Haven't seen this parallel yet ...
Season 4 Ep 9: Jopper scene in church. Hopper is talking to Joyce about the food at Enzo's (since he has missed good food while he is stuck in Russia)
(Joyce wears a yellow shirt here, there is a light in between them when they kiss, and the blue MW705 is right behind hopper)
Season 5 Ep 8: Karen calls the party up for dinner, a meal of lasagna. This scene is mainly assumed to be from Mike's perspective
(noted many times but she doesn't appear to have Demogorgon attack scars here)
While Hopper is in PRISON, and he is "dreaming about lasagna" ...
What if... Mike is also in "PRISON" (mind prison, camazotz, vecna trance), "dreaming" of lasagna as well?
Obviously the setting is different (Enzo's date vs Wheeler family dinner)...but the general parallel is there.
From my memory, lasagna isn't mentioned at any other point in the show besides these two scenes. On top of that, Hopper even says he was choosing "between veal and lasagna" but ultimately landed on lasagna
The writers could have had Karen mention literally any other dinner (spaghetti, meatloaf, chicken, Anythingggg). But they DIDN'T.
And like Joyce + Murray found out in S4 E2, Hopper is "stuck"...and they got him out, didn't they? Maybe this proves that Mike is "stuck" as well.
