ST ‘Welcome to California’ teaser analysis
here is a link to the trailer:
*I discuss content from s1,s2, and s3, so this does contain spoilers*
this is pretty much a summary of everything i’ve seen on tumblr/notcied myself about the teaser
*buckle in cause this is pretty long*
It starts with El reading out (what we can definitely assume) is a letter she has written to Mike. I’ve heard a statement theorizing that this letter is filled with lies, however I don’t completely agree with this.
The first line is “Today is day 185,”, which I have seen people speculate whether or not was a mistake due to the timing of the seasons (I don’t remember exactly, but they also had reasoning to believe the timing fitted perfectly).
We cut to a shot of what we can only assume is the Byer’s residence (a fairly large, suburban, two-story home- which from previous seasons we know Joyce would not be able to afford on her own). This leads to speculations that maybe the government wanted to suppress suspicions about Eleven’s connection to the Starcourt Mall debacle by moving her away (and every other suspicious thing that’s happened in Hawkins), or something along the lines of that.
“I think I have finally adapted,” she proceeds to say as she places a (handmade?) figurine of Hopper into a diorama of his cabin. This could represent that she has come to accept that he is gone, and is seeing the good in his “death”. Hopper was her true father figure, and someone who really loved her. She learnt so much from him, and she is adapting to the fact that he is now “gone”. There’s truth in this, but we can also ponder on what else she could be adapting to. Although it hints at being Hopper’s “death”, it could certainly also be that she is adapting to living in California, since that is the ‘main’ premise of this teaser.
After this, we see a shot of Will working on (a painting? or possibly a poster/project?) in his new room. In the background, on his wall, we can see a Boys Don’t Cry/The Cure poster. I’ve heard that this song was sort of a gay anthem in the 80s, so this could possibly be subtext of Will’s homosexuality.
In the next shot is Jonathan, smoking weed and watching something out the window. This could be anything, if not just a quick shot to show his face (unlikely, but still plausible). He may be waiting to see Will and El’s ride arrive.
We then see a series of shots of Argyle picking up Will and El in his Surfer Boy Pizza truck. The phone number on the truck reads 805-45-PIZZA. Upon calling, the happy birthday theme plays, which fans speculate could link to Will’s birthday being in Spring, and possibly included (at the least mentioned) in an episode.
We then cut to a ‘Countdown to Spring Break’ banner, identifying there are only 2 days left of school. During this Eleven says, “I even like school now.” I am uncertain about the meaning of her saying ‘now’, as if she had experienced schooling before (which we know she has not). UNLESS, she is considering her time at the lab an educational period of her life. Maybe enlightening, in the way that she learnt more about her powers.
Before this next part, I will mention the “heroes” project that was supposedly leaked. El did a diorama of Hopper, her ‘hero’, and Will did one of Alan Turing, his ‘hero’. Obviously Will did not choose Alan Turing randomly, so let’s look into him a little more. He was, an article states, an “English mathematician, logician, and cryptographer, credited with breaking the Nazi Enigma code during World War II”. This is not a person widely out-there for a “nerd” to be interested in, but let’s look even further. “In 1952, he was arrested and charged with “indecency” after a brief relationship with another man”, and took his own life in 1954 by poisoning an apple with cyanide and eating it. The rainbow apple logo also is said to link to him, which we have seen before on this show.
This does not necessarily confirm things, however, but it could mean that Will is becoming more open about his homosexuality/feelings, and beginning to accept it (adapting, as said in El’s letter).
In her next line, El says, “I have made lots of friends,” This is clearly wrong (or, a lie), as students are shown to be blatantly bullying her and laughing at her.
“Even though, I am ready for spring break.” This is proof that she is not enjoying school as much as she had said earlier, meaning it was, in a way, a lie.
“Mostly because I get to see you,” she then states. In all honesty, this made me slightly uncomfortable for a number of reasons.
-the way she said it was VERY flirtatious for a 14/15 year old, and it sounded as if it lacked real emotion, rather than just teenage desire.
-her and mike are not even confirmed to being back together romantically
But, I may be looking into it too much since my head is literally clouded with byler atm lol
Anyways, we now get our first glance of Mike. Something undeniably obvious in this scene is the THIS WAY sign pointing right into his open closet. I hate to say it, but it’s still fairly possible that this was just a coincidence, and something the set designers didn’t look into that much (not discrediting them, because I do have strong belief it could be a hint at Mike’s homosexuality).
The first few times I watched this scene, I assumed the obvious; that the paper in his hand was El’s letter.
HOWEVER, her letter is very short. Definitely not long enough to fill the stack of paper in Mike’s hand. Maybe half a page, at the most. So this brings me to believe that this was a lead-on, a teaser within the teaser. In fact, it is not uncommon for trailers to be misleading about dialogue and where they correlate with certain scenes, especially in Stranger Things.
The expression on his face is also a fairly new one (possibly just due to Mike’s actor, Finn Wolfhard, being three years older), but it’s definitely there. In the past three seasons, he has managed to replicate facial expressions almost exactly, which have all been important. E.g. the smile he makes when he sees Will has remained practically the same throughout EVERY season. So I’m sure this was a purposeful detail included by the Duffer brothers.
The expression, in my opinion, has a faint smirk to it. Like he’s seeing/reading something he likes and wants to hear. He seems comfortable with whatever is on the paper. But, it’s also mixed with a sort of disbelief, or shock.
Overall, I get the vibe that he’s kind of realising something he wanted all along, but he hadn’t expected it to be so.
(i feel like ron reading harry’s tea leaves lmao)
Which makes me very curious about what exactly he is looking at.
“We will have the best spring break ever”
LOL
as if.
This is the biggest lie, more from the directors/writers than from El’s character herself, but literally everything about the rest of the trailer points to this statement being wrong.
The music crescendos, intensifying, and we IMMEDIATELY cut to a scene of Eleven looking unhappy in the back of a car.
Anyways, the next bit is just a bucketload of notes/observations about all of these quick cuts (in order of appearance). If I missed anything, or you have a better explanation than me, FEEL FREE TO SAY SO, because I don’t know any more than you do. With these, I’m also hoping to bring light to things u may not have noticed (since I missed a lot originally).
The cut right after us seeing Eleven’s disappointed face is of a roller-skating rink, which I absolutely cannot think of anything to link it to. The setting is very vibrant and positive, with fluorescent colours and happy skaters dancing along to some music.
Next we see Joyce, confused, opening a large box (package?) and pulling out a Russian doll. There are speculations that this is a message from Hopper about his whereabouts, or something similar to that.
The next few scenes pose many possible outcomes/things happening. We see Jonathan running up a flight of stairs (identifiable by his blue shirt-shown again in the next scene) towards gunfire (or some kind of flamethrower thing?). I’ve watched it over in 0.25x speed and still can’t identify the person shooting, however these are the things I can see:
-They look like a male
-Their slightly wrinkling skin leads me to believe they’re somewhat middle-aged
-They have a fairly heavy head of thick black hair (similar to Mike’s but neater, straighter, and shorter)
-They are also wearing a white shirt
(It could be Murray)
After this we cut to a scene of Jonathan and Mike in WILL’S BEDROOM, with possibly someone standing to Mike’s left (maybe Will, but it’s impossible to tell). It is quite clear that even before the (gunfire) begins, these two are shouting at each other, arguing over something (passionately- we seem to be seeing a less level-headed side of Jonathan this season. As well as Mike just being the stubborn, sassy dude he is). First, it looks like something is being thrown through the window by the way it gets an obvious hole, but I’m not an expert on how bullets affect windows (i believe that gunfire would shatter the whole window, rather than just smashing a whole into it as if something was thrown directly at a specific part of the window). However, as more bullets fire (shown by the specks of light) the hole grows, which makes sense. But, I don’t think it would be too far-fetched to wonder if something was thrown through the window first.
In between these two shots is a scene of Murray taking off his headphones, looking shocked.
We then see three cars speeding out of frame on a highway. Two are the same, which leads me to believe they are government or cop cars (could also be cars belonging to people who belong to an organisation, e.g. hawkins lab). What is interesting, though, is that the one on the right reads “prison transport, keep back”. I assume this one contains El, since later shots hint at her being kidnapped, and the first shot looks as if she’s in a car.
The two cars at the front have their brake lights on, and the cars are depicted to be swerving to the side, which could mean something (probably Jonathan, Will, and Mike, and Argyle in the Pizza van) is blocking their way.
We then see the feet of a lady stepping out of a car (we cannot tell what car this is). She is wearing black heels and long, navy pants that reach just above her ankles. We could assume she is stepping out to ‘have a word’ with the cali gang for getting in her way. I also particularly like how after this they cut to the feet of a roller skater spinning in circles, which in my opinion felt very smooth.
This leads to El being circled by laughing girls. The expression on her face is honestly kinda heartbreaking, and makes me wonder if she feels helpless against them without her powers, or if there will be a similar dynamic to that during this season.
There’s also quite a juxtaposition of her compared to the colourful background.
We then see a doorway in the middle of the desert being opened, which could mean multiple things but I’ll leave for you to indulge in.
The next shot, though, is of a birds-eye-view of this “doorway” place. There are about 10 people standing in a line in front of the door, with four cargo cars parked (hastily, it seems) in front of it. There’s also a helicopter, either landing or taking off I can’t really tell (I did try to do a bit of research on this- but to no avail- I may have not looked hard enough lol). I would assume it’s landing, and they’re bringing El to this pretty heavily guarded doorway (which I assume is the entrance to some underground lab).
The next shot is of the Surfer Boys Pizza van dramatically kicking into gear. Meaning this is probably some kind of chase scene. I am assuming these people have taken El, and now Jonathan, Argyle, Mike and Will are trying to stop them and get her back. This could also explain the look of distraught on Mike’s face in this next shot, as the ‘baddies’ are possibly escaping with Eleven. Will also looks very concerned in this scene, but I feel that since he never got a chance to really know Eleven he is less ‘traumatised’ / affected by her being taken away, hence the softer expression (or maybe im looking into it too much again)
People have also mentioned how close they are in this scene, speaking of it being a ‘byler’ scene or that they are possibly holding hands. i feel like at this part of the season (probably early-middle), this wouldn’t have happened yet, also this feels like a really weird moment/scene to be holding hands in. I feel like it would be much more emotional than this intense, dramatic scene. Honestly, I hope byler will be canon in season 4 but we just gotta wait and see.
I feel like I should also mention how this is the same colour shirt that Mike “put on and could not stop looking at Will in”. I will link @beepboop358 ‘s analysis of Mike’s clothing here and here (slides 132-138ish).
sorry that was just a quick byler dump lol
This is also followed by a shot of Will swinging his head back to look at something (Mike is out of frame-and it’s actually possible he’s gone/injured). His face is similar to the one above, but resembles Mike’s expression more. In fact, it makes me realise that nothing extremely dangerous (other than the cliff-jump scene) has actually happened to Mike yet, so I wonder if this season will change that.
Next, we see a shot of the County Line Cafe. I don’t really know much about American geography, but I’ve gathered that ‘County lines’ are sort of similar to cities within states (counties?). And I assume that the ‘lines’ are the borders between these cities? I’m not sure, but if so that could mean they’re travelling in this one (which we already could expect because of Hopper’s whereabouts). There’s also 4 people in suits standing near the cafe.
Next, we see (what I believe) is El being dragged into the prisoner transport vehicle by two men in black suits. She doesn’t look as ‘angry’ as I would think she’d be, so it makes me wonder if she’s somewhat okay about being taken by these men, or understands why she’s being taken (just a theory).
I’ve done a really bad job using time connectives in this lol, anways...
The shot after this is
I am not fixing it.
The shot after this is of what looks like a tunnel in a secret Russian base, but it could be aNyWheRe. There is tons of gunfire and people ducking out from behind block-things-that-i-can’t-think-of-the-terminology-for.
Immediately following this,
hey that’s a little better
Immediately following this, we see five men coming out of the smoke (presumably followed by more). It would make sense that they are in the tunnel, and we are seeing it from another angle. I cannot tell if they are holding fire or not, because it’s such a short clip. If this is a Russian base, it would make sense that this is the American army infiltrating it.
The shot after this is
sorry, i got lazy
The shot after this is of our cali gang practically dodging gunfire. I’ll put in an image so you don’t have to listen to me describe it.
If you didn’t notice already, the characters in this shot are (from right to left), Will, Mike, and Jonathan. The man to Jonathan’s right is, again, unidentifiable. It is definitely possible he is the man from earlier, but I wonder why he would now be defending them (after literally flamethrowing them earlier). Each of them seem to be pulling the other out of the way. It also looks like someone is in the doorway, and there is definitely gunfire happening.
It then cuts to someone turning the volume to 7, which people have analysed has many connections to Will and Byler. I don’t think this would be a coincidence, or random number, and if not for its connection to Will then probably still something just as interesting.
We then see a shot of the doorway setting (except looking out from the perspective of the doorway). In this shot we can tell in the distance it’s quite hilly, but otherwise very sandy (from memory, I think people have speculated that this is def California). In this shot we can see the helicopter is kind of hovering (maybe moving forwards), but definitely not moving vertically. The cars are moving forwards, though.
The shot after this is very interesting (i feel like ive said that a hundred times).
It looks like the same setting/place as the doorway, which leads me to theorise someone has blown up the doorway. I can’t tell what those white things are on the ground, but they kind of look like sacks. There’s also the person standing before the fire. It’s hard to tell what their reaction is to seeing this, since we don’t see their face and it’s so far away, but we can probably cancel out them being any kind of government-related person due to the clothes they’re wearing looking very casual. White pants, a blue flannel shirt, with a white shirt underneath, and dark (could just be the silhouette) hair. This persons’ build also looks quite masculine.
After this is cuts to black, and the music returns to its originally joyful tone.
***
Thank you for listening to my analysis, it’s actually the first I’ve posted on tumblr (or anywhere, for that matter). I don’t know how I’m meant to end this, but if you want me to do more, contact me ig?
happy stranger things watching
