There's a sheriff in the fourth season of "Stranger Things." But he's not new or in town.
Friday's teaser trailer for the next chapter of Netflix's hit sci-fi series features appears to feature police Chief Jim Hopper, despite David Harbour's fan-favorite character's apparent death in the third season. But it appears we're not in Hawkins, Ind., anymore.
Set to an ominous score, the preview opens with a blizzard raging over a vast, frozen landscape, then cuts to what seems to be some sort of prison camp. Armed guards patrol the area as men in uniforms are hard at work constructing a railroad.
The teaser, captioned "From Russia with love," ultimately zeroes in on one prisoner: Hopper _ or at least someone who looks just like Hopper _ with a miserable expression and freshly shaved head. In Season 3, released last summer, Hopper was presumed dead after he sacrificed himself in order to defeat the show's deadliest monster yet.
Season 3 ended with an emotional sendoff to the perpetually cranky but beloved chief, whose recently adopted daughter _ telekinetic wunderkind Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) _ sobbed over the last letter from the father she never had.
Fans began to suspect, however, that Hopper might return after a post-credits scene showed Russian prison guards debating which inmate to execute. "No, not the American," they decide _ raising the question: Who is "the American"?
After much speculation, it looks as if the most popular fan theory has been confirmed: The American is Hopper, alive and probably in need of an elaborate rescue mission. Hey, stranger things have happened.
The fourth season of "Stranger Things," starring Brown, Winona Ryder, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Sadie Sink and, apparently, Harbour, launches on Netflix later this year.
