Ending of season 3 of Stranger Things explained: Starcourt, Billy's death, Hopper, and the American
Season 3 · The ending · Explanations
Season 3 ends on July 4, 1985 in a mall on fire, with a hero nobody expected, a father everyone believes dead, and a family that leaves town. Then a scene after the title sequence changes everything. Here is the ending explained, and why you had to stay until the end.
The essentials
- The battle: Starcourt, night of July 4, 1985
- Billy: turns on the monster and dies holding it back
- Hopper: vanishes in the explosion of the Russian machine
- After the credits: a prison in Kamchatka, “the American”, a Demogorgon
Contents
Explanation of the ending: the battle of Starcourt
The flesh monster enters the mall through the roof. The group bombards it with fireworks from the upper floor; Eleven, bitten in the leg and stripped of her powers, is pinned by Billy, possessed. She talks to him about his mother, a beach in California, a memory he thought was lost. Billy wakes up, turns on the monster and holds it with his bare hands, tentacle after tentacle, until it kills him. Max watches him die.
The Hopper T-shirt, the American.
In the shopMen's long-sleeve Chief Hopper Hawkins Police T-shirt47,90 €See the product
Joyce turns the keys
Under the mall, Joyce and Hopper have to turn the two keys of the Russian machine that reopens the gate at the same time. Hopper is stuck on the other side of the glass, facing the colossus Grigori, whom he finally throws into the gears. Joyce turns the keys. The machine explodes, the gate closes, the monster collapses in the hall. When the smoke clears, Hopper is gone.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Is Hopper dead? | No: the post-credits scene reveals him a prisoner in Russia |
| Is the monster dead? | Yes: cut off from the Upside Down, it collapses; Starcourt burns |
| Does Eleven have her powers? | No: the bite took them from him, until 1986 |
| Why the Byers leave | Joyce cannot stand the town anymore; she takes Eleven |
| What does the letter say? | The speech Hopper never read to Eleven and Mike |
Three months later: the departure
October 1985. For the town, Starcourt burned in a fire, and Hopper died a hero. Joyce sells the house and takes Jonathan, Will and Eleven to California. The goodbyes take place in front of the moving truck: Mike and Eleven, Max and Eleven, Lucas and Will. Eleven finds in Hopper's things the letter he had written for her and Mike, and reads it in voice-over while the boxes close.
Hopper's letter“When life hurts you, come out of your cave.” The speech he did not dare give, about kids growing up and doors you leave open three inches, became the most quoted monologue in the show.
The scene after the credits
In Kamchatka, in a Soviet prison, two guards choose a prisoner to sacrifice. “Not the American,” one of them says. They take another, lock him in a cell, and open a trapdoor: a Demogorgon comes out. Three pieces of information in a minute: Hopper is alive, the Russians have a creature, and season 4 will take place in part in Russia.
What it sets up
Season 4 picks up every thread: Hopper in the gulag, Joyce and Murray gone to find him, Eleven without powers harassed in California, and Max haunted by Billy's death, which will make her Vecna's target. The flesh monster itself was only the Mind Flayer's hand, and Season 4 finally reveals who was commanding it.
The Billy figure, the hero in spite of himself.
In the shopLego bearded Jim Hopper mini figure14,90 €See the product
Billy's sacrifice, explained
Billy has been possessed since the first night of the season, and he is the one who recruits the Flayed. In the last episode, he drags Eleven in front of the monster so she can be absorbed. What saves him is what Eleven saw in his mind in the sixth episode: a California beach, a wave, his mother waiting for him, a memory from before his father's violence. Eleven talks to him about that beach, and Billy comes back to himself.
He stands between the monster and Eleven, holds the creature with his bare hands, and dies run through by its tentacles. Max, his stepsister, sees him die. The show does not make Billy a retroactive hero: it gives him one minute of freedom, and he uses it to repair what he can. His death haunts Max through all of Season 4, up to the letter she reads him at his grave.
The ten seconds that decide Hopper
Under the mall, Joyce and Hopper have to turn two keys at the same time to blow up the machine that opens the gate. Grigori appears; Hopper kills him by throwing him into the gears, but finds himself on the wrong side of the glass, near the machine. Joyce hesitates, he signals her, she turns the keys. The explosion takes everything in the room. Hopper is gone.
The show does not show a body. That is the first clue. The second is the scene after the credits: a prison in Kamchatka, where a guard says not to take “the American” to throw to the Demogorgon. Season 4 will confirm that Hopper slipped through a gate behind the machine before the explosion, and was captured by the Russians.
What each one loses, what each one gains
| Character | Loss | What he takes with him |
|---|---|---|
| Eleven | His powers, gone since the bite | A new family, the Byers, and Hopper's letter |
| Max | His brother | A grief that will follow her until 1986 |
| Joyce | Hopper, at the moment something was beginning | The decision to leave Hawkins with her sons and Eleven |
| Mike | Eleven, who leaves for California | An "I love you" heard in the bedroom, with no answer |
| Steve and Robin | Scoops Ahoy, burned with the mall | A job at the video store, and a friendship |
| Dustin | Nothing: he won | Suzie, proven real, and a song |
| Hawkins | Its mall, its mayor, its chief of police | A fire explanation served to the press, that nobody believes |
The Season 3 poster.
In the shopChibi Jim Hopper in uniform keychain12,90 €See the product
TakeawayBilly redeems himself and dies holding the monster back. Joyce turns the keys; Hopper vanishes. The Byers leave for California with Eleven; the letter. After the credits: “the American” is alive.
Frequently asked questions
How does season 3 end?
Billy holds back the flesh monster and dies, Joyce closes the Russian gate under Starcourt, Hopper disappears in the explosion, and the Byers leave town with Eleven. The scene after the credits reveals Hopper alive in Russia.
Does Hopper die at the end of Season 3?
No. He is presumed dead, but the post-credits scene shows "the American" a prisoner in Kamchatka.
Why does Billy die?
Freed from the Mind Flayer's hold by Eleven, who gives him back a memory of his mother, he turns on the monster and holds it with his bare hands until it kills him.
Why Eleven leaves for California
Joyce leaves town after Hopper's presumed death and takes Eleven, whose custody she has, with Will and Jonathan.
How does Eleven bring Billy back to himself?
By reminding him of the memory she saw in his mind: a California beach, a wave, his mother. Billy then turns on the monster and dies holding it.
Why is there no Hopper body?
Because he is not dead: he slipped through a gate before the explosion and was captured by the Russians. The post-credits scene, with "the American," already hinted at it as early as 2019.
What becomes of Mayor Kline?
He is arrested at the end of the season for his work with the Russians, to whom he had sold the land under the mall. He does not appear again after that.