no but the fact that the script is all in Will’s pov too... I mean, from the way they shot the whole season you could tell that the point were Will’s feelings, but this just cements that.
The fact that Mike has no directions in the script it’s because the point is that Will would not know what Mike is thinking either. The only directions are very blatant things like Mike throwing away El’s letter, which is something Will can see and take at face value. But Mike’s expressions and feelings and thoughts? Not there.
We don’t know how Mike feels because WILL DOESN’T KNOW.
Will is the pov for the whole thing, Will is also, may I suggest, an unreliable narrator.
In the Rink-o-mania scene he says that Mike is not interested in anything he has to say and that the guy basically ignored him, but Mike goes “you were moping, rolling your eyes” etc. which tells us that Mike was NOT ignoring him at all. In fact, he was paying very close attention to Will’s moods?
May I suggest that Mike has felt like a bit of an asshole for the whole season because WILL felt neglected by him?
The only scene where we get Mike from a pov that isn’t Will’s this season is the fight between Mike and El. But I’m ready to bet whatever you want that even in that scene, the pov is El’s. And she also feels neglected.
We are not being given any insight in Mike’s feelings at all. He’s behaving werirdly and no one around him can phantom WHY. Everyone is just unhappy with him.
For the whole duration of S4 we have Will trying to guess what Mike’s problem is and ASSUMING he just needs reassurence to fix his relationship with El, which has him pushing Mike even further towards El. But was that Mike’s issue?
What stands out to me is that Mike never actually tells Will what it is that he wanted to say to El. He’s vague about it when they have that heart-to-heart on top of the car, until he voices something that has probably been plaguing him for a while during the van scene: what if it was just mere conincidence? What if it was never fate? What if it was puppy love all along and he just got confused?
We assume that he’s saying that because he’s insecure about himself, because that’s how WILL TAKES IT. But what if Mike is actually voicing concern about how he truly feels about El? What if he’s doubting he loves her but in a redundant way because he feels like he’s the bad guy for feeling that way?
And then when Will tells him that El is always gonna need him he also starts to think that he’s just being insecure.
Still, when the time comes once again to say ILY to El, he hesitates. Whatever issue he had is not resolved. He still cannot say it. So Will comes in, reminds him of the whole discussion they had in the car and pushes Mike to say it, because he’s just being insecure, right? He needs to be more confident in how he feels (supposedly). So he says it. He repeats it over and over and Will feels crushed. Here you go, he loves her.
Except... does he? Or is he just overcompensating with the seven ILYs? It’s not like he could back down at that point. El was on the verge of dying, if that what was going to keep her alive, of course he HAD to say it.
No matter how you think about it, the whole thing feels like Mike is hurting Will almost on purpose over and over because we take everything in the same way Will does.
But is that truly how Mike feels?
The truth is that we are given zero insight into Mike’s feelings that aren’t tainted with Will’s perception of the situation.
And the fact that they keep Mike’s feelings so hidden is actually a very important plot point, because there was no NEED for it. If the point of it all had been to make Will suffer and make the audience feel bad for him, having Mike’s thoughts and feelings be explicit would have made us feel MORE pity for Will. If Mike loving El had been evident and descripted, we would feel even more for him. But the point is that IT’S NOT.
His thoughts are concealed and that only tells me one thing: that we would be surprised of what he’s actually thinking. That what goes on his head is NOT what comes out of his mouth. There’s a disconnection and we are not meant to know what it entails YET.
