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Class, please welcome, all the way from sunny California, the latest passenger to join us on our curiosity voyage, Maxine.

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me @ suffer bros when they did happy lil russian baby alexei like that

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Hopper Is Alive

Spoilers for The Battle of Starcourt, read at your own risk

So everyone knows the theory that Hopper is “the American” in the Russian Parisian shown in the end credit scene, but the show basically confirms that he is. How, you may ask? Let’s take a look at season one.

Chapter Eight: The Upside Down. The gang has split up. Joyce and Hopper head to the lab to look for Will, Nancy and Jonathan (and later Steve) go to the Byers’ house to lure in and kill the Demogorgon, while the kids hide out at the school and try to keep El safe. Mike kisses El, revealing his feelings for her, and they make plans to go to the Snowball. Plans they don’t get to follow through on.

The Bad Men show up, as does the Demogorgon. El takes down the human adversaries and uses the last of her strength to fight the Demogorgon while the others (specifically Mike) look on unable to help. It’s at this point that El realizes that she probably won’t make it through killing the Demogorgon. She turns around and says goodbye to Mike before finishing what she started. There’s no body, but she’s presumed dead.

Hopper leaves the Christmas party to hide food in a drop box in the woods. He leaves eggos, confirming for the viewers that he’s leaving them for El.

Now let’s look at Chapter Eight: The Battle of Starcourt.

The gang has split up once again. Joyce, Hopper, and Murray are headed to the Russian lab to blow up The Key and destroy the gate. Steve, Robin, Erica, and Dustin head to the radio tower to navigate. Nancy and Jonathan are tasked with getting the kids to Murray’s bunker and keeping El safe, but Billy and then the Mindflayer trap them in the mall.

Murray splits from Joyce and Hop to set off an alarm that will give them a clear shot at the Key. During the calm before the storm, Hopper and Joyce finally confess their feelings and plan to go on a date when it’s all over. A plan they never get to follow through.

Terminator-guy comes out of nowhere and Hop fights him off, getting closer and closer to the Key. In the end, he kills the Terminator, and the Key lets off an electric surge that he can’t pass through. Realizing they’ve run out of time, he locks eyes with Joyce. He smiles and nods, telling her to go through with it. The Key is destroyed. There’s no body, but Hopper is presumed dead.

Three months later, in a Russian prison, an American prisoner is mentioned while a man in a different cell is dragged down several flights of stairs, locked in a cage, and left to the mercy of an adolescent Demogorgon. (It looks bigger than the Demo-Dogs but smaller than the Demogorgon in season one).

Let me list out the parallels here.

A character and their love interest confess their feelings and agree to go on a date
Said character fights an antagonist that showed up unexpectedly
They must sacrifice themselves to defeat the Big Bad of the season
Before doing so, they turn to their love interest to say goodbye
There were no remains of any kind
Months after the fact, there’s a sprinkle of hope: eggos on the woods, an American in Russia

Switch El and Mike with Hopper and Joyce and it’s the same scene. The same scene.

I wasn’t paying attention to these details and I’m too emotional at present to rewatch and confirm, but someone pointed out that when the Key in Russia blew up at the beginning of Suzie, Do You Copy?, those that were killed were reduced to a bloody goo, and supposedly the same thing happened to the Russians killed when the Hawkins Key exploded. But Hopper didn’t have any remains.

This last bit of evidence is a bit of a stretch, but I’m counting it: in an interview the cast confirmed (it was Gaten I believe) that “a main character would die this season”. A main character. Singular. We know Billy died because a body was left behind. No remains, it can’t be a confirmed death.

Now, onto my theory as to exactly how Hopper survived.

When the American army rushed in, we see the charred remains of the Key. None of the building was destroyed in the blast. Only people. This has led me to believe that it would only destroy organic material. Look at the scene placement. Hopper is standing between the Key and the gate. Say a piece of the machine flew off, hit him, and shielded him from the more certain-death part of the blast.

And what if the force of the explosion shoved him through the gate?

I don’t think the Russians already had the Demogorgon in Hawkins. They hadn’t been able to open a gate anywhere else at this time, Hawkins was the closest they had gotten so far, but there was nothing to suggest that they had captured something. There was the cage Erica and Dustin found, but it was empty. Plus, there would have been talk of something so huge through the lab, even if it was coded. This means they opened a hate elsewhere. That’s when they caught the Demogorgon. That’s when they found Hopper.

They couldn’t let him walk. He knew too much. But he knew much more about the Upside Down than they did. So they kept him in a prison in Russia.

I have no idea how they’ll bring him back in season four, but I am certain that he is alive.

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STOP CALLING MIKE WHEELER A CONTROLLING BOYFRIEND

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Ok, so I’m so done with people giving Mike shit this season and calling him controlling bad boyfriend. Like people come on. I get it that Mileven was spending too much time together and they needed to find a good balance between them time and friend time but like you need to remember that they were separated from each other for like a year. Mike had no idea if Eleven was alive or safe throughout there separation last season. They communicate with each other and he believed he would probably never see the girl he likes again. It makes total sense to me that once they were reunited they would be very clingy towards each other. They are happy they are together after having been apart for so long. They love each other and generally want to always be around each other. And I mean give them a break man. Like this is the first time they have ever been in a relationship and they are bound to make mistakes. He shouldn’t have lied to her. They need to understand boundaries and again have a healthy balance of spending time with each other and time with the party. And honestly this “break up” was good cause it opened up the chance for eleven to find herself and be more independent. I liked that she and max got close and bonding and el got to enjoy herself. What I don’t appreciate is the fact that max made it seem like mike was this selfish controlling boyfriend who didn’t care about elevens growth which is so not true. He loves everything about her and even compliments the new look she’s been rocking, supporting something that she herself chose to do. He calls her a badass and he sees her as this amazing and incredible person. He is there for her during her weakest moments and cares and comforts her. He is sweet and kind and will do anything for EL. Hell, he even yelled at everyone saying how they should stop seeing her as a weapon and notice how using so much of her powers are draining her. he cares so much for her and is scared to lose her again. That’s why he seems overprotective. Like gosh, I’d rather have el have a boyfriend that might care too much than one who doesn’t give a shit about her at all. In the end, He explains it himself that this relationship they had was all new to him and he made mistakes. like “LOVE MAKES YOU DO CRAZY THINGS”. It’s ok that they make mistakes in this relationship cause they don’t know any better. Like I’m just done with people seeing Mike as the bad guy so people just calm down and let us all want to support a healthy and loving Mileven relationship.