Stranger Things Recap Video Tells You Everything You Need to Remember Ahead of Season 4 — in Just 5 Minutes

When Stranger Things Season 4, Part 1 drops on Netflix Friday, it will have been nearly three (!) years since we last got new episodes of the Duffer Brothers genre-bending smash. So if you’re a little foggy on where the action left off, it’s beyond understandable.

Luckily, TVLine’s Matt Webb Mitovich has put together a handy-dandy video that tees up the eight biggest things to remember before diving into the first seven super-sized installments of the series’ penultimate season. (The last two episodes arrive on Friday, July 1.) Among the bits of information that you’re likely to find vital are updates on the status of the indefatigable Mind Flayer, our heroine Eleven and her “late” dad, not one but two couples and the unlikely hero that we used to be sure was gone for good.

The refresher course also reveals which newish favorites are back in a bigger way than ever in Season 4 and teases the grave peril into which our protagonists are plummeted. Because, c’mon, there’s always grave peril for this gang!

As previously reported, the action this time around won’t only take place in Hawkins, where most of our original core characters still reside, but in California, which is now home, sweet home to El and the Byerses, and Russia, where Hopper has been imprisoned. The show’s tangled supernatural mythology will also be unraveled more in Season 4 than ever before, the Duffers recently told our sister site Deadline. “Each season, we’re just sort of peeling back the layers” of the onion that it is, said Ross. “But this season, we wanted to really get into it and [reveal] some of those answers.”

To jog your memory about Season 3, just press PLAY on the video above. Then hit the comments with your hopes/fears for Season 4.