In season four, we constantly see parallels between Rockie and Byler with Robin and Will. BUUUUUT, in the sandwich scene, Robin ends up paralleling Mike instead of Will. This parallel is also the last completed one of season four between Rockie and Byler. In season 5, episode four, Robin gives her speech about Tammy Thompson. Half of the speech was Robin telling Will not to be scared of his feelings, being encouraging; the other half was about Tammy, Robin sees herself in Will and tries to help, making it seem like Mike is Will’s Tammy. It can be assumed that Robin thought Mike was Will’s Tammy, but NARRATIVELY I think those parts were actually referring to Mike. It’s the end of Will’s acceptance arc(kind of), but Will doesn’t use the Tammy Thompson advice, Will no longer represents Robin. Because of Will’s acceptance arc being resolved, there’s room to start looking at things from other characters’ perspective. In volume two, we will start seeing Mike’s point of view. So how Mike shifted into representing Robin towards the end of season four is happening again. Mike is the Robin, he thought he was in love with El, but she wasn’t the one, so El is the Tammy Thompson. Mike realizes who he IS in love with, he realizes that Will is the one, William Byers is Michael Wheeler’s Vickie. Also, Tammy and Robin could never be an accurate parallel to Mike and Will. There was a connection between Tammy and Robin because of the crush, the motive for friendship was a crush. The developing relationship between Mike and Will is because of the connection they already had. However, Tammy and Robin have some similarities with Mike and El, the rush of everything, not really knowing each other. Mike thinks he’s in love with El without really knowing her, whenever El doesn’t act like the version of her that he’s created in his head, Mike distances himself from her, similar to how Robin convinced herself that Tammy *was* the version if her she created in her head. Obviously, when it comes to backstories, Rockie is different than Byler, but it was still clear that Robin and Vickie had a pre-existing connection, not in the same way Byler had a pre-existing connection, but still there. So now, Mike is grappling with the fact he’s in love with his best friend, and he acts like Robin did, very awkward and flustered. Mike doesn’t know how to react to Will flirting with him, it wasn’t him being uncomfortable, it was him trying not to fuck things up. So now that Will fully accepts himself, and isn’t scared, Mike has to confront his feelings and accept himself.
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