Stranger Things season 3: full recap, episode by episode, and ending explained
Season 3 · Recap · Summer 1985
Summer 1985: a brand-new mall, couples forming, a lifeguard who becomes the monster's host, and a Soviet base under the fountains of Starcourt. Here is season 3, episode by episode, through Hopper's letter.
The essentials
- Episodes: 8, released July 4, 2019
- Period: late June to July 4, 1985
- Monster: the Mind Flayer, in flesh form
- End: Starcourt destroyed, Billy dead, Hopper missing, the Byers leave Hawkins
Contents
- Episodes 1 and 2: Suzie and the mall
- Episodes 3 and 4: the flesh monster
- Episodes 5 and 6: under Starcourt, in the sauna
- Episodes 7 and 8: the fair and the Battle of Starcourt
- The ending explained
- The eight chapters, with who wrote and directed them
- What the season wanted to do, and what it dropped
- What the season pulled off
Episodes 1 and 2: Suzie and the mall
Under a Soviet base, a machine tries to reopen the gate and fails. In Hawkins, Starcourt Mall empties downtown: Steve serves ice cream at Scoops Ahoy with Robin, Eleven and Mike kiss under Hopper's nose, who lays down rules, and Dustin, back from camp, builds Cerebro to call his girlfriend Suzie. He picks up a message in Russian instead.
Magnets fall off Joyce's fridges, Billy is snatched by an invisible force in the abandoned steel mill, and Will feels the shadow coming back: the Mind Flayer is on this side.
The Scoops Ahoy T-shirt, for summer 1985.
In the shopMen's Scoops Ahoy T-shirt39,90 €See the product
Episodes 3 and 4: the flesh monster
Robin deciphers the Russian code: the deliveries happen inside Starcourt. Nancy and Jonathan, humiliated interns at the Hawkins Post, investigate rats that eat fertilizer, and come upon an old "sick" woman who explodes into flesh. Billy, possessed, has delivered Heather and her parents to the monster; the possessed, the Flayed, multiply.
Eleven, searching for Billy in the Void, discovers the steel mill; the group finds a Billy there who no longer reacts to the chains. Max and Eleven, for their part, discover shopping, girlfriends, and the freedom to dump Mike.
Episodes 5 and 6: under Starcourt, in the sauna
Hopper and Joyce, on the trail of the magnets, come across a warehouse guarded by the Russians and kidnap a scientist, Alexei, whom they take to Murray to have him translated, in exchange for a cherry slushie. Steve, Robin, Dustin, and Erica go down a delivery elevator into the underground base; Steve and Robin are captured.
The group locks Billy in the pool sauna to make him talk: the heat reveals the monster. He escapes. The Mind Flayer assembles a body from the flesh of its hosts, in the steel mill, and sets off after Eleven.
Episodes 7 and 8: the fair and the Battle of Starcourt
Drugged with truth serum, Steve and Robin confide in the movie-theater restroom: Robin likes girls; Steve laughs, then understands. Alexei discovers America at the July 4 fair, and dies there, shot by Grigori. The flesh monster attacks the group at Hopper's, bites Eleven in the leg, and everyone converges on Starcourt.
In the mall hall, Eleven loses her powers, Billy corners her, and Eleven gives him back a memory: his mother, a beach. Billy turns on the monster, and dies holding it. Underground, Hopper and Joyce turn the two keys; Hopper, stuck near the machine, disappears in the explosion. The monster collapses. Three months later, the Byers and Eleven leave Hawkins; Eleven reads the letter Hopper had written for her and Mike.
The ending explained
| What the ending shows | What it means |
|---|---|
| Hopper disappears in the explosion | He is not dead: the post-credits scene shows him a prisoner in Russia, under the name “the American” |
| The Demogorgon in a cage in Kamchatka | The Russians captured a creature; that is the setting of Season 4 |
| Eleven no longer has her powers | The monster “bit” them; she is ordinary at the start of Season 4 |
| Hopper's letter | The speech about the door “open three inches”: he accepts that his daughter is growing up |
| The Byers leave | Joyce takes Will, Jonathan, and Eleven to California |
Season 3 is the brightest of the show, and ends in mourning: Billy, Alexei, Hopper. The scene after the credits, in a Soviet prison, changes everything: “Not the American,” a guard says, choosing a prisoner to give to the Demogorgon.
The theater versionThe season was shot to be watched in summer: released July 4, 2019, the American national holiday, the same day the finale takes place.
The Billy figure, lifeguard.
In the shopLego Robin Buckley Scoops Ahoy mini figure14,90 €See the product
The eight chapters, with who wrote and directed them
| Chapter | Original title | Direction | Screenplay |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Suzie, Do You Copy? | The Duffer Brothers | The Duffer Brothers |
| 2 | The Mall Rats | The Duffer Brothers | The Duffer Brothers |
| 3 | The Case of the Missing Lifeguard | Shawn Levy | William Bridges |
| 4 | The Sauna Test | Shawn Levy | Kate Trefry |
| 5 | The Flayed | Uta Briesewitz | Paul Dichter |
| 6 | E Pluribus Unum | Uta Briesewitz | Curtis Gwinn |
| 7 | The Bite | The Duffer Brothers | The Duffer Brothers |
| 8 | The Battle of Starcourt | The Duffer Brothers | The Duffer Brothers |
Uta Briesewitz, a cinematographer turned director, signs the two middle episodes, including "E Pluribus Unum," where Eleven faces possessed Billy in his mind. The eight chapters came out on July 4, 2019, American Independence Day, the very one around which the season is built.
What the season wanted to do, and what it dropped
Shawn Levy had set the line before the writing: "we are not going to put Will through hell a third season in a row." Season 3 therefore shifts the center of gravity toward Billy, toward Steve and Robin, and toward a mall summer. David Harbour cited the film Fletch as an influence for the Hopper-Joyce duo in comedy mode; Natalia Dyer promised a season "bigger, darker, scarier."
The first presentation documents contained a dropped scene: the flesh monster ravaging Hawkins's July 4 parade. The idea disappeared in the writing, the final battle concentrating on the mall, but the seventh episode's fair keeps a trace of it, with Alexei's death among the rides.
The platform had wanted Seasons 3 and 4 written at the same time, to shoot back-to-back and offset the aging of the actors. The Duffers and Levy refused, preferring to give all their time to Season 3 alone. Filming lasted from April to November 2018.
What the season pulled off
Season 3 is, in audience, the peak of the show at its release. The platform announced 40,7 million households in four days, a record at the time, then 64 million in four weeks. Nielsen measured in the United States more than 19 million viewers for the first episode over its first days, a figure up from Season 2.
Critics were a little less unanimous: 89% favorable reviews on Rotten Tomatoes for 141 reviews, 72 out of 100 on Metacritic. The New Statesman saw in it a comeback after a “confused” second season, the BBC gave it five stars; on the other side, some American critics blamed the season for stacking 80s references like a compilation. The audience, for its part, made the Dustin and Suzie scene one of the most shared moments in the show.
The Season 3 poster, Starcourt neons included.
In the shopScoops Ahoy pin9,90 €See the product
TakeawayEight episodes, from the mall to the fair, summer 1985. The Mind Flayer comes back in flesh form, through Billy. Alexei, Billy and Hopper (apparently) die. The Byers leave Hawkins; Hopper is alive in Russia.
Frequently asked questions
How many episodes does Season 3 have?
Eight, released on July 4, 2019.
Who dies in season 3?
Billy, Alexei, Heather and her parents, the deputy mayor... and Hopper is presumed dead, before being found in Russia.
What does Hopper's letter say?
That he is afraid of seeing Eleven grow up, but that he accepts it; that you have to leave the door open three inches. It is the voice-over of the finale.
Who is "the American"?
Hopper, a prisoner of the Russians in Kamchatka, revealed in the scene after the credits.
Who directed the season 3 episodes?
The Duffers for chapters 1, 2, 7, and 8, Shawn Levy for 3 and 4, and Uta Briesewitz for 5 and 6.
What audience did Season 3 draw?
40,7 million households in four days and 64 million in four weeks, according to the numbers the platform announced at the time, a record for the show.