Stranger Things Season 3: What Does The Ending Really Mean?

3. Hopper Is Dead (Or Is He?)

The finale's most heartbreaking moment was, without a doubt, the untimely demise of everyone's favourite police chief, Jim Hopper - who willingly sacrificed himself so that Joyce could shut The Gate once and for all.

Though losing Hopper would have been a crushing blow at any point in time, it was made that much worse by the fact that he finally had everything he ever wanted (what with being a father to Eleven and having finally scored a date with long-time love Joyce).

It was undoubtedly an unexpected and tragic note to close the third season on, but it may not be quite as final as it looks. The finale's mid-credits tease featured two Russian guards attempting to free a prisoner to feed it to their pet (more on that later), until one of them tells the other: "No. Not the American." Upon hearing the instruction, the other guard opens the cell of a Russian prisoner instead.

Now, this might sound like a conspiracy theory, but it's possible that this American they speak of might actually be Hopper. If you recall, when Joyce turned the keys and the machine exploded, it incinerated everything in the nearby area (including multiple bystanders), and yet, the walkway Hop was standing on remained completely intact.

Could the Russian guards that showed up immediately afterwards (and then vanished before the American soldiers showed up) have found Hop and taken him prisoner? It's definitely possible and, in this world, surprisingly believable. After all, the Russian Terminator consistently referred to him as "the American".