What The 'Stranger Things' Season 2 Poster Tells Us To Expect

Early Tuesday morning, Netflix released fiery new Stranger Things Season 2 teaser, announcing that the show’s second season will officially be available to stream on the platform beginning October 27. So now that we finally have a premiere date out of the way, we can rack our brains for any and all clues about Stranger Things Season 2 from the cryptic new poster — and there are definitely clues to be found.

This season’s poster shows four of the central characters from last season —Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Mike (Finn Wolfhard), and Will (Noah Schnapp) — stopped on their bikes in the middle of a road in their town of Hawkins, Indiana. In the photo, the group is looking up at a very strange, very creepy, monster-like creature in the sky. Obviously, as of now, there isn’t much information about what exactly it is that’s perched up there in the clouds, but it definitely makes last season’s Demogorgon look like the least of everyone’s problems.

One thing to note about the poster is that Eleven (Millie Bobbie Brown) isn’t pictured in it. Last season left things a little up in the air for her after she was forced to use all of her powers to kill the Demogorgon; however, the creators confirmed that Eleven will return in Season 2, though not when or how. This poster likely means that the show will focus mostly on the boys this season, especially considering that the Duffer brothers are trying to explore "different kinds of horror" with different monsters and the introduction of two brand new characters named Billy and Max. As Entertainment Weekly reported back in February, the brother-sister duo (played by Dacre Montgomery and Sadie Sink) will supposedly be shaking things up between Mike, Will, and the others.

And then there’s that monster sitting just above the clouds. It’s probably not the Demogorgon, but it is likely something connected to it. When Will coughed up that slug last season, the lights flickered for a moment, and we caught another small glimpse of the Upside Down. Add that to the tag line the Stranger Things Twitter account attached to the teaser — "some doors can't be closed" and that's a hint that we’re definitely not all the way finished with that storyline. Destroying the Demogorgon means that the gang is in for something even worse than what overcame in the first place.

Hopefully, the fact that it's coming from the clouds in the poster is just a metaphor for the bigger and more public spectacle that the Upside Down is about to make in Hawkins. Because the thought of the kids having to deal with cosmic monsters instead of interdimensional monsters is too terrifying to consider.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a description for the upcoming season reads:

"It’s 1984 and the citizens of Hawkins, Indiana are still reeling from the horrors of the Demogorgon and the secrets of Hawkins Lab. Will Byers has been rescued from the Upside Down but a bigger, sinister entity still threatens those who survived."

It might take a while for us to find out what this new “sinister” threat is, but that creepy thing in the sky definitely doesn't look good.