skaya

The first time we see Charlie, he's wearing a yellow hoodie, which is Will's color.

He gets taken (in the woods) by the vine monster, which grabs him by the face in a way that looks similar to what happened when the Mind Flayer possessed Will on the field.

Charlie ends up being inside the Snow Shark. He's got a vine hooked up to his mouth, so it can use him as a host.

When El rips Charlie out of the Snow Shark, we can see from his eyes that even though he's out of the Snow Shark, he's still possessed. He's still connected to the hivemind just like Will was after he came back from the UD in S1 and got his true sight and again after they got the Mind Flayer particles out of him in S2 and he started getting his "goosies".

The next time we see Charlie, he's wearing a red (Vecna) hoodie. And he keeps wearing it for the rest of the show.

He tells Dustin that he saw a red light at the top of a tower, which looks a lot like the the WSQK tower, which is where the Mind Flayer particles went when Will connected to Henry and got possessed again.

The red shading on Charlie's image of the tower also reminds me of Will's demovision, which aligns with Charlie seeing the tower from the queen's POV.

When they run into Charlie later at the arcade, he's got huge purple bags under eyes, almost like he hasn't been sleeping well.

In detention, Mike, Will, and Nikki get chased through the hallways by the monster. They're about to escape when Will and Nikki remember they had to go back to save Charlie. Interestingly, Mike didn't want to. He just wanted them to save themselves.

If real Will is the builder of this Camazotz type of world that they're in, Mike doesn't really want it to end. He doesn't want to save Will because then they could get out, and he's comfortable here.

Sure there are still monsters, but he's got his safe, seemingly happy relationship with El. T85 is set before S3, which is when he started really overcompensating for his feelings. It's when the lip glances started and when he started making a really strong effort to "grow up."

T85 is also set before he found out that Will's gay, so he didn't have to think about the possibility of them actually being together and be sad that they couldn't be because (he thought) Will was over him.

In this world he (and probably Will as the builder) has created, Mike can go on thinking that he's straight and not in love with Will.

But even in this world that's he's made for himself, Will and Nikki (his queer self-insert) know that they need to save Charlie (real Will), and Mike reluctantly agrees.

The plant monster attacks Charlie, again by grabbing his face, which also looks very similar to the way Vecna places his claw over people's faces. (We don't really get an angle like that when he does it to Will in Escape from Camazotz, but it's the same motion Vecna uses on him.)

They manage to get it to release Charlie, but after this second time he's been attacked, he goes into a trance.

Will says that creature got him once before and wants him back (I'm losing my mind about Will's hospital gown being covered in triangles).

The thing that actually kills the monster is the potato taser that Will throws at it (mixing with the goo Nikki/Mike's queerness poured on it). The electricity sets it on fire.

Remember that this is Mike's vision of Will. He sees Will as the one with the electricity.

Then we get this interaction:

Nikki (Mike's queer self-insert) asks Will if she can still join the party, and Mike leaves that decision up to Will.

Mike's queerness is asking Will whether he'd accept it, and Mike is letting Will say what he wants instead of assuming that his queerness would be unwelcome, which is what he's always done before.

Will says Nikki can join, and that's the moment Charlie stops being possessed.

All Mike needs to do to save Will is stop assuming that Will won't want him and let himself be vulnerable enough to actually ask.

Once Charlie's ok, Mike pulls the fire alarm so that someone will find him.

They don't have sprinklers that go off in the show, but that's what I associate fire alarms with.

Fire and water are often used to represent hate and love, respectively, in art, and I'm convinced that water (love) will play a big roll in the actual ending to the show.