Stranger Things’ David Harbour (Sheriff Hopper) teases season 3

America is currently riding a wave of nostalgia for the 1980s, as evidenced by the success of stuff like IT, GLOW, The Americans, Ready Player One and, most prominently, Netflix’s Stranger Things. (These waves tend to crest all at once; prepare for ’90s nostalgia in five-or-so years.) Stranger Things wears its influences proudly on its sleeve. As star David Harbour (Sheriff Jim Hopper) told Deadline sometime back, the show’s first season was “very Stephen King-y” while the second was ““more Spielberg-y.” Speaking to Variety at a recent screening of the show at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, Harbour hinted at what the upcoming third season would be based on…Fletch.

"[Showrunners the Duffer brothers] are so specific each year with the movies. And ‘Fletch’ is one movie we get to play around and have some fun with this season, which you wouldn’t expect from ‘Stranger Things’ and you wouldn’t expect from the Spielberg universe and you certainly wouldn’t expect from a darker season.’"

For those unfamiliar, Fletch is a 1985 movie starring Chevy Chase as a wise-cracking reporter who uncovers a murder plot involving big money, polygamy and drug trafficking. Heading into season 3 of Stranger Things, we know there will be a new character named Bruce, a crass news reporter played by Jake Busey, son of Gary. Naturally, he’s interested in all the weird supernatural goings-on in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana, because wouldn’t you be? Anyway, that could provide a Fletch connection.

Not that the third season will be all about Chevy Chase movies. Harbour also talked about how Hopper’s relationship with Eleven (Mille Bobby Brown), his adopted, telekinetic daughter, is going to change. “Their relationship is going to get far more complex, because, you know, things happen to girls and boys when they’re 13 and 14,” Harbour said. “A lot of changes go on in the body and in your social life, and I don’t think he’s going to handle watching her become a woman in front of his eyes very well. That’s a horrifying thing for him — maybe even more so than fighting inter-dimensional monsters.”

Eleven isn’t the only one growing up; the main characters we’ve following since the beginning — Will, Mike, Lucas and Dustin — are all getting older, and Harbour teased that a “summer of love” could be on the horizon. But what about Hopper specifically? No summer loving for him? “I think it’d be interesting to see if Hopper has it in him to be vulnerable with a woman and to actually be able to show up in that capacity, like what kind of a man he would be in a relationship if that comes to fruition,” he said. Fair enough; how about a potential relationship with Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder)?

"There may be other people in the mix in this situation, but I think they’re built for each other and I would love to see them get together. From the very beginning, I thought that these are two tortured, messed up, beautiful people who are like puzzle pieces that can’t stand each other but actually need each other."

Copy that.

Other new additions for season 3 include The Princess Bride star Cary Elwes as the selfish Mayor Kline and a prominent new location in The Starcourt Mall, where Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) works at ice cream joint Scoops Ahoy.

Personally, I think these are great additions — it doesn’t get more ’80s than shopping malls and Cary Elwes — but Harbour doesn’t see his character enjoying Hawkins’ newest attraction. “Clearly, he’s a dude who’s stuck in the late ’70s and he’s an old school guy, so I don’t think he likes to see the world change. But there are certain things you need to get in Hawkins that you can’t get at Melvald’s General Store.”

As you can see, the Duffers are mixing things up for season 3, and that’s before we hear anything about potential visits from unholy creatures from the Upside Down. Harbour calls the new season “so much of a departure and so much of a risk,” which I’m all for. We may even get into Hopper’s past, including his time as a New York City police officer and in Vietnam.

The third season of Stranger Things will drop sometime in the summer of 2019. Let’s hope it can meet the lofty goals it seems to be setting for itself.

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