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Hawkins, Indiana nearly saw its population go down. “Stranger Things” creators Matt and Ross Duffer revealed that they nearly killed off two main characters in past seasons of the hit Netflix series, which is about to end after nearly a decade. “There was a version where [David Harbour’s Jim Hopper] perished at the end of [Season] 3. It’s been a while since we had those discussions, but I feel like he came the closest to dying,” Matt told Entertainment Weekly ahead of the fifth and final season (premiering Nov. 26). At the end of Season 3, the other characters thought Hopper died, as he was caught in the explosion when the secret Russian lab in the mall collapsed. But in the mid-credits scene, the show hinted about Hopper being alive. Several months later, a Netflix clip officially confirmed that he was imprisoned in a camp in Kamchatka, Russia. In Season 4, Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Murray (Brett Gelman) rescued Hopper, and he had an emotional reunion with his adopted daughter, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). Reports recently surfaced that Brown, 21, accused Harbour, 51, of harassment and bullying on the set. The actors went on to show a united front at the Season 5 world premiere in Los Angeles last week. The actors posed together, smiling and laughing, seemingly as a way to shut down the rumors about their alleged feud. “I’ve obviously had a really special bond with David because we have a father and daughter relationship, and we do every scene together,” Brown told Entertainment Tonight. Matt also told The Hollywood Reporter, “Obviously, you understand I can’t get into personal on-set matters, but I will say we’ve been doing this for 10 years with this cast, and at this point they’re family and we deeply care about them. Nothing matters more than just having a set where everyone feels safe and happy.” Ross told EW that it “would’ve been very easy” to kill Hopper, but he “still had growing to do.” “We hadn’t finished his story. It’s important to us to be able to finish the stories we want to finish and not just be offing people for shock value,” he explained. Fan favorite character Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), meanwhile, nearly got killed off in Season 1. “That was close,” he said. “We just fell in love with Joe Keery, but had we not liked Joe Keery, Steve would’ve been gone.” Steve started the show as a popular jerk dating Nancy (Natalia Dyer), but he quickly evolved into a nicer, more compassionate guy — and semi-babysitter to the young kids. “Stranger Things” often kills off its side characters, such as Nancy’s friend Barb (Shannon Purser), Joyce’s boyfriend, Bob (Sean Astin), the bully Billy (Dacre Montgomery) or the group’s Season 4 friend, Eddie (Joseph Quinn). “What often holds us back is you have to talk about the repercussions,” Matt said. “This is a total hypothetical: You kill Mike. It just makes the show rather depressing and bleak, and it becomes entirely about that. Even these more supporting characters like Eddie or Bob or Barb, of course, have really long-lasting repercussions on our characters.” He added, “We try to be careful, if there is a death, that it has real repercussions. So we just wanna be careful about when and how frequently we do it.” “Stranger Things” Season 5 will have 8 episodes, dropping on Netflix in three volumes, releasing on Nov. 26, Dec. 25, and Dec. 31.
