It's Hawkins, it's not the same without you.

joyce has seen that boy grow up and seen that without fail- sticks by her son no matter what. they were THE ONLY ONES who believed will was alive in season 1 and they barely even spoke despite being around each other a lot of the season.

and i mean cmon. will was in a trance and they both were extremely worried about him while alone in the radio station. the circumstances were so perfect but nope.

so many other pairings had a heart to heart this volume too. jancy had their ily, max helped holly (almost) escape by giving her a pep talk, dustin and steve apologized to each other, will and joyce spoke so many times, and max told lucas that she never needed kate bush, just him.

-destroy the upside down

-show that mike now understands that will likes him

-wrap up byler by either affirming wills beliefs that mike isnt gay (bad ending) or revealing that mike actually likes will (good ending but where the fuck has been the build up for that across vol 2)

-have el almost end it with kali bc their plan is absolutely not gonna happen in the end i know it

-address the military’s messed up program to create more “vecna’s”

-address vecna’s plan with the kids and how he’s giving them superpowers

-either kill holly or have her live and go back to the rightside up

-and have an entire epilogue

gave me serious flashbacks to

“this is amazing, did you paint this?”

“yeah, yeah i mean… el asked me to”