USA TODAY International Edition
‘Stranger’ shakes up things without fear
Spoiler alert! The following contains major plot details (including a death) from the entire third season of “Stranger Things.”
The heart of “Stranger Things” is gone forever. Maybe.
The third season of Netflix’s supernatural saga is a marked departure from its formulaic first two seasons, adding evil Russian villains, a monster made of human goo and a lot of teenage hormonal drama.
Oh, and it also happened to kill off Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour), one of only two major adult characters on the series and the dad-bod action hero of Hawkins, Indiana.
Hopper’s death is one of the most emotional moments in the series to date. He and Joyce (Winona Ryder) are trying to close the Soviet-opened gate to the Upside Down and kill the Mind Flayer targeting Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), when the Soviet assassin that’s been plaguing Hop all season shows up. The two men get into a brawl, and although Hopper finally bests him, he is trapped next to the “key” machine that he and Joyce are trying to destroy. Knowing that they have a limited time to save his daughter, he gives Joyce a nod, and she blows up the machine. But when the smoke clears, Hopper is gone, sacrificing himself to save El and Joyce.
Hopper’s demise gives the climax scene real stakes for the first time since Season 1, considering a group of kids, teens and less-than-responsible adults have been continually surviving monster attacks against all reasonable odds. It also helps that villain-turned-possessed-villainturned-last-minute-hero Billy (Dacre Montgomery) also perishes in the Battle of Starcourt.
But losing Hopper packs the biggest emotional wallop for “Stranger,” and his loss will irrevocably change the series going forward. The final scenes of the season give Hopper a gushy sendoff, as Eleven reads the speech he meant to give her about not spending too much time with her boyfriend, Mike (Finn Wolfhard). With
out her guardian, El leaves Hawkins with Joyce, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Will (Noah Schnapp), seemingly headed for a town that isn’t so frequently plagued by mind-controlling monsters. It all feels like a closing of the first chapter of “Stranger,” and it makes it difficult to guess, in a good way, where the show could go for a potential Season 4.
That is, if Hopper’s death sticks. It’s hard not to be a little bit skeptical of Hop’s end, especially after Eleven disappeared in the climax of Season 1, presumed dead, only to return with a head of curly hair and plenty of Eggos in Season 2. At the moment of the explosion, we see various Soviet scientists dissolve into tiny pieces, but Hopper simply disappears in a flash. Turning the camera away from him leaves the door open that he might have survived somehow and is perhaps trapped in the Upside Down, or some other supernatural locale. No body means there is a chance to bring him back, especially on a fantasy series.
But bringing him back would be a betrayal of everything that made Season 3 great. The new episodes outshone 2017’s second season in part because it took storytelling leaps, including killing its de facto protagonist.
Although the drama previously let supporting characters meet their maker (including Matthew Modine’s Season 1 villain and Sean Astin’s goofy Bob Newby in Season 2), Hopper’s death is the first for a proper main cast member. It’s a risk because the series loses the charms of Harbour, but the reward is that “Stranger Things” stays unpredictable. If no one dies, it never feels like anyone could die, so why should we be scared when the Hawkins kids face down monsters?
“Stranger” needed to do something to shake things up in the third season. Killing Hopper hit the reset button and allows the series to move forward with the unique stories that a series needs to keep going for more than a handful of seasons. But can the series really let Hop and his dancing GIFs go?
If the writers can’t leave him behind, “Stranger” is going to get staler than a pack of old Eggos.