Due to the global pandemic, shooting had to stop early on the fourth season of Netflix’s monster hit Stranger Things. Which means that sadly, we will not be catching up with our friends in Hawkins this year. Despite that, fans do have some good news in the meantime. While doing an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, series creators the Duffer brothers made a surprise statement. Despite what everyone has assumed, the upcoming fourth season of the show won’t be its last.

Ross Duffer said “ Season four won’t be the end. We know what the end is, and we know when it is. [The pandemic] has given us time to look ahead, figure out what is best for the show. Starting to fill that out gave us a better idea of how long we need to tell that story.”

Eleven protects her friends

Netflix

That guarantees a fifth season of the series, and maybe even a sixth for all we know. This is a bit surprising, because it seems many Netflix series don’t go past a fourth year. Most don’t even get past a third anymore. But given the huge cultural status of Stranger Things, it seems this series might be the exception to that rule.

It’s impossible to really speculate about what a fifth season will entail, when we haven’t even seen the fourth one yet. But so far, the show has aged all the kids in “real time.” If Stranger Things season four airs two years after the third, that would put our favorite Hawkins A.V. Club kids in 1987. A fifth season premiering a year or more after that could take them to the very end of the decade. So expect lots of references to movies like Die Hard and Tim Burton’s Batman.

Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will, Max, and Eleven will hopefully make their welcome returns to our screens for Stranger Things season four sometime in 2021.

Featured Image: Netflix