Veteran spoiler hunters know that, when it comes to digging up secret info about your favorite upcoming pop culture properties, the toy aisle can be your clandestine best friend. Secret keepers might watch the content of trailers and interviews like very superhero-obsessed hawks, but branded toys and board games often go out into the world well ahead of the properties they’re supposed to be promoting—and from there, sometimes end up in the hands of consumers.
Hence, presumably, reports that Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer are really, genuinely pissed off right now, after spoilers for their show’s upcoming fourth season leaked out onto the internet via, of all things, a Monopoly game. Specifically, some enterprising consumer apparently picked up an early copy of the Stranger Things: Season Four Monopoly game from a retailer, and gleaned all sorts of interesting tidbits from its version of Chance and Community Chest cards.
We won’t reveal the spoilers here (you can dig through this Reddit thread if you’re so inclined) on the grounds that we prefer our Twitter mentions to not be burnt down by angry hordes. (We will note that one of the cards seems to reveal the name of the creepy Upside-Down-ish villain revealed in the trailers, and that it’s an appropriately deep D&D cut.)
Per THR, the Duffers reportedly had a “total meltdown” over the leak, which, fair enough. The people posting images of the cards online claim that they bought the game straight off of store shelves, with no theft or shenanigans involved; presumably just some big box retailer missing a note about release embargoes.
Which brings us to the real question: Why the hell did the penultimate season of Stranger Things need its own Monopoly? Wasn’t regular Stranger Things Monopoly, from the first season, good enough for you people? Look what you’ve done to the Duffers, novelty board game consumers, with your insatiable demands for the newest, hottest licensed Monopoly properties, and your need to own the deed to Will Byers’ awful haircut or whatever. Think about what you’ve done!