A new teaser for Stranger Things Season 4 has dropped and it appears to show some kind of a flashback that takes the audience back to Hawkins National Laboratory. The flashback is set in a familiar and now seemingly significant location – the Rainbow Room.
The Rainbow Room was first introduced in Stranger Things 2, when Eleven went to find her mother, Terry Ives. Unfortunately, when Eleven found her, Terry’s mind was fractured thanks to the handiwork of Dr. Martin Brenner. She could only say certain words, so, using her powers, Eleven connected with her mother’s mind and saw how broken she truly was. Terry’s mind was stuck in a loop, replaying small portions of the events leading up to when she tried save her daughter from Dr. Brenner. One of the things that Eleven saw was a sterile white room with a rainbow painted on the door. Inside was a younger version of herself and another child, Kali.
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In 1969, Terry Ives was part of Project MKUltra at the Hawkins National Laboratory. With Dr. Brenner spearheading the operation, Terry became a test-subject for mind-altering psychedelic drugs. During this time, she was unknowingly pregnant with her daughter, Jane. When she went into labor, Dr. Brenner had the baby taken away for testing and told Terry that she had miscarried.
As Brenner had foreseen, Jane was special and she became Eleven, one of his many child test-subjects. Terry, however, remembered seeing her baby alive and did not believe the story about her miscarriage. So, after failing in her attempts to sue Brenner and get her child back, Terry decided to try to take Jane back by force. She snuck into the facility, shot a guard and found her child in the white room with the rainbow on the door. Before she could do anything, Terry was caught and underwent forced electroshock therapy, which left her mind completely dysfunctional. Thus, Dr. Brenner successfully covered his tracks because Terry couldn’t tell anyone what had happened. All she could say was, “Breathe. Sunflower. Rainbow. Three to the right. Four to the left. Four fifty,” each denoting a memory.
The new “Eleven are you listening?” teaser seems to show a flashback from a time when Brenner still had multiple child test-subjects. They are all playing in a large room at Hawkins Laboratory. The walls are painted like one giant rainbow, and there is a rainbow painted on the floor that two children are using like a track for their toy race cars. The children are playing, but the ominous music and viewers’ knowledge about Dr. Brenner’s intent tells them that this is no happy place.
There are, however, discrepancies between the Rainbow Room that Terry remembered and the room that this teaser shows. The Rainbow Room in Terry’s memories was a plain white room that had a single door with a rainbow on it. In contrast, the trailer’s room was painted with rainbows throughout and had plain double-doors. This could simply be Terry misremembering due to her fractured mind, or more likely, this may be a new Rainbow Room. Perhaps rainbows were of some significance in Dr. Brenner’s tests and experiments, or maybe he was just trying to counteract his evil deeds with happy colors to keep the children placated. After all, unhappy test-subjects are often uncooperative.
Created by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things stars Winona Ryder, Millie Bobby Brown, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Priah Ferguson, Cary Elwes, Jake Busey, Maya Thurman-Hawke and Levon Thurman-Hawke. Season 4 has yet to receive a release date.
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