David Harbour Says Hopper’s Hit by “Brutal Things” in Stranger Things Season 4

There are even stranger things — and more brutal things — headed Hopper’s way in Stranger Things Season 4. Having secretly survived his apparent death by disintegration in Season 3 of the Netflix series, Jim Hopper (David Harbour) of Hawkins, Indiana, is now The American imprisoned in the snowy wasteland of Kamchatka, Russia. Six months after the Battle of Starcourt, Hopper will work through past traumas as he attempts to survive his harsh new reality, while Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) and journalist-turned-conspiracy theorist Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman) go on an Indiana Jones-style adventure to spring Hopper from the Russian prison. 

“Hopper has the Indiana Jones quality to a lot of what he does, but he is at his lowest point in Russia,” Harbour told IGN. “It is sort of the Dark Night of the Soul where he needs to go through this really dark passage to get out to the other side. So yeah, it’s some of the most brutal things he’s ever been through, physically, and also mentally.”

Creators the Duffer Brothers teased Hopper isn’t just trying to break free from prison, but from the guilt of his (mostly) mysterious past. Hopper’s journey in the two-part Stranger Things 4 is as emotional as it is physical, redemptive — and revelatory. A “huge” Hopper reveal coming to light in Season 4 is one Harbour has kept secret for more than five years. 

“There’s some fun stuff that we’re doing this season, but it’s also the heaviest dramatic stuff I’ve ever had to do,” Harbour said in a previous interview with Entertainment Tonight. “We get to see a lot of Hopper at his most vulnerable, we’re gonna reveal a lot of backstory points that we’ve only hinted at in boxes in his attic. We’re gonna see a lot of these different threads, and also, we get to see a rebirth of him.”

Season 3 hinted at more Hopper backstory hidden in mysterious boxes labeled “Dad,” “New York,” and “Vietnam.” According to Harbour, Hopper will emerge from the Russian gulag “as a different human being” in Season 4. 

Harbour told ET, “In that way, he has this vulnerability to him, and also this brutality that he needs to survive Russia. We get to see this whole other side of him and it’s some of my favorite stuff.”

Starring Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, and Maya Hawke, Stranger Things 4 Volume 1 premieres May 27 and Volume 2 premieres July 1 on Netflix.