SPOILERS AHEAD! The ending of Stranger Things 3 was definitely memorable—Hopper’s death scene, Billy sacrificing himself, and El breaking down while reading Hopper’s letter. But the post-credits scene did give us a little hope that maybe Hopper didn’t die. Is he “the American?” One Stranger Things fan doesn’t think so. A Reddit user thinks that the American could actually be Billy. We all saw Billy sacrifice himself to the Mind Flayer, but did he really? Reddit user Xanshue thinks that it wasn’t Billy who died. It was actually his clone.
In his post, the fan said that it could have been Billy who narrowly escaped being fed to a Demodog. He credits the theory to the scene where Billy goes into the Upside Down and sees a clone of himself.
The real Billy could have escaped by creating a new gate, which would explain why that Demodog is still alive at the Russian lab, despite Joyce closing the gate.
User xanshue also said that the American can’t possibly be Dr. Brenner because Joyce would have mentioned him getting kidnapped at some point. Theories that Dr. Brenner is the American have also been floating around since it was revealed that Dr. Brenner was still alive in season 2.
If the fan’s theory that Billy is the American, then it’d be a crazy turn of events and it would mean that Hopper actually did die, making that final scene at the end of Stranger Things 3 even more emotional than it originally was. But it’d also be a gift to all Dacre Montgomery fans. There are so many questions we need answered in season 4, so it’s be nice if the show’s producers would finally confirm it’s actually happening.