As Jonathan Wright of We Got This Covered mentions, it’s likely that this slightly crazy but still for fun theory of Black Widow and Stranger Things being connected will keep you up a little later than usual tonight. It has nothing to do with anything scary, just something that might stick in your mind and sit there, trying to rearrange facts and data and timelines until something fits and makes perfect sense. Of course then something will come along and remind you that it doesn’t and you’ll be all nice and frustrated as you try to remind yourself that the theory isn’t supposed to make sense, that it’s just a fun idea to kick around but would require a lot of effort to actually make happen. That theory is that Hopper, everyone’s favorite sheriff from Hawkins, could one day become the famed Red Guardian that’s going to be showing up in the Black Widow movie that’s coming quickly. Of course the timeline is off, the whole thing is all wrong, but some people love to drop these theories just because they have nothing better to do in that moment and because there’s enough of a tenuous link that it could be something that people will obsess over for some time to come. So if you’re looking for someone to blame for why you can’t sleep tonight, thank whoever came up with the theory. Really though it’s just a good bit of fun since seeing Hopper in the teaser trailer was something that definitely warranted the emergence of a theory such as this.
The idea is pretty sound but the timeline doesn’t support it since Hopper being in Russia is an obvious lead-in, but the brainwashing that would have to go down in order to convince him that he belongs there, and to become the Red Guardian would be massive. It’d be nice to say that it was obvious that we hadn’t seen the last of Hopper, but a lot of people were already lamenting his death in season 3 since the reality of it is that it wouldn’t appear that anyone could survive the blast that supposedly took his life. But how he survived and how the Russians managed to capture him is still something that the more inquisitive minds are likely to start jawing about since the whole ‘he’s there then he’s gone’ explanation isn’t nearly enough for the technical-minded among us that want a few answers here and there to round things out. The answers are likely coming since the Duffer brothers don’t leave everything to hang where people have to grasp at it, but when it comes to Hopper they might, in the words of the late Desi Arnaz might say, “got some ‘splainin’ to do”.
There is also another thing that’s been on my mind lately. What if Hopper wasn’t ‘the American’ that the guards were talking about at the end of season 3? It’s highly unlikely but it’s also just a thought that maybe there’s another individual that the Russians managed to nab, someone that might be kind of a surprise to the fans since the reveal of Hopper kind of ruins the whole idea of just saying ‘the American’. Once he’s shown we know, or think we do, that he’s been outed, and the whole effect is kind of undone. So what if there’s another individual there that the Russians are thinking of using in some way when it comes to the gate? Right now there are a lot of things up in the air when it comes to the show since everything is in disarray at the moment, especially the fate of Hopper. But one thing is clear, he’s not going to become the Red Guardian, that was just a big ‘haha’ from someone that felt the need to draw a line between the two, crooked and jagged as it is since things just don’t work out the way they should.
Black Widow is shaping up to be a monumental movie for the MCU and the hope is that it will become one of their better titles that will push the narrative of a female lead that people have been wanting more of ever since Captain Marvel came out. Unlike Carol Danvers however, Natasha Romanoff has a truly troubling past that won’t be made better by the use of some cosmic-induced powers that will let her blast her way through everything. This movie will be on the ground, hand to hand, and it’s going to get dirty in a way that might make Captain Marvel look kind of simple by comparison since the truth is that without powers that can allow one to fly, absorb energy, and blast through anything in their path, the fight to come is going to get downright nasty, and fans can’t wait.
