‘Stranger Things’: New Season 4 Trailer Focuses On Eleven & Teases Dr. Martin Brenner’s Return

Nellie Andreeva
·3 min read
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Almost 15 months after Stranger Things debuted the first Season 4 teaser, the hugely popular Netflix series this morning has released a new glimpse from the upcoming season whose production was disrupted by the pandemic.

The second trailer is teasing the rumored return of Dr. Martin Brenner, played by Matthew Modine. The video appears to be set at the Hawkins National Laboratory run by Brenner where he raised, trained and performed experiments on children with psychokinetic abilities, including Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who called him Papa. In the end of the teaser, as the camera stops in front of a door with the number 11 on it, Dr. Brenner (whose face is never seen) is heard asking, “Are you listening, Eleven?,” as she opens her eyes.

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It is not clear whether this is a flashback, a dream, if Eleven has been captured and imprisoned again or she is using her telekinetic abilities to find Dr. Brenner in present time. While Dr. Brenner originally appeared to be killed by the Demogorgon in Season 1, it was hinted in Seasons 2 and 3 that he is alive, which also was confirmed by the series’ producers.

The first Season 4 trailer, released on Feb. 14, 2020, teased the return of another Stranger Things character that had been feared dead, David Harbour’s Hopper.

“We’re excited to officially confirm that production on Stranger Things 4 is now underway — and even more excited to announce the return of Hopper,” series creators The Duffer Brothers wrote in a note to fans that accompanied the release of that first teaser.(You can watch it below). A month later, filming was suspended due to the escalating coronavirus pandemic. It resumed in late September. No premiere date for the new season, which is still in production, has been set yet.

Here is what else the Duffer brothers teased about the new season in February 2020. “Although it’s not all good news for our ‘American’ (Hopper); he is imprisoned far from home in the snowy wasteland of Kamchatka, where he will face dangers both human…and other. Meanwhile, back in the states, a new horror is beginning to surface, something long buried, something that connects everything. Season 4 is shaping up to be the biggest and most frightening season yet, and we cannot wait for everyone to see more. In the meantime — pray for the American.”

At the end of Season 3, following the explosion, aimed at destroying the Soviet lab to the Upside Down deep under the new Starcourt Mall, Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) is seen taking her sons (Charlie Heaton, Noah Schnapp) and Eleven (Brown) out of the Indiana town to start a new life. There is a jump in geography in the final scene, which takes place in the far Eastern end of the USSR where guards are feeding a prisoner to an imprisoned Demogorgon, but “not the American.”

Created by Matt and Ross Duffer, Stranger Things is produced by Monkey Massacre Productions & 21 Laps Entertainment. The twin brothers serve as writers, directors, executive producers and showrunners on the series alongside executive producer/director Shawn Levy and exec producer Dan Cohen of 21 Laps and exec producer Iain Paterson.

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