For a season as supersized as Stranger Things Season 4, it only makes sense that the Geeked Week panel for one of the geekiest shows on Netflix is just as staggering. Hosted by Felicia Day, Stranger Things: Unlocked features conversations with the masterminds of the show, the Duffer brothers, executive producer and director Shawn Levy and your favorite stars from Hawkins.

But with so much that happens in Volume 1 of Season 4 and the 45-minute panel, how are we possibly supposed to keep up with it all? Well, Tudum was on the scene to recap this super-special panel that’s just as high-octane as a Hellfire Club Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

Here are the 11 strangest things we learned:

Get the Inside Scoop on 'Stranger Things' Season 4 During GEEKED WEEK

1. Steve Harrington was never supposed to make it to Season 4. Matt and Ross Duffer differ on when exactly Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) was supposed to die, but they both can agree that he was never supposed to end up becoming a lead in Season 4. The duo always had a road map for the series, but they insist that it evolves — with the perfect example being Keery’s character and how a cast member’s performance can impact the narrative as it goes. Ross says that the plan was for him to get killed off in the Season 1 finale, while Matt doesn’t necessarily recall that Steve was going to die. But remember the Season 1 finale scene where Steve comes back to the Byers’ house with his iconic bat and helps Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) fight the Demogorgon? “Originally, that was going to be Jonathan’s dad, Lonnie,” Matt says. And now “it’s hard to even imagine what that would have looked liked” without Steve, because it’s the “beginning of his turn” as a character we all know and love — “and a pretty damn good babysitter."

2. Questions about the lore of the Upside Down will be answered in Season 5. When the Duffers were in the midst of writing Season 1 of the show, Netflix asked them to write a document that was a walk-through of the mythology of Stranger Things. And according to Ross Duffer, “there’s still stuff” that audiences haven’t seen yet but that they do “hint about this season.” As he says, “We start getting into a little bit about the Upside Down.” While they don’t resolve lingering questions just yet, he insists that they do have the answers. “The last remaining questions that are answered in that document, we’ve punted a couple of those to have some big reveals in Season 5. And that’s really going to affect what Season 5 is about.”

3. The Duffers always set out to make a lot of the horror in Stranger Things come from the humans in the story — not just the monsters. Matt and Ross Duffer were inspired by the works of Stephen King when they developed Stranger Things. The prevalent motif in King’s work of humans as the real horror has served as a through line in every season of Stranger Things. But this theme especially applies to Season 4, as we’re introduced to the jocks at Hawkins High. When it comes to basketball team captain Jason, in particular, whose girlfriend Chrissy is murdered in the first episode, Matt Duffer explains that “we wanted to explore someone who, had this never occurred, would’ve probably led a really good life. Someone who was very popular, had a sort of self-righteous streak in him, who was viewed by the community as completely virtuous. Then this thing happens... and it spins him. All of this stuff that is inside of him that probably would have never been unlocked had that not occurred comes spilling out.” Mainly, that he dives headfirst into the satanic panic and launches a mob search party to find Chrissy’s murderer, who he wrongfully suspects is Hellfire Club president Eddie Munson (Joe Quinn). Ross Duffer adds that Jason was also a conduit for how “a lot of times, we introduce a new character to this world, and they see these extraordinary supernatural things. They react to it sometimes in fear and wonder, but they’re able mostly to overcome that. What we wanted to explore also was what if a character sees this, and he cracks a little bit?” And boy, does Jason crack...

4. David Harbour found his “inner Russian bear” filming barefoot in the snow. Police chief Jim Hopper’s (David Harbour) prison break was no easy feat. And neither was filming in the freezing cold for Harbour, whose Siberia scenes were shot outside of a real prison in Vilnius, Lithuania. The toughest part for Hop? “Running shoeless through the snow,” Harbour says, “and it’s really not pleasant for you, bare feet on snow for a long period of time.” So what did he do to face those brutal scenes? “I found my inner wolf, my inner Russian bear,” Harbour says.

5. David Harbour was addicted to playing World of Warcraft and the Sims. A true geek at heart, Harbour admits that he was a knight elf warrior called Norad when he was wildly addicted to playing World of Warcraft. “In 2005, I played the shit out of this game. It ruined my life for a year,” he jokes on the panel. But the most surreal part was that he also played the Sims, and his avatar was an actor, like himself. But in order for his Sim to progress in his career as an actor, he would have to work on his speech and body. Improve his skills, if you will. “And all he wanted to do was sit around and play video games,” he says. “I had this vortex moment where I saw my life before my eyes.”

6. David Harbour and Winona Ryder have an idea for Netflix’s next reality show. While Harbour nerds out on video games, Winona Ryder (who plays Joyce Byers) is a self-proclaimed “huge movie fan.” As a kid, her fantasy was to one day own the old theater in her hometown. And she’d rip out all the seats, put in a bed, a tub and a bike to exercise. “And just 24-7 watch movies, and just never leave,” she says. Harbour immediately thought it would be a gold mine of an idea. “Netflix, you need your next reality show?” he asks. “I will watch the shit out of that show.”

7. Maya Hawke and Joe Keery love Robin and Steve’s supportive friendship. Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke) and Steve aid each other on their quests to find love this season, as they swap scooping ice cream at Scoops Ahoy for selling video rentals at Family Video. And playing that dynamic is just as enjoyable for the actors as for the characters. Hawke shares that her favorite scene in the whole series was “that almost one we did in the video store, where we’re talking and videos are falling down and we’re reorganizing things. I love that stuff and getting to do that in the beginning before we go on and film the rest of the season.” Keery echoes that with so many supernatural occurrences pervading the show, Steve and Robin’s efforts to try to support each other finding the girls of their dreams help root their storyline. And in his eyes, dialogue-driven scenes amidst all the horrors in the show are “generally the ones that I find the most fun to work on.” 

8. Joe Quinn thinks the older teens in Season 4 evoke a Scooby Doo dynamic. When crafting his character, Eddie, Joe Quinn shares that he pulled from some ’80s references including This Is Spinal Tap, in terms of “how being a metalhead isn’t a part-time gig.” And thematically in the show, he characterized Nancy, Eddie, Steve, and Robin coming together as “If Spielberg and John Carpenter directed a Scooby Doo film.” Keery and Hawke immediately latch onto that idea, with Keery noting that “the strong and different characterizations of each character is very Scooby Doo and very D&D. Everybody has their specialty and skill and mindset, and they do a good job of setting that up.” But as far as who their Scooby Doo aliases would be? Quinn, Keery and Hawke riff off each other and decide right away. Steve? Fred. Eddie? Shaggy. And Robin? Velma.

9. Steve was originally going to be a swimmer in Season 1. In Season 4, we learn that Steve was swim team co-captain and a certified lifeguard, as he dives down to the bottom of Lovers’ Lake to find a gate to the Upside Down. And while we hadn’t heard much about his aquatic prowess in previous seasons, that attribute was part of the original plan for his character, according to Keery. “Before the first season, [the Duffers] had told me I was going to be a swimmer,” Keery recalls. “And in the script, they were like, ‘Yeah, you’re going to be a swimmer. There’s going to be some swim meet. You’re going to be in a speedo — it’s the ’80s.’” So Keery thought, “ ‘Oh my god, I have to get in shape.’ I did all these swimming lessons. I was paying for all this stuff.” But when he showed up on set, “they’re like, ‘Oh no, yeah, we cut that. We couldn’t get the gym. We couldn’t get the pool.’ So that was all cut. But they wrote this [scene] back in later, so it all kind of worked.” That is, until Steve gets pulled into the Upside Down...

10. Jamie Campbell Bower would have to come in at 1 a.m. to put on his Vecna makeup Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler)’s mind was blown by the twist that Vecna, One and Henry Creel are all the same being. And he touts how unbelievable Bower was, especially considering what he’d heard about Bower’s call time on set. “It was a 7 a.m. crew call, so he would have to come in at 1 a.m. the morning before while they put makeup on him as Vecna. And he never complained.” Sink, who commends how Vecna was “pretty much fully practical effects” in light of how she had to face off against him in his mind layer, also adds that Bower is “so patient.” 

11. Shawn Levy filmed the shootout scene in California all in one shot. The big action sequence when the military personnel attack the Byers’ home in Lenora Hills, California, was an immense challenge for the actors, crew members Episode 4 director Shawn Levy. “By the end of it, we were all bruised and [mimics panting] like, ‘Did you get it?’ [We were] all on the ground. It was really fun, but also... just tiring as hell,” Wolfhard says of the filming process. Levy similarly notes that on a film, there are months of lead time to prep including “computer previsualizations and storyboarding and rehearsals and re-choreography.” But this is Stranger Things, so there was no time for previews or storyboards, and they had to choreograph and prep the shootout while they were filming other scenes each day. “It was a lot of, ‘What if?,’” Levy recalls. But after reading the script for the scene, he called the Duffers and knew in his gut it had to be filmed as a kinetic one shot. “We’ve never done an action one with gunplay,” Levy says. So he knew “it was going to be hard, going to be near impossible, but I was so inspired by this feeling that I had to try.” And the finished product that you see on screen? Movie magic.

Geeked Week is a celebration of Netflix’s immersive slate of storytelling across sci-fi, fantasy, gaming, anime and more. Check out the full schedule here. For more, follow Netflix Geeked on Twitter.