Netflix has shared the most details behind the upcoming Stranger Things Season 4 yet, from the release date and strategy for the season to the revelation that Season 5 will indeed be the series’ last. Amidst the flurry of news, Netflix shared a set of posters for Season 4, all bearing the ominous tagline “Every Ending Has a Beginning.” More than herald the conclusion to the enormously popular series over the next two seasons, this tagline mirrors the tagline from 2003’s The Matrix Revolutions, which promoted the original film trilogy’s ending with the phrase “Everything That Has a Beginning Has an End,” suggesting the two stories may share similar trajectories.
The Matrix‘s tagline is spoken by the Oracle to Neo in The Matrix Revolutions as the prophetic computer program warns him of the coming darkness being spread by the rogue Agent Smith replicating himself in any individual he encountered within the Matrix. While Smith was eventually purged from the Matrix and a tentative peace was achieved between humanity and the machines, this required Neo to sacrifice himself in the process during a final showdown with Smith before both were reborn decades later in The Matrix Resurrections.
Further building the connection between Stranger Things and The Matrix is an image released in April 2020 by the Netflix series’ writers room, listing The Matrix among the influences on Stranger Things Season 4, with the parallels in tagline perhaps teasing a heroic sacrifice to thwart a spreading darkness in Hawkins, Indiana. Season 3 featured the Mind-Flayer, a monster from the Upside-Down, that took over dozens of individuals throughout Hawkins. With the victims known as the Flayed, the corrupted gathered together to give the Mind-Flayer a hulking physical form as it rampaged around the town before it was destroyed at the expense of Eleven’s powers and Sheriff Hopper seemingly disintegrating.
Should Stranger Things Season 4’s tagline suggest the season will draw direct influence from The Matrix Revolutions, this could hint at a new corrosive influence spreading around Hawkins and Eleven’s new home in California not unlike how Smith was able to unstoppably propagate himself in those he corrupted. It also suggests that Season 4 could feature a heroic sacrifice to save the day. While Hopper appeared to sacrifice himself in Season 3, he was quickly revealed to have survived, although Season 4 may include the more definitive death of a major character, perhaps even Hopper himself. There are certain elements slated to be introduced in Stranger Things Season 4, including the notorious Creel House, that don’t completely align but the broad strokes could inform how the final two seasons of Stranger Things play out.
With its tagline, Stranger Things Season 4 teases that the endgame to the overarching story will begin in earnest, as Stranger Things steadily moves towards its final season. Just as The Matrix Revolutions closed out its trilogy’s story after picking up immediately where The Matrix Reloaded, Stranger Things Season 5 could pick up from a cliffhanger ending left by Season 4 and wrap up the story of Eleven and all her friends, with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. Stranger Things has always been a show that wears its influences on its sleeve and one of the biggest clues to where the finale is heading lies right there in its foreboding tagline.
Created by the Duffer Brothers, Strangers Things Season 4, Vol. 1 premieres May 27, with Vol. 2 premiering July 1 on Netflix.
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