Will Stranger Things season 4 introduce the other lab kids?

Alright, y’all, I feel like I should preface this with that gif of Michael Scott from The Office telling everyone to remain calm. Except that’s not possible because I’m sure we’re all about to go up like a firework thanks to a teaser called “Eleven, are you listening?” that dropped for Stranger Things season 4.

It’s been well over a year since fans of the series learned that Hopper somehow escaped the jaws of death and landed in the snowbanks of Russia. How our band of interdimensional monster-fighting young adults and Joyce are going to find him is unclear, but we’re more than a little excited for the ride.

Now we have another piece of the Stranger Things season 4 puzzle to dissect and analyze in the long wait for the premiere. The most recent teaser takes viewers to a laboratory where kids in hospital gowns are playing in a room with more than one rainbow strip. You can probably guess where this is going!

Stranger Things season 4 new teaser

Watch the teaser below:

Stranger Things season 4 could introduce Eleven to the other lab kids

That’s right! It looks like we’re going to be seeing the return of Matthew Modine’s Dr. Brenner or Papa as the lab kids call him.

Season 2 of Stranger Things expanded the world concerning the experiments Hawkins National Laboratory had been performing secretly unbeknownst to the small Indianian town. We met Kali a.k.a. 008 who is capable of making people see whatever she wants. She’d been the young girl in the room with Eleven back before either of them had fully grown into their powers.

Now it seems Stranger Things season 4 we’ll be returning us to the lab kids storyline which was absent in the third season of the series. The teaser, which can be interpreted as a flashback considering Eleven’s head may be shaved, brings us to what looks like a monitored play area. But, if you watched the teaser for this teaser trailer–entitled “HNL Control Room”–then you know something goes horribly wrong here.

Blood is splattered across multiple surfaces, which has us wondering if “HNL Control Room” is the aftermath of “Eleven, are you listening?” The latter is unnerving all on its own what with Brenner’s unsettling presence, the children solemnly playing, and Eleven hyperventilating behind the locked door that serves as her cell. But the teaser for the teaser feels even more ominous, though perhaps that’s a red herring, and we should be wondering about a rescue mission.

It’s premature to say that the inclusion of young lab kids guarantees that we’ll be meeting their aged-up characters, but that plinko board with a puck in slots 4, 7, and 8 has us thinking it’s possible that comics canon is about to influence show canon.

According to Screen Rant, Kali meets up with 3 and 9.5 in the comic book mini-series Into the Fire and together they decide to rescue one of their imprisoned siblings who was thought to be dead. In that universe, the imprisoned sibling was 9 but what if in show canon, it’s Eleven and her rescuers are Kali, 4, and 7?

Also, if you notice in the new teaser, there are two kids playing together that look similar to one another. They’re moving in an almost synchronized fashion across the rainbow on the floor. Could those be our twins like 9 and 9.5?

“Eleven, are you listening?” has left us with a lot of questions and possibilities to speculate on. What do you think this teaser is telling us about Stranger Things season 4? Let us know in the comments below!