Small Details You Missed In The Stranger Things 3 Trailer

The full-length trailer for the third season of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things has finally arrived, and boy, is there a lot to unpack. Our young heroes, now precocious teenagers, are gearing up for what should be one of the most memorable summers of their lives — and it probably will be... just not for the reasons they may have hoped. As we all know, in Hawkins, Indiana, there are always plenty of things going on — but not the fun things, exciting things, or romantic things that are the stuff of most teens' summers. More like dark things... menacing things... stranger things.

Sure, there'll be plenty of highlights — an eye-popping first trip to the mall for Eleven, an awesome county fair hosted by a local mayoral candidate, and some bonding between girls with dancing and ice cream. But there'll also be a looming interdimensional threat, one hardcore dude with a gun in a hall of mirrors, and the ever-present Upside Down, all bubbling just under the surface of the summery festivities. Here are a few interesting details that may have gotten by you in the spine-tingling spot.

Astute Stranger Things fans who also happen to be gamers may notice that a couple shots in this opening sequence are strongly reminiscent of P.T., the unfinished Silent Hill demo which took the internet by storm in 2014 (and which some still consider to be among the scariest games ever made, demo or not). The very first shot, of the boombox Dustin is cranking the Crue on, immediately clued them in: the radio is reminiscent of the one which features prominently (and creepily) in a P.T. Easter egg within Metal Gear Solid V, another game from director Hideo Kojima. The reference is all but confirmed by the nature of the prank pulled on Dustin by his pals.

Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) uses her ability to animate some of Dustin's toys, and their spooky march down the hall is likewise very, very similar to one of P.T.'s freaky unexplained occurrences. This is no throwaway reference; the Duffer Brothers have previously stated (on more than one occasion) that the Silent Hill series was one of many influences on Stranger Things' overall vibe, and the nod to P.T. in particular makes sense given the game's explicit reference to another reality... sort of like the one constantly threatening to overwhelm Hawkins, the infamous Upside Down.

Also joining the cast this season is Jake Busey, Gary Busey's son, who has popped up recently in small-screen offerings such as Ray Donovan and Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He'll be playing Bruce, a scribe for the hometown Hawkins Post, but he's no crusading journalist seeking to expose Mayor Kline's corruption. His character description pegs him as a man possessed of "questionable morals and a sick sense of humor." We see only the briefest of shots featuring the character in the trailer, and he looks sick, all right — but not in a way having anything to do with how he gets his laughs.

He appears to be standing in the hall inside some kind of facility, almost certainly Hawkins National Laboratory, that place where all messed-up interdimensional goings-on plaguing the town have their genesis. He's unkempt, with his tie undone and a smear of blood on his chest, and he's wearing a smile that we wouldn't want to see on anybody, at any time, ever. His appearance is the first of several clues which may hint at the nature of the trouble descending on the little town during the summer of '85 — namely, there seems to be some kind of infection going around... and it's no nasty summertime flu bug.

In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot from the frantically-edited montage late in the spot, we're clued in to the possibility that whatever influence is corrupting Bruce and Billy may not be limited to them. The scene's setting appears to be the good old Fun Fair, and it features a pair of seemingly random townspeople staring intently at... something. Despite the festivities, though, they don't appear to be having any fun at all. Indeed, they look downright menacing, almost zombie-like. Pretty much what we imagine one would look like if they were to gaze into the Upside Down... and the Upside Down gazed back.

This shot may possibly correspond to another earlier in the trailer, in which Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) is also shown at the fair in civilian duds, slightly bloodied and looking very concerned. It's obvious that something quite significant will go down at the Fun Fair, and it looks to involve at least some of the denizens of Hawkins going full-on pod people, which isn't going to bode well for everyone else's good time.

Previously released promotional materials for this season have leaned heavily on cryptic imagery and phrases, not the least of which was one discovered in the book Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down: The Official Behind-the-Scenes Companion, released in the fall of 2018. The book contained a secret poem spelled out in Morse code (a nod to one of Eleven's preferred methods of communication) which contained the line "When blue and yellow meet in the West" — the same phrase which sharp-eyed viewers picked out displayed on a computer monitor in the short teaser trailer released for season 3 the following New Year's Eve. 

What could this be referring to? There are a couple possibilities. One prominent shot in the new trailer features Eleven, all alone and wearing a yellow shirt, standing on the beach as an eerie light illuminates the night sky. Behind her and to the left is a blue, blue body of water; could it be that a pivotal plot point occurs here?

It's also been pointed out that, in the "Starcourt Mall Announcement" teaser released earlier in 2018, the hands of the clock on the mall's face also happen to be yellow and blue — indicating that something serious might go down when the hands "meet." This lines up with the announced title of season 3's final episode, a title on which which this trailer sheds a little light — and it's not the only one.

The trailer shows us that even as events in Hawkins are taking a turn for the strange once more, our heroes are doing what kids their age do — growing, changing, hooking up, palling around, and getting summer jobs. But one of them in particular just can't seem to escape her past: Eleven, who unfortunately seems to get only the briefest of respite from the horrifying interdimensional madness. Sure, she gets to accompany Max on a trip to the new mall, shares a kiss with Mike (Finn Wolfhard), and discovers the joys of ice cream — but when you have blindingly powerful psychic abilities tied to the alternate dimension which threatens to envelop your town, you just can't stay on the sidelines for long.

Eleven is shown in a series of shots once more getting sucked into the Upside Down, confronting and/or communing with some kind of force in that shot on the beach, and standing blindfolded with a slight nosebleed — the indication that she's flexing her powers — in front of a freezer chock full of the one thing she's never been able to resist, Eggo waffles. But most tellingly, the spot's final moments see her in that same yellow shirt, face full of righteous anger, nose bleeding like a faucet, facing off against that grotesque spider-thing — suggesting that she'll once again be instrumental in putting an end to whatever fresh menace comes to Hawkins this time around. Let's hope she gets to have at least one Eggo first.