'Stranger Things' Season 4 Release Date Might Be Revealed in S3's Ending

Stranger Things Season 3 ends on a couple of huge cliffhangers that have us desperate for Season 4. Netflix still hasn’t even officially confirmed a fourth season, but a key scene in the Season 3 epilogue may reveal the Season 4 release date, along with an unexpected way for the beloved sci-fi series to go out with a bang.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the end of Stranger Things Season 3.

Specifically, we’re talking about that emotional goodbye between Mike and Eleven, before Millie Bobby Brown’s character leaves Hawkins to start a new life with the Byers family in an unnamed location. After talking about how her powers will eventually come back, Mike reveals that he’s gotten approval from his mother to visit El over Thanksgiving. Then, he suggests she should come back to Hawkins sometime around Christmas.

“Christmas day could be super fun because we’d all have cool new presents to play with,” Mike says.

So why does this matter? Well, with half of the show’s main characters leaving town, it seems likely that Stranger Things Season 4 will bring them back together to face some new supernatural threat. With just a few lines of dialogue, Mike and Eleven provided two big potential calendar dates for when that could happen.

More importantly, it’s worth noting that for the past two seasons, Stranger Things has tied its Netflix releases to the calendar events happening on the show. Season 2 released right before Halloween and featured a trick or treating plotline. Season 3 dropped on July 4 and culminated in a Fourth of July carnival. So it stands to reason that Stranger Things Season 4 will do the same thing whenever it arrives.

Based on the past three seasons, Stranger Things also seems to have a year-and-a-half-long production cycle. So a fall or winter 2020 launch for Season 4 makes a lot of sense.

Taking things one step further, it’s possible that we could get new episodes of Stranger Things on both Thanksgiving and Christmas. While Season 4 is all but confirmed, there’s no guarantee we’ll ever get a fifth season. Splitting the final season into two parts and separating them by about a month could be the perfect way to finish the series, especially if Season 4, Part 1 ends with a huge cliffhanger that leaves fans wondering what happens next for the 30 odd days between the two holidays.

Of course, if it was up to me, Stranger Things would continue forever, but if that’s not possible, then a two-part Season 4 release date in late 2020 would be one heck of a way to go out. And if that’s what happens, don’t be surprised. The clues were there all along.

Stranger Things Season 3 is streaming now on Netflix.