This just in: The STW Daily News Round Up featuring all the news that’s fit to (digitally) print for Wednesday, June 22nd, 2022. What’s happening this week? Yellowstone goes back in time and time itself flies in the Upside Down.
Time Flies in the Upside Down
It seems like it’s only been a cold dark minute since Stranger Things Season 4, Part 1 hit Netflix. And now the time is already upon us for the release of the much anticipated Part 2.
Part 1 was released on May 27th and proceeded to shatter some records pretty quickly. Netflix reported it was the most-watched English language show in the streamer’s history. While indie music icon Kate Bush saw herself hit the Billboard Top 10 in the U.S. and scored a Number 1 slot in her native U.K. after her 1985 song “Running Up That Hill” was used to soundtrack the character journey of Max (Sadie Sink).
Netflix has released a trailer for the second half of Season 4, premiering Fourth of July weekend. And Max features prominently, as does the Kate Bush melody and vocals. In the trailer, Max finds herself back in the hazy red Upside Down hellscape from which Kate Bush was supposed to save her.
Things aren’t looking great for the gang at large, in fact. “I have this terrible feeling. It might not work out for us this time,” Robin (Maya Hawke) says in the trailer. Taken with Noah Schnapp’s comments that there are “some deaths” coming in the finale, this is an ominous warning indeed.
One final hint of what is to come: “He’s not going to stop. Not until he’s taken everyone.”
The second half of Stranger Things Season 4 hits Netflix on Friday, July 1st.
Yellowstone Goes Further Back in Time
Following the success of Taylor Sheridan’s modern western Yellowstone, now in its fourth season on Paramount+, it was a bit of a no-brainer to give fans what they want: more of the Dutton family saga. So Sheridan, et al took viewers back the beginning of the Duttons in America, all the way back to 1883 for a prequel series following an earlier generation of the family in the old west.
And Paramount plans on keeping the wagon train rolling with yet another prequel series Yellowstone, this one moving forward in time a bit to 1923. Paramount announced the prequel in February, but only recently announced its name change, previously titled 1932.
The name change came presumably to give writers some meatier historical topics to tackle like prohibition and the drought that plagued the American west and contributed to the building Great Depression. The series will also tie in the final years of World War I, which ended in 1918.
The new addition to the Yellowstone universe will star Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford, but there’s no word yet on which characters the two will portray. But the show will of course build upon the events of 1883, the first prequel series starring Tim McGraw and Faith Hill which wrapped up its limited run in February.
While 1923 is slated for a December 2022 release, there’s also no official confirmation on whether the prequel will be a self-contained limited series the way that 1883 turned out to be.
Kevin Feige Wants MCU Fans to Follow the Breadcrumbs
There’s still a lot of ground to cover in Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and no clear overarching connection between all the many movies and shows that have already been released.
But perhaps no theme has been detected because fans simply aren’t looking in the right places? Or at least that’s what Marvel overlord Kevin Feige hinted at in an interview with Total Film. “I think there have been many clues already, that are at least apparent to me, of where this whole saga is going. As we’re nearing the end of Phase 4, I think people will start to see where this next saga is going.”
The MCU’s Phase 4 has been entirely different from the previous three. For the first time, there’s no Avengers movie on the docket. There’s also the addition of multiple Disney+ shows, making this the most jam-packed phase ever.
That being said, there are some evident connections and crossovers between the Phase 4 shows and films, but it’s just not clear what those connections indicate about what’s coming next.
Some puzzle pieces that feel important: Kang the Conqueror, who appeared in the first season of Loki and is set to appear in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania. Since Kang has been established as a multiversal villain, he also likely has connections to concepts introduced in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.
This could be the direction Feige is hinting toward, keeping in mind that it took three phases to set up Endgame, meaning it could take a while before all these pieces to fit together. As for the clues hidden in the rest of Phase 4, Feige promises new content will “be a little more direct about that in the coming months, to set a plan, so audiences who want to see the bigger picture can see a tiny, tiny, tiny bit more of the roadmap.”
In other words, it’s time to channel your inner Hansel and Gretel and start following those breadcrumbs, kids.