Warning: This article contains spoilers forStranger Thingsseason 4.
Volume I ofStranger Thingsseason 4 hada lotgoing on.
For the first time, ourheroes were split up,Dr.
Jamie Campbell Bower as Peter Ballard and Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven.NETFLIX
MATT DUFFER:He is definitely Team Barb.
I hadn’t thought of that.
But you’re right.
Matthew Modine as Dr. Brenner in ‘Stranger Things’.Netflix
ROSS DUFFER:He’s not gonna let Nancy forget that anytime soon.
And luckily, we still had the original Barb dummy from season 1.
We had to search around a little bit and dust it off.
Robert Englund as Victor Creel.Netflix
But that’s the exact same Barb dummy we have from season 1.
So she’s still with us.
Do we know how he survived that Demogorgon in season 1?
Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard) with the leader of the Hellfire Club, Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn).Netflix
And did you always want to bring him back?
ROSS:Well, we never showed his death on screen.
And we were just waiting for the right story to bring him back.
There’s a lot of complicated emotions there.
And I think they bring out the best in each other.
It almost seemed like he genuinely cares for Eleven, in his own messed up way.
MATT:Yeah, we wanted to show another side to him.
And there’s no one more defensive of Brenner than Matthew Modine.
Some of it is us infusing that in.
[To him,] he’s not a villain.
ROSS:Yeah, you’re right.
You’re not justifying anything [with his character].
You’re just going, “Okay, this is more complicated than I originally imagined.”
We reveal a lot more, especially in episode 8.
I don’t want to say too much.
But yeah, a lot of it was Matthew.
So he’s justified everything that he’s doing in season 1.
I thought that was so interesting.
I love how messy and dark it is.
It was a lot of fun to write.
How did his role as Victor Creel this season come about?
MATT:Pretty organically.
It’s one of those moments that feels like fate, if you believe in such a thing.
We had written most of the season, or a lot of it.
He was a huge touchstone for Vecna.
And suddenly, Robert Englund popped up on our screens.
He just sent in a tape.
He was lying in a bathtub performing the monologues that you see on the show.
He gave the same performance that he gave on the show.
So he was great.
He signed a bunch of posters for us.
I’ve got a stand-up Freddy Krueger poster now signed by him.
Jamie Campbell Bower, who plays One/Vecna, previously told us that Volume II was “explosive.”
Can you expound on that at all?What can we expect from the final two episodes this season?
MATT:Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting.
The season wasn’t initially designed as a split.
And so what we’re heading into is the third act, the climax.
So it’s just this massive, massive climax.
ROSS:[There are] character reveals, there are also big plot reveals.
How can we defeat this evil when we’re not even in the same space?
So that’s something that we’re really excited about, seeing how that all comes together.
And just the cross-cutting.
We’re very excited.
ROSS:Yeah, that’s a really special moment.
So we were very lucky.
And he’s pretty modest, so he’s like, “Yeah, I’m pretty good.”
He’s more than pretty good.
MATT:He is amazing.
And he worked a long time on that [moment] as well.
ROSS:Yeah, I can’t wait for people to see that.
He spent many, many, many, many hours perfecting it.
One thing that fans have latched on to are the not-so-subtle hints that Will might be gay.
What do you guys make of that and will the character have an official coming out moment?
The show has progressively, at least to me, gotten darker and more terrifying.
Should we be prepared for more of that in Volume II?
MATT:Yeah, certainly.
And it felt like the right time to put them into a full-blown horror film.
And you’re experiencing a lot of dark emotions for the first time.
Whereas for us, middle school was such a magical time.
And that was why that was reflected in season 1, whereas this has gotten darker.
That’s the intention.
We wanted the whole season to feel like everybody is in jeopardy.
But now, you know, everybody’s life is on the line.
ROSS:With this formidable monster that they’ve come across.
He doesn’t mess around.
MATT:No, he doesn’t pull punches, you know?
He has his fans.
That’s been a surprise to me, that Vecna has fans.
Volume I ended with thehuge reveal about Vecnaand his origins, and his connection to Eleven.
Will that be the case with Vecna or is his story a part of the endgame?
MATT:I don’t want to spoil anything.
But again, there’s some big reveals still to come.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
