What do you think about the fact that even in the finale after will supposedly got over mike, he's still the only one who can pull will out of his visions effortlessly
honestly, this is one of those places where the “i have a film degree” part of my brain is just pointing at the screen like: you hear what they say, but look at what they do. if will were genuinely “over” mike, the show would prove that not with a line of dialogue, but by reassigning Mike’s narrative job to someone else. that’s how visual storytelling externalises internal change: you shift who gets the key emotional beats. but even in the finale, after all the “they’re just my tammy” lip service, mike is still the only one who can pull will out of his visions instantly, cleanly, and without any narrative struggle. that’s not a neutral choice. that’s the writers preserving mike as will’s exclusive point of access.
from a film/cinematography standpoint, the character who can reach you in your most disoriented, liminal state is not just “a friend,” they’re the emotional anchor. that’s screenwriting 101: the person who can cut through noise, fear, and altered consciousness to bring you back is the person the story has coded as your tether. if they wanted to genuinely close the romantic door, that scene was the perfect opportunity to redistribute that function, to jonathan, to el, to the group as a collective safety net. imagine how different the subtext would read if jonathan was the one who could reach him first, or if el’s voice was the one that cut through. that’s how you visually communicate that will’s centre of gravity has shifted. but they don’t do that. they keep mike in that role, and they make it look effortless.
and then there’s the blocking and coverage, which are doing half the subtextual screaming. when will spirals, the camera orients us around mike’s presence and reaction; when will is lost in the vision, the cut doesn’t just go to “the party,” it goes to mike as the focal point; when will comes back, mike is framed as the visual landing pad. the emotional geography of the scene is built so that mike is the axis. that’s not accidental. that’s motif continuity. it’s the show quietly maintaining the same emotional architecture it’s had since season one: will in distress, mike as the one who reaches him.
and this is where it gets damn right mind boggling, because you end up with a text that verbally insists “mikes his tammy” while the visual language and character function keep contradicting that claim. in film, when there’s a clash between what the dialogue says and what the images, blocking, and recurring dynamics reinforce, you trust the images. the camera is telling the truth the script is too cowardly, or too commercially cautious, to say out loud. so no, that moment doesn’t read as closure. it reads as ongoing attachment, structurally protected. the finale doesn’t resolve the mike/will dynamic; it reasserts it, quietly but very deliberately, by making mike the only one who can still pull will back from the edge without even breaking a sweat.
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