Stranger Things 4’s latest teaser is a glimpse of Eleven’s dark past

It’s been a long time since Netflix first announced Stranger Things 4 — the upcoming fourth season of the streamer’s hugely popular series — but there’s finally a new trailer teasing the next adventures of the Hawkins gang.

The new teaser appears to be a flashback, showing the sinister Dr. Martin Brenner addressing a group of children at the same facility that Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) originated from. Presumably, the new season will continue to explore Eleven’s origins, as well as potentially introduce other supernatural children (something the show has explored before back in season 2.)

The new trailer is technically the second for the upcoming fourth season, following a teaser released back in February 2020 that promised the return of the — spoilers for season 3 — presumably dead (in an extradimensional portal explosion) Chief Jim Hopper, played by David Harbour. Based on the captions of the two videos (001/004 and 002/004, respectively), it seems that fans should expect two more teasers on the way at some point.

The lengthy amount of time between that last teaser and today’s new trailer is because Netflix was only able to get in two weeks of filming at the beginning of 2020 due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic; work on the series only resumed last September.

Netflix has yet to announce a release date for the fourth season, but presumably, with the marketing campaign ramping up again, it won’t be too far off before Stranger Things 4 debuts.