Let’s paint the picture. Hopper, the chief of police with a heart the size of Hawkins, is locked in a death room with a Soviet machine. He gives Joyce a look that says, “I love you, but I’m about to do something incredibly stupid.” And he does it. He activates the key to blow up the machine—and himself—knowing it will close the Gate for good.
At first, you’re in denial. “No way, not Jim Hopper,” you whisper to your cat. But then the camera cuts to Joyce crying, El screaming, and the gate sealing up. That’s it. The show basically screams, “He’s gone, deal with it!” Well, guess what? We didn’t deal with it. We just rewatched the scene on YouTube and cried into our Eggo waffles.
The Russian Prisoner Twist
But here’s where it gets juicy. The final scene of Season 3 shows a secret Russian prison, and a Russian guard says, “Not the American.” At the time, we all thought, “Wait, what? Who’s the American? Is it Hopper? Is it some random guy who stole a borscht recipe?” The internet went wild. Theories ranged from “it’s Hopper with a fake beard” to “it’s a random Soviet cosmonaut.”
I, for one, was 100% Team Hopeful. Because let’s face it: killing off Hopper off-screen would be a crime worse than selling expired Eggos. The man is the emotional backbone of the show. He’s the grumpy dad who learned to love, the guy who drinks alone but fights for everyone. No way the writers would give him a cheap death in a puff of red mist.
The two Stranger Things characters who were almost…
