This Monster Is Officially Returning To Hawkins For 'Stranger Things' Season 3

This time last year, Stranger Things Season 2 was the biggest show of Halloween, arriving the weekend ahead with nine episodes. Season 2 introduced new characters like Max, new animals like Dart, and new enemies like the Mind Flayer. The question for Stranger Things' season to come is how many of these characters will be back. Max (played by Sadie Sink) is confirmed to return. But Dart may never come back for another 3 Musketeers bar. What about the enemies? Will the Mind Flayer be in Stranger Things Season 3?

The Stranger Things cast has reassembled to film the newest season, with a vague release date stated as "Summer 2019." But the cast isn't giving any spoilers away for the time being, and they are basically on lockdown. There has been little in the way of leaks from the set, too, meaning Netflix is keeping all details for the new season under wraps.

But there are details for fans to absorb, and they arrived this week in the form of the show's official companion book, Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down. Dubbed as the "Official Companion Book" to the first two seasons of the show, it contains a forward written by show creators Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer.

Much of the book is filled with behind-the-scenes nuggets, like how the show's working title for a long time was "Montauk" as a tribute to the Duffers' favorite movie, Jaws. Then, there's the original ending that featured Eleven dying, which the show had to re-edit when Netflix realized it had a potential hit and wanted a Season 2.

But the best part of the book is all the Season 3 hints the book contains. Steve is confirmed to have graduated and is working at the StarCourt Mall. Both Max and Lucas and Mike and Eleven are going steady. Their teenage hormones and body changes are going to be a plot point for jumping off of a season featuring more "body horror" than previous seasons.

But it's the promise the Mind Flayer will return that has everyone excited. Producer Shawn Levy says:

We ended season two with a clear signal that the Shadow Monster was not eliminated, and maybe he's even identified his foe. And that darkness, and the battle that it will require, grows in season three.

The end of Season 2 saw the Mind Flayer, now trapped in the Upside Down, standing over the reflection of the middle school gym where the Snow Ball was being held. Both Eleven and Will Byers are inside in the real world, leading fans to speculate the Mind Flayer's mental connection with both children was drawing him to this location in the other world, trying to figure out how to break through to the other side.

The new series will take place in the summer of 1985, almost a full year since the events of Season 2. Will the Mind Flayer have found a way out of the Upside Down? How much danger will Eleven and Will be in?

Stranger Things Season 3 arrives on Netflix next year.