Okay Here Are My Thoughts On Volume 2 And Season 4 As A Whole:

Okay here are my thoughts on volume 2 and season 4 as a whole:

-Will being pushed to the back was so unnecessary. Him and El are kinda the main characters of this show and there was a lot of El which was rlly nice but Will really wasnt there this season and why? Like i genuinely dont understand why. I missed him hes my favorite character

^ And mike and johnathan too?? like usually mike is so important hes like comes up plans and shit and he just wasnt?? there?? and i kinda feel like mikes character was nuked this season. His (and Wills) whole plotline this season was around his relationship with El... come on I want to see little micheal wheeler fight monsters with his friends. and ive also seen a lot of people reminding us how caring he was in season 1 and 2 and yeah. he rlly was and i miss that i dont believe that puberty hit and now mike only cares abt el like his character doesnt make sense anymore and i dont know why

- I honestly lowkey hated the cali plot and i rlly feel like the show would have been a lot better if the byers never moved. like they had to relocate bc of El and Joyce wanted a fresh start or something i dont remember but they very easily could have just not wrote that in. I just think that a lot of problems ppl are having with this season could have been avoid if the byers never moved.

-Aryle... hes definitely great. But i just...you know hes a fun character but thats kind of ALL he is. he is literally just a comic relief and is pretty useless throughout the whole season besides driving the cali gang which could have easily been done by johnathan instead of introducing a whole new character that probably isnt going to stay next season because hes supposed to be in california (which you know this whole problem could have been avoided if the byers never moved)

-the way our characters were split this season was a little weird but also not? like it made sense bc the groups this season were based off of just where everyone was but like i said, i wish the byers never moved. plus all the fan favorites were in hawkins and sometimes it felt like that was the only important storyline happening. like the cali gang just felt so behind compared to what was happening in hawkins

-my whole life would be infinitely better if every season was still set during halloween each year

-As much as i love this show, I think some of its charm has been lost... As our characters (mostly talking abt the kids here because they have always been the main focus since the beginning) have grown up it feels like maybe the duffers and writers of the show have focused a little too much on the fact that they are growing up and having relationships instead of focusing on what the show was originally about. a fun sci-fi show with monsters and kids saving the day and having little lighthearted relationships in the corner. I dont know if my point if coming across right but like it felt like theres just a little too much focus on the characters romantic relationships and honestly i dont care!! i want to watch monsters and kids figuring out how to defeat them in a fun 80s aesthetic! i am tired of the drama between stancy and jancy and as much as i would love byler i would be okay with mileven if they would have focused on their relationship less bc like i said earlier his relationship with el was mikes entire plotline this season. which just makes me sad because i usually love his character. yes even thought hes a little shit thats what makes him so loveable, because hes a little shit and he used to care abt saving all of his friends

This kind of ended in a rant but those were the problems I had with this season. I was definitely disappointed with a lot of stuff in volume 2 but I still enjoyed watching it as much as I could because this show is still really good and means a lot to a lot of people. I hope the duffers can like fix themselves because I would hate to see this show get like ruined because of bad writing in the later seasons.

look i want will to be angry. vengeful. i want mike to feel terrible about how he treated him all season. i want there to be a reckoning. HOWEVER i would absolutely hate it if they went the gay-villain route because it's been done before and it's a damaging trope and i would much rather have will save everyone, including mike, in spite of how he's been treated. i want him to have a gut-wrenching monologue, i want their friendship to burn and then have mike try to rebuild it from ashes, i want will to absolutely lay into mike, to say that he hates him, and then still save him because that's who will is. that's what he'd do. they said it was mike but will's the real heart of it all

I made a quiz, enjoy!!

now tell me why mike stops smiling when will says el commissioned it 🤨 call me delusional but...

Eddie saying ‘86 is his year and then proceeding to get framed for murder is so fucking funny

Hi! Idk if this is helpful to the byler slides/if you’ve already covered it or if I’m just delusional and stretching since I don’t know much about film making but when I originally watched Mike’s Vol.2 confession to El, something I immediately noticed was that I was getting uncomfortable “bad guy” vibes from him, and then I realized it was because of the intense half dark lighting on his face. Mike is lit very darkly on the right side of his face (from our perspective) in his confession to El. Later, while thinking about how Mike’s confession almost seemed to contradict his shed “confession” to Will in S2 (“It was the best thing I’ve ever done” vs “I feel like my life started that day we found you”), I remembered that Mike is also harshly lit in that scene, except it’s the exact opposite side. Mike is lit dark on the left side of his face. In comparison, Will in both scenes is lit more equally bright/neutrally(?). Anyway, I was just thinking that maybe, possibly…this is meant to tell us Mike is lying/going against his original “side,” or at least that the creators are actually aware that Mike is sending a conflicting message.

hey!

That half dark/half light lighting that's on Mike's face here is infamous in movies! The Godfather did it first with Michael Corleone, and everyone has used it since then LOL. At it's simplest this lighting is always used to show that there is some kind of darkness in someone, but that there's good in them too. It's surprising they used it here because it's usually used in super dark, violent movies. In Mike's case, I think it's less extreme than The Godfather because I really doubt Mike is going to become a crime lord and intentionally have a bunch of people brutally executed. But this lighting definitely gives off "bad guy"' vibes, you're right. Mostly because it's usually only ever used on bad guys. I think here however it might be just what you suggested, to show his inner turmoil and show that he's conflicted between "two sides" (Will & El).

That's an interesting point you bring up about the lighting changing sides. How the dark is on the right here, but in the cabin scene it's on the right...

Great observations anon! I hope you're well! xx