There are only seven days to go until we finally, after a three year wait, return to the sleepy, suburban, disproportionately monster-filled town of Hawkins, Indiana for the fourth season of the Duffer brothers’ sci-fi horror hit, Stranger Things – and now, after learning that this series will be split into two volumes, we know exactly how many episodes will be dropping into our Netflix account one week from today.
It’s been confirmed that Stranger Things 4 will consist of nine episodes – Volume 1, which arrives on 27 May, will consist of seven eps, and Volume 2, out 1 July, will be just two. What a curious way to divide the season, we hear you cry! We’re going to be waiting over a month for only two final episodes? But, as the Duffers confirmed in their open letter revealing details about both the fourth and fifth season, Stranger Things 4 is the biggest yet, and each episode is set to be over an hour long (compared to the usual 45 minute to an hour runtime). In other words – there will be plenty of 80s-set, Demogorgon-slaying, walkie-talkie-using goodness to sink our teeth into.
The fourth season will pick up where the third left off, with Eleven and the Byers family moving away to California, Hopper seemingly having survived the blast that closed the gate to the Upside Down, and the rest of the gang trying to get back to some kind of normality in Hawkins. As the explosive trailer indicates, there are all kinds of mysterious new monsters to deal with, and it looks like some kind of supernatural war is on the way. We’ll find out on 27 May.