Now that we've all binged Stranger Things 3, let's talk about the season's ending.
Toast some Eggos, turn on the boombox, and watch out for the Mind Flayer.
From shocking deaths to shifts in the status quo to what we can expect from season 4, this
is the ending of Stranger Things 3, explained.
Spoilers ahead.
After a lengthy battle, Stranger Things 3 ends with an emotional departure, as the Byers
family sells their little house in Hawkins for a new life somewhere else.
Will has to say goodbye to his friends, Jonathan has to say goodbye to Nancy, and El has to
say goodbye to Mike and the life she'd been building with Hopper.
We don't know exactly where the family will settle, but it's a tearful upheaval that changes
the landscape of the show forever.
This whole story began with four friends Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas as they were swept
up in an otherworldly adventure after a night of playing Dungeons & Dragons.
Now, at the end of Stranger Things 3, the state of "The Party" has changed in a major
way.
Will the gang reunite in season 4?
What could bring Joyce, Jonathan, Will, and Eleven back to Hawkins?
Perhaps another crisis taking place over a holiday celebration?
"And then I was thinking maybe you could come out here for Christmas.
You could come before or after Christmas, or whatever Mrs. Byers wants."
The "Three Months Later" epilogue for the last episode of Stranger Things 3 begins with
a clip from a news report that suggests the dark and mysterious goings-on of Hawkins are
becoming publicly known in some way.
In the past, the government's been able to keep a relatively tight lid on things but
not anymore.
Now, with the town's mayor in handcuffs and reports of everything from chemical leaks
to the tragedy at Starcourt making the rounds, Hawkins is gaining a reputation on a national
level.
Shortly before Stranger Things 3's final battle at Starcourt, Eleven poured every drop of
telekinetic energy she had into ripping the last shred of the Mind Flayer out of her.
In the wake of that effort, she was unable to even crush an empty soda can with her mind.
At the time she seemed to think she just need to recharge, as she always has.
But then the season's epilogue revealed that she still didn't have her powers back after
three months.
Does this mean her powers are gone forever?
It's possible, but unlikely.
The series gets far too much mileage out of El's superpowers, so while we may end up waiting
a long while for Eleven to find her mojo again, her powerless era may let her take some time
to learn a little more about being a regular teenager.
The season's post-credits sequence reveals that the Soviets have managed to capture a
Demogorgon, and they're keeping it alive in a cell by feeding it a steady diet of prisoners.
What exactly they plan to do with it is anyone's guess, but it can't be good.
This is all made even creepier by the fact that we still don't know exactly what the
Russians hoped to do with the knowledge gained by opening the gate, or how they managed to
figure out so much about how to get into it in the first place.
Are there more Russian spies working on this exact problem embedded in Hawkins right now?
Is their tech strong enough to open a new gate now that they've had time to work on
it?
Can that corrosive green liquid be used to power anything else?
Can the Demogorgon become a trained killer?
There are so many questions here, and none of them have happy answers.
Chief Jim Hopper lived through a lot on Stranger Things, but he couldn't really survive the
explosion of the Key at the end of the season.
He knew it was necessary for Joyce to blow it up as quickly as possible.
It was a noble sacrifice, and a fitting end for a great character.
Or was it?
The post-credits scene makes it clear that the Soviets have someone in their cells they
refer to as "the American."
Could that unseen American be Hopper?
Consider this: the show goes to great pains to show us how destructive the Key explosion
is.
It shows us several Russian scientists who are flat-out vaporized by its power but it
never shows the same thing happening to Hopper.
This show has shown us the corpses of everyone from Bob to Barb to Billy over the course
of three seasons to make sure we knew those characters were dead, but we never see Hopper's
body.
Is that because there isn't one?
If it's really true, he's going to have a honey of a story to tell when he gets back
to the States.
Then again, there's another potential candidate for the Soviets' American prisoner: Doctor
Brenner, Eleven's "Papa," who we were told in season 2 isn't as dead and buried as we
previously thought:
"Brenner!
I can take you to him."
"Papa is gone."
"No, he is alive."
Stranger Things 3 doesn't end in a self-contained way.
Its many dangling plot threads, from the future of the Byers family to what exactly might
be going on in Russia, all suggest a sense of a continuing story, and that is indeed
the plan.
According to an Entertainment Weekly interview with Stranger Things executive producer Shawn
Levy, the current plan for the series is for creators Matt and Ross Duffer to tell a story
that lasts at least four seasons, if not five.
So we should definitely expect more from the Hawkins gang.
The real question now isn't if, but when.
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