Stranger Things heads to California in new sun-soaked trailer for Season 4 on Netflix

Netflix is California dreamin' with the latest teaser trailer for Stranger Things 4. Released in honor of "Stranger Things Day" (a commemoration of the day Will Byers was whisked off to the Upside Down on this day back in 1983), this footage gives us our best look yet at the upcoming episodes, which are scheduled to premiere in summer 2022.

After the "death" of Hopper (David Harbour) at the end of Season 3, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) is now living on the West Coast with the Byers family: Joyce (Winona Ryder), Will (Noah Schnapp), and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton). She and Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) are trying out the whole long-distance relationship thing with a plan to reunite over spring break. Vacation can't come soon enough, because Eleven is having trouble adjusting to her new home

Set to the deceptively soothing sounds of Jeremiah Burnham's Beach Boys-esque "A Place in California," the teaser proves that nothing is ever truly easy for these characters. No matter how far they try to run, the bizarre goings-on of Hawkins, Indiana always catch up with them in the end.

Watch the trailer below:

Production on Season 4 was delayed for over half a year by the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming resumed in the fall of 2020, but fans will still have to wait a bit longer, given the larger narrative scope.

"You kind of know we've got some action in Hawkins, we’ve got some action apparently in Russia, and we have an entire storyline set elsewhere that will soon come to light," executive producer Shawn Levy said over the summer. "So this is the first season where we have this sprawling geography, multiple location shoots, and we're doing it all against a backdrop of a world that has made filming slower, longer in delay. So that's why it's taking so long."

In addition to storylines in California and Hawkins, the upcoming season will also take us deep within the Soviet Union where Hopper is locked up in a Russian prison with an inter-dimensional monster.

"You've seen that there is a Demogorgon in this prison from last season. I think they also talked about Alien 3, the Fincher Alien, where they're trapped in prison with a monster," Harbour remarked at New York Comic Con last month. "This is a Hopper trying to get home to his family element, which is really incredible ... A lot of the things that you wanted to [see] in terms of Hopper and where he's going."

The fresh batch of episodes are set to introduce a number of newly-created characters like Victor Creel, an imprisoned murdered played by Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund. Fans got a small taste of Creel's dark past in a teaser released during Netflix's TUDUM fan event in late September. 

"We're very excited to show you this season," said Ross Duffer, who created the hit series alongside his brother, Matt. "It's crazy, it's epic, it's long. A lot goes down."

Stranger Things 4 heads to Netflix sometime next summer.