Thinking about where we went wrong (lol) and Why Was Season 5 Episode 4 “The Sorcerer” the way it was, and it occurred to me today that, to properly set up the coming out scene which legitimizes Will vs. Vecna in the final battle, they had to quite suddenly flood the zone with byler content because not everyone has every byler scene from s1-5 memorized. The GA had to buy that Will was in love with Mike (and that Mike obliviously responded well to familiarity from his bffl), and to immediately buy into Robin’s gentle queer elder lessons including the concept that a crush holds you back from self realization. The math maths, and we get “he was my tammy” / “friends, no thanks, best friends!,” with the more important milestone of Will’s out and it’s okay BECAUSE EVERYTHING DOES NEED TO BE OKAY FOR WILL BYERS.
(The text wants to be very clear that it’s all fine for Will, the most tortured of characters, in the end, not only so that he can help beat Vecna but I think because the TPTB do want Will to thrive post canon. Which ... I like that!)
But to do that, they had to flood the zone with byler proof, especially in 5x04. (Which caught me, a casual on 11/27, in a venus flytrap.)
I don’t have to like it but I think that’s what happened.
