stranger things is, fundamentally, a show about the queer experience— and it always has been. (season five, part two)
(this post picks up immediately where the last one left off, so i'd go and read at least that one if you haven't! or re-read it, if you need to. i sneezed and a month went by, lol.)
(seasons 1+2) (season 3) (season 4) (season 5 part one)
in my previous post, i left off on the following questions:
can HENRY actually possess people in the first place?
and, perhaps more importantly...does he even actually want to?
i know that this seems like a silly thing to call into question, because basically everyone— including myself, in some of my other posts!— has spoken about will being directly possessed by henry specifically this season as something that definitely has to be happening at some point.
but, like. possession is a mind flayer thing. will not wearing a jacket and standing with his hands like that in shock jock are indicative of the mind flayer possessing him, not henry!
(because most of us have thought of that hand position as ‘henry’s pose,’ but it…doesn’t really make sense for it to be, right? the similar hands were a visual cue to reference henry back to billy, not the other way around. it’s a small hint that henry is also flayed (because he is) and cannot be trusted. the mindflayer is the thing that makes you act uncanny and speak strangely and stand weirdly, because it’s an eldritch being from another dimension that has never had to deal with having arms before. henry understands humanity to a fault, because he himself is human in a way mindy over there is not. but i’ll get more into that later.)
though the characters, including henry himself, like to say that henry is the one holding the reins of the mind flayer (because turning your anger towards one man feels more productive and actionable and solvable than turning it onto the shadowy, incomprehensible existence of evil in the world), you don’t even have to have seen the stageplay to know that this is absolutely not the case.
from the way henry and el are framed in season 4, to he and will being foils in the same way will and billy are, to the themes of both seasons 4 and 5 i’ve already discussed, to the fact that the show literally spells this out to you point blank— this is not a ‘partnership,’ nor is henry ever the one primarily in control.
henry tells will that will’s powers are henry’s powers, when they are literally, as illustrated in episode 8, very much not! henry’s powers are the mind flayer’s! and these three characters don’t all use them in exactly the same way (which is why both will And henry are needed, but i’ll talk more about that in a bit). the mind flayer directly possessing people does not necessarily mean that henry can also directly possess people— nor, actually, am i sure he would even want to.
when henry gives the mind flayer’s powers to will, he does so via that vine into his mouth. the symbolism here is not hard to parse, and i think we can all understand what the allegory being presented is.
but remember— henry is also a victim of this same trauma, in both its literal and allegorical form. will is connected to the hivemind through something being put into his mouth, while henry is connected to the hivemind through the mind flayer putting itself inside of him.
i’m trying to speak very lightly, here, but i’m sure you can see the sort of implication this creates metaphorically. henry, even when continuing the cycle of abuse, does not choose to go about it in the same way as was done to him— the single most traumatic experience of his life.
what he does do is still horrible and invasive, of course, but in a different way. and instead of placing himself directly into his victims’ bodies, he places illusions in front of their eyes, and pushes thoughts in their own voice into their heads. it’s much more hands-off. and he really, really doesn’t like when will speaks to him in his head— nor has he ever once initiated a mental conversation himself.
so…what does this mean, then?
well, the idea of will being possessed in shock jock now makes a little more sense. it isn’t vecna possessing will as he’s enacting a plan designed to hinder vecna specifically and not sabotaging it at all for some reason, it’s the mind flayer possessing will and withholding the information it learns from henry in order to further its plans for the both of them along.
what are these plans, you ask?
this is where we can delve into what i’m sure you’ve been wondering about in regards to my take on henry— then what the hell is the melvad’s milkshakes line about?
while this moment obviously indicates the presence or influence of henry here in some capacity, that doesn’t necessarily have to indicate a direct possession where henry is literally piloting his mouth. i think it’s far more likely that this is a result and consequence of will, as he so frequently does during this season, tapping into the hivemind! the valve connecting both of their heads has been intentionally loosened, and more of henry’s thoughts, opinions, and ideas are now being sent directly over to will. this also explains the ‘vessels’ line, will calling the kids that were taken ‘weak,’ and his arc across the season in general.
because this blending of thoughts is exactly what the mind flayer wants to ensure.
will’s side of this season is something i’ve already delved into at length in previous posts, and i still do largely stand by what i said there, despite my opinions on the manner of henry’s involvement shifting.
henry and will are narrative foils, in that they are who the other could have been had the circumstances of their lives been just the slightest bit different. in the case of these two, the thing that fundamentally separates them is the thing will byers is able to find and feel in spades absolutely anywhere he goes— love! love for the people in his life he holds the most dear, and the love he receives from them in return. and this applies to joyce, and to jonathan, and to lucas and dustin and el, but it most especially applies to mike.
will is mike’s strength in the same way that mike is will’s heart; they each help the other connect with the parts of themselves that are oh so prone to getting lost. mike helps remind will of who he is whenever he needs it, but will does the same for mike! they are at their best and most comfortable with themselves when their relationship is at its best.
and when said relationship is at its best, mindy and co. cannot win against our crew. mainly because, in order to win, they need the one thing the love mike and will have for each other keeps getting in the way of: a will who accepts the presence of the mind flayer in his head, and its usage of him, with little resistance or rejection.
a will who thinks like henry.
and, much like mike, i don’t mean a will who's become an evil supervillain hellbent on destroying the world— i mean a person who has tried to rationalize the terrible things that have happened to them, and so assumes that something different about them specifically was what caused them to be targeted out of everyone else in the first place.
henry wants to see will’s mindset more resemble his, because it is the thing about will that both fascinates him and enrages him to no end— that, despite having gone through nearly all of the same things henry has, will (thanks to the love that surrounds him!) has not let his sense of self nor his faith in the world be so thoroughly shaken as henry has his. bad things happen to people because they themselves are bad. bad things happen to henry because he himself is bad.
this is how he can continue the cycle of abuse with will and the children; he feels they deserve it in the same way he does. he thinks that everything is in service of them coming to this new understanding of the ‘truth’ of the world and their place within it, as he had (which is notably different from how he treats the people he curses). he looks at will, and he doesn’t understand why he isn’t getting it.
the mind flayer, on the other hand, has its own, entirely separate motivations. regardless of whether it pointed will out to henry, or henry selected him from specific criteria it had relayed to him, i think will was chosen based on the thought that he, with how similar their backgrounds were, would fold under the weight of the mind flayer’s presence as quickly as little henry had.
because, to be clear, the mind flayer does need both henry and will. they fill in two fairly important gaps in regards to the problems that stand between it and the world it so badly wants to destroy; it doesn’t understand people, and it cannot physically be in this world itself.
because have you noticed that mindy is actually…really bad at subtly possessing people?
if you’re flayed, you act WEIRD! you act off! you shy away from even slightly warm water, and stare blankly at the people you’re supposed to know, and speak strangely, and only know one thing to do with your hands— it is incredibly obvious that something is going on, and you aren’t yourself. but this is kind of the only way it knows how to integrate itself into a human’s mind, because why would an eldritch monster know how to accurately emulate the human experience right from the start?
henry, though, is human. and, as will’s foil, can read and understand the feelings of the people around him in the same way will can read and understand his own. he was the ‘neighborhood scout;’ he’s constantly on the lookout for people struggling with an issue he has to very quickly surmise the details of. the mind flayer needs him for the way he can understand what people are thinking, and use that knowledge to quietly influence them without ever being noticed.
but henry works in the mind, only. he creates illusions, not tangible objects. for that, you’d need more of…a builder.
and so, much like the tunnels, will’s artistic talents are needed to create original things from scratch in the physical world. things that, like the tunnels, are designed to be hidden. put a pin in that for later.
so this is what i think likely happened:
in season one, will was taken, and brought into the hivemind. however, he’s very quickly rescued, which didn’t leave very much time for the mind flayer to use or get to him in the way it wanted to. so, no problem, it’ll just possess him directly— but that doesn’t work, either. in season three, it gives up trying with will for the moment in favor of finding its own way of creating a physical form. but this is quite complicated, and takes a bit of time, and once again fails to work out in the end. season four, it’s now brought out henry, though the ‘entering-into-physical-reality’ part of the plan is still a bit messy and very easily noticeable. since will hasn’t really tried to engage with the hivemind at all so far, there’s less of a risk in letting him walk around all positive about the state of the world (where henry could potentially pick up on it) while mindy tries out her various other plans.
in season five, though, this starts to change. and, haha, mindy absolutely needs to go and moderate that. but she can also use it to her advantage, and speed along the process of the Henry Mindset Shift— because, again, both he and will are going to be needed together to build something.
since will’s positive relationship with mike cannot keep getting in the way of that, his trajectory for the season is born.
a main part of my argument is that season five is a tragedy, and an intentional one at that (which can still be true regardless of your opinions regarding the possibility of future content). this means that, regardless of what the duffers say (since they’ve already contradicted themselves multiple times, remember?) the story is aware that will’s arc is not a positive one. his dismissal of his feelings as something trivial and a result of his own failings is the direct result of a mindset given to him by the villain!
stranger things 5 is about the war between fear and love, and what then happens to that love when fear WINS. nearly every single character experiences a moment like this at some point or another in the story; this is an established theme.
the story of mike and will this season is not that of a poor little gay boy learning he needs to get over his feelings for his straight best friend for his own good. it is the story of two people who, despite how sincerely and genuinely they love each other, let fear get the better of them in terms of whether this love is truly something that should be expressed or not.
mike is scared of the reaction should he ever be open with will, and will is scared that this thing he’s been feeling for years and years and years was never what he thought it was at all.
so it’s calling into question two things that have almost always been near-universal constants: mike’s place in will’s life, and will’s comprehension and understanding of his own emotions! their respective perceptions of themselves have been shaken, except the person they usually go to to feel more grounded is right at the epicenter of it all.
and so, by the end, we have a will who’s lost his faith in his own judgement of himself, and a mike who’s completely lost his nerve.
and, as i’ve already partly discussed, the writing on the wall for this can be seen even back in volume one. mike does not see what else there is that could be holding him back from getting the life for himself that he wants, and so he is unable to stop those things from creeping up on him in the end.
for will, the deconstruction of his opinion of himself actually can be traced back to the moment that (since we see it through mike’s eyes) is presented through the lens of it being the opposite: the ending of sorcerer.
i have a separate post on this scene and my interpretation of it in detail, so to reiterate my main points (i’m going to copy over some text here):
– the ending of sorcerer is shot through mike’s overwhelmingly positive perspective of will partly in order to hide the fact that he is kind of the only person that holds this opinion of will’s powers— because will is absolutely not one of them. he’s always been terrified of his connection to vecna, and even with all of mike’s gushing this still hasn’t changed. mike (and subsequently the audience) see this moment for the display of true inner strength that it is. will does not.
– directly after a speech in which vecna reframes will’s existence as inherently different to everyone else around him and tells him he does not belong in the world he lives in, will tells himself to ‘stop being scared of who he really is,’ and imagines scenes from his childhood where he constructed a place far removed from anything else that was meant to be somewhere he specifically could go. yes, mike is here, but only during the parts where will thinks about “looking for the answers in somebody else,” and the focus of the memories shifts more and more to will being alone until only jonathan’s hand remains in view.
– this is will accepting the sentiment of vecna’s prior speech to him. that he is different from everyone else, and always has been, and why should he bother turning to other people when he alone can offer himself all that he could ever want? but relying on other people and trusting that they can help him when he needs it has always been one of will’s strengths! and tammy, to robin, was someone that couldn’t offer any answers to her about herself regardless.
– will has never wanted to give into and accept his connection to vecna, but when he sees mike in danger, he uses vecna’s words to tell himself that well? maybe i Am different, and that rationalization becomes the base at which he awakens his powers from. and once the relief that mike is alright wears off, you can see he sobers almost immediately. he did the one thing he never, ever wanted to do, and it didn’t even help save those kids. from this point on, you can tell that he isn’t really accepting any reassurances or encouragement joyce or mike try to give him.
so where does that leave mike?
the trajectory of will’s mindset is fairly easy to track, but mike’s path isn’t quite as prominently featured. it’s no less as tall of an order, though— how do you make mike, of all people, doubt his relationship to his closest friend?
though the coming out scene does play a significant part in this, it’s more the moment that finally cements it rather than what initially gets the ball rolling. many people have also noticed that mike would almost certainly think will and robin liked each other, but though mike is absolutely a jealous, possessive little menace who would absolutely let this contribute to this idea, i don’t think it’s enough on its own.
but do you remember what mike’s reaction was the last time something he’d defended to everyone else around him as being good and helpful started to look like it wasn’t?
because is this not…a fairly similar scenario? will is even thrown backwards in the air by his powers in the same way that lucas was thrown by el’s in the junkyard.
which, in season one, makes mike immediately start to worry about what his (seemingly incorrectly placed) trust in el could mean for himself. if el is actually bad, and a ‘monster,’ does that make him bad for having so closely aligned himself with her? has he just doomed his best friend by putting so much of his attention into someone that was never actually going to help him at all?
he internalizes lucas’ words towards el, and ends up projecting that hurt outwards through his actions. here, i believe something similar may be happening, though in a less immediately visible sense. and with one, crucial difference.
in season one, mike begins to doubt the nature of el’s character, and her ability to help them. then, she saves his life at the quarry, which immediately helps to reassure him that she really is good, and on their side.
in season five, however, will saving mike’s life is mike’s introduction to will’s powers. so this is of course part of what informs his extremely positive reaction to them— much like el, how could something that helped save his life ever be inherently bad? and something that came from will, no less!
and mike is correct in his assessment, mind. regardless of what will may think, his powers are a proof of his own strength he should take pride in, no matter their source.
it’s just that the story then does everything in its power to make mike start to think he could be wrong.
no one else seems to find will’s powers as wonderful and incredible as he does. they end up getting will hurt. they end up getting will trapped, with vecna, for a concerningly long amount of time. they result in a will who is miserable and distant and off even after he wakes up.
all because of something mike had so openly been singing the praises of earlier.
and there’s no quarry scene, this time around. nothing to reaffirm the wonder of will’s powers to mike. he has to hold onto that belief with nothing but his own conviction— and we already know that this is the season where mike lets all of his quiet fears get the better of him.
i’ve already discussed his tendency to retreat whenever joyce is around, but i think the notion that he may have so wrongly misinterpreted something that was bringing will so much pain could have made him start to pull back, as well. what kind of ‘best friend’ is he, if everyone except him was able to see these powers for the negative force they may actually be?
i think this would certainly be enough to make mike start to question both himself, and the true nature of his relationship to will— this is the guy that overthinks everything, especially when it concerns an emotion of his he’s actually chosen to express.
so the coming out scene is then what pushes him over the edge.
i, again, have a post on this scene in detail (i’d just swap any time i mention will being possessed by henry, to him having a stream of Henry Thoughts unwillingly sent directly into his head, pushed intentionally by henry or not. my opinions otherwise are still largely the same).
to put things very simply; this whole scene is an eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (the 2004 film) parallel, and a ‘coming out scene’ is not its single and only function. essentially (and i will once again copy over some parts of my post):
ESOTSM is about a couple in a struggling relationship who decide to undergo a procedure that will remove their memories of each other. in this scene, will is dressed like the female lead, clementine, and mike is dressed like the male lead, joel. in the film, joel decides to get his procedure because he sees that clem has already gone and gotten hers done first.
in byler’s case, however, their memories are not being erased— they’re being reframed. turned sour at the root, so they can no longer turn to them to feel safe and reassured. the goal of their foes is to make it appear like the feeling that has always been there, and still exists currently, was never what either of them thought it was at all. to devalue mike’s role to will, and devalue will’s role to mike.
in the coming out scene, will’s shiny new Henry Mindset has him thinking a few things (or at least is well on his way to):
all of the things that appeared to make him strong, are actually things that make him weak, and mean he will never fit in with the people around him.
emotional vulnerability, what he always used to be able to turn to whenever he needed help, is nothing but a display of failure on will’s part.
there was a justified reason vecna decided to come after him in the first place, that has everything to do with who will is at his core.
he was taken and used because he is fundamentally, inherently different to everyone else around him. that difference is founded in him being queer, and that difference made him weak before vecna ever even set his sights on him.
and all of these contribute to his thoughts on his feelings for mike, which i’ll get to in a moment.
because this is another point where i want to amend a previous opinion of mine:
we already know why will calls everyone and their mother in to this scene instead of sitting down with mike one-on-one, and it has NOTHING to do with henry physically making him do so. it’s everything already established above, combined with something he himself said all the way back in the van scene!
if will has to lose people, has to lose mike, he prefers to do it quickly. like “ripping off a band-aid,” because drawing it out would only hurt too much. and will’s opinions regarding his sexuality have now shifted to being the thing that makes him fundamentally different from everyone else around him.
by coming out, will thinks that he’s going to lose people! and he literally says that, in this scene!
so having to go through that, individually, over and over again, for however long it takes him to repeatedly work up the nerve? when he’s already been made to think his desire to be emotionally vulnerable is a weakness? sit anxiously in the thought, for months on end, that he’s only delaying the day he permanently loses everyone he’s ever cared about?
in season five, we watch mike slowly lose more and more of his nerve. but we’re also watching will lose his.
he does try, at first, with just joyce. but then mike walks in, and…will sees his opportunity to rip off that band-aid. gets the thought to do so upon seeing mike. because if mike doesn’t find out right now, then he’ll just have to find out later, and— and that just applies to everyone else, too, doesn’t it? so he should just— get it all over with. do it once, and be done. everyone will know exactly who he is, and that will be that. it would hurt too much, otherwise.
fear is winning out, here. and, as is this season’s theme…look at the effect it has on the person will loves.
because this is gutting, to mike.
while he obviously is not entitled to this confession, the fact that will is practically handed the chance to speak with mike privately first and turns it down in favor of just telling everyone at the same time is effectively him saying that the way he would’ve conveyed this information to mike wouldn’t have been all that more intimate or different to how he’d tell it to someone he’s barely ever spoken to. why would will need to talk about this with mike, if he’d just be saying exactly the same thing he’d be then repeating to erica, or murray, or kali?
this is why it had to be a coming out scene, essentially. if it were any other topic, mike probably wouldn’t be as affected by being grouped with everyone else, but this is the single biggest secret will has ever kept. and mike’s importance to will’s internal struggles and feelings regarding it has been significantly reduced. it’s less that he told everyone at the same time, and more that he could’ve had a private talk with mike first and actively chose not to.
and then, there’s the tammy line.
we’ll get to mike’s potential thoughts on this in a moment, but let’s get back to where will is coming from. because, again, this is directly coming from a mindset given to him by the villain— the show is aware that this is a negative thing for him to be thinking.
“and i uh, i had this…this crush on someone. even though i know…i know they’re not like me. but…but then i realized he’s just my tammy. and by tammy, i mean it was never about him. it was…it was about me.“
“it was never about him, it was about me.” will’s genuine, real love for mike has been taken, and reframed into something that only resulted as a consequence of will’s own faults. of his weakness, and his difference— his queerness— that all prove he will never truly fit in with the people around him. the love he feels for mike no longer feels genuine, but instead like a failing of will’s. ‘even though i know they’re not like me,’ he says. EVEN THOUGH. as if will is saying he knows that this was foolish, and his own fault, and his own failure, because why should he have ever let himself fall for someone who will never ever be like him?
now, for mike— much debate has been had about whether he knows that he is the person will is referring to. and while i think this packs relatively the same punch either way (which i will elaborate on), i will say that mike’s “i should’ve been there for you” at the water tower makes a little more sense to be coming from someone saying “i should’ve been there for you when you were struggling with this person who didn’t like you back,” rather than “i should’ve been there for you when you were struggling because you had a crush on me.” the latter is just a little weirder to say instead of ‘i should’ve realized you liked me,’ or something.
(and i really do think that the only thing that would make mike accept the idea of will liking him would be will saying it as simply and directly as he possibly could. but anyway.)
if mike realizes this is about him: this pain is easily understandable. will has more or less just denounced mike’s importance to him directly to his face, and dismissed the possibility that he could return the feelings mike is currently dealing with to anywhere near the same degree. some friend he must be, if he never even noticed any of this hurt and anguish. to even be the cause of it. and he is like will, but— how can he say that now?
if mike does not realize this is about him: will is gay, but that still doesn’t mean he likes mike. in fact, he’d agonized over someone mike may have never even met for ages, and this pain was never something mike was able to be privy to despite how clearly important it was to will. some friend he must be, if he never even noticed any of this hurt and anguish. could he have made any of this easier? he actually is like will. but how can he say that now?
then, will goes through that long, long list of everything he and everyone he knows have in common…but still, after all of that, brings things back to their one, intrinsic difference. he is gay, and they, as far as he knows, are not. robin is a lesbian, yes, but she has also never been a victim of vecna’s, which has now been made to feel like an inevitable consequence of will’s entire identity. at the end of the day, he is queer. he is different.
this is why i find the execution of something like this in this particular setting so sinister, on the part of our villains. because even though literally everyone and their mother comes up to tell will that they will still support him, now, in the context of what used to make will feel safe and heard and understood (his emotionally vulnerable moments), a line has still firmly been drawn in the sand between them and him. they can tell him they love him and care for him all they want, but he will still always be aware of the single, glaring difference that will forever set them apart.
and so, with this scene, mindy and co. have engineered the removal of each of the obstacles that stand in his way of making will see things the Henry Way— that he is the things that have happened to him (and is vecna not. the most literal representation of this you could get?), and everything he’s ever thought he felt towards these people that will never truly be like him was only ever a result of his own weakness that brought him to his situation in the first place. will can still be friends with mike, sure, but…will is who he is. so that’s all it’ll ever be, and that’s just how things are.
mike has spent the season, and the past 18 months, largely operating under fear, which has ended up hurting will due to what it keeps him from saying. that hurt then contributes to the fear will goes about his coming out with, which in turn ends up hurting mike due to what it keeps will from saying, and it’s really no wonder that things headed down the path that they did.
again, will is our clementine, and so he resigns himself to living under this idea he accepts as unequivocal fact first. and it is mike— joel— witnessing this acceptance of a life with him removed from it that pushes him to follow right along in this mindset after him.
this is, in essence, what the water tower scene is. joel decides to remove his memories of clem in the same way she has of him, and mike decides to put distance between himself and will…in the same way will has of him. we also get the line from mike i keep referencing across all of these posts due to just how helpful it is in unpacking his brain: the reason mike comes off as so oblivious towards everything is that he’s too stuck in his own head. so, no; he doesn’t know about the painting, he didn’t know will was gay, and again i’m still not sure if he knows he was the boy will liked.
mike does not feel like a very good friend. clearly, his feelings for will have gotten in the way of him being able to be there for him when he needed it, and whether he knows who will’s “tammy” is or not i think he’d assume that will wouldn’t very much appreciate a confession of them. he and will are friends. mike has to let this thing that’s only getting in the way of that go.
the important thing to remember here, though, is that joel regrets his decision. right before the removal of his memories is completed, he realizes that he does not actually want to get this procedure— though it is already too late to halt it.
and mike really spends a lot of that epilogue looking miserable (and longingly at will), doesn’t he?
there has been much (much, much) discussion on the nature of this sequence, and what, exactly, it is, so i am going to attempt to also toss my hat into the ring with my own personal interpretation. based on what i’ve already said about will, henry, and mindy, you might be able to see where i stand.
when will was used to build the tunnels, they were constructed while he was asleep. ie; his mind was used without him ever registering it, in order to build something in secret. much of this season is spent getting him to think more like henry, someone who has unquestioningly accepted the mind flayer’s presence in his head, and does not object to its usage of him for its own gain.
almost like…whatever they need will for, cannot simply be completed during the hours when he is asleep. like it requires significantly more time, or energy, or attention to properly be executed.
the issue with henry is that he cannot create anything tangible in the physical realm. will doesn’t have henry’s knack for working out exactly what makes other people tick. the connection between the two of them has been loosened to the point where their thoughts have started to bleed together.
i think will, with henry’s mind freely pouring into his, is being unknowingly used to create a physical illusion in the real world. a ‘fake’ reality, for everyone to live under, and have their thoughts all be adjusted under the same general filter. the characters we see are all still themselves, it’s just the precedence they operate under that’s been altered. if you’ve played persona 5 royal, the fake reality at the end of that game is more or less exactly how i imagine this one to work.
i don’t think this is all just a vision, nor something only affecting mike exclusively. dustin saying 50’s slang and getting a dnd fact wrong (and i actually have a whole other separate tangent of thoughts about the latter specifically, you can find those in my post on bandersnatchgate) are similar to melvald’s milkshakes for me in that i think they indicate more of a hivemind mind-meld rather than a direct puppeteering of someone’s body.
where does the fake reality start? well, that’s a good question. again, similar to persona 5 royal, i think there’s a slight progression to its creation before it overwhelmingly takes over. so will’s time with vecna is what kicks everything off, and the epilogue would be the point of no return, so to speak. this means that tangible illusions have a chance to pop up at any time following will’s time with vecna.
and we already know of one, don’t we?
el should not have been able to make physical contact with mike in the void, and yet i’m pretty sure we all remember what happens in there.
but let’s go through it for posterity’s sake, shall we?
with the knowledge that this is, more likely than not, not el, (and instead an illusion subconsciously created by will based on what he Thinks mike wants to hear) i find it difficult to say that the main purpose of this scene is to proclaim mike wheeler a straight man.
i mean, i would find this difficult regardless (when has kissing a girl ever been the deciding factor of THIS character’s sexuality?), but this really only adds to that.
because this is kind of mike’s worst nightmare, isn’t it?
i talk in my post on season 4 how the mike we see there, who understands he’s gay yet not that he’s in love with will, is perfectly fine with staying in a loveless relationship (romantically, he doesn’t hate her) with el for what he (thanks to the van scene) perceives as mutual gain through emotional security. because his parents aren’t in love, but they’re still together, aren’t they?
then, though, he realizes that he’s in love with will— and now that loveless relationship has something he can directly compare it to. something that certainly feels better than what he thought he was fine to settle with. he’s just a little too scared to actually go after it, which is how we end up with mike and el in their ‘contemplating divorce’ era that i discussed last time.
and then that fear of going after it is slowly morphed into a shame at ever even wanting to have it. with the water tower scene, mike resigns himself to never getting what he wants with will (because it has been illustrated to him that he shouldn’t, for all the good it’s done their connection and relationship).
then, though, he also goes and loses el. both of his usual means for security (in different ways, but security nonetheless) have been ripped out from underneath him, and thinking about either of them will only ever remind him of the biggest source of pain surrounding them both.
because mike was “too focused on himself,” he missed all the ways in which his best friend was struggling and completely overlooked the way something was causing him pain, inadvertently making him pull away from their relationship. because mike is himself, even in el’s literal dying moments, he is unable to be the person she seemingly needs him to, and cannot love her back. this entirely undiscussed yet seemingly mutually agreed upon “divorce” maybe hadn’t been as mutual as he’d been thinking it was.
el, as always, is the subtextual representation of queerness as a concept. and usually mike's own, whenever they interact. why do YOU think he’s unable to say anything back to her in that moment??
this is all pre-timeskip, though. so who is the mike we see once we’re in it?
before i get into the meat of things, i do have to touch on one small detail that has caused me more grief and strife than it has absolutely any right to:
why the hell does mike send will to vallaki????
in their final campaign, mike looks will in the eyes across that table, and softly tells him he’s going to a place where people who do not comply with forced happiness will be either thrown in jail or put to death. will looks deeply touched.
this is one of those things that truly, genuinely does not make any sense if you take the presentation of everything at face value, because in addition to how both of our characters react to this moment, there’s no way you as a writer are accidentally this on the nose nor know the name of this very specific place off the top of your head without also knowing the lore about it, and doing this to spite your own character for some reason like i’ve seen some people saying also doesn’t make any sense because why would you then write him looking happy about it? he’s evaded his own ‘punishment,’ at that point? this is a silly thing to say.
anyway. the deal with vallaki, as i understand it (since i am not a dnd player, so bear with me if i miss something), is this:
the reason that vallaki’s evil baron forces all of his people to be happy, is that he’s convinced himself that this will help them win out against the even more evil emperor, strahd, who currently lords over them all.
strahd, you may remember, also happens to be the character this campaign has our party successfully defeat. mike is sending will to vallaki after its main antagonistic force has just been vanquished.
now. does this do anything to change the fact that the guy still in charge of the place was cruel and paranoid enough to believe this forced happiness would work? no, of course not. but remember where we’re operating from, here.
i talk about this a lot in my bandersnatchgate post, but the world the characters find themselves in at the end of the show has started to turn their thinking extremely black and white. as dustin (incorrectly) says in his speech, there now exists only “chaotic good” and “chaotic bad.” the ‘neutral,’ that middle ground, has been removed. you either accept the life in front of you, or you stop living life entirely. if things aren’t bad, then they must only be good— or as good as they're going to get.
i think the vallaki line is, more or less, a sign that mike is just as ‘got’ as all of his friends and family are. though he has his moments, he’s still ultimately stuck under the same mindset everyone else is. if the only reason the baron was doing this was because strahd was around, then with strahd gone, now everything will be fine! vallaki is just a place with a lot of festivals! now it can prosper! and so on.
it’s “with vecna gone, what’s stopping us?” all over again. though mike seems to be at least partly realizing all the pitfalls that come along with this— despite the world he’s found himself in more or less mobilizing itself to try and convince him otherwise. again, if things aren’t bad, then they must surely be as good, and so on and so forth.
and this ends up placing us back in a situation similar to season two, in a sense. queerness has, once again, been demonstrated to not have a place in the world our characters live, and mike is the one who is unwilling to let her go. interestingly, though, is the difference in how his faith in el's continued presence manifests. because i would argue that disintegrating into ash and exploding your entire body are, when you get down to it, not all that different of a way to go out, so i would say the situations he’s reacting to here are largely kind of similar. but anyway.
in season 2, mike feels like he’s going crazy for how often he tries to talk to el despite everyone telling him she’s gone— but he still wants her in his life! he wants to know that she’d be allowed to stay with them!
in season 5, though, mike’s belief that el could still be out there somewhere does not extend to a faith that she would also be able to come back to them. due to the situations surrounding all of them, that bridge has forever been burned.
a mike who has yet to realize that he is gay is confused by the continued existence of The Emotion I Felt When Will Left despite will no longer being gone, but hopes the people around him would be able to see it as the good thing he knows that it is.
and a mike who has now come to understand the truth about himself and his feelings for will while simultaneously being made to accept the idea that they have done nothing but hurt the people around him, imagines an existence for queerness that never once involves him interacting with it again. that particular card has been forcefully swept off the table.
and since he and el never really talked about that ‘divorce,’ and his full understanding of who el is and what she wants was just slightly off from being fully realized, i think mike would like to think that his feelings for will went off to somewhere just as distant as the concept of queerness had— but ‘queerness,’ ‘mike’s own queerness,’ and ‘mike’s feelings for will’ are a little harder to interchangeably shove together into one source than they were when he had only barely begun to interact with them.
so i think that hands have been slightly changed, this time around, and el has finally graduated to being perceived by mike in a way more akin to how everyone else does. (subtextually, she's now more general queerness, and textually, you know. the aforementioned contemplated divorce.) el's got general queerness, mike holds onto his own, and. well.
i’ll give you a single guess as to who mike’s main association of his feelings for will is, this season.
and…that’s season 5. and my posts in this series as a whole! i have more i could say (because i always do), but this has gotten long enough.
so. tldr:
mike wheeler. i know what you are.
but, ah. i'm pretty sure the writers do, too.
