Netflix has dropped the first eight minutes of the fourth season of Stranger Things, and it’s taking us back to where it all began… a creepy lab in Hawkins, Indiana, run by Matthew Modine.
In a clear homage to Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar, the first episode opens with a paper boy on his bike route before reintroducing Dr. Brenner (Modine), who cheerfully returns to Hawkins National Laboratories for a day of dubiously ethical human experimentation.
We met one of Eleven’s “siblings” back in the second season, but this flashback to September 1979 seems to explain (quite gruesomely) why there aren’t more numerically-named, superpowered children running around. It quickly becomes clear why the Duffer brothers warned us in advance that this season would lean even further into the horror genre.
But hey, there’s the shaved-head, hospital gown-wearing Eleven that we all first fell in love with! Stranger Things was always trading in on ’80s nostalgia as part of the appeal, but it’s been around long enough (and there have been enough huge gaps between seasons) that it now appears to be capitalizing on nostalgia for itself.
In addition to the opening scene teaser, Netflix also confirmed the episode count for both volumes of the fourth season, per Variety. Volume one, which drops May 27, will consist of seven episodes. Volume two, premiering July 1, makes up the final two episodes.
If that feels a little uneven to you, keep in mind that the last few episodes of the already super-sized season are “movie-length.” According to Variety, while most of the episodes run about 75 minutes long, episode seven runs 98 minutes long, episode eight will be 85 minutes, and the finale has a staggering runtime of nearly two and a half hours. Netflix is definitely getting its money’s worth out of their flagship series.