Stranger Things season 3 finally has a release date

We’ve seen a teaser, we’ve seen the episode titles, hell, we’ve even seen bits and pieces of the accompanying video game, but we had yet to actually know when we might actually see Stranger Things 3. Now that it’s officially 2019, Netflix has dropped a date for its popular sci-fi series.

Write it down: The third season will officially premiere on July 4th, 2019. The news follows hours of holiday teasing, from both the show’s Twitter account and a creepy viral video that played in New York City’s Times Square throughout the afternoon.

As previously reported, the third season will introduce new characters like Cary Elwes’ corrupt Mayor Kline, Jake Busey’s sleazy reporter Bruce, and Maya Hawke’s alt-girl Rose, who works with Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) at the Starcourt Mall, which factors heavily into the storyline.

“While it’s our most fun season, it also turns out to be our grossest season,” co-creator Ross Duffer teases in new book, Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down. “We’re inspired by John Carpenter’s The Thing. We’re inspired by Cronenberg. We have a little bit of a George Romero vibe in there as well. There are horror movies and horror masters that we haven’t really paid tribute to as much in previous seasons that we are definitely going to get into this season.”

Yet classic horror isn’t the season’s only inspiration.

“The Duffers are so specific each year with the movies,” David Harbour, aka Sheriff Hopper, explained back in August “And Fletch is one movie we get to play around and have some fun with this season, which you wouldn’t expect from Stranger Things and you wouldn’t expect from the Spielberg universe and you certainly wouldn’t expect from a darker season.”

Light, dark, scary, or funny, we’re more than ready.