At the end of season three, Hopper (David Harbour) sacrifices himself to save Hawkins when Starcourt Mall explodes — or does he? Luckily for fans, the first episode of volume one confirms that Hopper is still alive when Joyce Byers receives a mysterious package from Russia. We eventually learn that Hopper was transported through the Upside Down and somehow landed in the hands of the Russian army, where he has been tortured, held captive, and subjected to forced labor at a Russian prison.
Joyce and Murray (Brett Gelman) spend the majority of volume one trying to locate Hopper, even traveling to Alaska and paying ransom money in hopes of breaking him out of prison. Toward the end of Hopper's captivity, during which he befriends his prison guard (played by "Game of Thrones" actor Tom Wlaschiha), it's revealed that the Russians have been keeping a Demogorgon hostage and feeding it unruly prisoners. When Joyce and Murray are reunited with Hopper in volume two, they discover that other Russian scientists at the prison have been preserving multiple Demogorgons, Demadogs, and even a piece of The Mind Flayer for experiments. While this is a great way to incorporate the Demogorgon back into the show, not much context on how the Russians got the monsters is revealed.
