The next season of Stranger Things sets up a “definite end”

Like many other TV shows, Stranger Things has been hit with delays during our worldwide pandemic, but at long last, it’s coming back around. The cast and crew are filming season 4 right now, and David Harbour (Sheriff Jim Hopper) is ready to talk about it…at least a little.

“I mean, it’s bigger, that’s the first thing,” Harbour told Collider. “In scope, in scale, even in the idea that we’re not in Hawkins anymore. We, locale-wise, we’re bigger. We’re introducing new stuff, but we’re also tightening and wrapping up in a certain direction to make it have a clear, clean specific, and definite ending at some point, which I can’t really talk about.”

We’ve heard things over the years about Stranger Things ending with season 4 or 5. Based on what Harbour is saying, we’ll get a season 5, but that’ll probably be the end; if the show goes on any long the Hawkins kids won’t be kids anymore.

“[Season 4] is really my favorite season,” Harbour continued. “I just love it. The scripts always get better and these guys, they started out, and Season One is so tight and good and intimate in a certain way, it’s so good. And these guys go in different directions, of which the fans have multiple takes on, but I will say, the writing continues to be of its particular, specific genre, whatever they’re doing each season is just extraordinary. And this, again, we top it. Like I feel it’s a big, beautiful season. I can’t wait for people to see it.”

Sheriff Hopper is at his “most vulnerable” in Stranger Things season 4

As for Hopper himself, he died at the end of season 3, but Netflix has made no secret of the fact that he’s coming back (somehow) for season 4, now in a Soviet prison camp; again, don’t ask us how. But I imagine his international predicament is part of the reason season 4 is “not in Hawkins anymore.”

According to Harbour, season 4 will find Hopper at his “most vulnerable.”

"He’s been, as we’ve seen, he’s in this Russian prison, so we get to reinvent him in a sense. He gets to have a rebirth from what he had become, and we’d always sort of planned this almost resurrection of you have Gandalf dies, Galdalf the Grey re-emerge, and I’m really interested in this resurgence of him. We get to explore a lot of threads in his life that have merely been hinted at that we get to see a lot more of. And there’s some real surprises that you know nothing about that will start to come out in this and play big as the series goes on."

Expect Stranger Things season 4 to drop on Netflix sometime in 2022.

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