I have risen from the dead to tell you that there’s this guy who I went to school with who is just now watching Stranger Things for the first time ever, and I know this because I still follow him on instagram and he’s posting reviews on there. He recently posted his review of the first season and I started a conversation. I don’t think Stranger Things is really his cup of tea though so our chat was pretty shallow. He was nice though and seemed like he was genuinely interested in what I was telling him. However, he’s posted his review of the second season today and amongst other things he said that El’s story with Kali was unnecessary, and that Mike’s attitude towards Max didn’t make sense “given his characterization in season one”. So, I started another conversation, kindly telling him that “hey, I can explain to you why Mike’s attitude towards Max makes sense if you want me to” to which he then replied: “Yeah sure. Tell me why it makes sense and then I’ll explain to you why it doesn’t 😂” … ?!?!?!?
I then asked him to tell me why exactly he doesn’t think it makes sense, and I’m still waiting for a reply, but this entire conversation made me think of a friend I have (one of the few that actually watch stranger things) who has only watched every ST season once (maybe twice) and doesn’t engage with the show/characters outside of watching, who had a similar attitude towards me when we were discussing s4 a few months after it was released. Who could’ve guessed, we were talking about Mike, and she’s an avid Mike hater (because of course she is) and tried to convince me that she knows him way better than I do and that he’s definitely homophobic.
And I honestly just love how those two provide such a stark contrast to this guy who’s a friend of one my friends, who considers himself a Stranger Things fan and was able to talk to me about the show on a deeper level than the surface. He actually started the deepening of the conversation by expressing that “Mike isn’t one of my favorites, I just can’t really wrap my head around him. I know there’s this theory that he’s gay but I honestly don’t believe it”, and you know that was my cue! I told him that I was a strong supporter of that theory and I pulled out some of the evidence and he was immediately hooked! Maybe not directly convinced (to this day I’m not sure if he is) but the way he was still mind blown by the evidence I provided showed that he knows and has a lot of appreciation for the weight of dialogue and character wardrobe and set design. Not once was he unaware of what I was referring to when I talked about certain scenes etc. while my friend who thinks Mike is homophobic has zero to no recollection of what scenes there were in the first to third season and that guy who’s posting reviews on his story is missing two entire seasons of valuable information in making these judgements.
Anyway, I’ll post an update later on what insta-guy replies to why he thinks Mike’s attitude towards Max in s2 doesn’t make sense 🫡
