Producer Shawn Levy Talks Time Jump And Character Relationships In ‘Stranger Things’ Season 3

It looks like the “Stranger Things” kids are growing up in the upcoming season 3.

Over the weekend, the cast and crew of Netflix’s immensely popular nostalgia-fest, “Stranger Things,” gathered for a panel at PaleyFest. While the panel was informative and covered a variety of topics about last year’s season 2, the real interesting tidbits were revealed on the red carpet.

READ MORE: ‘Stranger Things 2’: 10 Memorable Moments

According to The Hollywood Reporter, executive producer Shawn Levy was especially chatty about the upcoming season 3 of the series. He revealed that the next season of the show will feature a one year jump between seasons, with viewers coming back to the kids in the summer of 1985.

He also dropped some information about what the relationship status of some of the characters. “Mike and Eleven and are going strong, so that’s a relationship that continues, and same with Mad Max and Lucas. But again, they’re like 13- or 14-year-old kids, so what does romance mean at that stage of life? It can never be simple and stable relationships and there’s fun to that instability,” Levy said.

But while season 2 had its fair share of exciting moments, the real standout was clearly Steve Harrington, played by Joe Keery. In season 1, Harrington was your typical, preppy ‘80s bad guy, who slowly morphed into a decent guy by the end. However, in season 2, Harrington didn’t stop his character arc, as he turned into not just a good guy, but a father-like character to some of the kids, dubbed “Dad Steve” by fans.

“We’ll definitely get to see some more of Steve Harrington in season 3, and I’ll just say we won’t be abandoning the Dad Steve magic. I don’t want to say much more, but I literally feel that we were walking along and we stumbled onto a gold mine with Dad Steve,” Levy said.

While these nuggets of info are all welcome, the real issue on everyone’s mind is when season 3 will make its debut on the streaming service. Obviously, don’t expect Levy to drop that bombshell, but he did let the audience at PaleyFest know that they’re getting the gang back together soon.

“We are going back to work this month,” he said.