Hopper is all hopped up.
David Harbour, who stars as Jim Hopper in “Stranger Things,” shared his thoughts on the series’ finale recently.
At the Happy Sad Confused podcast’s 10th-anniversary celebration on Thursday, Harbour, 49, said, “Look, I’m very close to the show, so I have very strong opinions. And they may not match yours if you’re a fan of the show. I’m an actor on the show. So I see the nuts and bolts.”
The Emmy-nominated star admitted that “sometimes [he’ll] get very mad” at what he thinks is “a bad episode” or a season he “didn’t like.”
“I can be very critical of this show,” he confessed.
But, he revealed that for the series finale, “They land the plane, and it is the best episode they’ve ever done.”
“Stranger Things” will end with Season 5. The hit show is set in the ‘80s and follows the residents of Hawkins, Indiana, as they navigate strange and supernatural events such as the sinister “Upside Down” dimension.
Aside from Hopper, the show follows his sometimes love interest Joyce (Winona Ryder), Hopper’s adopted daughter Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and her friends, including Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Joyce’s son Will (Noah Schnapp), Steve (Joe Keery), Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and more.
Details about the Season 5 plot line are under wraps, but in Season 4, Hopper returned from being presumed dead, and the gang got a formidable villain to battle: Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), who will still be in Season 5. Max (Sadie Sink) also ended up in mortal peril but is still alive.
“The end of this episode when we were reading it — just us reading it — about halfway through, people started crying,” Harbour shared. “Then about the last 20 minutes, it was just uncontrollably crying, waves of different people. Noah Schnapp being my favorite,” Harbour joked, imitating Schnapp crying.
Harbour, who married British singer Lily Allen in 2020, shared, “I think part of that also is the fact that these kids, it was their childhood.” Brown and Schnapp are now 20, Wolfhard is 21, Gaten Matarazzo is 22 and Caleb McLaughlin is 23.
“Like, they started the show when they were 11 and 12, and here we are reading [the finale],” said Harbour.
“It’s 10 years later, and we examine that idea, and it’s so well done and so beautiful,” he said.
The “Black Widow” star teased, “It’s such a great episode, and it’s such a great season. You guys will love it.”
The final season of “Stranger Things” will air on Netflix on an unannounced date.