New 'Stranger Things' Season 3 Villain Might've Just Been Leaked

The upcoming third season of Stranger Things does not yet have an official release date beyond "summer 2019," so fans are going to have to wait a while to go back to Hawkins, Indiana. With only vague hints as to what we can expect and no official trailer, fans have been getting understandably impatient. But an alleged leak may have just revealed information about a new kind of evil that will be targeting the gang when the series returns: Soviet Russia.

The theory actually started back in November when redditor u/Charlie780561 spotted an interesting piece of casting information on the Stranger Things IMDb page. Under the cast list, the site listed a “Russian soldier,” “Russian officer,” and “Russian Goon.” By mid-December, those characters had been erased from the site.

The Redditor wrote that “now they are just described as Guard, Soldier, etc.”

Netflix could have taken notice and removed the descriptions in order to keep certain plot points secret, but the streaming giant missed one credit that alludes to a Russian enemy in season three. Until very recently, Ryan Mari was still listed as a “Russian guard” under “Series Stunts” for three episodes in the upcoming season.

The same Redditor posted a new comment recently, in which he noted: "[I'm] just surprised that they took out 'Russian,' as if that somehow used to spoil the plot. Why did we [have] 'Russian guard' and 'Russian soldier' in the first place?"

While this new information could add an intriguing political plot twist, the alleged spoiler should be taken with a grain of salt. The leak comes solely from IMDb, which, like Wikipedia, can be edited by registered site users.

However, if the info is legit, Will, Eleven, and the rest of the gang might be battling a whole new monster in season three: Communism. Given that the show is set in 1985, when Russia was still part of the Soviet Union, it's not totally implausible.

This article also appears on Mental Floss.