Listen: Official 'Stranger Things' Podcast Goes Behind The Scenes Of Starcourt Mall

You've binge-watched all of the third season of Stranger Things and you don't know what to do next. Well, Netflix can at least keep you occupied for a little while longer with a new podcast that dives into the making of the hit show's latest season, and the first episode is already available.

The Stranger Things podcast kicks off with an episode dedicated to the creation of Starcourt Mall. Speaking with Matt & Ross Duffer, as well as many of the show's key crew members, you'll learn how the mall wasn't just used as another way to tap into the nostalgia of the 1980s. In fact, Starcourt Mall allowed them to skirt around some potential logistical issues as the scope of the series (and the monsters attacking Hawkins) grew even bigger. Listen to the Stranger Things podcast below.

In case you didn't hear, Stranger Things didn't shoot the mall scenes on your standard sound stage on a studio backlot in Hollywood. Instead, they went down to Duluth, Georgia and found Gwinnett Place Mall, a rundown shopping center with a 1980s aesthetic that they could easily turn into a bastion of capitalism for the cast of Stranger Things to wreck with their supernatural action and insanity.

Inside the mall, production designer Chris Trujillo was responsible for recreating the 1980s vibe, including bringing back stores that have long since gone under. They didn't just create hollow storefronts for Starcourt Mall, either. Instead, the crew gutted and rebuilt nearly 40 stores and restaurants. There were even stores that didn't get seen on camera that were filled with merchandise, just in case any shots elsewhere in the mall happened to catch them in the background.

Trujillo spoke with The LA Times about the massive task of recreating this mall, and it's kind of a miracle that it happened:

"Imagine a mall without stores and without decoration. We had to painstakingly re-create the facades, all of the signage, all of the storefront displays. In many cases we had to reconfigure the storefront architecture because it was in disrepair or it had been piecemeal remodeled through the years."

The podcast has Trujillo and several other key crew members talking about the creation of the mall. But the more fascinating parts come from how Starcourt Mall helped serve the story, especially when it came to keeping the monstrous terrors of Stranger Things under wraps within the universe of the story. After all, if that huge new Mind Flayer monster was always out in the open and wrecking things, then there would be an even bigger problem with containment.

Listen to the whole episode for plenty more details about the making of Starcourt Mall, including some sneaky Easter eggs stuck in there by the show's crew. For example, the famous lottery numbers from LOST made it into the blueprints for the mall.

Unfortunately, the set won't remain there because the entire mall is due to be demolished. A sports stadium developer plans to build a multi-use complex on the site. Perhaps it's only fair since so many shopping malls ruined small towns in the 1980s. But it's a shame it couldn't have stayed up and running as a tourist attraction for Stranger Things fans. You can see some photos of the "real" Starcourt Mall snapped by fans who snuck around the set before and after production below.

For me, I'm most interested in a store that I never noticed on-screen at all: a reconstruction of a mom-and-pop 1980s computer and videogame store called "The Game Player," located right next to the movie theater. (Photos by @nekoarc.) pic.twitter.com/yKryQ6sAOL

— Andy Baio (@waxpancake) July 11, 2019

Stay tuned for upcoming Stranger Things podcast episodes about The Red Scare and The Mind Flayer.