The title is clickbait.
Sorry about that.
There are honestly only three questions anyone really cares about.
- Who is the American?
- Is Hopper really dead?
- Will Elle get her powers back?
Question one, is the big one. Hopper wasn’t shown dying in the explosion but he wasn’t known for his powers of teleportation either. The most logical choice for the American isn’t Hopper it’s Mathew Modine’s character, Dr Brenner. We were explicitly told in season two that he is indeed alive. The Russians had to have found out about the Upsidedown as well as how to get into it from someone. Brenner is the logical choice.
Which is not to say that the Duffers wont undermine this by coming up with some handwavem that doesn’t make any sense. Remember how Billy’s car was wrecked and wouldn’t start at the end of one episode but worked just fine when he needed to make his escape at the beginning of the next? Don’t count on the Duffer’s sense of logical consistency.
Question two, is a lot more minor. David Harbour was looking like the breakout star of the series but Hellboy absolutely tanked at the box office. So if they want Hopper back he’ll probably be happy to come. If the character is alive at all he is most likely in the Upsidedown. It was his only escape route.
Question three, the answer is probably not. Or at least not all of them. Her godlike telekinesis was a drag on plotting and the Duffers knew it. However, her telepathic powers are a lot less plot derailing. And could serve as the initial event that starts the next series.
The rest of the questions that are burning up Reddit is mostly side show stuff like, will we meet Elle’s sister again? Will we meet anymore of her siblings? Where has the Byer family moved to? In short, typical fanboi garbage.
But one question that nobody was asking is, why the fuck did Jonathon move away from Hawkins with the rest of his family?
Clearly he’s done with high school. Nancy is still in Hawkins, so he’s got a big reason to stay. Why was he moving with the rest of his family? If he had said something like, “I have to protect them.,” then fine. Given their lives that’s decent and realistic motivation but he didn’t say anything like that. This legal adult’s family was moving out of town and away from the love of his life and he was moving with them for no good reason.
In 1985, if you were eighteen, and your family was moving, you moved…out. The attitude was, you are now an adult, life is short, get out there. “When you are eighteen, it’s out the door.” I could have missed it easily enough and correct me in the comments if I’m wrong, but I didn’t catch any reference to either of them going off to college. Thirty four years ago if you had girl you were in love with and neither of you were college bound: You. Got. Married.*
This was one of those times that the Duffers betray their Millennial instincts. It simply didn’t occur to them that getting married and starting a life at eighteen was a possibility.
So far as Millennials are concerned, life starts at twenty-six, everyone knows that!
Okay I’m done here.
Okay, I’m done here.
*Or moved in together but Nancy is a small town princess. Social pressures would have strongly favored matrimony.
The Dark Herald 
No, you are correct in that there was no reason for Jonathon to move with his family. He would have stayed and married Nancy. The only way he would have left is if Nancy turned him down. My father let me know that once I was out of HS, if I wasn’t in college, I would be moving out.
1. Duffer’s haven’t decided yet and are leaving their options open. Hopper would be my bet in the end. I figure the gate opening machine, when it exploded, sends people to someplace that isn’t even the upside down.
2. If there is a fourth season, yes. But bringing him back hurts the conclusion of season 3.
3. They’ll be extremely limited.
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Additionally, what idiots care about the most horrible subplot of the entire series, the siblings? That subplot I always thought was the one forced on the Duffer’s. They were told to add more POCs and that is how they did it. Then they made it so you could remove the entire subplot and hardly miss anything.
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