Netflix begins production on the fourth season of Stranger Things in January of 2020. That means we likely won’t see it for a while, but between casting news and blooper reels, the hype train is already getting rolling. Stoking the fires further, the official Stranger Things Instagram account has shared an image of the script for the premiere, including the episode title.
Side note: the Stranger Things Instagram — like the Stranger Things Twitter — is a never-ending font of jokes, memes, and GIFs, all of it with a 1980s feel, as befits the series. Check it out sometime.
Okay, on to that title: “The Hellfire Club.” That’s a name given to a lot of exclusive English and Irish clubs in the 18th century, but given when and where Stranger Things is set, that’s probably not what it refers to. More likely, it’s a nod to a villainous, high-society group of mutants known to oppose the X-Men. That Hellfire Club was pretty big in the X-Men comics in the ’80s, so the timeline would work. Recently, the group pulled villain duty the canceled-too-soon Fox show The Gifted:
The Stranger Things gang are pretty nerdy, with past episodes being named after stuff from Dungeons & Dragons, so naming an episode after a bunch of X-Men villains seems very on-theme. Maybe the Hellfire Club is what the group rebrands itself now that it’s split up, with Joyce Byers packing up her family (plus Eleven) and moving out of Hawkins?
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