God These Two - Tumblr Posts

conflictofthemind

1 year ago

Season 4 is crazy because on first watch, it seems like Will is the pining one and Mike is keeping him at arm's length for most of the season and crushing Will"s hopes by the end. This is because we are seeing it from Will's POV, as the writers intended.

But on subsequent watches, paying attention to Mike and adding context to his scenes, from his POV Mike is practically THROWING himself at Will, and Will is oblivious!

He tries (and fails) to keep it together around Will, in all his cringefail, awkward glory (airport, Rink-o-Mania, Suzie's house, the van). He can't stop staring/stealing glances and it's embarrassing. Every time Will touches him, Mike looks like he's going to have a heart attack, but it's not because he is repulsed!

The full-frontal hug at the airport when they first reunited was maybe too overwhelming for him, especially in front of so many people (because to him it would not just be a friendly hug), but he tries in subtle ways to move closer to Will when they are next to each other, and WILL is the one who pulls away.

Those times it seemed (to us and Will) that Mike wasn't paying attention, he tells on himself and admits that he was paying SUPER close attention to Will, enough that he didn't realize what was going on with El! And more than that, he was upset that Will wasn't paying attention to HIM!

He alternates between being overly vague and cryptic ("maybe i should have said something, and if I'd said that THING...") and being embarrassingly blunt ("it's Hawkins, it's not the same without you" "maybe I was worrying too much about El/feel like I lost you or something") when he's having intimate, romantic-coded conversations with Will. He even closes the door to have a private moment.

He was utterly besotted with Will in the van scene and very likely picked up on Will's subtext and was overjoyed. He was over the moon realizing that the painting was for him and that Will felt so strongly about him!

And then it was MIKE'S heart that was broken in the monologue, when he thought that he'd misunderstood Will in the van and their feelings weren't mutual after all, and worst of all he felt pressured into lying to El about his feelings, stitching together meaningful words from his three favorite male figures (Will, Eddie, Mr. Clarke) in a desperate attempt to make his monologue land.

He closed out the season pining for Will, who he may not have a chance with, but he mentally chooses to stay by his side to the very end.

THIS IS PEAK WRITING, Y'ALL

Adding this shot, for fun (Mike, very unnecessarily throwing his whole-ass leg over Will at Rink-O-Mania):