things Season 4 is actually the band 311? Okay that's probably a stretch, although I would imagine if Dr. Brenner had a bit of herb to get him through the day, this place might not feel so evil.

Other fun details include that highly specific chess set, with a non-spinning top nearby that put Inception in my head, a stack of red blocks, and that Magic 8 Ball's message "All Signs Point to Yes," which I'm sure it's not referring to my 311 theory. Then, after a wider shot of the room and its suspiciously quiet inhabitants, we get Dr. Brenner walking down the hall, passing the numbered doors, and teasing something "very special" being planned for everyone. His idea of special and my idea of special are probably worlds apart, so I'm obviously worried about what's coming our way. Or Eleven's way, I guess.

Stranger Things Season 4 is heading to Netflix at some point in the likely distant future, rather than as part of the summer TV schedule, with Finn Wolfhard recently saying the new episodes may not arrive until 2022, partially due to COVID protocols making things take longer, and partially due to the creative team busting their asses to get everything just right. So we might all be older than Dr. Brennan by that point, but still no less pumped about this show's return.

Nick Venable
Assistant Managing Editor

Nick is a Cajun Country native and an Assistant Managing Editor with a focus on TV and features. His humble origin story with CinemaBlend began all the way back in the pre-streaming era, circa 2009, as a freelancing DVD reviewer and TV recapper.  Nick leapfrogged over to the small screen to cover more and more television news and interviews, eventually taking over the section for the current era and covering topics like Yellowstone, The Walking Dead and horror. Born in Louisiana and currently living in Texas — Who Dat Nation over America’s Team all day, all night — Nick spent several years in the hospitality industry, and also worked as a 911 operator. If you ever happened to hear his music or read his comics/short stories, you have his sympathy.