I don't think El never loved Mike. In fact, I think she absolutely did.
The thing is, when El meets Mike in Season 1, she has spent her entire life being treated as an experiment, a weapon, a number, a thing. Then she meets a boy who sees her as a person. He gives her a place to stay. He protects her. He worries about her. He talks to her like she's human. For the first time in her life, someone genuinely cares about her.
Of course she's attached to him. Of course she trusts him. Of course she wants to be around him. The part I've always found interesting is that El doesn't really have a normal understanding of relationships at that point.
She wasn't raised around friendships. She wasn't raised around healthy families. She wasn't raised around dating. Most of what she knows about love comes from observing other people.
And when she looks around, what does she see?
Boys and girls who like each other kiss. Boys and girls who care about each other date. Boys and girls who love each other become couples.
So if she's feeling something huge and important toward Mike, why wouldn't she assume that's what it is?
If you've never experienced romantic attraction before, how are you supposed to know the difference between "I'm in love with this person" and "this person makes me feel safe"? How are you supposed to know the difference between romance and gratitude? Between attraction and trust? Between wanting someone and needing someone?
I think that's part of why I find Max so interesting in El's story.
Because Max is one of the first people who exists entirely outside of Mike. She's not part of Mike's world. She's not somebody El knows through him.
And through Max, El starts experiencing relationships that aren't built around survival. She starts building connections because she wants to, not because she has to.
Meanwhile, she sees Lucas and Max. She sees them argue. She sees them annoy each other. She sees them make up. She sees the weird, messy, sometimes ridiculous dynamic they have. And I can imagine her starting to wonder whether that's what romantic attraction is supposed to feel like.
Because what she feels for Mike isn't necessarily changing. She still trusts him. She still cares about him. She still wants him in her life. But maybe she's beginning to realise that what she feels isn't quite the same thing she's seeing in other couples.
Maybe the feeling itself never changed. Maybe her understanding of it did.
That's why I've always found the idea interesting. Not because I think El never loved Mike. But because I think it's possible that the first person who ever made her feel safe became the person she mistook for romantic love.
And yes, I do think Mileven is toxic, but I also don't think their relationship is about two people who don't care about each other. I think it's about two people who care about each other so much that neither of them really knows how to exist outside of that role.
Mike wants to protect people. El spent most of her life needing protection. Mike wants to feel needed. El spent most of her life being taught that her value came from what she could do for other people.
Those dynamics don't make either of them bad. But I do think they can become unhealthy.
At the same time, I think reducing their entire relationship to "toxic" misses a lot of what makes it interesting.
Because I don't look at Mileven and see two people who hate each other.
I see two people who love each other deeply and still might not be what the other person needs in the long run.
And honestly, that's a lot sadder.
