"You're the heart. Remember that."

will tapped into his connection to vecna to get them the "CLOSEGATE" message, and mike's the one who knew will could do that, because it was his idea in the first place. mike is definitively capable of seeing and using that advantage when it's available to him, proving he could fit the role laid out in this conversation

the "crazy together" scene also serves as foreshadowing

mike: sometimes i feel like i'm going crazy. will: me, too. mike: hey, well, if we're both going crazy, then we'll go crazy together, right? will: yeah. crazy together.

will felt like he was going crazy because he was at the beginning of his possession storyline. mike is essentially making a prediction that they'll both get possessed in the future, which will agrees to

mike: el? i've been meaning to tell you something. it's just, being broken up, it's been hard. and... i like that you and max are friends now. it's just, i was so jealous at first, and... and angry. and it's like i wanted you all to myself. and now i realise how unfair that is. and selfish. and, like... i'm sorry. i just, like, i've never felt like this with anyone before... and... you know, they do say it makes you crazy.

mike feeling jealous and angry and possessive about el becoming friends with max doesn't make sense if they're supposed to be his own feelings. mike isn't possessive of el. he doesn't want to hide her in his basement forever. when mike reached out to el over the radio in season 2, he wasn't begging her to come back, he just wanted to know that she was alive. he was fine with the idea of el going somewhere far away and living her life, like she almost did with kali and the ives family. mike doesn't get all prickly when other people pay attention to el or vice versa like he does with will. but if mike can feel what vecna's feeling, and vecna's mad because his plan of isolating and weakening el has started to fall apart, those emotions make more sense

we're meant to presume ("that's presumptuous of you," says max, after which dustin questions if that's a good thing) that what mike's talking about with el is love, and there's only one character who has actually said that phrase: the lady from the police station after jonathan got arrested. she assumed that he did something stupid defending nancy's honour, but that's not what happened. jonathan beat steve up because steve was talking negatively about will and joyce. if love does make you crazy, it's the familial kind, not romantic love

(this is from the same episode as el and mike's conversation — both scenes end with dustin interrupting)

even on a simple relationship level, mike and el's isn't what it appears to be. but once el starts asking what mike means, it becomes really clear that he isn't talking about love at all

el: what makes you crazy? mike: you never... you never heard that term... you know, like the phrase, like... "blank makes you crazy," like the word... el: "girlfriends"? mike: no, no, no, no, no... not girlfriends. el: "boyfriends". mike: no! no, no, not boyfriends either. it's like... it's like a feeling or... el: a feeling...

mike thinks he's going crazy again ("blank" makes you crazy... like possession? like "crazy together"?) because of a feeling ("it's like i feel what the shadow monster's feeling") and it's an independent issue from his love life. we're supposed to think it's about boyfriends or girlfriends but mike says that's not it, and despite his best efforts ("you never say it"), that blank never actually gets filled in

following the timeline of season 2, we know that will's possession wasn't successful. this was directly because of mike's actions and ideas — he didn't let the demodogs find them in the lab by suggesting they sedate will, he came up with the idea to put will in the shed and try to get through to him, and he pulled will out of a possessed state multiple times. but didn't vecna already know that nobody would let will go without a fight? didn't he learn that in the first season? isn't he supposed to be smart? what's smart about trying the same thing twice when he already knows it won't work?

vecna was spying on and trying to get something through will. i think that something was mike. who else was there to spy on? who else was constantly glued to will's side throughout season 2 (creating an association between his character and the concept of possession), always within convenient surveillance range? mike's a pain when it comes to his constant foiling of vecna's evil plans. it would be smart to keep an eye on him

and that would be all well and good, except that season 2 is the one season where our team of good guys won — supposedly — with no strings attached. sure, the bit of the mind flayer that was in will escaped, but after bob's death, there were no more casualties until the jump to the next season. it's exactly what they set out to accomplish. what was the point of spying on mike if vecna didn't even use it? even finding out their location near the end was inconsequential, because el dealt with the demodogs in seconds and they didn't attack the house again. when contrasted with the loss of el in season 1, the loss of hopper in season 3, and the loss of max in season 4 (all of which happened during the final episode and the climax of the overall story — the season 2 equivalent of which would definitely not be the escape from the lab, where bob died), i find the happy ending a bit suspicious

when did mike get possessed?

while inside hawkins lab, vecna made will point out the hub as, vaguely, "important". mike said that vecna's immediate plan was to simply kill the group in the lab and vecna insisted that he was lying. the only person vecna could identify was "my friend, mike" (not joyce, who he would have recognised if all he was drawing on was will's memories and emotions instead of his own knowledge). mike's plan then hinged on going into the tunnels and setting the hub on fire, which was, again, suspiciously successful. they had the fake out of something happening to dustin on the way there, but then nothing actually got in their way, which is very weird and untrustworthy considering how the tunnels reacted to hopper poking around (they could have done something like the vines attacking nancy, robin and steve in the creel house). mike's plan went off without a hitch until he got grabbed by a vine on the way back ("you step on a vine, you're stepping on a bat, you're stepping on vecna")

this sequence of mike getting trapped by the vine, concurrent with el trapping the mind flayer and will getting exorcised, is when i believe the possession began. or shifted, i suppose. will's could have been a trick; the obvious possession that they can feel proud of themselves for seeing through and stopping so that they don't notice the more subtle one. what kind of idiot pulls the same move twice, right?

...ahem. anyway-

the imagery of a vine wrapped around the ankle is similar to max getting grabbed by the ankle in vecna's mind lair (vecna literally being in max's head until she pulled an uno reverse card and walked into his instead), and to el getting grabbed by the ankle in the cabin shortly before losing her powers. these are both internally supernatural situations. what happened to mike in the tunnels didn't look like will getting possessed, but that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't something else going on. mike's stuff has always been more subtle. vecna wasn't able to stop mike from making connections and urging people into action and generally getting in his way, so he needed a newer, smarter approach in removing this annoying obstacle — he needed to use mike's best qualities (his intelligence, his intuition, and his tenacity) against him

there's about a month between mike going into the tunnels and seeing el at the snow ball. like will said, vecna leaves possessed people alone until they can do something for him, and then they're activated. i believe they showed us this moment for mike

the rest of his friends have left (will suspiciously pushed into leaving by mike), he's sitting alone, and then he perks up after seeing el walk in

mike's behaviour at the snow ball doesn't really make sense. last time el tried to kiss him (before she left to close the gate), he froze up, not leaning in, until hopper called her away. there was mike's speech to will in the shed before that, where he most likely realised something about the nature of his own feelings. now he's suddenly pushing will away and obsessing over el? it's weird and inconsistent and not in line with what you'd expect from him. yes, mike's a wheeler and wheelers are prone to fits of conformity, but mike also started a public fight with troy for saying something homophobic when he was 12 and he never takes his parents' conformity advice seriously. he thinks being a weirdo is a good thing. this is strange. especially when you remember the mind flayer creepily watching over all of them while mike danced with el

i often see this stuff being interpreted as just mike dealing with growing up and figuring out his sexuality, and that would be believable enough if this was just a coming of age story, but it's not. it's a supernatural horror coming of age story. things like will's ptsd and max's depression are turned into grandiose supernatural threats, but mike dealing with his sexuality in a heavily homophobic era (which we saw as early as season 1 could lead him to suicide) isn't? that would be a colossal waste of potential, and i honestly can't see this show passing up an opportunity like that for a main character to take the more grounded route instead

how would a show like stranger things present forced conformity through a character like mike, who's too headstrong to just conform on his own? by taking away his agency in his own life

why did mike get possessed?

there's the stalker song that played at the snow ball. every move you make, every step you take, i'll be watching you, and so on. while it's been linked to vecna's obsession with will, the lyrics themselves started playing over mike while he creepily stared at el from across the room, languishing in the shadows (what if the shadow monster spies back), as he tends to do. the song playing over mike and el talking, dancing, and kissing, holds the promise of mike and the romantic relationship that's officially forming between him and el being used to keep tabs on her, just like will was used to keep tabs on mike

(if you really want to tie it back to will — because these three character arcs are obviously connected — let's play with a hypothetical for a second: say you're vecna, and you want will on your side. how do you make that happen? you failed to take him twice because his friends and family refuse to give up on him. so how do you make him give up on them? on his life? simple! by making him think that mike, the person who makes him feel like he's not a mistake and who makes him want to keep fighting, isn't an option for his future anymore)

will: and if she was gonna lose you, i... i think she'd rather just get it over with quick. like ripping off a band-aid.

(needless to say, a year-long possession streak during which he's been slowly killing mike's spirit is not "getting it over with quick". mike just getting vecna'd definitely wouldn't be enough for what he's trying to accomplish. if you die that way it's over in a second. will plainly lays out that mike is his weakness — or his strength, which is kind of the same thing — and that going after mike slowly is the best way to get to him. vecna has been in will's head. vecna knows this)

el is arguably at her worst when she's existing in relation to mike as a romantic interest. she consistently does stuff like spy on her friends, lie to mike for months, physically harm max, exclude will, slam doors in hopper's face, and ditch all of her friends in the name of her relationship with mike. el never apologises or even takes responsibility for her actions. mike has done things wrong too, but in accordance with heteronormative gender roles of the time (watched any 80s films recently? the girl sits there and looks pretty, because she's a prize to be won, while the boy chases after her and puts in all the effort), el is blameless while mike gets all the blame. it consumes her character, makes her harder to watch, and most importantly, it makes her easier to kill

the romantic relationship between mike and el clearly had a negative impact. it isolated them, it turned them into brainless little teen drama machines, and both of their individual characters and the group's shared ability to strategise and make plans together took a drastic hit because of it. that's very convenient, isn't it? one season prior to mike and el becoming official, el was a powerhouse who shut a gate right in vecna's face and mike was constantly getting in vecna's way. then they got their happy ending of finally kissing at the snow ball and almost immediately after, they became so annoying and distracting in their relationship that it derailed from anyone in the group attempting to make good plans

by the big planning point of season 3 (the argument in the cabin), not only is mike too distracted by the romantic drama of juggling his relationships with will and el at the same time to come up with an effective plan, but no one else is taking him seriously either. they brush him off and ignore him the second the instant-regret-love-confession (which was probably a result of vecna's meddling, since mike usually keeps his feelings very close to his chest instead of airing them out in front of a room full of people) derails the argument, even though he was really the one making the most sense. mike was neutralised and they moved forward with a stupid decision instead of letting him talk them out of it, which butterfly-effected into the group going on the run from the cabin and everything that happened in the battle of starcourt — hopper "dying" (which is the reason why hopper, el, will, mike, jonathan, joyce and murray weren't in hawkins for season 4), the catalyst for max's death (and therefore the catalyst for the downfall of hawkins), and el losing her powers. that is very convenient for vecna. some of his biggest obstacles are out of the way and for the first time, the good guys only kinda win. that's a huge difference from season 2, and it serves as a stepping point towards their first complete loss in season 4. for a villain who's actively being framed as this manipulative mastermind, i can't believe that was just a series of unlucky coincidences

this approach continues to work into season 4, with mike being shipped off to california to make el cry and to make will miserable while all three of them aren't allowed to directly interfere in the main plot. all the drama mike caused is very suspicious in the season where vecna essentially feeds on teen angst (i wrote a very lengthy deep dive into season 4 mike a while ago, which you can read here). mike is activated to make his first few days in california weird for everyone, to push el back into the monster/superhero mentality (which vecna uses to demoralise her when they face each other), and during mike's monologue (not to be confused with vecna's monologue from two seconds earlier... wait-), which successfully distracted el and kept her from saving max

the characters picking up on it

jumping into season 3 after the snow ball, el and mike are kissing while listening to music again. the music is explicitly mike's pick this time, and it's all about "never surrendering" and "i can't fight this feeling anymore". while this does reflect on his tenacity and inability to give up and how existing in the world when you're different is a constant fight, most songs that feature in stranger things have a deeper meaning (especially when they're diagetic like this), and the music is telling us that mike (who is immediately acting like a different person) is fighting something

hopper (the person joyce went to about will's possession, the person who realised will was "talking without words", and the person who heard the music mike was blasting in the cabin for six months) says that something's wrong with mike, that mike's relationship with el isn't normal, and casually talks about killing mike for "corrupting" el. that's an insane reaction to a teenager being mildly obnoxious, but a fairly reasonable one to the villain — a grown man with a disturbing habit of targeting teenagers and pre-pubescent children — inserting himself into hopper's teenaged daughter's relationship which solely consists of them making out

mike doesn't understand what's happening to him, but he knows something is. his feelings get dismissed too often to make anything of it in season 3, but he gets the chance to think a bit harder about it in season 4, after a lot of prompting from will. usually when mike's freaking out about something, he paces until someone snaps at him to cut it out, but in season 4 he spends most of his panic sessions totally frozen. it's visually different from anything he's had to personally deal with before. he spends a lot of time wondering why he didn't say a mysterious "thing" (which he never explicitly spells out) during his fight with el. that fight was setting up for mike's monologue, which distracted el and let vecna open the gates. mike didn't say what he wanted to say, whatever that was, because he couldn't. he wasn't in control, and you can tell by how confused and off-kilter he sounded while trying to explain his reaction to the roller skate incident

subconsciously, though, mike is aware of what's happening. he's dropped a lot of hints about it ("why am i the bad guy?" is my personal favourite) and when jonathan subtly questions this habit ("maybe it's hidden in the code somehow?" "what you just said makes no sense"), mike shows that he has no clue he's doing it

jonathan actually figured out what was happening to mike back in season 3, almost immediately after setting foot in the basement, because mike exclusively speaks in code and jonathan's great at hearing the things people aren't saying. this is probably the reason why they got put in the same group for season 4

jonathan seemed to think that mike's consciousness was gone or heavily suppressed for a while (which is a kind of funny but mostly sad explanation for all that glaring people have been making jokes about — he wasn't glaring at mike, he was glaring at what he thought was the thing that had either killed or was holding mike hostage while wearing his face), but when mike kicked up a fuss while trying to protect el instead of being cool with needless death and murder like the rest of the flayed (who tried to kill nancy and jonathan, like, yesterday), jonathan looked surprised and realised he was wrong

from there jonathan protected mike, physically shielding him from the flesh flayer right along with will (and actually leaving will for a second to make sure he could pull mike back) when it burst into the cabin. nancy and will were talking about the flayed turning into monsters, and jonathan saw that happen to a guy from the hawkins post, so he was probably concerned about mike (this weird anomaly who's flayed but somehow still himself and hasn't transformed into a killer blob monster, for whatever reason) getting too close to the killer blob monster that absorbs flayed people into its creepy hive mind. jonathan also didn't mention what he'd realised about mike to anyone, since el was looking for the flayed so that they could kill them ("maybe i'll just kill mike," says hopper), and nancy was totally on board with that (jonathan gave mike a very weird look when this came up). everyone ganged up on mike very quickly during the argument, so i can see why jonathan would be hesitant to share his findings with the class and risk endangering mike (there's a queer allegory in here somewhere...), whether that's through his friends or vecna doing something to him once the secret's revealed

will and his Upside Down Compass Powers had spider-sense moment after spider-sense moment while in close proximity to mike in season 3: sitting next to him at the cinema, watching him walk away with el on the hill, and while mike's running up to him outside castle byers. will said that he "didn't want to believe it was anything at first" while laying this sequence of events out as indicative of something he didn't want to be true, which is strikingly similar to max's initial denial over billy being possessed

the things will's sensing don't make sense if they have nothing to do with mike. either will's range is huge, spanning all the way to the steelworks while sitting in the cinema with mike (there was a long panning shot across hawkins to show how far away the thing will's supposedly reacting to is), or will's range is so tiny that it takes vecna personally showing up for will to realise that the mind flayer is trying to kill jonathan and nancy a few floors above him while he's in the hospital waiting room. it can't be both

will only noticed what was happening in the hospital when vecna took control of the flesh flayer. that could easily reflect on will getting spooky feelings around mike but refusing to put the pieces together because, in his own words, he would fall apart without mike. it's easier to believe mike's weird behaviour is just about a girl rather than because the man who ruined will's life is in mike's head

lucas, mike's dustin-assigned best friend, questions and doesn't understand mike's behaviour several times in season 3 (he did that a lot before too, but that's a different brand of Mike Mysteries). the rest of the party (excluding el at first, although she gets there when mike acts weird on the phone and blatantly lies to her) are disappointed, confused, and angry because of how he's acting too. lucas seemed to suspect something when he reunited with mike in max's hospital room, showing the same intuition as when he knew something was wrong with max (reminder: the thing wrong with max was that vecna was in her head)

el seems to fully pick up on and question why mike's so different once they're both in lenora and not distracted by acting fake, in a way she wasn't allowed to before ("but friends don't lie" "yeah, well, boyfriends lie"), because intentionally upsetting her and belittling her as much as mike does at that point is weird behaviour for him. he's naturally gentler with both el and will than he is with most other people, so for him to upset them that much is extremely bizarre

dustin: i told you, joyce has this new telemarketer job. she's always on the phone. mike won't stop whining about it. max: yeah, but this phone's been busy for, what, three days now? that's not joyce. no way. something's wrong. nancy: she's right. it can't be just coincidence. it can't be. whatever's happening in lenora is connected to all of this. i'm sure of it.

el has very good hearing and a habit of hearing mike whether he wants her to or not ("you do realise we can still hear everything you're saying, right?"), so she most likely heard mike and will's argument at rink-o-mania (especially since she heard angela's group perfectly seconds after the boys walked away). a few days later, after vecna told nancy to send el a message, el went into the void and heard dustin say that mike's actually been calling will an annoying amount but wasn't able to get through, which mike definitely didn't mention when will blamed mike for never calling. el knows this is weird because mike told her that he called her every night for almost a year with no shame, and the rink-o-mania fight was so ridiculously public and coupley that it wouldn't make sense for mike to suddenly be holding back. from there, prompted by max and nancy's refusal to accept the easy answer, el figured it out, just like when she knew that billy was "wrong" while max refused to see it

why didn't anyone notice sooner?

this is kind of a frustrating question for me. the real answer is that mike simply needs to be in trouble for season 5 to work (which is why characters like joyce and dustin are being kept away from mike for large stretches of time when he's acting strange — they're too intelligent and too active to not figure it out and help him too early). the answer that makes me angry is that mike wheeler is haunted by double standards. nobody would ever leave will alone to fight off possession for a year (and counting — there's probably going to be a time skip in season 5) like the characters who know about this have done with mike. it's impressive that he can hold out for as long as he has, but that doesn't mean he doesn't need outside help (although i suspect that's the point)

it seems to have something to do with the superspy angle. anything mike knows, vecna knows. if mike doesn't know about the possession then vecna won't be expecting to have to guard things from him as closely as he would from someone like will, who's consciously aware of the connection between them while mike's operating on subconscious knowledge. it can be turned into a tactical advantage, which is kind of mike's whole thing. as long as the others are careful with what they let him know, this might be the key to getting max back and/or killing vecna for good. mike did say a connection like this could be how they stop him, and it looks like he's going to keep working with will to do that, paying off the "crazy together" prediction

hopper knows something about mike that he promised to share with joyce (and the audience) during their date. joyce didn't show up and it still hasn't happened yet (although they keep reminding us of it). whatever information hopper has might explain why he didn't do anything in the six months between season 2 and season 3, if he really did figure out what was happening to mike that quickly

jonathan also promised to tell nancy everything, which probably has something to do with what he noticed about mike during their side quest. jonathan witnessed the monologue, so he has a solid understanding of how this specific style of possession works now. he also has the motivation to actually do something about it after finding out that will is in love with mike and couldn't handle losing him. jonathan told will that everything would be okay, and making things okay for will means fixing mike

for everyone else, mike's weirdness is predominantly blamed on his relationship with el (in an "annoying shallow teen romance, look no deeper, nothing to see here" way), or his feelings for will, if you're looking at it from a fandom perspective. but both mike and dustin call that bullshit. mike calls the way max frames everything about his motivations and his... whole character, really, around his romance with el, bullshit (max also deliberately does this when lucas tells her he knows something's wrong, obviously deflecting from the real issue). there's a not insignificant amount of categorically defining mike as not just a love interest, because that diminishment of his character is what the writers (and vecna) are banking on to hide what's really going on with him, but they also have to include enough clues that it doesn't come out of nowhere

mike prioritises other people over himself as a defence mechanism against his abandonment issues (because his family stopped paying attention to him around the time holly was born, making him think he needs to offer people something so they won't lose interest in him and leave him behind). the narrative can't validate that by presenting his habit of framing himself as someone who's useful and needed solely because he's the therapist friend, not because he's a person who's deeply cared for and deserving of help, like it's objectively true, so they're going to have to challenge it instead. saving him from possession, where the only thing to gain is mike's continued existence, would be a good way of accomplishing that

the timeline

mike is making things difficult by having a ridiculous amount of willpower, so it takes a bit of work to figure out when he's mike and when he's not mike. i don't have the whole thing figured out but sometimes, he just tells you!

this is from when he first entered the tunnels. nothing's messed with him yet, so he's at 100%

in early season 3, hopper says that mike has spent every single day for the past six months in the cabin with el, implicitly ignoring his friends (you know, the people he would and has jumped off a cliff for? those friends?). mike, from what the others have said about his behaviour, has spent those six months losing. "he likes it cold", and the months between december and july are mostly cold ones in this show's setting. this lends significance to season 3 taking place in the summer

hopper tells mike that something's wrong, but because he lied to get mike into the car (away from el) in the first place, mike doesn't listen to him and calls him crazy (you know, the thing joyce and will and nancy and even mike himself have been called whenever they had an out there theory? a theory that always turns out to be right?). hopper's scheme is successful in granting el and mike some space, but it's not until will gets sick of mike not acting like himself that mike actually snaps out of it. vecna was distracted by the other flayed at the time, as he'd recently put his plan of building the flesh flayer into action, as well as by what el and max showing up meant for his first direct interaction with el since she lost her memories. he was probably underestimating mike after six months of success and failing to pay him much attention, which continues into the next episode. the sauna test demonstrates mike's ability to fight back (and possibly hints towards the existence of some kind of mental shield or ability to hide, since billy had no idea what they were planning and even vecna looked surprised when mike snuck up on him with the bat), and confirms that mike and el both fighting for each other is vital to their survival

i believe mike is in control a lot more often for the rest of the season, but he still has to deal with the consequences of what vecna's already done through him. mike's definitely himself in the season 3 epilogue (i think he reclaimed something during the battle of starcourt, particularly when literally escaping from the mind flayer with max and el's help), but he cares about el's feelings and the whole situation is super confusing from his perspective ("i don't really remember... what did i say, exactly?"), so the getting back together thing kinda just... happens to him. mike's unresponsiveness during the kiss is especially disturbing in the context of this theory, where he's literally had no agency throughout their entire relationship (not that i'm blaming el; she doesn't know yet, she's still young and very sheltered so probably not that informed about consent, and she's been tricked by this whole thing too — their makeout sessions at the start of the season were difficult to watch for a reason — but like. yikes.)

mike immediately gets called "a shitty knock-off" when he gets to california, where he's at a disadvantage because of the 70/30 split with vecna ("he's been telling us his plan this whole time"). vecna having to focus on mike at first explains the inconsistent pattern of the murders in hawkins that robin couldn't decipher. vecna backed off once el left to get her powers back, and mike immediately did the most mike thing ever: got into a verbal sparring match with government agents ("so, what, we're just supposed to trust that you're the good guys? whoever you are?")

will reminds mike of who he is in the painting scene, because things have gotten so muddled in mike's head that he doesn't know anymore. this draws a parallel to mike's speech in the shed when will was possessed

mike reunites with el ("is it really you?" "it's me. i'm here" — that's literally the most loved one fighting possession dialogue i've ever heard). there's vecna's ridiculously long monologue, during which he confirms the whole mastermind angle, then he tells el to pay attention right before mike gets activated again to give the other monologue. mike was at 100% this time, plus he got a boost from actually eating something for once ("too much flavour awesomeness can't overpower your battery, can it?" — eat your damn food, michael), and will's speech convinced mike that happily accepting affection and fighting for his own existence is worth it, but they're still in a pizza freezer ("he likes it cold"), and vecna has enough power to open a mega-gate