i guess i've lost the light

i know the fandom started the rumor of cutgate — the idea that there was an alternative storyline for stranger things s5 vol2 that got changed or cut out — and i initially had thought, like many others on here, that that was people reaching to try and scramble to explain how atrocious the duffer brothers' writing actually was (i mean, we literally saw this same scenario with BBC sherlock and johnlocks thinking there was a secret final episode.)

but now, the more and more i think about the 30+ plot holes in the show, the countless questions people have that never got answered, and more damningly, the amount of small things the cast and writers said would happen in the final season that flat out didn't happen, (such as: maya hawke saying robin mentors another character after will, lover's lake being in promo and never showing up, the basements and cheating references in the squawk, the promise of barb's body showing up again, mike never finding out about the painting lie, the promise that we will know who opened the door in 01x01, & more) i am, honestly, starting to believe that something went very, very wrong during the production of this show's final roar. i am genuinely starting to believe that they were forced to cut out and change a lot of the initial plotlines the show was building up to, whether that was due to netflix censorship for queer storylines, to the WGA strike and writers quitting/or getting fired.

i know the fandom started the rumor of cutgate — the idea that there was an alternative storyline for stranger things s5 vol2 that got changed or cut out — and i initially had thought, like many others on here, that that was people reaching to try and scramble to explain how atrocious the duffer brothers' writing actually was (i mean, we literally saw this same scenario with BBC sherlock and johnlocks thinking there was a secret final episode.)

but now, the more and more i think about the 30+ plot holes in the show, the countless questions people have that never got answered, and more damningly, the amount of small things the cast and writers said would happen in the final season that flat out didn't happen, (such as: maya hawke saying robin mentors another character after will, lover's lake being in promo and never showing up, the basements and cheating references in the squawk, the promise of barb's body showing up again, mike never finding out about the painting lie, the promise that we will know who opened the door in 01x01, & more) i am, honestly, starting to believe that something went very, very wrong during the production of this show's final roar. i am genuinely starting to believe that they were forced to cut out and change a lot of the initial plotlines the show was building up to, whether that was due to netflix censorship for queer storylines, to the WGA strike and writers quitting/or getting fired.

the costuming alone charted an emotional arc, colour palettes shifting in tandem, mirroring, contrasting, signalling internal states long before the characters verbalised anything. the blocking and framing consistently positioned them in ways that highlighted intimacy, tension, longing, and narrative centrality. the camera lingered on them with a specificity that, in television language, means something. you don’t shoot two characters like that unless you’re building toward a reveal or a culmination.

and then there’s the emotional architecture: years of subtext, coded longing, parallel arcs, mirrored traumas, narrative foreshadowing. every tool in the tv writer’s and cinematographer’s kit was pointing toward byler as a deliberate, slow burn queer storyline. it wasn’t just possible, it was textually supported by the show’s own visual grammar. even the pink sky in the field scene, that gorgeous, deliberate wash of colour, was doing thematic heavy lifting.

which is why the lack of follow through feels so jarring. from a craft perspective, it’s almost nonsensical. you don’t invest that much visual and emotional capital into a relationship you plan to abandon. from a storytelling perspective, it’s a structural rupture, a setup without a payoff, a thematic thread left dangling. and from a queer audience perspective, it’s heartbreaking, because this could have been monumental. byler had the potential to be an epic queer narrative with genuine depth, history, and emotional resonance. it could have been groundbreaking.