David Harbour shaved his beard and Stranger Things fans are concerned

When left on cliffhangers, fans can begin reading into every little detail of a television series or movie — and that’s certainly been the case with Stranger Things season 3, which left the fate of fan-favorite Jim Hopper up in the air, and that’s the glass-half-full interpretation.

If all is as it seems, the Hawkins sheriff met his demise in the season finale, when he was caught in the explosion that occurred after Joyce closed the door to the Upside Down. But with a series like Stranger Things, things are almost never as they appear, and fans have used the lack of a body and the mid-credits scene to fuel theories that Hopper isn’t actually dead.

Those kind of theories can get a fan through a long offseason, but a recent Instagram post from actor David Harbour has some fans worried that they’re fooling themselves.

For one, Harbour’s beard is gone, something he notes in his caption. But the caption itself also created some confusion among fans, especially those who might not have realized that Harbour is making an appearance in Marvel’s upcoming Black Widow movie.

“Goodbye long, scraggly, surprisingly soft, Walt Whitman beard,” Harbour writes. “Adieu beige hotel room. Goodnight sweet strange mannequin I never knew what to do with in the corner of the room. Farewell Alexi, you big bold bright burly hope of Russia, you complicated tortured soul, you guardian of the red.”

With the references to Russia and Alexi, it’s easy to see why Stranger Things fans in the comments might have read this as a farewell to that series — or at least as a hint about Hopper’s fate. In season 3, the Russian military invaded the sleepy town of Hawkins, and a charming Russian scientist named Alexei became a fan favorite character.

But if you take a closer look, it’s clear from the hashtags that Harbour’s goodbye was dedicated to Black Widow, in which he’ll play a Soviet soldier named Alexei — an interesting twist fans were quick to point out when it became known.

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From Harbour’s post, we can deduce that he’s wrapped filming on Black Widow, an exciting development for Marvel fans. As for Harbour’s involvement in Stranger Things, we’re still in the dark. I mean, even if he did shave his beard, who says Sheriff Hopper can’t have a new look in season 4?

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