David Harbour Ships Joyce Byers And Jim Hopper On ‘Stranger Things’

For those of us already feeling the emptiness that comes with finishing Stranger Things 2, Netflix has given us a little morsel to ease the pain. Beyond Stranger Things, an after show hosted by Jim Rash, features roundtable interviews with the cast and crew, including creators the Duffer Brothers. And while David Harbour couldn’t be there in person, he provided a video interview to answer one very pertinent question: Does Hopper think that Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) and Bob Newby (Sean Astin) are a good match? Warning: big spoilers for Stranger Things 2 to follow:

“I would say absolutely not. I mean look I get the impulse that she’s following…she was clearly in a very destructive relationship with Lonnie and she’s clearly very protective of Will and so she’s sort of chosen this guy that’s gonna be very nice to her and very nice to Will and sort of be a good, dorky father figure.”

Does this mean Harbour is a proper shipper? Yes indeed he is.

“The fans they call it like ‘Jopper’ or something, they all ship this relationship with Hopper and Joyce and I do too, because I feel like they’re two really lonely, lost people that really need each other. I sort of have always seen their relationship kind of like Chinatown with Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson. So you know we talked even about at the end of this season I was like ‘Can they get together in some way?’ and we were like ‘What’s gonna happen? Bob’s dead and she’s upset he ushers her into the bedroom?’ I mean he can’t be that much of a jerk.”

Ultimately he provides one big (hopefully, that is, for Joyce’s sake) reason for the pairing.

“The short answer of it is I do feel like the sex would be a lot better with Hopper than it is with Bob.”

At that last bit, director Shawn Levy exclaimed, “How inappropriate! Not appropriate!” Because this is a show about children, David, jeez.

Harbour clearly adores his co-star.

https://twitter.com/stellgibsons/status/924720779899691008

And he’s already making his intentions known regarding future rug cutting.

So will Joyce and Hopper eventually get together, thus making Jopper a canon ship? We — and David Harbour — would be fine with that.