Nowhere Man

No, the Duffers destroyed Will and Mike's friendship, because the device that was their deep friendship was no longer needed and detrimental to the final narrative.

Stranger Things is a deeply exploitative television show. I've spoken about this in respect to Lucas and race in the past (1, 2, 3), but I'll briefly touch on this in regard to Will and sexuality now.

Mike is the Spielbergian, upper middle class, white, male nerd who is the defacto leader of his friend group. A friend group that's comprised of a bunch of tokens, who are there to demonstrate how inclusive and compassionate he is. His moments of leadership throughout the show become increasingly artificial as his friends (Dustin and Lucas) outgrow him. With characters like Will and El, who are clearly struggling, they depend on him more, thus take the longest to become independent from him.

El is the center of Mike's world, once he meets her in season one, which sets up the destabilization of Mike and Will's friendship. Because El "dies" and Will is imperiled once again, Mike sees Will as an El replacement, a victim who needs protection and guidance. He gets a new purpose. He gets to be a hero. And he gets a distraction.

Once El returns and "integrated" into the friend group in season three, Will is discarded and has to come to grips with how he's different from his friends for another reason: his sexuality. Their rocky friendship takes a backseat, after Will's angry words recalibrate Mike's self-pity fest and compel him to act like a leader. This happens again in season four, when Will is discarded and, under the guise of El, uses his unrequited love to give Mike a motivational speech which hard resets Mike into his season five version: the heart of the party or, as the Duffers described, a more mature leader.

To the Duffers, Will is a therapeutic tool for Mike. He's there to be a receptacle for Mike's relationship angst, a sounding board for Mike's anxieties, and a life coach when Mike needs to be reminded of his own importance. Will, who's written like a saint, is simultaneously framed as a good friend and a pitiable gay teen who needs to get over his best friend that he relies on too heavily.

we don't know why will was taken specifically

hopper and joyce just happened to conveniently forget going to school with henry

the painting lie hasn't been addressed

we don't know why el recognized will in season 1 without having ever seen him before

we don't know who opened the door the night will was taken

mike and will's colors just HAPPEN to be blue and yellow and the cast, crew, and WRITERS THEMSELVES telling us to "pay attention to detail" was deadass just generational queerbait

after everything, mike STILL couldn't say i love you to eleven

patty newby is non-existent and creelby just happens to parallel byler for literally no reason 🩷

will was about to FORGIVE henry.

the duffers genuinely forgot their OWN MAIN CHARACTERS BIRTHDAY AND AGE MULTIPLE TIMES

the russian involvement in s3 and s4 was never explained so it was prob just capitalist propaganda except they don't want us to realize that so they gave jonathan an entire anti-capitalist film storyline for the sake of "screwing conformity" i guess

ohhh but! critiquing society???? fuck that! because they also didn't show us vickie in the epilogue at all, giving her and robin a completely ambiguous ending in which 90% of the fandom believe they broke up off-screen!!!!!!! A+ for representation !!!!!!

not only that, but will doesn't even have a CONFIRMED epilogue boyfriend. that is full well a cute lil headcanon that MIKE has for him.

terry ives, lonnie, enzo, max's mom, suzie, argyle, dr kay, the turnbow family, the school counselor with the clock necklace, and dr owens just vanished into thin air, ALONG WITH ALL THE DANGERS OF THE UPSIDE DOWN???? where were the demodogs, the demogorgons, the demobats????

max's letters were just completely insignificant and had no reason to be mentioned again i guess

november 6 just happened to be a funny coincidence

they ALSO happened to forget that nancy had a vision of mike being killed by vecna in s4 bc that boy wasn't even remotely in danger at all while every other wheeler was put through hell

dr brenner's obsession and fascination with the upside down and abyss stemming from how his father was involved in project rainbow was also not addressed

not to mention that the dude is literally horrendous at drawing animals but when it comes to the flipping hexcore he's da vinci

melvalds, the general store, just happens to sell milkshakes

will adores getting lost in the woods because that's such a fun activity for him

henry just gave holly her favorite song because he was feeling kind

they never actually defeated the mind flayer !!!! which is wonderful

we actually never find out whether or not will lost his powers

el's water tank in the upside down being completely full although there has literally NEVER been water in the upside down before

mike is somehow the only one who has ever understood el even though she was 10x happier with max. could they not have just admitted that they made the elmax reunion so incredibly lackluster because they refused to let ANY gay ships win regardless of how much chance they had of being canon?

the 'lovebirds' parallel between jonathan + steve and mike + eleven??? what was that even for

all the dick jokes, mike listening the a band called the BUTTHOLE SURFERS, the camera panning to mike 7000 times during will's coming out scene, mike not being able to touch will, all just happened to be fun coincidences

not only that, but the mike-will-eleven and nancy-jonathan-steve love triangles were resolved by none of the couples working out! wow.

It is abhorrent how casual they made us watch damn near kiddie porn from multiple angles with them struggling and crying and freaking out before/during/after getting attacked. They didn't respectfully allude to anything like in other media that handles this sensitive topic with care. It's triggering to see the graphic symbolism of oral rape and non consensual touching being done to these kids from Will to the new kids and so on.

How many times must we witness Holly and them get violated as if we forgot the dire situation they're in? How many times must we see it repeatedly happen to the kids who essentially were drugged (cuz when they woke up after being taken by the demo they couldn't remember what happened - normal traumatized child reaction).

And the sounds along with the detail of those tentacles pumping shit into their mouths has more screen time than the character development. No wonder we had plot holes, we just had to witness sexual assault more. And then the payoff is only Will gets to admit how used he felt afterwards, Holly and the other kids seem perfectly fine despite realizing their abuser is an abuser and then watching said abuser die before them with no long term conflicted feelings about being groomed.

Noah and the other actors began the show as children. Noah and the other actors did not have any saying power in what the endings for their characters would be. Noah will most likely not come out and call the Duffers or Netflix on their queerbaiting for a while - if ever - because those were/are his employers. Hollywood is still particularly fickle about actors who speak out against choices made because it labels them as “difficult” or “ungrateful”. And this is the show that started Noah’s career.