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Stranger Things fans are decoding a cryptic scene hinting at Will Byers’ feelings for Mike Wheeler in the final season.
The first volume of the Netflix show’s final season arrived on Thursday (27 November), and one scene appeared to hint at Will’s feelings for his best friend.
Throughout the show, it’s been hinted that Will (Noah Schnapp) might be gay, with a contingent of fans theorising he will have a romance with Mike (Finn Wolfhard), which has been labelled “Byler”.
But one scene in the fourth episode of season five has appeared to rip those hopes to shreds, Demogorgon-style.
*Spoilers follow – you have been warned*
While Will’s sexuality is all but confirmed, thanks to a few helpful chats with Robin (Maya Hawke), one scene shows Robin watching Will engage in a chat with Mike.
After years of the show’s hints, it is strongly suggested in the scene that Will does, in fact, have feelings for Mike – but that those feelings aren’t reciprocated. Robin watches on and smiles wistfully at the pair talking.
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(Netflix)
A later scene shows Robin sharing an anecdote with Will, in which she uses her own past to analyse Will’s situation. She tells him that after falling in love with a girl named Tammy Thompson, she lost herself until she found an old film reel of herself as a child, and rediscovered her own self-worth.
Robin’s speech to Will:
“I found this 8mm film reel – it was a silly movie I made in the fourth grade, but I got it up on the projector and all of a sudden, I was looking at this little version of myself. And this little me, I could hardly recognise her. She was so carefree and fearless. She just loved every part of herself. That’s when it hit me – it wasn’t ever about Tammy; it was always about me. I was looking for answers in someone else, but I had all the answers. I just needed to stop being so goddamn scared – scared of who I really was. Once I did that, I felt so free.”
While some fans believed the earlier scene between Will and Mike kept hopes alive for a budding romance between the pair, others translated Robin’s speech as indicating Will should move on from Mike as she believed Will’s feelings to be unrequited.
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‘Stranger Things’ character Robin (Maya Hawke) realises Will has unrequited feelings for Mike (Netflix)
“People are NOT GETTING IT!!! Robin’s face while Will and Mike were talking, WAS NOT POSITIVE!!! It was a face of pity because she KNOWS that Mike doesn’t have the same feelings,” one fan wrote on Reddit.
Another added: “It could not be more obvious that is what was happening. I was so confused when I opened X, and somehow Bylers are taking this as a win?”
An additional viewer waded in: “She later talks about Tammy to introduce Will to the fact that sometimes it doesn’t always work out, the most important thing being to know HIS self-worth. After episode four, I really think Byler won’t happen.”
The conversation Robin has with Will takes on an important new light in the final moments of the episode, when Will is goaded by Vecna for being weak-minded – but then Will, remembering Robin’s words, thinks back to his upbringing and steals Vecna’s power over the Demogorgons to save Mike.
In 2022, Schnapp, speaking about how series creators, the Duffer brothers, dealt with the potential romance, told Variety: “I feel like they never really address it or blatantly say how Will is. I think that’s the beauty of it, that it’s just up to the audience’s interpretation, if it’s Will kind of just refusing to grow up and growing up slower than his friends, or if he is really gay.”
Earlier this week, Wolfhard told Attitude that if Mike was revealed to have feelings for Mike, the storyline would not be earned.
The next batch of Stranger Things season five will be released on Boxing Day, with the final episode dropping on New Year’s Day.
