No, there's at least one more season and possibly two. No more than that though. This is according to the Duffer Brothers, who have said there's a definite endpoint to the story arc and five seasons is the max. It would be hard to go beyond that anyway. The kids are already in the 15-17 age range now and some of them are starting to branch out into movies. It's going to get harder (both scheduling and cost wise) for Netflix to reunite this cast with every passing year.

The Russians had a prisoner at the end they called The American. Jim Hopper was never actually shown dying, perhaps standing right next to the machine protected him, the same way the Earth's magnetic field protects us from charged particles. That strong field that demagnetizes kitchen magnets from miles away is probably what guides and focuses the beam. And right next to the source may be a safe zone where those discharges would be absent or too weak to kill a person. Eye of the storm so to speak. If he survived and was merely unconscious, the Russians could have collected him on their way out. I imagine they have escape tunnels leading outside the town and transportation ready to get them to a boat, or a sub, that takes them out of the country. By the time the Americans explored the entire complex and found every secret hatch their quarry would be long gone.

The other possibility I can think of is that The American turns out to be Dr. Brenner, El's ex "papa". We're going to see him again at some point. Why not hanging out in Siberia with the Russians and their pet demogorgon?

I doubt Eleven's abilities are gone. It wasn't any injury she suffered, since they were still working after she got bitten and knocked around. I think it's just a psychological block that keeps her from using them. Like a power hitter who suddenly goes cold and can't stop striking out. Maybe at some level she doesn't want to be different anymore - she's enjoyed feeling like a normal kid this season - and subconsciously she's suppressing the thing that makes her a freak. I hope they don't go too far into season 4 with her like this though. The issue should be resolved within the first few episodes.

The Mind Flayer will never give up. Taking the fight onto its turf, going into the Upside Down and destroying it once and for all - that's the only way to end the threat. I've pictured Hopper sacrificing himself at the end of the series to give El a future. But he's so central to the show, pretty much the leader of the group when things get crazy, it's hard to believe they'd kill him off now. David Harbour said in an interview when season 1 first came out that Joyce and Hopper were high school sweethearts, that's their backstory. He wouldn't elaborate any further but no doubt Joyce's reluctance to get involved with him at least partly comes from the way things ended. At the time I had this theory that perhaps Jonathan was Jim Hopper's son. He'd be about the right age to have been born when Hopper left to serve in Vietnam. If he and Joyce broke up before that, before she could tell him or maybe knew herself, that might explain how she ended up with an idiot like Lonnie. She was pregnant and needed someone to help her support the baby. But you'd think we would have found out by now if that was the case. Joyce would at least have told Jonathan.

@chrisjdel said:

No, there's at least one more season and possibly two. No more than that though. This is according to the Duffer Brothers, who have said there's a definite endpoint to the story arc and five seasons is the max. It would be hard to go beyond that anyway. The kids are already in the 15-17 age range now and some of them are starting to branch out into movies. It's going to get harder (both scheduling and cost wise) for Netflix to reunite this cast with every passing year.

The Russians had a prisoner at the end they called The American. Jim Hopper was never actually shown dying, perhaps standing right next to the machine protected him, the same way the Earth's magnetic field protects us from charged particles. That strong field that demagnetizes kitchen magnets from miles away is probably what guides and focuses the beam. And right next to the source may be a safe zone where those discharges would be absent or too weak to kill a person. Eye of the storm so to speak. If he survived and was merely unconscious, the Russians could have collected him on their way out. I imagine they have escape tunnels leading outside the town and transportation ready to get them to a boat, or a sub, that takes them out of the country. By the time the Americans explored the entire complex and found every secret hatch their quarry would be long gone.

The other possibility I can think of is that The American turns out to be Dr. Brenner, El's ex "papa". We're going to see him again at some point. Why not hanging out in Siberia with the Russians and their pet demogorgon?

I doubt Eleven's abilities are gone. It wasn't any injury she suffered, since they were still working after she got bitten and knocked around. I think it's just a psychological block that keeps her from using them. Like a power hitter who suddenly goes cold and can't stop striking out. Maybe at some level she doesn't want to be different anymore - she's enjoyed feeling like a normal kid this season - and subconsciously she's suppressing the thing that makes her a freak. I hope they don't go too far into season 4 with her like this though. The issue should be resolved within the first few episodes.

The Mind Flayer will never give up. Taking the fight onto its turf, going into the Upside Down and destroying it once and for all - that's the only way to end the threat. I've pictured Hopper sacrificing himself at the end of the series to give El a future. But he's so central to the show, pretty much the leader of the group when things get crazy, it's hard to believe they'd kill him off now. David Harbour said in an interview when season 1 first came out that Joyce and Hopper were high school sweethearts, that's their backstory. He wouldn't elaborate any further but no doubt Joyce's reluctance to get involved with him at least partly comes from the way things ended. At the time I had this theory that perhaps Jonathan was Jim Hopper's son. He'd be about the right age to have been born when Hopper left to serve in Vietnam. If he and Joyce broke up before that, before she could tell him or maybe knew herself, that might explain how she ended up with an idiot like Lonnie. She was pregnant and needed someone to help her support the baby. But you'd think we would have found out by now if that was the case. Joyce would at least have told Jonathan.

WOW bro this was excellent! You are a BEAST!

I like all your breakdowns and theories even more! Yeah you are right about the kids all doing their thang but Millie Brown's like the only one really doing movies right? The other kids are all pretty much only known for ST and not anything else that's not piggy backing off of ST.

Yeah I didn't know why they called the prisoner "The American" when he was speaking fluent Russian? That was very confusing? But once you saw it wasn't Jim or even Bald Eagle you were like WTF why is he speaking fluent Russian and who the F is this guy? Why should we even care about him at all?

Great theory on Jonathan being Jim's biological son! I kind of was bothered how little Jonathan was even in this season. Like he was a under dog you rooted for in season 1 then he kept getting smaller and less camera time and even speaking dialog as the show kept going forward. There were times when I was like oh yeah Winona has 2 kids LOL.

I don't like El not having powers or like you said them possibly being mentally blocked. It would be cool if she could still use other resources like her instincts or just pure athleticism to still fight on.

Honestly the mind flayer at first I found to be interesting and cool but the more I see it the more Im like this is getting boring quick. Like when it came crashing down onto the mall and trapped the kids I was like hell yea but then each one of them outsmarted and escaped it without a scratch? Like REALLY? The things that dumb it can be tricked into thinking the kids are on the opposite end of the mall just by throwing an object in that direction?

What did you make of Jim's final words, "SEE YOU IN HELL" am I reading too much into that????

@MrCharmingMan said: Yeah you are right about the kids all doing their thang but Millie Brown's like the only one really doing movies right? The other kids are all pretty much only known for ST and not anything else that's not piggy backing off of ST.

Finn Wolfhard and Sadie Sink are/will be doing some movies. Gaten is in a Broadway production now, and I think maybe guest starring on something else. Those are the ones I know, except for the IT movies I don't think there's a lot of information about their other projects yet. Have to check. But any or all of them could have long careers ahead. It'll be harder in the future to get them all back together.     

@MrCharmingMan said: Yeah I didn't know why they called the prisoner "The American" when he was speaking fluent Russian? That was very confusing? But once you saw it wasn't Jim or even Bald Eagle you were like WTF why is he speaking fluent Russian and who the F is this guy? Why should we even care about him at all?

  We didn't see The American at all. They basically said no, not him, and moved on to the next cell. The poor shmuck they fed to the demogorgon was just some random gulag prisoner who kept protesting his innocence.    

@MrCharmingMan said: Honestly the mind flayer at first I found to be interesting and cool but the more I see it the more Im like this is getting boring quick. Like when it came crashing down onto the mall and trapped the kids I was like hell yea but then each one of them outsmarted and escaped it without a scratch? Like REALLY? The things that dumb it can be tricked into thinking the kids are on the opposite end of the mall just by throwing an object in that direction?

The Mind Flayer itself is a huge hive spread out across who knows how many worlds, like The Borg. It enters one world after another and colonizes it. The native life gets wiped out. The Upside Down looks like a near duplicate of our world. So they had armies, tanks, planes, missiles, nukes - the whole nine yards - but they still lost. Last season it started an invasion but got cut off. It looks like this season the part of it that escaped from Will was sitting somewhere dormant, until the gate was reopened enough for the Mind Flayer to connect with it again. That monster made of mashed up people was just a living weapon it built over here to eliminate the one obstacle to its return: Eleven. The gate wasn't all the way open and stable. It could only control the part of itself that was still on our side from before, not send reinforcements. Yet.

Once the Russians opened the gate wide enough for travel and stabilized it, a horde of demogorgons would've come through and seized the area. With El out of the way there'd be nothing to stop it. Once the Mind Flayer controls enough territory near the gate and has a secure foothold on this side, our world is dead. Other nearby worlds will be experimenting just like Hawkins Lab. So after it conquers us, it only has to wait for another opportunity to keep spreading. Who knows how long it's been around? Billions of years maybe. But somehow they're going to have to kill it. Otherwise it's never going to give up. It has all the time in the world to keep hammering away.    

@MrCharmingMan said: What did you make of Jim's final words, "SEE YOU IN HELL" am I reading too much into that???? 

Definitely seemed intentional. See you in hell, wink wink.

I loved Season 3, everything felt pretty tight and I thought there was some good character development for the main cast. On top of that, the score was amazing as per usual.

And also unintentional near tears....

@chrisjdel said:

@MrCharmingMan said: Yeah you are right about the kids all doing their thang but Millie Brown's like the only one really doing movies right? The other kids are all pretty much only known for ST and not anything else that's not piggy backing off of ST.

 

Finn Wolfhard and Sadie Sink are/will be doing some movies. Gaten is in a Broadway production now, and I think maybe guest starring on something else. Those are the ones I know, except for the IT movies I don't think there's a lot of information about their other projects yet. Have to check. But any or all of them could have long careers ahead. It'll be harder in the future to get them all back together.     

 

@MrCharmingMan said: Yeah I didn't know why they called the prisoner "The American" when he was speaking fluent Russian? That was very confusing? But once you saw it wasn't Jim or even Bald Eagle you were like WTF why is he speaking fluent Russian and who the F is this guy? Why should we even care about him at all?

  

  We didn't see The American at all. They basically said no, not him, and moved on to the next cell. The poor shmuck they fed to the demogorgon was just some random gulag prisoner who kept protesting his innocence.    

 

@MrCharmingMan said: Honestly the mind flayer at first I found to be interesting and cool but the more I see it the more Im like this is getting boring quick. Like when it came crashing down onto the mall and trapped the kids I was like hell yea but then each one of them outsmarted and escaped it without a scratch? Like REALLY? The things that dumb it can be tricked into thinking the kids are on the opposite end of the mall just by throwing an object in that direction?

 

The Mind Flayer itself is a huge hive spread out across who knows how many worlds, like The Borg. It enters one world after another and colonizes it. The native life gets wiped out. The Upside Down looks like a near duplicate of our world. So they had armies, tanks, planes, missiles, nukes - the whole nine yards - but they still lost. Last season it started an invasion but got cut off. It looks like this season the part of it that escaped from Will was sitting somewhere dormant, until the gate was reopened enough for the Mind Flayer to connect with it again. That monster made of mashed up people was just a living weapon it built over here to eliminate the one obstacle to its return: Eleven. The gate wasn't all the way open and stable. It could only control the part of itself that was still on our side from before, not send reinforcements. Yet.

Once the Russians opened the gate wide enough for travel and stabilized it, a horde of demogorgons would've come through and seized the area. With El out of the way there'd be nothing to stop it. Once the Mind Flayer controls enough territory near the gate and has a secure foothold on this side, our world is dead. Other nearby worlds will be experimenting just like Hawkins Lab. So after it conquers us, it only has to wait for another opportunity to keep spreading. Who knows how long it's been around? Billions of years maybe. But somehow they're going to have to kill it. Otherwise it's never going to give up. It has all the time in the world to keep hammering away.    

 

@MrCharmingMan said: What did you make of Jim's final words, "SEE YOU IN HELL" am I reading too much into that???? 

   

Definitely seemed intentional. See you in hell, wink wink.

Oh ok good thanks for clarifying the post credits scene i think i was fatigued from binging by that point and was unable to focus really and was let down when they said go get the American and it was some Russian begging for his life in Russian I was like WTF? So you are saying Jim might be the Russian?

Yeah I think See you in hell was either a 80's reference or implying that he's about to die soon as well or they'll both be in some worse situation together? possibly another dimension or of course Hell Boy?

@MrCharmingMan said: Oh ok good thanks for clarifying the post credits scene i think i was fatigued from binging by that point and was unable to focus really and was let down when they said go get the American and it was some Russian begging for his life in Russian I was like WTF? So you are saying Jim might be the Russian?

Yeah I think See you in hell was either a 80's reference or implying that he's about to die soon as well or they'll both be in some worse situation together? possibly another dimension or of course Hell Boy?

I'll bet you anything The American is either Jim Hopper or Dr. Brenner. One of those two.

And yeah, I think Hopper's remark was a Hellboy reference. It would be like having Mike say he hates clowns, they creep him out, or Eleven describe the Mind Flayer's monster as huge like Godzilla.

Remember that the show has had two fake-out deaths already. The first was Will Byers in Season 1, fake corpse and all. The second came at the end of Season 1, when Eleven seemed to just sort of dissolve (if I'm remembering correctly). Of course neither of those were quite as dramatic as Hopper surviving would be. The Will corpse subplot was resolved in the middle of the season, and Eleven's apparent demise was simply ambiguous, so that when she reappears early in Season 2, it isn't presented as some massive twist. Still, this sort of thing at least has precedent on the show.

It would suck if Hopper stays dead. He's by far the best of the adult characters on the show, and he's been part of what has given the show its charm. Furthermore, his character arc just feels aborted; why go to all that trouble to develop his relationship with Eleven as well as Joyce only to cut it off prematurely? This isn't a show like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones where part of the fun is trying to guess who will die next. There's very little to gain dramatically from killing a major character off just for the shock value.

Perhaps the actor wanted to leave the show, but I doubt that's the reason, particularly given that, as mentioned, the show's run is expected to be finite. Yet we're not likely to find out the true answer until next season. As we saw with GoT, the show's people will sometimes lie to the press to avoid giving away they're bringing a character back.

One last thing: I thought "I'll see you in hell" was kind of lame. Couldn't they have come up with a cool line that wasn't pure cliche? I know the show's all about homage, but at least it should be clever, not merely derivative.

Jim Hopper survived, The American they mention in the after credits scene is him. The reason they won't feed him to Demogorgon is because he's very important. He must have survived by jumping into the portal and coming out on the other side in Russia lab. I bet you 9000% they had at least 2 labs both in US and Russia. His knowledge of the Upside Down is important to them. I'm also curious since when are Demogorgons are nerfed? They used to jump in and out of our world by self created portals. Where's that ability now?

@Kylopod said:

Remember that the show has had two fake-out deaths already. The first was Will Byers in Season 1, fake corpse and all. The second came at the end of Season 1, when Eleven seemed to just sort of dissolve (if I'm remembering correctly). Of course neither of those were quite as dramatic as Hopper surviving would be. The Will corpse subplot was resolved in the middle of the season, and Eleven's apparent demise was simply ambiguous, so that when she reappears early in Season 2, it isn't presented as some massive twist. Still, this sort of thing at least has precedent on the show.

It would suck if Hopper stays dead. He's by far the best of the adult characters on the show, and he's been part of what has given the show its charm. Furthermore, his character arc just feels aborted; why go to all that trouble to develop his relationship with Eleven as well as Joyce only to cut it off prematurely? This isn't a show like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones where part of the fun is trying to guess who will die next. There's very little to gain dramatically from killing a major character off just for the shock value.

Perhaps the actor wanted to leave the show, but I doubt that's the reason, particularly given that, as mentioned, the show's run is expected to be finite. Yet we're not likely to find out the true answer until next season. As we saw with GoT, the show's people will sometimes lie to the press to avoid giving away they're bringing a character back.

One last thing: I thought "I'll see you in hell" was kind of lame. Couldn't they have come up with a cool line that wasn't pure cliche? I know the show's all about homage, but at least it should be clever, not merely derivative.

yeah the Ill see you in hell last line really bothered me LOL i was like really? talk about lazy writing for such a brilliant show?

@komrad said:

Jim Hopper survived, The American they mention in the after credits scene is him. The reason they won't feed him to Demogorgon is because he's very important. He must have survived by jumping into the portal and coming out on the other side in Russia lab. I bet you 9000% they had at least 2 labs both in US and Russia. His knowledge of the Upside Down is important to them. I'm also curious since when are Demogorgons are nerfed? They used to jump in and out of our world by self created portals. Where's that ability now?

I think the original gate opened by Eleven was something like firing a bullet through a window, you get the hole and a pattern of fractures radiating outward. The demogorgon in season 1 never showed up more than a few miles from Hawkins Lab, and tended to be seen in the same places repeatedly. I think it was just forcing open those fractures and squeezing through. They'd close up again within a few minutes. The Byers house, the woods behind Steve's, the Middle School, that spot where Jonathan and Nancy found the deer, all were dimensional weak spots. Probably how those baby demogorgons got into our world too. Once the main gateway was shut down all the cracks closed. Left to itself, a demogorgon can't just tunnel through. Even the Mind Flayer seems incapable of opening gateways on its own. It may be able to expand and use open gates but it depends on someone in the target world to establish them.

Back during the Cold War Americans didn't travel to the Soviet Union as freely as they do to the Russian Federation today. American prisoners were few and far between. Those they did have were valuable as collateral for prisoner swaps when some of their own got captured in the west. They wouldn't waste one by executing them, even if they had no useful knowledge. I wouldn't say they were well treated but they had it better than most Russians - the gulag commander knew his superiors didn't want them worked to death, or killed in a prison yard brawl.