Since nothing really makes sense anymore, I don’t want to focus too much on any of this. However, I will say that the interaction with Mike on that tower is exceptionally cruel.
Will has just reclaimed his agency in the coming-out scene, and it is immediately softened by his brushing off Mike’s comment about feeling like an idiot. To preserve Mike’s comfort, Will again takes the blow and reframes his pain as confusion and something that was inevitable. At the same time, Mike remains self-absorbed. Instead of taking accountability for hurting Will, he talks about how he didn’t notice and how he feels like an idiot, which prompts Will to sugarcoat his suffering to make Mike feel better about himself.
The avalanche metaphor is there to illustrate the lack of an actual avalanche.
Yes, I mentioned before that we, as the audience, stopped seeing the signals because Will stopped looking for them. But I hoped he would be proven wrong -- after all, Mike’s inconsistencies had to mean something. It turns out we needed to see that Mike really does not reciprocate, which reframes the entire series for me. It reads to me as if the writers are confirming all those claims online that Will and his fans are delusional.
Robin explicitly tells us what to look for, and those who paid attention before know that the snowballs were there. We did not invent shared looks, interrupted intimate moments, vulnerable admissions, teary eyes, lip glances, and so on. They were there, but then there was nothing. Even if it was meant to show that Will accepted Mike as his “Tammy” and stopped looking for inconsistent signals, to the audience, it reads as if Will and his fans imagined everything. They were projecting their desires onto the story. What a way to uplift outcasts!
Also, Mike saying “Friends? No, thanks. Best friends” is diabolical.
After all the hot-and-cold interactions, Mike’s ignorance, and Will being shown to be miserable over the course of multiple seasons due to Mlvn bullshit, Will continues to soften the blow for Mike’s comfort. Mike gets to enjoy the emotional intimacy without any self-reflection or accountability. He has all the pieces of the puzzle to realize he’s Will’s “crush,” yet we don’t even get a “gentle rejection.” Instead, we see him basically say, “I will continue enjoying our emotional intimacy and pretend it is purely platonic. You should be grateful that we are not just friends, but best friends.”
The problem isn’t that Will doesn’t get the romance; it’s the way Will’s pain is used to teach Mike how to love El better. All his suffering is portrayed by the creators as something “beautiful,” but it also reads as delusional. Despite the ambiguity and awfulness of Mlvn, Will really never stood a chance -- he really “was stupid.” In the climax, the mediocre heterosexual romance takes center stage, featuring a montage of their controversial moments set to one of the most beautiful pop songs ever written, while Will, who kept this relationship alive, steps aside.
As a result, homophobic viewers and Mlvn supporters are not forced to confront uncomfortable truths, but rather are rewarded. Mike and El’s romance is portrayed as tragic but real! Will is secondary and learns his place, while Mike and Will’s romance supporters are labeled as delusional or reading too much into things.
Years of coded intimacy invested the queer audience in this ship. The writers, knowing this, allowed hope to linger until the very end.
By focusing Will’s arc on Mike, they failed miserably to let queer audiences invest in Will’s story without being misled about Mike’s orientation.
This is a significant misstep for the creators who claim that “the story is about Will.”
