- Warning: Major spoilers ahead for “Stranger Things” season three.
- Netflix’s “Stranger Things 3” was full of references to the first two seasons, plus important context clues about a major character’s fate by the finale.
- Keep reading to see every important detail and callback you might have missed.
- Visit INSIDER’s homepage for more stories.
The third season of “Stranger Things” is now streaming, and the newest installment of the 80s-inspired TV show was full of callbacks to earlier episodes. We’ve picked out the best of these in-universe references and Easter eggs, leaving all of the 80s movies and pop culture references for another time.
Keep reading to see the 27 details you might have overlooked on the new season of “Stranger Things.”
First, a note on timelines. If you’re confused about how old the kids on “Stranger Things” are now, they’re just about to start high school.
Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas were all in eighth grade on the second season. Those episodes took place in the fall of 1984.
Now it’s the summer of 1985, which means the kids are all about to begin their freshman year of high school. Nancy and Jonathan are about to be seniors in high school, and Steve just graduated but didn’t get into any colleges.
Eleven is still wearing the bracelet Hopper gave to her at the end of last season (which is really his first daughter's hair tie).
When we first see Eleven on the new season, she's wearing a blue bracelet. That little accessory used to belong to Hopper, but we last saw it on Eleven's wrist when she went to the Snow Ball at the end of season two.
It's really a blue hair tie - the same one his first daughter Sara used to wear in her hair before she got sick.
Hopper wore that hair tie for most of the first two seasons.
The very first time we saw Hopper on "Stranger Things," he was asleep on the couch. When he woke up, he looked first at the hair tie and then quickly at his watch. Actor David Harbour told INSIDER looking at the hair tie was an intentional introduction to his character.
"It's the first thing that he does every morning because he never wants to forget her," Harbour said. "Sara and the death of his daughter is his grounding place for reality."
Mike must have helped Eleven decorate her bedroom using posters from his house.
The bird and landscape poster, which hung on Mike's basement wall throughout the first two seasons, had a new home at the start of "Stranger Things 3."
The bird poster was hanging by Eleven's bedroom by the start of the new season.
Eleven's room is dotted with connections to Mike, but more on that in a bit.
Dustin's mom has a bobble head version of Mews on dashboard of her car.
Last season, Dustin found a baby Demodog (one of the Demogorgon/dog creatures) and tried to keep it as a pet before he realized it was dangerous.
The tipping point came when Dustin came home and found Mews being eaten by the little monster.
Dustin lied to his mom about knowing the fate of poor Mews. On the season two finale, we saw that the Hendersons had a new kitten named Tews. But Mews lives on, at least in bobblehead form, on the car dashboard.
At the pool, Mrs. Wheeler is reading a romance novel by the same author as her season two bathtub book.
The third season of "Stranger Things 3" starts off with a troubling subplot between Karen Wheeler and Billy. She and other Hawkins moms are ogling the teenager at the pool, and Mrs. Wheeler is reading "Tender is the Storm" by Johanna Lindsey.
Yes this is a real book, and yes it was published in 1985.
"Heart of Thunder" was the first Johanna Lindsey book we saw Mrs. Wheeler reading, at that one was chronologically accurate, too.
"Heart of Thunder" was published in 1983. Clearly no culture-related detail is too small for the "Stranger Things" team, even the steamy fantasy fiction the moms of Hawkins are reading.
When Joyce sits down and turns on episode of "Cheers," the characters on the show are talking about Chianti.
"I'm talking about Frasier, Sam," Diane says. "He had a couple of sips of Chianti tonight and asked me to marry him."
The audio trails off as Joyce achingly thinks about the death of her boyfriend, Bob Newby.
On the next episode, Hopper thinks he and Joyce are going to have a romantic date and orders of bottle of Chianti.
Hopper mispronounces the Italian red wine, but the server corrects him.
This tiny parallel connecting Hopper and Joyce to Diane and Frasier's failed relationship on "Cheers" might have been our first hint that these two were not destined for a happy ending this season.
On the second episode of the season, Hopper plays a familiar song while celebrating Mike not coming over.
In much more upbeat fashion this time, we hear Jim Croce's "Don't Mess Around with Jim" playing loudly as Hopper realizes Eleven won't be spending time with Mike (a pretty messed up reaction to your daughter being upset, if you ask us).
That was the song him and Eleven listened to on season two when they first started cleaning up the cabin together.
Back when the second season aired, the "Hopper Dancing" meme took off and other songs were replaced with the Jim Croce track for Twitter videos.
"It was funny, when we shot that scene it was supposed to be a bit more serious than it was," Harbour said back in 2017. "I remember talking to [Shawn Levy, the episode's director] and they had this other song for it. But I love Jim Croce and I thought Hopper would to."
Read more: David Harbour on why the 'Hopper Dancing' meme was a complete surprise
Billy is holding a bottle of chemicals when Karen Wheeler goes to talk to him, and it's the first sign of the poison-eating phenomenon reaching humans.
When Mrs. Wheeler goes to talk to Billy at the pool, she walks past a huge sign that says "DANGER CHEMICAL STORAGE." Then Billy is shown placing a bottle of chemical cleaner back on the shelf before he turns to face her.
At this point on the season, we didn't know yet the Mind Flayer was possessing people and making them eat and drink chemicals and fertilizer.
There's a portrait of President Reagan on the wall of Mayor Kline's office.
Throughout season two we were reminded of the coming election, and so now season three is peppered with references to Reagan's victory.
One of the people protesting outside Mayor Kline's office has a sign reading "the pretzels aren't even that good."
This is a slight against mall pretzels we simply cannot empathize with.
The girls who rolled their eyes at Eleven and Max in the mall are the same ones who laughed at Dustin last season.
On the second episode of "Stranger Things 3," group of girls make snotty faces at Eleven and Max, and later she blows up their Orange Julius drinks.
The main girl was Stacey, and she's the one who rejected Dustin at the Snow Ball and made him cry.
Eleven embarrassing them at the mall and exploding smoothie in their faces was a nice dose of karma for these bullies.
The "silver cat feeds" truck appeared in the background before the Scoops Troop cracked the spy code.
We don't hear the phrase "the silver cat feeds" until later in the same episode when Robin translates the message.
If you were paying super close attention you might have put two-and-two together before the Scoops Troop group realizes "silver cat" was a reference to the LYNX delivery trucks.
After she dumps Mike, Eleven puts a picture of him on her bedside table.
This photo wasn't there in the earlier episodes while they were together.
The picture she has is a Polaroid photo of Mike from Halloween, when he dressed up like a Ghostbuster.
We saw Mike pose for these photos on season two, episode two, "Trick or Treat, Freak." He must have given one of them to Eleven once they started dating.
Once again, the boys' D&D game foreshadowed the new terror unleashed in the Upside Down.
"That's not thunder, it's a horde of juju zombies!" Will yells to Mike and Lucas on the third episode of this season.
Each season, Dungeons and Dragons elements act as analogies to what actually happens in Hawkins.
Just like the Demogorgon on season one foreshadowed the monster and the Thessalhydra from same season's finale teased the appearance of the Mind Flayer, the threat used in the boys' campaign mimics the real threat coming to Hawkins.
This time, it's a horde of people possessed by the Mind Flayer who are allegories for the juju zombies.
When Steve and Dustin are trying to track a "Russian," they pause in front of a window display for an important book.
"Breaking with Moscow" is a real book published in 1985 by former Soviet Foreign Minister Arkady N. Shevchenko.
The appearance of this book in the mall was sneaky foreshadowing of the coming subplot about Alexei turning informant for Hopper's investigation into the Russian lab.
The sixth episode title, "E Pluribus Unum," means "out of many, one" in Latin.
You'll recognize this as the motto for the United States.
On "Stranger Things," it's not just a nod to the Cold War subplot also references the way the Mind Flayer is making one gigantic body out of the exploded goo carcasses of the Flayed.
The team of teens loots the same store Eleven stole Eggo waffles from on the first season.
When Eleven was on her own, she marched into Bradley's Big Buy and starting grabbing boxes of Eggos. On her way out, she slammed the doors shut and shattered the glass.
This time, Nancy was the one who broke the doors with a massive rock and led everyone inside so they could get Eleven's leg fixed up.
When Mike tries to get Eleven to understand the phrase "love makes you crazy," it was a bit of a nod back to the first season.
Mike tried to avoid using the word "love" while apologizing to Eleven for acting out of hand.
"You know the phrase, like 'blank makes you crazy?'" Mike asks her.
Flo was the first person to tell Nancy that Jonathan obviously had feelings for her after he got into a fight with Steve.
After Jonathan was arrested for fighting Steve and punching a cop in the process, she tells Nancy that Jonathan obviously sees her as more than just a friend.
"Only love makes you that crazy, sweetheart," Flo said. "And that damn stupid."
When Dustin tells Steve to drive to Weathertop, he was making another "Lord of the Rings" reference.
On the first season, the boys all told Hopper that Will went missing on "Mirkwood" - a name they had given the road where his bike was found. Mirkwood is a forest in J.R.R. Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" series.
Weathertop is a tall geographical landmark in Middle Earth, and so Dustin named the hill where Cerebro was built after it.
Hopper is toying with the blue hair tie during his final scene with Eleven.
"You'll notice throughout the series I will occasionally play with it like when I'm talking to Eleven or going through a difficult time," Harbour told INSIDER after the second season premiered.
This was the only time Hopper touched the hair tie on "Stranger Things 3," making his goodbye to Eleven all the more emotional.
Suzie has Dustin's hat from the first season in her bedroom.
The signature red, white, and blue hat we saw on Dustin's head for the first two seasons is now in Salt Lake City, Utah, on his girlfriend's nightstand.
That hat used to be part of Dustin's iconic look.
But now he wears a new hat from Camp Know Where, the place where he met Suzie over the summer.
Speaking of Dustin and Suzie, their musical moment was a cute nod to actor Gaten Matarazzo's background as a Broadway performer.
Dustin and Suzie sang the song from 80s fantasy movie "The Neverending Story," which came out in the same year "Stranger Things 3" takes place.
Matarazzo played Gavroche in "Les Misérables" on Broadway when he was 11 years old. His costar, Caleb McLaughlin (who plays Lucas), is also a former Broadway actor.
Read more: 19 behind-the-scenes fun facts you probably didn't know about 'Stranger Things'
The end of "Stranger Things 3" leads fans to believe Hopper died when the machine exploded, but we doubt this for several reasons.
First, look closely at where Hopper is standing just before Joyce turns the keys to blow up the machine. He's off to the left of the energy beam, and there is a staircase right behind him which leads to the Gate.
Hopper was looking back in that direction before he gave the nod to Joyce to destroy the machine.
After Joyce turns the keys, the screen goes black. When we see the machine again, Hopper is no longer next to it.
Hopper is no longer standing the left of the energy beam, so where did he go? We never see a body, or even a pile of dust or goo.
We're pretty sure he somehow made it into the Upside Down through the Gate, and was then picked up by the Russians. He's most like "the American" they are holding in the cell, as shown in the mid-credits scene.
Another reason Hopper is most likely alive comes later during the news broadcast.
During the WCPK-TV news segment, we see a spray-painted "WELCOME TO HAWKINS" sign which now reads "HELL."
"See you in hell" was the last thing Hopper said this season, so we think he'll be back.
Having Hopper secretly alive somewhere would track with what the cocreators Matt and Ross Duffer did on the first season finale, too. Everyone thought Eleven had died when she fought the Demogorgon, but really she was in the Upside Down.
So don't mourn Chief Jim Hopper too much just yet.
To end on a lighter note, the "Stranger Things" music composers composers Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein had a cameo in the video store.
When Steve and Robin are applying for jobs at Family Video, the two musicians are dressed up like customers in the background.
And "Stranger Things 3" gave us one last reference to Bob Newby, the fallen hero of season two, with a "Mr. Mom" VHS.
When Bob had movie night at the Byers' house last season, he picked "Mr. Mom" out of the VHS selection Jonathan had brought home. R.I.P. Bob Newby, lover of Kenny Rogers and cheesy comedies.
- Read more:
- Everything you need to know about the mid-credits scene and Hopper's 'death'
- How Hopper's first daughter Sara's death might be linked to Hawkins National Lab
- Here's what the cast of 'Stranger Things' looks like in real life
