The Audience Was Never Meant to Like Mileven — A Season 3 Analysis
Before we start, I want to clarify the title: this is about how the audience was never meant to like Mike and El as a romantic couple. Their scenes in s1 and s2 were endearing and served to show us that they have an important bond. BUT...some people are just meant to be friends, y'all, and that's okay. And the writers of Stranger Things want you to know that, too. So here we go:
At the beginning of s3, Mike and El's romance is in full swing. They're kissing all the time and they're constantly together. How do we know this? Well, it's not because we get a montage of intimate moments between them. It's because of this guy, who says this about them in the first episode of the season:
Before you come at me, I am fully aware that this is played for laughs, and we're supposed to find Hopper's meltdown funny. Even so, they're planting these ideas in our minds from the first episode which sets the tone for the rest of the season, and even more telling is that they do nothing to convince us he's wrong. If anything, they do the opposite.
For example, in the next episode, we have a shot of El frantically pacing the front porch waiting for Mike to show up. She's not excitedly waiting on the porch swing for him, smiling warmly in anticipation of her lover's arrival. She is visibly distressed:
Why? Because he is two minutes late.
I think it's safe to assume he was supposed to be there at 9:30.
Any way you slice it, that's not normal or healthy. You could argue that they're just newly in love and that's why they're being insane, but Lumax, Jancy, and Jopper—couples we are meant to root for and that are likely endgame—are never portrayed like this. This is unhealthy attachment and obsession, and the audience is clearly meant to see it that way.
Next, we have Mike giggling and whispering in El's ear while Hopper is trying to have a serious conversation with them, which lends credence to Hopper's "he's corrupting her" line (obviously it's not that serious—and more on why this is an annoying line below—but it is meant to show that Hopper is not far from the truth: Mike does not bring out the best behaviour in El—and vice versa—and they're not very likeable together.)
I also want to bring up another scene where the word "corrupting" is used, and it's this one:
To Mike's credit, he does later tell El when he's apologizing that he actually likes that she and Max are friends now and was just jealous because he wanted El all to himself yikes lol but I'm bringing this up because it serves to parallel Mike with Hopper.
Both Mike and Hopper assume that El is this pure thing that can be "corrupted," which is both misogynistic and infantilizing. Regardless of their intentions, both of them are trying to control her and make decisions for her (the scene above is literally an argument about how El should get to decide her limits, not Mike). And the fact that we have Max, a girl, defending her independence just further emphasizes that El's entire existence has been shaped by men thus far, and Mike is no exception to that.
We see this season what El is like when she is "enlightened" by Max and steps into her own, and she's miles more confident, happy, and self-assured than she is when she's anxiously attached to Mike. So there's another strike against them if you care at all about El's wellbeing. (I won't get into it here, but Mike has been paralleled with Dr. Brenner in the past, and they really double down on that in s4 where they parallel him with both Hopper and Dr. Brenner, conveying to the audience that he acts more like a father figure toward El than a partner.)
We then have Hopper's line there's something very wrong with this thing between you and El which, apart from being just plain ominous, is a really interesting choice of words.
If they wanted to convey that Hopper is just being a paranoid overprotective father, they would've framed it that way. They could've made him say something like: “You’re spending entirely too much time with my daughter” “You guys need to take a breather for my sanity” “I don't feel right about this" etc. Instead, they framed it in such a way that it feels like he’s stating a fact ("There is something very wrong..."), and it's not temporary, either. The way he calls it a “thing” further emphasizes the idea that their relationship is not a normal healthy one, but more of an attachment/codependency that shouldn’t even be qualified as a romance.
This line feels very deliberate, and since it's in the first episode, I think it's meant as a direction for the audience for the rest of the season: pay close attention to these two, something isn’t right here.
It's especially meaningful when you pair it with this scene earlier in the episode:
Dustin is talking about himself and Suzie, of course, but he is seriously beating the dead horse with this comparison—he says it in three different ways (not to mention El is pulled into frame, hanging on to Mike's arm, the moment he introduces the concept with the word "Shakespearean"). Then we have Max's "I got it" reflecting what the audience is thinking at this point (lol) and then they immediately cut to:
I have never seen anything more intentional in my life, like come on. This is a neon sign saying that these two cannot end up together. The reasons for this have yet to be revealed to us explicitly, but they are setting us up so that we won't be disappointed when it happens because 1) we will be so fed up with them lmao and 2) we will know that the relationship is not good for either of them.
Now Let's Question Some Narrative and Directorial Choices!
Maybe you're not convinced at this point, so let me posit this: when Mike and El skip together hand in hand down the hill on this lovely summer's afternoon, don't you think this would have been the perfect moment to cut to a private scene between them? So we can finally see them share a nice, tender moment that gives us a reason to root for them? Absolutely, this would have been the time to do it. But no, we get this instead:
Why are we constantly seeing other characters discussing Mike and El's relationship instead of actually seeing their relationship unfold?
Why is it that the two kiss scenes between them before their breakup don't serve to advance or give us insight into their relationship in any way, but instead serve to introduce and further Hopper's agenda (a character who canonically hates their relationship)?
After that first kiss scene, they even call each other afterwards and all Mike is talking about is how red in the face Hopper was, before this eyebrow-raising exchange: "I wish I was still with you" (strange phrasing for what could have been "I wish we were still together") and "I know, me too" ('I know' can easily be misconstrued as 'I know you do', implying one-sided feelings, and definitely didn't need to be written that way).
Why is it that one of the only halfway cute Mileven scenes this season ("Does your species like M&Ms?") only exists because Lucas made it happen?
Why is it that Mike can only say he loves El when she isn't in the room, in an excessively unromantic and performative setting?
(The family discussion line is hilarious when following this bombshell Mike just dropped. Reminds me of "Will you be like my brother?" and all the more tongue in cheek when you view Mike as a brotherly/fatherly figure in El's life.)
Why are the highs and lows of their relationship portrayed so unemotionally, with cheesy pop ballads playing in the background of their kissing scenes—which are in turn cut up by comically angry Hopper scenes—and the most unserious, tonally cheery breakup I have ever seen?
Why is it that the only other glimpses we get into Mike and El's relationship from their perspective are scenes where they're lying, fighting, or failing to communicate?
-> I'll go ahead and answer this last one: it's because there is no romantic substance to their relationship, so they have nothing else to show us except two incompatible people trying to make it work.
Mileven Jeopardizes Other Relationships
The rain fight scene between Mike and Will highlights a very important point:
Will: You're ruining our party.
Mike: That's not true!
Will: Really? Where's Dustin right now?
Mike: *deafening silence*
Will: See? You don't know, and you don't even care, and obviously he doesn't either and I don't blame him! You're destroying everything and for what? So you can swap spit with some stupid girl?
We are meant to sympathize with Will here, and we are shown that he's correct based on Mike's treatment of him and Dustin (honestly the scene before this, when they're making fun of Will's campaign, is brutal to watch. It isn't up for debate that they treat him horribly). Mileven canonically jeopardizes Mike's relationships, and a healthy romantic relationship should not require sacrificing other important people in your life.
Now, you could argue that Lucas also has his head up his ass this season, but it isn't because of Max. It's because of Mike and his relationship drama. Lucas and Max are fine helping Dustin build Cerebro, and they're also not losing their minds when they're apart from each other. That's an important difference being highlighted between Lumax and Mileven, which I think are meant to be foils of one another given they are all at the same stage of puberty, in the same Party, and seemingly at the same stage in their relationships.
But something else that's important about this is we the audience don't want to see the Party fall apart either! We love the Party! And the writers are purposely making it so that a united Party and Mileven are mutually exclusive, which is yet another tool to push us not to root for them. You may think that's a bold statement, but consider this:
They could have written it so that Mike smartens up after this fight and is able to better balance his relationship with El and other people, but that is not what happens. Instead, s4 rolls around and we see that it's gotten even worse—Mike is literally incapable of being civilized with Will in California until El and him are on the rocks again. He has a functional relationship with Dustin and Lucas (arguably for the latter, but only because Lucas has his basketball/popularity baggage) back in Hawkins because El is not around.
I'll let that simmer as I introduce:
Addressing a Counterpoint
I want to make it clear that I'm trying to be objective as possible here, and there are some sweet shots of Mileven in the latter half of s3 that can be used to argue against all of this. Mike is very caring and protective over El while they're dealing with the supernatural plot—he rushes to her aid a lot, checks in, and helps her hobble around on her injured leg. He clearly cares about her a lot, but I'm here to say: these are not explicitly romantic, or even romantically coded, scenes/actions, and they seem to go out of their way to make a point of this. I've run out of image space on this post and this point doesn't really pertain to why we're meant to dislike Mileven, so I may make a separate post and link back here. But in summary:
In the final episodes of s3, when they're in peril, we often see Mike's actions toward El repeated by other characters, especially Max. I find it really interesting that both Max and Mike are helping El get around on her injured leg in the final episode, as if to make it glaringly obvious that the care being shown to her can be read as platonic. Pair that with Mike attacking Billy after he knocks Max—a character Mike consistently butts heads with—unconscious, to remind us that this is how Mike behaves with anyone he remotely cares about (leader Mike rise uppp).
And finally, there are almost always other characters in frame during these sweet Mileven moments (which detracts from the intimacy and any sort of romantic mood) apart from 2 or 3 brief clips, the one below being the longest (and guess what? This one was famously unscripted):
(I'm emphasizing that it was unscripted/undirected because, even though they kept this shot in—because it is a great, dramatic shot—the writers never actively thought about giving Mike and El an intimate moment like this during the heat of battle, because once again, it was never their intention to progress their romance in a positive way.)
So yeah, Mike and El care about each other, undoubtably. Obviously they're going to protect one another during life-or-death moments. But this doesn't cancel out the fact that their romantic relationship is a constant source of negativity for them and other characters throughout the season.
I'm just going to say it outright: Mileven is unlikeable and we are meant to see it that way. They have purposefully shown us the drastic shift from their cute platonic/first crush (however you want to see it) dynamic in s1 and s2 when they weren't actually in a relationship, to their toxic dynamic in s3 when they are in a relationship. This is to say that this pairing does not work romantically.
Why, then, did the writers put them back together after their breakup at the beginning of s3? Because this relationship serves as a driving force for both Mike and El's character arcs. If they had broken up for good in s3, there would be nothing holding El back from "finding herself" in California in s4, and then her arc would be over by the time we get to s5. And Mike needed this:
to further his sexual identity crisis, ultimately leading to his deep denial and posturing in s4, and setting him up for his latent homosexual awakening in s5.
This is a s3 analysis so I won't go too deep into s4, but just to say that all s4 does for this relationship is show us more explicitly the flaws that exist within it. We are no longer just seeing them being annoying through the eyes of other characters, we are now seeing how their lies and miscommunication affect Mike and El themselves. If s3 was designed to get the audience to dislike Mileven, then s4 was designed to show us that Mike and El don't like it anymore, either. Neither of them is having a good time, and it shows.
I am actually begging to engage in respectful conversation with a Mileven shipper about everything outlined here, because to me it's just mind-boggling that people can view this relationship as something positive to root for!!!!! I am dying for Mike and El to end their storylines as the good friends that they are.
