#tapegate

Alright. I’m going to put together everything I’ve observed myself and seen on here into one final mega theory on memory loss. 

Vecna is screwing with both us, the viewers, and the memories of the whole party. 

The first place this really sticks out is in the coming out scene. Will says some things that are really odd. Number 1: One of the memories was something about the party getting malts at Melvald’s. Melvald’s is a general store where Joyce works. They don’t  sell milkshakes. But in the 50s, it was a restaurant where Henry and Patty went. Number 2: he mentions enjoying getting lost in the woods. He definitely did not enjoy that—last time he was in the woods he got kidnapped! Number 3: the Tammy thing. We’ve consistently been shown for the last five seasons that Mike is NOT Will’s Tammy. He has several parallels with Vickie, including this one

And this one 

And this one (Vickie paces, Max remarks that Holly is pacing just like Mike).

—plus Mike is obviously way way more than a hallway crush as they’ve had a deep and special friendship since forever (Mike telling Will that the first day he met him was the best day of his life), and a literal DAY ago Will was looking for signals to date him. Will is not himself.

But it’s not only Will’s memories being screwed with. Mike starts calling Joyce by her first name instead of Ms. Byers in volume 2, despite having called her Ms. Byers in vol 1. We know from previous seasons that Mike is mouthy and distrusts authority figures, but he sincerely respects the ones he likes and cares about the opinion of, like Joyce. This is pretty out of character. Also out of character is his sudden unwillingness to touch will, pulling his hand back when Will is thrown to the ground in e5 and his hand twitches awkwardly as he stands by Will’s bedside in e6. Now, this could just as well be a sign of Mike going back to repression mode after being overloaded with signals, but in S2, the only part of Will that remains free from the Mindflayer’s possession is the hand that Mike held during the crazy together basement scene. Their love is that powerful—remember Max saying all she needed was Lucas, and that the connection was broken the first time not because the music shut off but because he took his hand of hers? Yeah. That’s why Mike can’t touch Will yet. Another huge thing is the adults’, especially Joyce’s, lack of memory. They forgot his birthday. She can’t remember how old Will was when he went missing. Neither she nor Hopper remember that they LITERALLY WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL with Henry, and they + Bob Newby were partly responsible for having his dad arrested for the murders. That’s huge. That’s not something anyone just forgets. Vecna is playing them like they’re all pawns in his game, and he’s several steps ahead. 

And what do we know about the importance of love from The First Shadow? It’s everything. Brenner causing Henry to lose Patty (whom Mike canonically parallels!)

is what ultimately weakens him mentally enough to let the Mindflayer possess him, driving him towards evil. Forcing Will and those around him to lose important memories of and with, especially Mike, is exactly what Vecna wants. Without strong reciprocated platonic, familial, and romantic love, he will lose. He’s already slipping away. 

Part two of this theory is the references to other films. We know the duffers love to reference their favorite movies all the time—plus, they shared that giant whiteboard of film and show inspirations. Both these movies were on that board. 

First we have this No Way Home parallel. For those who don’t know, No Way Home ends with Peter Parker being forgotten by everyone. Will wears this fit early on in the season, and Mike supposedly wears this shirt in the epilogue. This is memory loss plot reference 1.

Second is all the references to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. We once again have the costume parallel—

(Which also explains the ridiculous beanie.) but we also have more plot references. In Eternal Sunshine, Joel and Clementine undergo procedures to erase each other from their memories after a breakup. The place they first meet is Montauk, and after Joel realizes that he doesn’t want to erase Clementine and the memories are crumbling all around him, we are left with nothing but their first memory together where the last thing she tells him is to meet her again in Montauk. Now, what was the working title of Stranger Things? Montauk. And what was Mike’s character called in that first draft? Joel. 

There’s no way all of this is merely coincidental.

We also have reports of tape merch that’s been promoted. And how do Joel and Clementine get their memories back? By playing a tape.

And remember—in the trailer, we all watched Vecna tell Will that he’ll be his spy one last time. There’s no way that this was just about a five minute peek at Max and an easy escape with El where Vecna left his most important vessel unsupervised. There’s something more here, and maybe all of this began when Vecna put Will in a trance. 

Alright. So all that said, there’s one last element at play here. And maybe it’s a stretch, but it’s a thought I felt worth including: we, the viewers, are also being Vencna’d. that’s why vol 2 felt so off. Netflix hasn’t been cutting scenes; Vecna has. Remember what he says to the kids? Your memories of how you got here might be foggy. Maybe we are missing some pieces. They’re just going to be revealed to us in the finale when the characters figure out that something is missing from their memories. It’s all a puzzle. Also, the way these scenes are shot are really telling—a solid portion of them are just Jamie staring straight into the camera and talking directly at the viewer. 

4th wall break. We’re complicit. We’ve been actively participating in the story since we literally started listening to WSQK. This is so much more meta than we thought.