Stranger Things 4 Volume 2 is nearly upon us, but how can you watch it when you missed so much from Volume 1? Like every other season of the show, Stranger Things 4 is absolutely packed with easter eggs and nods to the ’80s science fiction, horror, and fantasy films that influenced creators Matt and Ross Duffer.
But since this is the penultimate season of Stranger Things, it’s also loaded with nods back to previous seasons. There’s more than ever lurking in the background, and before Volume 2 comes along and blows our socks off with its two-and-a-half hour finale, we’re going to look back at some of those hidden details.
Here are 30 easter eggs you might have missed in Stranger Things 4 Volume 1:
1. Brenner’s crossword
The opening montage of Stranger Things 4 shows the morning routine of Dr. Martin Brenner, the scientist who started the psychic child experimentation program at Hawkins Lab. In addition to trimming a bonsai, reminiscent of Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid, Brenner also does a crossword puzzle in 10 minutes flat.
There are all sorts of interesting easter eggs in the crossword, including a reference to Barbara Stanwyck, an actor who appeared in horror films like The Night Walker and The House That Would Not Die. “The wife of Shiva” is another crossword clue, the answer for which is “Kali.” This is a nod to Eight, the other psychic child who escaped Hawkins Lab that we met back in season 2. Her real name is Kali Prasad.
But perhaps the most interesting of the crossword easter eggs is when the camera zooms in on the word “etiological.” This is a medical term that refers to the root cause of a disease or condition. In this flashback sequence, we get our first glimpse of how the Upside Down came to be linked to Hawkins, and how Hawkins Lab began studying it in the wake of Eleven and One’s duel. This sequence is the root cause of the events of Stranger Things.
2. The gate is closed
Speaking of the Upside Down, at the very end of the opening sequence we see Eleven standing in front of the wall where she defeated One. By the end of Volume 1, we know that Eleven blasted One into the Upside Down, which opened a gate on that wall.
In this opening scene, that gate is closed; you can just see it as a spidery crack running down the wall. So despite Eleven witnessing the whole chain of events, this means that Brenner didn’t see the gate when it was open until he watched the security camera footage. Trailers have shown that we’ll see more of how he reacts to it in Volume 2.
3. The Hellfire Club and the X-Men
The season 4 premiere is titled “The Hellfire Club” after the Hawkins High Dungeons & Dragons group. The Hellfire Club was a prominent part of the X-Men comics; it was an organization for the powerful and ambitious started by Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost.
This isn’t the first time that the show has referenced the X-Men, even in this season. Dustin also talks about his “Cerebro.” This is the nickname the group has for Dustin’s ham radio, but the name itself is drawn from the machine Professor Xavier uses to locate mutants.
On top of all that, the visuals for Vecna psychically searching out his victims are very similar to the way Cerebro is portrayed in the 2000s-era X-Men films.
5. Star Wars aplenty
Stranger Things has always had plenty of Star Wars references. During the premiere episode when Dustin and Mike tell the Hellfire Club dungeon master Eddie that Lucas is going to miss the final session of the campaign, Eddie asks if Lucas has been “taken by the Dark Side.” Then, when the Hellfire Club is actually playing D&D later in the episode, Dustin tells Eddie to “never tell him the odds,” quoting a classic Han Solo line from The Empire Strikes Back.
4. Dustin’s Weird Al shirt
During that same conversation in the cafeteria, Eddie tells Dustin that he knew he was destined to join the Hellfire Club from the first time he saw him wearing a Weird Al shirt. While we never saw that specific moment in the show, we did see Dustin’s Weird Al shirt in the third episode of season 3. It’s got the cover art for Weird Al’s “Weird Al” Yankovic in 3-D album on it.
6. E.T. phone home
While the creators of Stranger Things have been pretty open about drawing inspiration from Steven Spielberg’s E.T. for the California plotline in season 4, that doesn’t mean the E.T. nods are restricted to the west coast. Dustin uses a payphone to call Steve when he’s looking for a replacement D&D player to sub in for Lucas. Written onto the payphone wall is “E.T. phone home.”
7. The Kobe Bryant tribute
Stranger Things season 4 sees Lucas Sinclair join the Hawkins High basketball team as he attempts to climb the social ladder and escape the bullying that he suffered in middle school. He wears the number 8 on his jersey, something that actor Caleb McLaughlin has revealed was an intentional nod to the late great Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant.
8. Tammy Thompson
Before the basketball game in the season 4 premiere, a former Hawkins student named Tammy Thompson sings the national anthem. As it turns out, this is the very same Tammy Thompson who Robin revealed having a crush on to Steve when she came out to him during season 3. They even referenced the fact that she was pursuing a singing career in Nashville, despite Steve’s insistence she can’t hold a tune. And in season 4, we got to hear how right he was for ourselves.
9. Erica the D&D master
During the season 4 premiere, Dustin and Mike enlist Lucas’ younger sister Erica to help them out in their D&D campaign. There are a few cool details about that, the first of which is that Erica only started playing Dungeons & Dragons because she was given Will’s D&D books when the Byers moved out to California at the end of season 3. (This was after Dustin outed her for being a nerd because she liked My Little Pony earlier in the season.) We never get a good look at the books inside of Erica’s D&D binder during the Hellfire Club scene, but we’d be willing to bet that one of them is that very same guide she got from Will’s donation box.
Stranger Things 4 starts around five months after the ending sequence of season 3 where Erica is given the D&D books. That means that she has become a master of the game in just under half a year. It’s never smart to underestimate Erica.