#st rewatch

Like. Jonathan is absolutely correct that Nancy would not appreciate them ditching the search for Holly to see her at the hospital. Is it objectively sad that Nancy is crying alone in the bathroom covered in her mother's blood? Of course, but that's pretty much who Nancy is as a character at this point. She'll have her breakdown in private but she won't accept any comfort, at least until the mission is over and possibly not even then. And Jonathan does understand this aspect of Nancy's character more than Steve ever has, which is part of the reason why Steve and Nancy broke up and why she was drawn to Jonathan in the first place

At the same time Steve is clearly not trying to make a move on Nancy here. He looks completely taken aback when Jonathan accuses him of such - like to me that is not a "caught out" face but a "what the fuck are you talking about" face. He's much more of an empathetic support guy than a practical solutions guy, plus he would 100% be the type of person brought up to believe that bringing flowers to a hospital is proper etiquette. If anything, suggesting they go together feels more like an admittedly somewhat misguided olive branch that Jonathan then misinterprets and gets defensive over.

They've been in this pressure cooker situation for nearly twenty months. They're under military quarantine essentially waiting for the other shoe to drop on the apocalypse. They're all so much more cynical and just. weary than in previous seasons

And you've got Dustin self-destructing in grief and deliberately antagonizing everyone he comes across while pushing away Steve and the rest of the party. Steve feeling hurt/belittled and lashing out in kind while gravitating towards Nancy because at least she's not treating him like an idiot. Jonathan clocking this and projecting like hell onto Steve instead of addressing the actual issues in his relationship with Nancy, and Steve enabling the rivalry apparently just for the sport of it even though he's given up on Nancy. Nancy being extremely over all of this but just straight up ignoring it instead of having an actual honest conversation with either of them in order to focus on The Mission, even though she's now living with jonathan.

And then Robin is kind of separate and honestly the only one of them that's thriving, but even though she's obviously still close to steve and friendly with nancy she seems much more distant. She's clearly over both the steve/dustin and jancy-stancy drama and spending more time with Vickie, but then that's also strained given that she can't tell her the truth and vickie suspects she's an addict. (I also question how much Robin even likes Vickie beyond the surface attraction and vickie being the first girl she's dated given that she seems low-key annoyed by her at times but that's a post for another day.)

I just finished rewatching The Crawl and his conversation with Robin at the start of the episode very much echoes his conversation with Nancy in s2. He's worried that Robin isn't taking the military threat seriously enough by, essentially, mocking them live on air. In s2 he's worried that Nancy isn't taking them seriously enough by being so gung-ho about wanting to tell Barb's parents the truth. In both cases it's clearly coming from a place of wanting to protect the people that he loves (including his own family, which i very rarely see mentioned), but he also just seems to be much more cautious and aware of the consequences of pissing these people off, in a way that some of the others just don't always seem to grasp. Like take s4 for example - Dustin is literally treating it like a quest until just before the end, while Steve is the one pointing out that eddie (who he doesn't even like at this point) is a wanted man and they can't just go traipsing all over town with him.

Where the difference lies, and where a lot of the character development is apparent, is that in s2 steve is actively trying to talk Nancy out of going against the NDA. He wants to put it out of their minds and try to move on and while I can't exactly blame him for that it's a big part of the reason why Nancy goes to jonathan for help instead. By s5 it frankly makes more sense for him to be terrified of the government considering that at this point he's repeatedly experienced violence including literal torture by a foreign military. But even though he's telling Robin to tone it down, he's working right alongside her every day producing a radio show that pretty much uses the military's own propaganda as a cover for sending out coded messages. Like, they're right at the core of the resistance and probably should have been arrested for treason at the end of the show.

Nancy and Steve are left to be very much in charge - Robin too, but she makes a point of deferring leadership. I also think this is a big part of why Nancy looks so relieved when she sees Steve's car pull up at the trailer park - not because she's in love with him, but because it's dawning on her for the first time that there is another adult in Hawkins who understands what's going on.

But the point is it all goes horribly wrong, to the point I'd probably consider the finale to be the true darkest hour of the whole show. Like if you look at their main objectives for the season:

Save Max - failed. Technically El comes to save her at the last minute, but as far as anybody knows she's still comatose and might never wake up. Also she very much did technically die.

Save Eddie - failed, not only does he die horribly but they don't even manage to clear his name, so other than this small group everyone still believes he was a devil-worshipping serial killer.

Kill Vecna - failed, not only does he get away but in temporarily killing Max he manages to carry out his goals and (supposedly) bring on the end of the world.

And not only that but every single person in their group gets injured in some way. Lucas gets beaten to a pulp by Jason. Dustin breaks his ankle falling through the gate. Steve gets half-eaten by bats, Nancy and Robin get choked by vines, even Erica is tackled by Andy.

And I don't think any of this is anyone's fault, but I absolutely do think it would be extremely traumatic and have lasting impact especially on Nancy (thanks to her pre-existing trauma from Barb which this season made it a point to bring back into focus) and Steve (who has a bit of a hero complex and sees himself as the protector of the group). And while I do kind of wish they had a scene discussing what they went through in s5, there is a bit of a shift in the dynamic that you can read as being informed by this season, even if it wasn't put there intentionally.

Like I think it's notable thay even though Nancy turns out not to be romantically interested in Steve after all, she absolutely values his input in a way that she just doesn't prior to s5. She gives him the go ahead to drive through the gate and defers to his judgement over Jonathan's on at least one occasion. And then on Steve's side even though I do believe he isn't actively pursuing her at this point, I can't exactly fault him for wanting to partner with her when she's the only one not actively putting him down at every opportunity. She's not even that nice to him tbh, s5 Nancy is Nancy at her most emotionally distant, she's just not constantly implying he's an idiot.

And I can also see why Jonathan would clock all this and jump to the wrong conclusion even if he is doing entirely too much about it. Like there's the makings of some interesting dynamics there buried beneath all the tired love triangle clichés.