Netflix reveals Stranger Things season 3 trailer, release date

2019 just got a little bit … stranger.

Timed to the first seconds of New Year’s Day, Netflix has released an early look at Stranger Things season three in the form of a clue-filled teaser, and announced a release date for the eight-episode installment. Stranger Things 3 will arrive on July 4, 2019.

The trailer tees up the show’s new setting, summer 1985, by opening on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve from the year in question. Sprinkled in are cryptic shots of a computer interface with clues that are begging for analysis. Here’s the trailer:

The final episode of Stranger Things season two found Eleven going full super saiyan in order to close a gate to the Upside Down and shut down the Mind Flayer’s malevolent plans. A month after the Demodogs shriveled up and died, Eleven, Mike, fostering serious romantic feelings for the telekinetic, and the rest of the gang attend the Hawkins Middle School winter ball. But the Mind Flayer looms! And clearly the retro-paranormal adventure wasn’t going to end there.

The Stranger Things season three trailer offers two key clues as to where things might go in 1985: A computer screen with the highlighted phrase “When Blue and Yellow Meet in the West” and an hidden figure tapping out commands to launch the program “SilverCatFeeds.exe.”

What’s it mean? Stranger Things devotees are one step ahead with their detective work. In Netflix’s official making-of book Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down, published this past October, fans found morse code messages that, when decoded, spelled out some poetic-yet-suggestive messages.

Eagle-eyed fans quickly connected the dots between the blue and yellow colors mentioned in the messages and a throwaway “commercial” released over the summer of Hawkins’ hot, new destination: Starcourt Mall. Note the clock in this video.

From there, the internet’s pre-release investigation starts digging deep into time travel theories, Biblical references and additional knowledge gleaned from spoierly set photos. Dive in at your own risk.

Stranger Things season 3 once again comes from creators Matt and Ross Duffer, with main cast members Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Noah Schnapp and Sadie Sink all set to return. Along with the teaser, Netflix also debuted a poster for the season — we’ll be staring at the fireworks until we see the Magic Eye clue we assume is hidden away in the blasts.

Courtesy of Netflix