I LIKE WILL'S COMING OUT SCENE
I would even say I love it, or at least certain things about it. I did a post a while back when Vol 2 originally came out expressing how surprised and shocked I was that the coming out scene was getting so much hate, because I was beside myself with excitement and emotion watching it the first time.
I definitely went through a period of time where I wasn't too fond it after the finale because it rendered certain things either useless (the milkshakes/lost in the woods lines) or stupid (the Tammy line). But after having some time away from the finale and having had some time to grieve and reconcile with Stranger Things 5, I've come around and returned to adoring the hell out of the scene.
I want to point out things and details that I liked about the scene, as well as addressing the main complaints about the scene and why I don't think they're relevant/fair.
So without further ado, here are all the things I love about Will's coming out scene.
Going in chronological order through the scene 🫡
First of all, the lighting of the scene is gorgeous.
The scene utilizes the Golden Hour in filmmaking really well, but instead of making it in direct sunlight, they have the setting sun shining through the blinds, bathing everything in a soft, orange glow.
The lighting isn't too sharp or too intense. It's a delicate brush of orange over everything in the room, but also the usage of the blinds and the framing/blocking of the scene allows for contrast. Joyce is silhouetted, but not so much that we can't see her expressions, which would've happened if the lighting was too sharp/intense. The lighting also goes really well with their outfits and the wardrobe, and the sunlight compliments the color palette of the scene really well.
The entire scene is awash in a sweet, golden, honey-brown color, which almost in itself helps the scene feel more intimate and emotional as opposed to if it were any other color, like Upside Down-blue or flat green/grey. The color grading and lighting of the scene together makes the coming out still feel like a more delicate, grounded moment regardless of how many people end up being there.
I love pointing out tiny details, so with this little moment: 1) Will's starting to get a lot more anxious here, his breathing is starting to speed up a bit, and multiple times in this little clip, he starts to say something but trails off and his breath trembles really bad. 😭 He's also noticeably losing the ability to speak longer sentences, and when he's talking about what Vecna showed him, his panicked breathing starts to actually interrupt him. That persists throughout the entire rest of the scene. And a few times later in the clip, you can see the jacket on his zipper trembling. He's also avoiding eye contact a lot more, his eyes darting everywhere. He's so stressed 🥺 2) At the very end of the clip, at the bottom of the frame, you can see Joyce is holding his hands 🥺 3) I think it's also a really sweet and well-acted detail that even though this scene is Will's scene, especially in this little clip, Joyce is both really confused and really concerned. Will's emotion is obviously in the spotlight here, but Winona Ryder is doing a phenomenal job of portraying Joyce trying to be there for her son but also having a 'what the fuck is going on' look on her face. Because Will is borderline having a panic attack in front of her and freaking the hell out, and she still has absolutely no idea what Will is talking about.
I'm dying bro, why is he just standing there like 🧍🏼♂️
But the ironic and comedic timing of Mike walking in after Will said "you need to know the truth" had me in a Byler chokehold when I first watched this scene. I'm pretty sure I deadass paused the episode so I could pace around my room with my Demo plushie while yelling 'NO SHOT' around my room.
Anyway:
Two things: 1) Mike asking "is everything okay?" in his Will voice is SLAYING ME 😭 2) Will looks so fucking anxious, and I love that Joyce notices. Despite her own confusion, she recognizes that whatever Will wants to tell her is really hard for him to say and talk about, so she's trying her best to calm his anxiety. She, one: scans him and notices that he's stiff as a board/frozen and isn't responding to Mike. Two: readjusts her grip on her son's hands off-screen. And three: takes initiative and kindly dismisses Mike so she and Will can continue talking.
Which of course, Will ends up asking Mike to stay, he decides he should have an audience, then we cut to however many minutes later with everyone there. I'll get to the common 'there's too many people there' complaint later.
Will's anxiety is SO palpable in this scene. Noah Schnapp really did a amazing job with it all; the subtle trembling of his breath and his fingers, Will rocking back and forth, the way his eyes never land on something for too long, etc. I myself struggle with anxiety and panic attacks, a lot of which stems from my C-PTSD, and Will's little anxious tics really hit home for me, especially him fiddling with his sleeve cuffs. That for some reason hit me hard. (Also yes, I know that Noah Schnapp has said that this scene was incredibly difficult and emotionally draining/traumatic for him to film, but I'm putting that aside for now and talking about the scene itself, which includes talking about the acting and portrayals.)
I love that 1) Robin is already glowing with pride off to the side, and 2) IMMEDIATELY after Will says "I AM different," we get a shot with Johnathan smack in the middle, and we as the audience know that Johnathan himself knows exactly where this is going. I just KNOW that boy is thinking about that conversation he and Will had in the Surfer Boy Pizza kitchen and what he witnessed in the van in S4.
I think the way Johnathan is shown to react in this scene is PERFECTION. His facial expressions, the subtle hints of pride and love on his face as Will progresses through the scene/the confession, and I also love love love SO much that Johnathan clearly realizes it so quickly. I would say that until Will actually comes out, other than Robin, Johnathan is the only one who suspects at all what Will is going to say. Johnathan's likely known for YEARS.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he's suspected since Will was a kid, and felt even more protective of his baby brother as a result. Armed with this knowledge and seeing the frequent cuts to Johnathan's reactions, it makes the moment feel even more intimate, because even though this is Will's moment, Johnathan is having a moment as well. He's known for a very long time that Will is likely gay, and he's seen firsthand how it's hurt Will to keep that secret. Now he's bearing witness to Will finally sharing the part of himself that Johnathan knows he's kept locked tight for so long. HE'S SO PROUD OF HIM AND I CAN'T TAKE IT 😭
~~~
When Will starts listing the ways that he's like his friends and naming all sorts of things, he noticeably perks up a bit, and I find it really adorable. He's so happy talking about the things he loves and talking about the hobbies he shares with his friends. But I also love the detail of his anxiety still shining through as he's talking, because he's not just gushing about his friends, he's stalling. He starts out being more descriptive, then by the end of his rambling, he's naming a bunch of things at once in quick succession: He starts with: "We like playing D&D late into the night," and then by the end, he's rambling a lot quicker: "we like bike races and trading comics and NASA and Steve Martin and Lucky Charms." And by that point he's stuttering a lot worse than he was when he started listing things. His eyes get more teary, he gets faster, and he starts to stutter on almost every 'and.' When he realizes that he's rambling and he slows down to finally come out, you can see the anxiety hit him again. He says 'I just' like four different times, and each time, you can see him trying to just blurt it out. I can SEE the internal battle going on in his head, and his leg is bouncing off-screen, which sends trembling up into his shoulder and even a little of his cheek:
(it's hard to see with the GIF's quality, but I promise you, there is a subtle face twitch from his leg-bouncing)
The reactions from the rest of the OG four KILL ME. I did a small post about this already, but I'll reiterate here so my reactions/thoughts are all in one place.
They each have completely different reactions, and it's HILARIOUS:
Mike looks panicked and almost scared:
Like, what's goin on there my guy? Homotron 1000? Mike Queeler? 🤨
Lucas looks hilariously unsurprised:
"Yeah bro I knew that already" 🤣
And Dustin looks straight up confused:
Which is so funny to me, why does he look like he's never heard of gay people before today 😭
And poor Will looks terrified when he realizes that no one is talking. Which, fair. In the past, when I've come out to people, sometimes no reaction can be and often is terrifying.
But then ROBIN comes in clutch 🥺
I ADORE Robin and Will's relationship. Their friendship is exactly what Will needed, and seeing Robin become kind of a mentor for him was so incredibly sweet and heartwarming. Robin was SO proud of him in this scene 😭
And when the music kicks in, I feel like there's this wave of "oh, everything's gonna be okay now"
As Will continues to ramble and he gets more anxious, talking about how Vecna made him feel like something was wrong with him, Joyce's reaction is heartbreaking:
She doesn't look surprised, she just looks, I don't know, it's a mixture of horrified and heartbroken. I think Joyce is mainly really shocked that Will has been carrying this around for so long, and she had no idea. Her son has been suffering with this secret for so many years, and she had no idea how much it was hurting him.
"And for the rest of us, we just drift apart more and more and more..."
I feel like Mike is namely thinking about the time Will spent in Lenora and all the events in Season 4, because I'm SURE he felt a distance grow between them, they did in fact drift apart more and more and more.
"...and more until I'm alone."
Cut to Dustin, the character who's arguably felt the most alone this whole season.
"And I know Vecna can't see into the future but he can see into our minds and he knows things."
Cut to Max, who's one of the people who would know this about Vecna more than anyone in that room.
And when Will is rocking back and forth and repeating that it felt so real, the cut to Johnathan KILLS me, because his concern has replaced his pride after he realized that Will is really really anxious and he's pretty much having a full panic attack at this point.
After Joyce says "you will never lose me," then Johnathan gets up and gives him the biggest, sweetest, fullest hug you've ever seen 🥺
(IDK what's up with the quality in this one bruhhh)
But the way Will clings to him??? He NEEDED that hug, and especially a hug from JOHNATHAN. JOHNATHAN'S SO GOOD TO HIM OH MY GOD
Johnathan's little kisses on Will's cheek? Him smiling with his whole face??? Their relationship is so adorable and so fucking wholesome 😫😫
Also I love Will's little run when he's going over to hug Max 🥹
And I just recently went back to this scene to look at everyone ELSE'S reactions, and THEY ARE ALL SO HAPPY FOR HIM 😭😭
When Johnathan gets up to hug Will, Nancy is smiling, Vickie looks like she's about to cry, and Steve IS DEADASS ALL TEARY BACK THERE
I was going crazy over this the other day– STEVE'S HAND ON ROBIN'S SHOULDER????? Steve knows Robin's a lesbian, and I'm SURE that when Will came out, he immediately thought of Robin. Maybe Steve also noticed that Robin had recently been hanging out with Will a lot more, and it now makes sense to him. I love this tiny little detail that shows a lot of history between them. 😭
Dustin giving Will a little smile? Vickie crying in the background and Murray having the biggest smile on his face???? I love them all so much. Maybe some people think they didn't all need to be there (which I'll get to soon) but they were all still SUPER happy for him. They don't all need to know Will personally to be happy for him.
ALL RIGHT, NOW. WE HAVE ARRIVED AT:
Addressing the 2 Most Common Complaints about Will's Coming Out Scene
-Everyone being there.
and
-The length of the scene.
Complaint 1: "Why the hell was everyone there? Will didn't need a huge audience, he didn't need to hold a press conference."
Okay, let's get into that one.
On my initial viewing of the scene, it didn't bother me at all. I didn't care that everyone was there, and I think the scene did a good job with only showing certain characters' reactions and still keeping it pretty intimate and not trying to highlight every single character's reaction. By limiting how many characters they showed reacting, it allowed the scene to stay a bit more intimate. They only really showed the reactions of characters who were close to Will, like Mike, Johnathan, Joyce, and Robin.
BUT as I've thought more about this scene, I've grown to also understand why everyone was there. It wasn't a random choice, it was a storytelling and character choice that makes sense. Let me explain.
First, I feel it's important to reiterate why Will is coming out in the first place. Will is coming out because Vecna showed him something that planted fear in him regarding his queerness. If it was a ‘normal’ coming out scene where he was at home and life was normal and he was a normal gay teen, it probably would’ve been more intimate in terms of setting and the amount of people. But this was not a normal coming out scene, and Will's life is not normal.
As it stands in this scene, Vecna has weaponized Will’s sexuality against him. Which is WHY Will needed to come out to EVERYONE as a way of fighting back, gaining somewhat of the upper hand, and staying in control.
Will needed everybody accounted for, he needed everybody to know. He says himself it’s a secret that Vecna has preyed on, and telling everybody involved in that mission renders that secret powerless to Vecna, because now it is no longer a secret. Even leaving one member of the group out would’ve kept Will’s secret a secret and would’ve made it easier for Vecna to use that information against him.
The whole point of Will deciding to come out in that moment was because he knew that if it remained a secret, Vecna would be able to use it against him. And since everyone’s there, why not tell the whole group at once rather than going to people individually and coming out multiple times? That would be a nightmare, and Will's already going through one, so I think he'd 'rather just get it over with quick, like ripping off a band-aid.'
Complaint 2: "Why was the scene so long? It didn't need to be so long. It was boring. He didn't need to say that much."
I was so happy with the length of it. I didn't know people had a problem with it until I went on tumblr after the release of Vol2. And unfortunately the length complaint skyrocketed into popularity after the release of the finale and people were comparing the final battle with Vecna and the Mind Flayer to Will's coming out scene, using the anticlimactic length of the final battle as a vehicle with which to complain about Will's coming out scene and strip it of its beauty, emotion, and relevance.
Will is a traumatized gay teen in the 1980s. His feelings for Mike specifically grew most apparent in Season 4, but his sexuality has been threaded into the show SINCE THE VERY FIRST EPISODE (Lonnie calling him queer, all the slurs people called him in S1, etc). And in fact, Will's romantic feelings for Mike were supposed to debut in the S2 finale at the Snowball Dance (source: the Complete Scripts for S2). He was supposed to look away from where he was dancing with the girl to stare longingly at Mike, who would've been dancing with Eleven at the time. Will's sexuality has been a character point for seasons, it's been intertwined with his character for the entire show, he was heavily queer-coded until Season 4 when it became clear. Hours of screen time, writing, filming, discussions, scenes, analyses, breakdowns, character arcs and moments, years and years of Will suffering in silence and loving Mike with no one to confide in, all of the pain he's been through without ever explicitly seeking comfort with someone about it, destroying his own mental wellbeing to save his secret crush's relationship, everything has been building this conflict within Will, and it all cumulates into this very scene.
The show and Will's character have been building to this exact scene for AT MINIMUM two seasons. The length of this scene was necessary.
The final battle should not have been anywhere near as short as it was. But Will's coming out scene needed to be that long. It needed to be drawn out. Not only because of how much time narratively we've been building up to this, but also for Will's character. Like I mentioned earlier, him going off on an anxious ramble was him stalling because this is a terrifying thing that he's doing. He's about to admit a secret that he's been holding onto for upwards of a decade, he's probably thought about it every day for YEARS. I'm GLAD he took a long time, I'm GLAD he let himself talk, I'm GLAD he expressed his hopes and fears and talked them through his thoughts, I'm GLAD he let them see this part of him, because he's kept it hidden for so long.
Will DESERVED to have a long coming out scene. Anything less would've been a disservice to his character.
It's really sad to me how this episode got review-bombed and has the lowest rating of any Stranger Things episode. Because a lot of hate towards this episode is being directed at his coming out scene, and Will coming out is painted like THAT is the reason why the episode failed. The amount of YouTube video essays regarding Season 5 being horrible (underwhelming, awful, disappointing, etc.) that have Will coming out on the thumbnail makes me really sad.
This scene was not a bad scene. Is it perfect? Not at all. Are there writing inconsistencies and stuff that don't make sense in light of the show's ending? Oh, for sure. But it doesn't deserve the hate it's getting, and I hope this post can maybe help someone appreciate it more or help them see the scene in a different light. ☺️
Owyn out 🫡
(ya'll this post took me like three hours pls interact with it 🤣)
All GIFs are mine :)
