Stranger Things Writers Reveal Which Emotional Moments Were Improvised

The second volume of the fourth season of Stranger Things hit Netflix this weekend, and the final two episodes were jammed back with action, scares, and big emotional moments. The two episodes, “Papa” and “The Piggyback,” were written by creators Ross Duffer and Matt Duffer, but there were a couple of great lines that were improvised by the actors. The official Twitter account for the Stranger Things writers took to the social media site today to reveal moments that were improvised by Joseph Quinn (Eddie Munson) and Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair). 

“‘I love you, man’ was improvised by Joe,” @strangerwriters shared. “‘Erica, help’ was improvised by Caleb,” they added. You can check out the tweets below:

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“I’m excited for people to see the season,” McLaughlin previously shared with Complex. “We’ve been filming it right now for the past year and a half, two years because of COVID. I’m really excited for everyone to see the season. It’s definitely different from the last couple of seasons. Storylines are insane. It’s going to be really exciting to see what people think about this. While I’m talking about this, I’m thinking about what we’ve been filming and I’m just like, ‘Wow. No one knows what is to come. It’s insane.’”

Recently, Matt Duffer explained why the fourth season was split into two parts.

“A lot of it had to do with the fact that we had characters spread out in three locations and we had a lot more plot. It must be quadruple the plot we had in Season 3,” Matt Duffer previously explained to TheWrap. “That was our fun blockbuster season. This season we knew that Season 5 was going to be our last, we had to start revealing a lot.”

“The more we were writing, the more we realized we need more time in order for these reveals to land, in order for these storylines to work,” Matt pointed out. “Partway through we knew we needed to ask Netflix for nine episodes instead of eight and as we started shooting we realized, ‘Oh these are mega-long episodes.’”

Stranger Things 4 stars Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven/Jane), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Brett Gelman (Murray), Matthew Modine (Dr. Brenner), Robert Englund (Victor Creel), and Jamie Campbell Bower (Vecna/Henry/One). 

Stranger Things Season 4 – Volume 2 is now streaming on Netflix.