Well, Hawkins, I want to start by thanking you. Yes, you, tuned in right now, listening to WSQK the Squawk. Whether you’ve been cranking the songs up in your parents' basement, blasting them loud on your boombox while riding your bikes around town, or just singing along to all the hits in your car.
Hawkins, it's been a blast. Oh, and you're not listening alone, you never were. Every voice, every song, every moment on this frequency traveled outward, spreading, connecting, becoming something larger.
The final 10 minutes of WSQK the Squawk on New Year's Eve (x)
Listen, I don’t think conformity gate is actually happening however if it were to happen I actually happen it would also justify the Squawk radio stuff-
Think about it. It’s believed that the static voices are screaming “MIKE MIKE WAKE UP”, the hosts are “Mindy Flair” and “Vance Goodman” which are anagrams for The Mind Flayer and Vecna, you can hear a clock chime at the end of the thank you message, apparently they’ve been teasing basement gate and other things that haven’t happened.
My theory (assuming this isn’t just mass hysteria) is that we’re hearing things (the radio) from Mike’s perspective.
Let’s say Mike got flayed/vecna’d around vol 2, episode 5 (which picks up right where we left off after episode 4 where Mike hears Vecna chimes when he appears at the military base (this realistically is just Vecna’s musical motif but I digress)), he’d be in the same vicinity as the WSKQ tower where Robin could play just a bunch of songs just to try to find the one that is going to bring Mike back to reality but they haven’t found one yet. Maybe when Max comes back they manage to figure out that music isn’t fully the reason why she was able to return and that’s what the static messages are. His friends trying to reach him.
Crazy, yes. compelling, also yes. Gonna happen? Nah. Gonna write about it, absolutely.
Edit bc I only got 3 hours of sleep last night so that last part sounds weird.
He’d be close enough to station to where they could take him there so he can listen to the radio trying to break the trance.
The Mind Flayer and Vecna (Mindy and Vance) would be the radio hosts bc of hallucinations/vecna’d.
While we’re here: I have more thoughts. In the official playlist (which is still run by Robin even tho she’s not the host) there’s a couple songs that also kinda prove this theory.
White Rabbit- yes it’s about drug use after reading stories like Alice in Wonderland (oversimplification but you know what I mean) but it’s also using imagery from Alice in Wonderland, a story about a girl falling into another world. Also- what other movie has this been used in? Oh yeah-
On the Run- besides the title possibly being a clue, there’s a line in it that goes “Live for today, gone tomorrow, that’s me.”
Stairway to Heaven- “Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run/There's still time to change the road you're on” begging Mike to come back before Vecna kills him.
Hotel California- this one is relatively obvious, the song’s about a place that seems perfect until it’s revealed not to be but the narrator can never leave.
with robin, it's like being betrayed by our own. she's an outsider, queer, autistic-coded, and quirky. odd behavior is par for the course. she's also highly intelligent, any grand ideas she has is in character. it hurts but all of that also makes it easier for me to see traits of henry.
the clues surrounding her are a little more obvious because we are more invested in joyce, lucas, will, and mike's storyline, who she was tasked to groom. of course she is mindy flare.
so i don't know if it was my own hubris, or because i'm an optimist, that i was so blind to see steve had been turned into a "puppet" or should i say "muppet."
on a redemption tour since season 1, it's fair to say he's one of the characters who has had the most development (whether it's actually fair, that's debatable). it's the time investment aspect that gets me, personally. then the fan narrative surrounding him dying helped to further obscure expectations.
nancy, jonathan, and dustin's storylines were also on the periphery—who he's been assigned to. tbh, the "third-wheel numbskull" routine is a smart cover. what's even worse is the emotional manipulation in his friendship with dustin. steve and dustin are both the comic relief, a tragic downfall is subserve.
steve is also in no way similar to henry—except in the twisted babysitter sense.
six? 🚩 then hopper's 🤨
we're told and shown time and time again he's "dumb." him devising the tower plan then it not working out is even to be expected because of that. the repetitive writing of drawing up plans and using asinine visual aids throughout the whole season helped to obfuscate he was the one who offered the plan that lead to their downfall—it wasn't in character, but almost everyone wasn't in character too.
also we love joe keery don't we folks. we love maya too. we trust them.
they even gave us a trust fall… and jonathan caught him.
do not trust a man who drives a van, people. don't take his candy. his ice cream. his double vhs tapes. or listen to him on the radio.
stranger danger
also this btch was dressed up like papa in the epilogue. how did i not see this? on top of all the red hanging around his neck since s3. 🚩
am i saying this was written well and if this rug pull is even remotely meaningful? no. but i'm saying it's taken me 4 months to let it sink in.
imagine having to kill zombified steve harrington and nancy doing it.
evil-steve-harrington-red-wedding-blood-bath fan fics when? 👏🏻
Vance goodman sounding confused as fuck in the goodbye message when 'You took the words right out of my mouth... and my brain?? haha?' like we're just as worried and confused as you are dude
Okay so I'm gonna theorize about who the "traitor" is, and I don't think it's who you expect...
When you hear the word "traitor", you probably think one of the heroes will turn bad or is a villain in disguise. But that's been done before, it's easy, trite if you will. Heroes aren't the only ones who can be betrayed, it happens to villains all the time.
I believe the Mind Flayer will be betrayed by Henry Creel; he's the traitor.
Henry was never a villain, he is a victim of the mind flayer—like Will—and has been since he was like 8 years old. (but he said he chose it and that it never controlled him) Imagine being possessed by an incorporeal shadow monster from another dimension that infects and controls your mind and uses your greatest fears against you, and now you have superpowers that you have little to no control over, and no idea what the hell is going on because you are 8 years old.
That's what happened to Henry.
It's easy for people to view Henry as a villain because he was introduced to us as one. We didn't see his backstory for a long time most of it happened off-screen lol. But how many viewed Will as a villain in season 2, when he was "the spy"? Probably not very many! Because we know him, we saw what happened to him, we know it's not his fault and that he was being controlled, like Henry.
Henry was always intended to have a redemption arc. How else do you explain 'The First Shadow'? The play that revealed his past, humanized him, and asked the question "Can love defeat fear?". The answer was "no". Whatever we can expect going forward, I think the show is going to do the opposite, and it applies to Henry, as well as Byler and defeating the Mind Flayer.
As for how his betrayal will come about, I believe Jane/El and Will (& maybe Kali) are going to team up and go into Henry's mind, most likely looking for a way to defeat him and the Mind Flayer. They find his memories, the possession and how scared he was, maybe some of what happened between then and moving to Hawkins, and Patty. He's not the villain, he never was. They use his memories of love to get through to him (like El & Billy in ST3), help him break free of the Mind Flayer's hold, bring him back to the light. He tells them how to defeat the Mind Flayer and offers to help.
I think it's very possible that he is going to sacrifice himself to save everyone. Honestly, I would be surprised if he didn't, I don't necessarily want him to die, but I really don't see a lot of other options for him at this point, unfortunately.
If you're still not convinced and need something more official, this is literally a WSQK broadcast from December 25, Late Nights with Mindy Flare [09:09:11 PM]
Huh, so Mindy needs Vance's help because everything's going wrong, but he's nowhere to be found, and now it's "[Mindy] vs the machines", she has to fight alone; interesting!
So yeah, that's why I think Henry is the traitor, also it would be kinda unexpected by most of the audience, so there's an element of surprise/plot-twist. The more I think about this, the more it makes sense!
If you actually read all that and you're STILL here: thank you, I love you, goodbye!
I'm going through reuploaded WSQK segments to see if I can find the Melvald's ad talking about how they don't sell milkshakes (which I'm pretty certain exists, cause it definitely rang a bell when someone on here mentioned it). I haven't had any luck yet, but in this video I did take note of a few things Vance says
"Let me tell you, there's three things I can guarantee when you hear my show. One: I play the biggest hits for Hawkins, none of these middle of the road filler records, just the cream of the crop. Two: We'll let you know what's happening out there in Hawkins with our updates each hour. And three: uhh... What was my third? Nah, two will do" - Vance Goodman at around 1:21:08
"50.000 watts, 50.000 PROBLEMS more like" - Vance Goodman at around 2:31:50
"Oh the tunes are just hitting the spot on WSQK the squawk aren't they? What can I say, they are handselected by yours truly. I'd like to think. It's Vance Goodman broadcasting across Hawkins. And uh I know it feels like I'm always on the mic keeping you company, but uh do you know what some of the other guys and gals have started doing at this place? They've started COUNTING their shows. Yeah, there's a chalkboard in the office with how many broadcasts everyone has done. Lame-o or what? Haha. You know who's the worst for doing it, don't ya? Mindy Flare. She's done over 300 shows, which... uh you know she's always going on about it but she's still not top though which I always find funny. Uh, I might go and change the numbers now. *smug laughter* They'll never know. Hang tight Hawkins, I'll be back with more hits and uh slightly chalky fingers and uh maybe... maybe some razor stains on my trousers right after this" *goes to commercials* - Vance Goodman at around 2:43:17
(I don't know if the stains are racer, razor or raiser. Potentially it could also be eraser. None of the options make sense to me anyway)
just another piece of evidence for Vecna still being controlled by the mindflayer and how we didn't really dive into that in the show (despite the play being about how Henry and how he wasn't always evil/vecna)
Weird mentions of things with 3. Three things Vance can guarantee, but forgetting the third (if the WSQK website is official, then the vol. 3 bootleg tapes: lost is even more suspicious with this in mind).
Mindy Flare has broadcasted THREE-hundred shows. Something about changing the numbers, and then afterwards mentioning coming back. Sure, the "I'll be back with more hits" could JUST be referring to the ads, but it COULD be about the episodes.
(if vol. 3, and maybe some of vol. 2, is a vecna vision and not the actual ending: we might be going back and see what actually happened. And in a way, that would be changing the numbers, because even if the theorized secret 9th episode gets added, technically episode 8 isn't canon and therefore doesn't really count - which means the numbers would have to be changed, in a way)
Thank you to everyone who has preserved (parts of) the radio station, as the official has been removed. Referencing anything from WSQK and being able to back it up with actual evidence of it happening is great. So thank you thank you thank you
Idk, if conformitygate is actually real, but so many things are lining up and y'all are so fucking smart either way
Stuff I've noticed in wsqk that I'm not smart enough to decipher:
They keep referencing power outages
Mindy made a comment about alarm clocks being stuck on 12 because of said outages (more time references and/or the 12 kids?)
One of Mindy's favourite songs is apparently Love Is A Battlefield by Pat Benetar AM I LOOKING FOR CLUES WHERE THERE AREN'T ANY WHAT COULD THIS MEAN
One of her favourite dishes is casserole specifically because it was her grandma and mum's favourites (she went weirdly into depth about it but I didn't have time to process most of it and I also don't actually know what a casserole is and thus could not make any metaphorical connections)
Whenever Just Like Heaven plays (which is often) it doesn't show up as currently playing for me and is the only song that does that- maybe somehow interfering/not meant to be playing (it will be a byler song in vol 2 trust)
I'm not too dumb for this one but I haven't seen anyone mention the fact that Vance's last name is literally just "Goodman"?? I didn't like the Henry redemption theories but I fear they're just spelling it out for us at this point
Vance asking Mindy to go on drive-in dates with him... hm...
Is it not a bit odd that they'd write those two to have some kind of romantic connection that listeners picked up on, if they're only supposed to represent Vecna and the Mind Flayer?
Unrelated I'm sure, but there's a drawing of a car in an unnamed basketball player's locker from ST 5 BTS pics:
