Stranger Things 3: Dr Brenner Is The Prisoner In The Post Credits Scene?

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After a huge two weeks of Stranger Things reveals I thought I’d take a look one of the alternate theories about the shows Ending as well as the evidence to support this.

Whilst the majority of people, including myself believe that the post-credits scene of Stranger Things 3 reveals the fate of one of the key characters, there’s actually another big possibility and throughout this article, I’ll be breaking down all of the evidence that shows that maybe not everything is as simple as it seems.

Now from here on out we’re turning the spoilers up to 11 so if you haven’t seen the final episode of Stranger Things 3 and don’t want to know what happens then I highly suggest that you turn off now.

If you’re still here, thank you so much for clicking the video, now lets get into my alternate ending theory for Stranger Things 3.

Stranger Things 3: Post Credits Scene Explained

Ok so just a quick wrap up of what most people, including myself, think happened at the end of Stranger Things. In the final action scene of the finale, we saw Jim Hopper trapped on the walkway that housed the Russian weapon that was being used to open a tear into the upside-down.

Jim, left with no real option of escape, fled into the doorway and then from here he was picked up in Russia through the other tear that the Russians were seen to have been experimenting on in the opening of the first episode. He’s held prisoner and is locked away in a cell whilst the other captives around him are fed to the Demogorgon. It all makes sense and seems pretty straight forward, however, there’s an alternate theory that the American in the cell could in fact be none other than Dr Brenner aka Eleven’s Father.

But what evidence is there to support this. I mean Brenner died, didn’t he?

Dr. Brenner Is Still Alive

Well, not really. Whilst he was attacked by the Demogorgon at Hawkins Middle School at the end of Season One, similar to Hopper, his body was never found and he was never killed on camera.

You know the rule of TV, comics and all the Halloween Movies right? If there’s no body they’re not dead.

In Season 2, 008 brings up a projection of Brenner to inspire Eleven and there’s also some lip service paid to the fact that Brenner is still alive and out there.

In addition to this, there are several interviews with the Duffer Brothers in which they have confirmed that Dr Brenner is still alive and they even stated that he would be making an appearance in Season 3 though this never materialised.

Or did it? Well if he is the prisoner in the cell then that means that he still made an appearance in some way in season 3 without actually being on screen.

Dr. Brenner Is the Prisoner

Whilst I would love for the prisoner to be Hopper it doesn’t really make much sense that the Russians would actually keep him alive. Hopper can’t really offer much to their experiments and if he were to escape he could blow the whole thing open. Brenner, on the other hand, is a master scientist and the Russians would want to keep him alive purely for the fact that he could help improve their technology and provide them with more ways to access the upside down and build psychics.

There’s even potential that Brenner has been held captive by the Russians for a long time and he is the real genius behind their experiments.

Eleven has also apparently lost her powers at this point and we saw in season two that even just a projection of Brenner was able to get her fired up once more and on a ramp page. In Season 4, Brenner could once again be used as a way to make Eleven regain her strength and become even more powerful.

Whilst I do think that Jim Hopper is alive, there’s always been one point in my theory that I’ve never been able to explain and that is how did he get from America to Russia in the upside-down? It’s far too distant to travel and I really can’t see him making the journey.

Though I do think that Hopper did flee to the upside-down in the finale of Season 3 it doesn’t mean that the Brenner theory is untrue either.

What if in the finale we saw Hopper hop into the upside-down and then from there we cut to Russia to see Brenner in the cell. It grants both characters a way to come back and I think it still works with both. The more I think about it the more it makes sense and I can definitely see this being the case when we get to Season 4.