With the fifth season of the highly acclaimed Netflix sci-fi series, Stranger Things, vastly approaching, we got surprising commentary from none another than Jim Hoppper, played by David Harbour (Thunderbolts, Violent Night). According to Deadline, Harbour spoke in an interview with GQ UK on his belief that his sheriff was set to die in season one.

According to Deadline, Harbour assumed his tragic character would have succumbed by suicide in the premiere season. He thought his character’s grief and guilt over his daughter’s death, which he blamed on his exposure to Agent Orange in the Vietnam War, was too much for the father to bear.

He even thought he was gone in the season three finale.

“I think they were just committed to the beauty of that moment of his death. It was so moving that I think they almost didn’t want him to be alive,” Harbour said of his character’s dramatic survival revealed in the fourth season. His transformation from a broken man/sheriff haunted by loss to a fiercely protective father figure, especially to Eleven, played by Millie Bobbie Brown (Electric State, Damsel), has been a major cornerstone of the show’s emotional core. He had survived numerous challenges, from the Demogorgon, all the way to escaping from a highly fortified Russian prison.

We will surely see more action in this upcoming season as Hopper and the other Stranger Things members will be facing new threats, as the Upside Down starts merging into Hakwins. According to mxdwn, this season will see a time jump from the events of the previous season as the team makes plans to take down Vecna, played by Jamie Campbell Bower (Urban Myths, Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald), and his forces from the Upside Down.

The series creators, Matt (Hidden, Wayward Pines) and Ross Duffer (Road to Moloch, Eater), gave a teaser within an interview with Deadline,”We spent a full year filming this season. By the end, we’d captured over 650 hours of footage,” Ross Duffer revealed. “So, needless to say, this is our biggest and most ambitious season yet. It’s like eight blockbuster movies.