Hopper in Stranger Things season 3: the Hawaiian shirt, the missed dinner and July 4
Hopper · Summer 1985 · Season 3
In this article: the June 30 invitation, the shirt, the solo dinner, the next day's argument, the empty lab, the job offer, the road, then the Friday date set inside the base. By the end, you will know what happens to that date.
On June 30, 1985, Hopper asks Joyce to dinner, swears it is not a date and waits for her alone, in a brand-new Hawaiian shirt. Four days later, under the mall, she is the one who sets the next one.
The essentials
- Timeframe: From Friday, June 28, to Thursday, July 4, 1985, then October
- The invitation: June 30, dinner at Enzo's at 7 p.m., and “This is not a date”
- The shirt: Pink and mint green, delivered by Flo for the dinner
- The dinner: Joyce never shows; she is at Scott Clarke's
- The argument: July 1, then the empty lab and the attack
- The job offer: July 2, a job with Hopper at the station; Joyce says no
- The base: July 4, Joyce suggests Enzo's; it is set for Friday at 7 p.m.
Contents
- June 28 to 30: “order has been restored”, then Town Hall
- The evening of June 30: a new shirt, a table for two
- July 1: the argument, then the empty lab
- July 2: the plate, the mayor's safe and a job offer
- July 3 and 4: the road, Todd's car and the fair
- Under the mall: the Friday date
- The Friday that never came
June 28 to 30: “order has been restored”, then Town Hall
Hopper's summer begins with a door. On June 28, he catches Eleven and Mike kissing and demands that the door stay open three inches. The next day, he asks Joyce to dinner. She has plans. That evening, the speech he worked out with her falls apart, as the season's first chapter recounts.
On the morning of June 30, he hears Eleven call the Wheelers: Mike will not be coming. According to the wiki, he is gleeful. He drives off singing You Don't Mess Around with Jim, by Jim Croce. At Melvald's, he announces to Joyce: “Order… has been… restored.” He admits he had to improvise a little. Then he suggests Enzo's, that same evening, at 7 p.m., and makes one thing clear: “This is not a date.” She warns him she can't be out late. He promises to have her home by 9 p.m., she says 8, he settles on 8:30 and offers to pick her up. She says she will meet him there.
Powell radios him to come to Town Hall, where protesters are chanting “Kline's a swine!” While he waits, a hulking man in biker gear walks out of the mayor's office. Then Kline talks to Hopper about his Independence Day celebration, “in four days”.
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June 28 The door
Magnum, P.I. on TV, the door open three inches.
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June 29 The refusal
A dinner invitation, and she has other plans.
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June 30 The dinner
“This is not a date”, a new shirt, two glasses.
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July 1 The lab
The argument, the house for sale, a man in the dark.
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July 2 The offer
A half-read plate, a safe, a job turned down.
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July 3 The road
The Hess farm, an exploding engine, Todd's car.
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July 4 The base
Friday at 7 p.m., “it's a date”. Then the keys.
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October The departure
A speech found, a moving truck.
Beige wall hanging, suspended by its two corners. Hopper, mustache, pink and green patterned shirt, light jeans, a watch on his wrist. Behind him, a striped yellow sun; in front, “Hop” in yellow and pink letters. The June 30 shirt.
In the shopHopper Hawaiian Shirt Tapestry30,90 €See the product
The evening of June 30: a new shirt, a table for two
While Hopper is arresting a protester, Flo shows up: “Special delivery!” According to BAMF Style, a site devoted to menswear in movies and TV shows, she is holding a J.C. Penney bag. Inside is the pink and mint-green shirt he had requested for the dinner, according to the wiki. Powell, according to BAMF Style, deadpans that it is a lot of color for him. Hopper: “It's cutting-edge!” Costume designer Amy Parris told Fashionista that her starting point was “a great image of Tom Selleck in the iconic moment of Magnum in the Hawaiian shirt”. As it happens, on June 28, Hopper had been watching the pilot of Magnum, P.I. on his TV. The guide to 80s looks revisits this shirt and how to wear it.
At Enzo's, he orders a double Scotch, then a bottle of Chianti, “with just a hint of cherry” according to the waiter, and two glasses, one for the lady. Later, slurring, he calls the waiter Enzo. “My name is not Enzo.” He wants to take the alcohol to go, which is not allowed, and fires back: “I'm the chief of police.”
That evening, Joyce is at the home of Will's science teacher, with her questions about the magnets that keep falling off, at home and at the store. The English-language Wikipedia summary of the episode says she stands Hopper up by accident. Hopper comes home drunk and finds Max there instead of Mike, as Eleven's summer of 1985 recounts.
July 1: the argument, then the empty lab
The next morning, Joyce knocks on the cabin door. Hopper greets her with: “I haven't been stood up like that since Alice Gilbert in the 9th grade.” She shows him a magnet that fell during the night and mentions Scott Clarke. He sums it up: stood up, no call, no apology. As she sees it, the cause lies at the lab. He makes a sarcastic remark, then accuses her: when he asked her out, she got scared, and now she is making things up to push him away. “God forbid any of us move on!” She leaves on her own. He follows her.
At the deserted lab, the site of the gate to the Upside Down is sealed: he says he watched the cavities being filled. He tells her that the other day he nearly shot Betsy Payne's dog, mistaking it for a creature. Then he lets slip what he knows: a man named Gary is fixing up the Byers house to sell it. He talks about Sara, his daughter. After her death, he ran from the memories, before ending up back in “this shithole”.
A metallic clang. He moves in, gun drawn: “This is Hawkins Chief of Police!” The man who knocks him out is Grigori, the Soviet hitman. Joyce screams “Hopper!”, then an engine starts.
July 2: the plate, the mayor's safe and a job offer
Hopper wakes up at the cabin, patched up by Joyce and out of his clothes, which the rain had soaked. She got part of the plate number: an H or a P, a Y, a B that could be an 8. He advises her to stick to her job at the store. She then points out that the vehicle was not a car. He thinks of the biker who walked out of the mayor's office two days earlier.
At Town Hall, Hopper puts pressure on Kline, who threatens him back: the pills, the drinking on duty. The mayor adds that he does not care about Sara's death, and Hopper breaks his nose. The whole scene is recounted in the profile of Mayor Kline.
At his house, Kline takes the land deeds out of a safe, where he keeps them “for protection”. Joyce reads them: the Hess farm, the Bullocks, right near Jordan Lake, and therefore near the power plant. Hopper then suggests she quit the store and come work for him, at the station. She says no: she would have to put up with his face every day. Kline ends up handcuffed to his bed.
Bedding set. Eleven in the foreground, arms spread, blue pinstriped pants. Behind her, a fair at night, a Ferris wheel, a “Big Top” tent and fireworks. A summer 1985 setting.
In the shopBedding Set Season 3 Fireworks and Fair69,90 €See the product
July 3 and 4: the road, Todd's car and the fair
On July 3, at the Hess farm, Hopper and Joyce find Alexei, a Russian scientist, and Grigori catches up with them there: the episode 5 recap recounts the scene. Hopper's Blazer, riddled with bullets, ends up exploding on the road. The police chief thinks Alexei is a bit of a “Russian Scott Clarke” and suggests Joyce go on a date with the scientist, at Enzo's. Then he commandeers Todd's convertible and introduces Joyce as “Detective Byers”.
On July 4, at Murray's, Alexei finally talks about the machine, as the episode 6 recap details. On the phone, trying to reach Owens, Hopper introduces himself as “police chief, Hawkins”.
At the fair, a ride operator calls him “Magnum”. Grigori has just shot Alexei. When his men close in, Hopper gives Joyce his keys: find Murray, bring the car around back. The chase is covered in the episode 7 recap. That night, Steve takes the wheel of the convertible. It stalls on a hill.
Under the mall: the Friday date
Before going down, Hopper asks Eleven to stay safe, then holds Mike back: “Be careful.” In the elevator, Murray speaks Russian to the guards, and Hopper opens fire. When Joyce asks what he is doing, he says he is improvising, his word from June 30. According to BAMF Style, he disguises himself as a Soviet soldier, along with Joyce and Murray.
Murray heads into the air ducts. Hopper worries about Eleven; Joyce does an impression of him. As The Russian Nightingales by the Red Army Choir plays, they agree they make a good team. The nickname “Detective Byers” comes up again. Hopper reminds her she is moving away; she says they will see. Then she suggests Enzo's, Friday, at 8 p.m. Eleven watches Miami Vice on Fridays at 10 p.m., he objects. She moves it up to 7. He offers to meet her there. No: he will pick her up. “Yeah, it's a date.” He wants to clarify; she cuts him off: he should stop talking before she changes her mind.
On June 30, he set the time and swore it was not a date. On July 4, she sets the time and says the word. July 4, 1985, falls on a Thursday: that Friday is the very next day. The keys that shut down the machine are in a safe inside the base. Suzie only gives Dustin the code after their duet, as the article on The NeverEnding Story recounts. Hopper throws Grigori into the machine, and Joyce turns the keys with her eyes shut. The season 3 ending explained breaks down those seconds.
The Friday that never came
Warning: the end of this part reveals what season 4 tells us about Hopper's fate.
When Joyce opens her eyes again, Hopper is gone. In October, a TV promo announces “Horror in the Heartland”, a report on the show Cutting Edge, the very word Hopper had used to defend his shirt. Joyce hands Eleven the speech he had written for her and Mike but never delivered. After the credits, in Kamchatka, a guard says: “Not the American.”
The second chapter of season 4 goes back to July 4, 1985: Hopper jumps down to a lower platform, then he is captured. The recap of season 4, episode 2 recounts the scene. In the same episode, in March 1986, Joyce shows Murray a message signed “Enzo”. Only she and Hop, she says, knew about their date at Enzo's. Who wrote it? The answer is on the Enzo and Dmitri page.
Black bedding set. Under the “Starcourt” neon sign, Eleven holds out her hand in the middle of the group. Below, Hopper in a patterned shirt and a dark-haired woman in an orange top, in front of a Ferris wheel. In the center, a creature made of flesh. Beneath Starcourt hides the Russian base.
In the shopBedding Set Season 3 Starcourt Neon69,90 €See the product
Frequently asked questions
What does Hopper do in season 3?
He waits for Joyce at the restaurant on June 30, gets knocked out at the lab on July 1, then follows the mayor's trail all the way to the Russian base, on July 4.
Why doesn't Joyce show up for dinner at Enzo's?
She is at the home of Scott Clarke, Will's science teacher, trying to figure out why the magnets won't stick anymore. She does not call Hopper, who holds it against her the next day.
Where does Hopper's Hawaiian shirt come from?
Flo delivers it to him on June 30, for the dinner. Costume designer Amy Parris took her cue from an image of Tom Selleck in Magnum, P.I.
Who attacks Hopper at the lab?
A man who rode off on a motorcycle, according to Joyce. Hopper connects him to the biker who came out of the mayor's office. It is Grigori, a Soviet hitman.
Who suggests the second dinner at Enzo's?
Joyce, inside the base, on July 4. She sets it for 7 p.m., insists that he pick her up and says: “Yeah, it's a date.”
Does the Friday date happen?
No. Hopper disappears under the mall on the night of July 4, the day before their date, and Joyce leaves Hawkins in October.
