If You Thought Stranger Things Gave Hopper & Joyce A Happy Ending, Think Again

The Stranger Things finale featured a lot of ambiguous endings, and even Joyce and Hopper’s seemingly sweet fate might not be as hopeful a coda as it first appeared. The search for Netflix’s Stranger Things replacement is officially afoot now that the original show is over.

Yes, admittedly, Stranger Things: Tales from ’85 will fill in the blanks between seasons 2 and 3 with an animated interquel story, but the original show’s story has reached its conclusion for better or worse. Plenty of fans were left angered by the show’s failure to explicitly confirm or deny Eleven’s death, and broader dissatisfaction with the finale was widespread.

Why Montauk Probably Isn’t The Quiet Life Hopper & Joyce Are Hoping For After Stranger Things

However, there were also plenty of defenders who enjoyed the show’s ending, and some fans who thought certain characters got a fitting fate while others were under-utilized. One element of the finale’s story that wasn’t overly criticized was Joyce and Hopper’s romantic reunion, as the duo got engaged a year and a half after their ordeal with the Upside-Down ended.

This seemed like a straightforward happy ending, but fans should recall just how dark the show’s first season is, and how grim the Stranger Things creator’s next Netflix project is, before celebrating too much. Hopper tells Joyce that he’s been offered a job as a sheriff in Montauk, which could mean a new life in a new town.

However, Hopper and Joyce moving to Montauk is a subtle nod to the original name that the Duffer Brothers used as a working title for Stranger Things when they first came up with the show’s story. “Montauk” was the show’s working title because of conspiracy theories about Camp Hero and Montauk Air Force Station, real-life locations where experiments were alleged to have taken place.

Since viewers know that Hawkins Lab was home to MKUltra-style experimentation by extra-governmental institutions, it goes without saying that Montauk was likely another site like Hawkins within the show’s universe. This means Hopper is bound to stumble across even stranger things in his new job, despite hoping for a quiet life with Joyce.

Could Montauk Be The Setting For A New Stranger Things Spinoff?

Thus, Joyce and Hopper’s seemingly happy ending isn’t as pleasant as it may have seemed. Instead, it’s another instance of the Stranger Things series finale leaving the door open for a follow-up spinoff, as unlikely as this may seem. Joyce and Hopper were among the original show’s main characters, which seemingly makes a spinoff centered on them unlikely.

For a spinoff show to work, it would need to incorporate elements of the original series but introduce new characters to the mix to avoid feeling like a straightforward continuation. However, considering the fact that the first Stranger Things spinoff includes all the same characters in the same setting during the same era, a Montauk-set follow-up with Joyce and Hopper isn’t impossible.