#byler script analysis

Hey everyone! I know we've all LONG been anticipating the Papa Script release, and it's finally here! I have the full script, so I'm going to be breaking down my full thoughts here as to what's going on in the Van Scene and in Mike's reunion moment with El.

Okay, so the first thing I want to clear up here is that the Van Scene is entirely in Will's POV. I know there's been some speculation on Mike's stage directions here, but again, the perspective here skews and distorts the meaning, so hopefully this analysis will give some perspective on what I believe the takeaway from this scene is.

So without further ado, let's jump into the most controversial section of the script first, because this bit has caused a lot of heat, but I don't think it's the bad thing it's been made out to be.

At the beginning of the Van Scene, we get this exchange happening between Mike and Will where Will is suggesting that they have El use her powers in Vegas so he and Mike can sit around and play D&D and Nintendo for the rest of their lives and Mike says "Yeah, totally" with the stage direction here saying "(insincerely)"

This is important to note because the "Uh..." IS in reference to Mike (kind of like a record skip in his head) and the "(insincerely)" stage direction is the ONLY unbiased stage direction we get in regards to Mike's feelings in these scenes. The rest of these interpretations are all Will's POV.

Now, if you've read my Brokeback Mountain × Byler parallels analysis, you'll know that I have talked about the subtext of the rain fight in which Will suggests something similar, that his desired life with Mike is to sit around and play games in Mike's basement forever, that he always just wanted it to be himself and Mike, but during the rain fight, Mike rejects that idea because he believes that the relationship he has with Will, as well as playing games like DnD and Nintendo, is something he has to leave behind in order to grow up. Will believes Mike views him as childish, and then goes to destroy Castle Byers because he feels stupid for wanting that life with Mike.

Will is bringing up his desired life with Mike again in the Van Scene here. He wants to know after they've grown closer again if Mike could be open to that possibility, and so when Mike says, "Yeah, totally," in an insincere way, Will is viewing this once again as a rejection of that desired life. It's WILL who believes he made things awkward and interprets that Mike believes that he is childish for wanting to play DnD, and this acts as a callback to the destruction of Castle Byers and Will calling himself "stupid."

This is why we then get the direction that Will senses the change in the vibe but misinterprets the motive behind it, because Will views this as Mike not being open to the possibility of their playing DnD and Nintendo forever, that Mike is not open to the possibility of WILL, so he interprets that Mike is thinking about El here when he's not.

Though we don't get any indication of what Mike is ACTUALLY thinking about, my guess here is that he just doesn't believe that it's possible for him to have the life that Will wants. Just like in season 3, Mike feels as though he's still expected to grow out of these things, so when Will brings it up, Mike is confused and disappointed because he doesn't think he can have that. If you watch the scene back, the way Finn plays the scene does not line up with the interpretation that Mike thinks Will is stupid for bringing it up. While this COULD fall to acting choices, I think they probably would have directed Finn to deliver it a bit differently if we were supposed to think Mike was scoffing at Will.

So Will shifts the entire conversation over to being about El, not Mike. He's reading his best interpretation of why Mike is upset, and he believes that Mike doesn't want to break up with El and that he's happy being in that relationship, so this is when he decides to switch gears and makes the painting about El instead of himself. Will is looking to rip off that Band-aid.

When we get to this bit where Will shifts the conversation to El, Mike seems to start explaining his insecurity and his own uncertainty about his relationship with El. He's expressing how unbalanced the dynamic feels to him. That he doesn't feel like El really needs him, but Will is missing what Mike really means here. Will is interpreting this as Mike needing reassurance, and in a way, Mike sort of does, but NOT in the way Will is thinking. Mike's thoughts here about El not needing him anymore, "after all this is over," I think heavily hint toward Mike attempting to explain that he's uncertain how El is going to take his truth. That yes, he still wants El to need him, but that he's not the person she needs. Will misunderstands Mike, thinking that he wants El to still need him in his relationship with El, but I don't really think this is the direction Mike's thoughts were going. So when we get this "We've been over this already" stage direction, it's made clear to us that Will thinks this is an extension of the conversation he had with Mike after Mike gets El's letter in El's bedroom, but Mike is actually continuing the conversation that he had with Will on top of the car in the junkyard, "Because what if they don't like the truth?"

And here, Mike is revealing his truth to Will, that his relationship with El was "simple, dumb luck" and not this great destined love story.

So when we get to this part about Mike saying "It's so stupid, given everything that's going on. It's just...I don't know." This scene mimics what Robin says to Steve earlier in this episode, that with everything going on, the stakes of her love life feel spectacularly low. Just like Robin, Mike is feeling selfish for centering his feelings here because he's attempting to look at the bigger picture. He thinks it's stupid to be considering his own happiness or lack thereof because El is about to have to save the world again, and he's putting aside his own internal struggles because he doesn't think his feelings really matter.

And when Will says, "You're scared of losing her," Mike nods, because he IS scared of losing El. But he's not scared of losing his relationship with El, he's scared of losing his place in her life if he puts his own feelings at the forefront here, if he acknowledges that his happiness matters.

So then we get to the painting reveal, and this is HUGE because there's so much that's going on here:

While this is still Will's POV and he's interpreting Mike's reactions, here, from the way that the scene plays out visually, we can tell that Mike finding the painting stunning is genuine, and there's a few things that that says:

1) We get a callback to the DnD line here with the VISUAL of the painting

Mike was NOT rejecting Will's idea of playing DnD and Nintendo for the rest of their lives in his basement because he thought Will was childish, and this proves it: Mike is absolutely glowing at seeing the visual representation of Will's desired life laid out here. Mike has been conditioned to believe that his wants to play DnD and engage in fantasy are something he has to give up, but he doesn't WANT to give them up, and that's so clear because Mike still keeps all of Will's DnD art up in his basement and in his room. Mike joined Hellfire and invested all this time into Eddie's campaign. He wasn't mocking Will, he was sad because he believed he couldn't have this, but now Will is giving him this painting that says everything about what Mike secretly wants, what he's been holding onto since Will left.

2) Mike is glowing because this painting is showing him that he matters

His whole conversation leading up to this scene is about his feeling inferior to El and about his putting his own happiness on the back-burner, but now he sees how he believes Will views him (since this is before Will tells him the painting is from El, which of course, it's not actually), as the hero who is leading the party. As someone who is gallant and brave, not someone who is weak in comparison to Superman or who doesn't matter.

3) Mike is overjoyed because he thinks this painting is from Will.

He's been feeling Will pull away from him since he left Hawkins, and now he's so overcome because he realizes that Will has been thinking about him the entire time and that he's just as important to Will as Will is to him. We know this because Mike follows this by asking "Did you paint this?" and his inflection in the scene is full of wonderment.

But when Mike opens the painting and Will sees his reaction, Will gets scared. He feels the need to backtrack because he still thinks that Mike wants to save his relationship with El. So we then get the stage directions here of Will attempting to "Act cool"

He kind of backs out here. He's trying not to engage with Mike romantically because he's so afraid that Mike will reject him that he's basically rejecting himself. And that's so clear from the further stage directions we get. At first, Will moves closer to Mike when explaining the painting, but that's only because he's using El as a guise and he's trying to get the message across to Mike that Mike does matter, but when Will feels himself start to trip up, to put too much of HIS emotions into telling Mike he matters, he "retreats."

Mike here is maintaining this closeness with Will, in fact, Will has Mike's whole attention, but Will can't really see past his own nose here because he thinks that revealing his whole truth means losing Mike, so once again, Will pushes Mike away, literally turning himself away from the intimacy of this moment, that Mike is completely open to.

Will is doing a lot of projecting in this scene, because Will hates himself, and so he believes that if Mike knew what he was, Mike would hate him too.

So when we get to this little exchange here, I think there's so much that could be going on, and this is perhaps the hardest scene to really gauge the full extent of what Mike is thinking/feeling

There are two main ways I think we can read this:

1) That Mike doesn't know these are Will's feelings

If that's the case, I think he's more confused in this scene because what's being shown to him (the painting, Will's art, and Will's perception of him), is not the same thing he's being told (that El cares about and needs him), which causes Mike to experience the narrative dissonance in this scene

2) Mike gets a sense Will is talking about himself, but is confused that Will believes he could lose Mike

If you've read my other analysis posts, then you know my take is that I believe Mike has always seen their friendship as being lost because Will stopped communicating with him, and not the other way around. So when Will is saying that if he's going to lose Mike, he'd rather do it quick, like ripping off a Band-aid, Mike could be not getting it because he's always been there and he could never just abandon Will, and if we read it this way, then it would nicely mirror what Jonathan tells Will later in the Surfer Boy Pizza scene.

I think either way we read this, Mike is hoping that these are Will's feelings.

He's being reassured here by Will that he won't lose El, but he's also being reassured that he won't lose Will. So it's ambiguous, and Mike is relieved I think to hear both, but he's still somewhat uncertain of the outcome of what Will is trying to say.

So from these deductions, I'm not convinced he was going to tell El he loved her at Surfer Boy Pizza. I think he was maybe ready to explain some of what he was feeling and would have probably asked her about the painting there, so that he could know for sure one way or the other.

Mike is still holding hope here that these are Will's feelings while Will thinks that he just ripped off the Band-aid and that Mike will now be happy with El without his feelings standing in the way.

It's not until the love confession that I believe Mike fully believes that maybe the painting was from El all along because Will is rejecting him and pushing him back to his relationship with El.

Let's digest that for a bit.

Okay? Okay. Now let's move on to the reunion scenes:

The first is between Mike and El:

Notice Mike calls her Eleven here again and not El? I just think that's interesting considering that Mike gave her the nickname El as an affectionate gesture in s1 and now he's consistently referring to her as Eleven throughout s4.... (which, she literally just escaped from Brenner's lab again, so this is 100% intentional mirroring of Mike and Brenner again)

Anyway, El is kind of out of it when Mike gets to her, and there's this interesting pause that happens between her and Mike before she embraces him. Now this COULD be just because she's dazed, but the fact that the stage directions stand in such stark contrast to how she embraces Will I think are telling. This pause I think is hinting to lack of resolution in their relationship, and the "WARM AND INVITING" physical presence here I really think just points to relief that they're both safe and a shared happiness to not have lost one another. It's familiar and comfortable.

However, her reunion with Will is packed with more emotion, not just visually, but in the script as well:

She pauses to embrace Mike but "rushes" to Will. And their shared bond being not of this world....definitely hints, among other things in this script, to Will's supernatural arc next season.

The description of this hug being so much stronger and more gripping than the hug between Mike and El I think also really hints to El's focus: she needs familial bonds. Will feels like home to her. And this is all the proof I need to point toward El recognizing that she's displaced her own needs to be loved onto Mike.

I really believe that so much of this points to a mutual, but separate recognition for both Mike and El that their relationship is not what either of them needs or desires anymore. The only one who doesn't recognize this is Will.

this is a part 2 to my previous post. you can find that here.

so, continuing on is this:

both times in both scenes they lock eyes and then there is a BEAT of some kind. why not phrase the line in the episode 4 scene a different way? they could’ve said that “will’s heart races” or “his heart pounds” something like that. but, they didn’t. it’s possible however that it’s a bit of a reach and doesn’t mean much. it is an interesting parallel, though.

i think it’s funny how in episode 4 will just immediately understand what mike is talking about while in episode 8 he has to struggle to try and get what he’s saying. it goes back to how mike isn’t able to communicate and be completely open when he’s talking about el.

mike and will always lock eyes after one of them says something truthful that puts them (mostly mike) in a sort of vulnerable position. in episode 4, mike says that he has no idea what’s going to happen next and in episode 8, will says that mike is scared of losing el (which is true. mike can still be scared and worried for el without loving her romantically).

and, last but not least, we have this:

both times the word cool is used. i think it’s interesting given the emphasis cool has for these two (based on the episode 4 scene (“cool. cool.”). also, both times the word is directly arising from will. he is the one to first say cool in the episode 4 scene, and he thinks it to himself in the episode 8 scene. i think it’s another interesting parallel, even if the cool doesn’t show up in the on screen dialogue for the episode 8 scene.

that’s it. let me know what your thoughts are!

So, the writers said they changed the scene while filming to make it "more subtle". I find it interesting that the first line that isn't on the show relates to Mike knowing for a fact that El doesn't need him. Not only does he feels like she doesn't, but he actually saw it. This is way less ambiguous than Mike just questioning his subjective assumptions.

Now onto the "Will just nailed it" line... This could encapsulate Mike's conflict, to a certain extent. Will didn't say anything about love like "you're scared she doesn't love you anymore"; he just said Mike was scared of losing her - and he is! But there is no straight-up romantic implication, really.

Here's the second line that didn't make it to the screen: "Because losing you -- it just hurts -- it hurts too much". That's the moment when Mike should have picked up on the fact that Will was talking about himself. I mean, come on, he's using the present tense! He feels like he is losing Mike already and this is HEARTBREAKING. And, of course, Mike is emotional because that's exactly what he needed to hear. And It's exactly the kind of love that he needs as well.

And for the last lines, I like the "Yeah? / Yeah" dialog we got on the show better, even though it could have been a nice S2 parallel :)

To think that Will giving Mike his art is something they’ve done hundreds of times before, but each time Will does it, it never fails to spark joy in Mike: “his face can light up a room.” That description is so beautiful and says so much. And considering that light plays an important role in their dynamic (Will being in the light and Mike reaching towards Will/light), I find the use of “light” interesting in that description because light has very much been associated with love. And “his face can light up a room” just speaks of so much joy and love and aaaaaah it’s making my heart explode. It’s just so beautiful to me that Will can inspire these kinds of feelings in Mike because we had seen Mike so glum and apathetic and totally not himself before, not just when he was talking about what’s been bothering him, but also back in Hawkins, and it’s like Will’s painting flipped a switch and brought out that old Mike Wheeler we all know and love.

Also, don’t get me started on Will, he’s given Mike his art hundreds of times but he’s nervous about this one (understandably so), and it just wrecks me because he was “patiently waiting for approval and encouragement.” These are the two things Mike has always given him when he gives him his drawings 😭 and Will was waiting for that!! He had trust and faith that this is Mike, Mike-i-keep-all-of-Will’s-drawings-in-a-binder and hang-them-everywhere so of course Mike would give him approval and encouragement because this is what he’s always done, this is their thing. And I think Will patiently waiting for Mike’s approval and encouragement is def also coded in a romantic way because Will has given Mike what is essentially a symbol of his love, and he’s waiting for his “approval and encouragement.”

The thing is that Mike doesn’t know that that’s what it truly is, so he may be able to admire it from an aesthetic point of view and because it’s something beautiful Will made, but he doesn’t know the TRUE deeper meaning yet so Mike hasn’t even been given the chance to approve or encourage Will’s feelings YET.

So, we finally got our script. And this part caught a lot of people’s attention. 

There are two ways we can approach reading this part of the script. 

The first functions under the assumption that the underlined text - What are you, like 12-years-old still, dude? - is Mike’s actual internal dialogue, hence the underlining of motive in the square brackets. This was my first reading - Will feels the air change, he feels the awkwardness, but he does not know why. The ‘why’ is in the underlined italics - Mike is judging Will for being childish and holding onto traditionally ‘childish’ hobbies. Sounds grim, yes, but there’s an explanation.

The second instead assumes that Will is an unreliable narrator for the entirety of this scene, and the underlined text is what Will thinks Mike thinks, and the motive so heavily emphasised within the next direction is instead something entirely different, something Will has missed completely. Bylers like myself might want to read this as Mike having some kind of Will-related realisation...otherwise, it’s ambiguous. 

In my opinion, both of the above share a common thread: Mike projects his insecurities onto Will. 

In suggesting such a ridiculous fantasy, Will incidentally gets straight to the core of Mike’s desires: To go back to how things were just as much as Will does, to play DnD and Nintendo for the rest of his life, to not have to worry about his best friend disappearing and getting possessed, or his superhero girlfriend getting arrested, or his family being taken and killed, or the town he grew up in being destroyed. 

And that’s scary for Mike. It’s scary that the boy he hasn’t seen for a year has read his mind with an offhand fantasy. 

We know Mike still likes DnD and Nintendo. 

From Lucas on the Line, after Will and El leave:

“Mike went straight back to moping, but it’s even worse than before...he’s in his basement all day, playing Super Mario Bros...”

And all you need to do is watch Season 4 to know Mike’s heavily invested in Hellfire, passionate about making all the campaign sessions, to the point that him and Dustin are markedly pissed at Lucas for choosing his basketball game instead. He also borrows a lot of inspiration from Eddie for his appearance - longer hair; darker, more edgy clothes. 

But we’ve seen this before, we saw Mike lash out at Will over his desire to play DnD while he, Dustin and Lucas were ‘getting older’, getting involved with girls, trying to grow up and be perceived as ‘cool’, to outgrow their nerdiness. In fact, we even saw Mike lash out at Will because he showed no interest in girls. Interesting. 

And now, once again, Mike is insecure because what he wants to do - sit and play games with friends, his best friend, the friend whose company I think he has longed for just as he longed for El - does not align with what he is doing, or the way he is presenting himself. And so he lashes out, he judges. Because Will is literally the physical manifestation of who he used to be - his old best friend, the person he played DnD and Nintendo all day with. He’s the easiest target for Mike’s insecurities. 

To take it a step further, and to be a little more delusional, maybe Mike’s also insecure about his sexual orientation, and projects his insecurity over it onto Will because he’s figured Will out already (It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!). The DnD, the Nintendo, the shadows of his friendship with Will - they stand on their own as remnants of Mike’s past, but are also a potent metaphor for Mike Wheeler’s greater internal struggles - whether that be with his sexual orientation, or just with his self-image, interests and identity in general. 

ok I AM genuinely wondering if nick’s source is the one with the issues/possibly illegitimate scripts, OR if the writers don’t know that his source got ahold off he scripts & therefore they say that the scripts must be fake bc as far as they know, nobody has legit copies to distribute

And while I don’t want to give Nick too much credit, technically he isn’t selling scripts- it was a fundraiser to keep the site free & scripts were a reward/“thank-you” for donating, but you weren’t buying the scripts. Now, we still don’t know if the scripts are real but there definitely smthn off abt all this.

Maybe the 8flix script is real? Maybe it isn’t? Idk man smthn weird is happening here