Our Best Theories About What 'Stranger Things 4' Will Bring For Eleven's Life

Spoilers ahead for Stranger Things 3. With Stranger Things 3 ending on a shocking cliffhanger — Hopper seemingly dead, Eleven's powers gone, and a new Demogorgon imprisoned in Russia — fans may be wondering if Eleven will be in Stranger Things 4, or if the D&D crew will have to find another way to save Hawkins. Of course, we don't yet have definitive news about whether Millie Bobbie Brown will be reprising her role as the Eggo-eating hero, but we can assume that Stranger Things 4 is happening, and Eleven will most likely be there to take on the Mind Flayer again, hopefully for the last time.

In 2017, Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers said the show will likely wrap up after the next season, right when the main actors are poised to go to college. "We're thinking it will be a four-season thing and then out," Ross Duffer told Vulture. It's not clear yet if that has changed, but with Stranger Things being one of Netflix's most popular shows, fans can rest assured that at the very least, they'll get one more outing with Eleven and the D&D gang.

Despite being increasingly busy with movies, Brown also vehemently denied on The Late Show last year that Stranger Things is ending after Season 3, and that she's leaving the show.

What we don't know yet is if a fourth season would pick up where Stranger Things 3 left off (which would be around October 1985), or jump ahead as it has in past seasons. At the end of Season 3, we leave Eleven right when she's at a major turning point in her life. She's lost Hopper and the powers that she's had since birth, and she's moving somewhere new with the Byers family (who she knows, but not knows knows in the same way as Mike or Max). While Max helped her to come more into her own identity as a teen girl, Eleven is still pretty inexperienced with making new friends on her own, and she's never even attended school. Knowing Joyce, it's unlikely she's going to let Eleven just hang around the house like Hopper did, so a fourth season might show Eleven finally having to learn how to navigate the world on her own.

There's also the question of the U.S. army and the prison in Russia shown in the end credits scene. Stranger Things has always taken place mostly in the U.S., but it looks like Stranger Things 4 may take things global. If Hopper is somehow alive and is the American they mention who's imprisoned in Russia, does that mean some international travel is in Eleven's future? Especially with Hawkins making the national news, are we finally at the point where Eleven will get some back-up that isn't just neighborhood kids wielding fireworks?

There's also the implication in Stranger Things 3 (when Erica makes note of a cage) that the Russians have been capturing Demogorgons for however long, so who knows how many they actually have and where they're getting them from; seems like something the U.S. Army, and Eleven, will be keen to find out.

If the fourth season is truly the last, there's also some loose threads that the show can finally tie up. In Season 2 it was hinted by Ray Carroll that Martin Brenner (the scientist who raised, but also tortured Eleven) is still alive somewhere. If he's hiding out, it's possible there are other labs, which means maybe more kids like Eleven. We've only met one of Eleven's "sisters" with Kali, so Stranger Things 4 could possibly explore Eleven striking out on her own again to find her siblings (and hopefully regain her powers too).

All in all it's clear Eleven is integral to Stranger Things, and the show would be very different and vastly less interesting without her in it. It feels like only a matter of time before the Duffers reveal what's next for her.