Buried in a host of new casting announcements for Stranger Things season 4 explains what episode 1 title "The Hellfire Club" means. On Friday, the Stranger Things Twitter account announced several new cast members, including legendary Freddie Krueger actor Robert Englund, revealing the show will feature an expanded cast for season 4. It's the first piece of significant news to emerge from the show in months, which is typically tight-lipped about the plot and casting details while production is still ongoing.
Several images have been teased in the past, though, and season 4's episode titles have also been released, with the first "Hellfire Club" getting announced over a year ago. More recently, The Hellfire Club was teased in some set photos, showing Gaten Matarazzo waving a flag for the club and an official logo for the club. Eagle-eyed fans noticed a set of dice in the logo. They immediately thought of a connection to Dungeons and Dragons, the game played by the younger boys regularly throughout the show. Now, it turns out, those suspicions were correct.
One of the new cast members announced via Twitter is British actor Joseph Quinn, who plays the role of Eddie Munson. The tweet reveals Munson is the head of The Hellfire Club, Hawkins High School's D&D club, ending months of speculation. While it makes total sense given the show's long association with the popular fantasy tabletop role-playing game, fans are likely disappointed the mystery wasn't more intriguing. You can see the tweet revealing Quinn's casting and the real origin of the name below:
In a show packed full of mysteries and pop culture references, this reveal is surprisingly obvious in hindsight. One of the key themes of traditional Dungeons & Dragons games is forces of good fighting evil and demons, so the reference was staring everyone in the face. The reference could go deeper, of course, with the door still being left open to the more commonly seen theory that it's connected to the group of X-Men villains who go by the same name. Perhaps Munson betrays one of the core characters and reveals himself to be a villainous force in season 4?
However it turns out, it's clear the boys aren't done with D&D yet, despite the game being dismissed as too childish by Mike and Lucas in season 3. At the very least, Dustin is likely to be excited by the existence of The Hellfire Club and is sure to try and join. And with episode 1 carrying the club's title, it's likely to be introduced early on in Stranger Things season 4.
Source: Stranger Things/Twitter