David Harbour: Hopper “needed to make a sacrifice” on Stranger Things

Between Stranger Things season 3 and Hellboy, David Harbour had quite the 2019. It wasn’t too long ago that I was attending San Diego Comic-Con and was at the Stranger Things season 2 panel where Harbour was still trying to make sense of his tremendous success. He didn’t seem to accept the fact he kicked major ass in the first season, but as we await season 4, it’s hard to imagine the show without him.

Unfortunately, the end of season 3 brought about the “death” of his character, Sheriff Hopper. Personally, I’m still in denial over it and am one of those fans who thinks he’s “the American” the Russians were referring to in the post-credits sequence. I won’t give up hope until I absolutely have to.

David Harbour, however, isn’t too bummed over Hopper’s death. Why is that? He explained in an interview with the Los Angeles Times:

"When I read that first scene with Joyce [Winona Ryder] and Hopper and he resists helping her find her child and even makes a bit of a homophobic joke about him, you see this guy has really sort of died on the inside as a result of the death of his daughter. The fact that he lives with a certain amount of internalized rage and had been slowly killing himself with pills and alcohol … he needed to make a sacrifice."

The idea of sacrifice makes a lot of sense when we’re thinking of Hopper’s arc over the course of past three seasons. He needed to step in and save the day however he could. It was a vindication for a troubled man, and if he does actually come back, I hope it’s as a more forgiving version of himself.

But don’t mistake David Harbour’s contentment with Hopper’s arc for him wanting to be done with Stranger Things. “Now whether or not there’s some sort of second-act resurrection would be very interesting to me, clearly, for obvious reasons,” he said with a laugh. “The fact that I desperately love the show and desperately love the character … but that remains to be seen. He would certainly have to emerge a different individual.”

And emerge he will, in season 4 of Stranger Things. I just know it.

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