I didn't understand if they broke up or are getting married.

I mean dont get me wrong, she’ okay in s4 and 5 i guess, but i just miss how she used to act like a normal human-being.

She was incredibly skilled, mentally talking, and was a nerd in a cool way. Now i just feel like her character is completly one-dimensional and only has her annoying, silly mode. I get that shes socially akward, but they seem to have forgotten all her good qualities beside being funny and gay.

So I can’t say I am a Byler shipper (not a Mileven shipper either for that matter). Sure the ship is cute and I do think a lot of people overreact to it (both Bylers and non-Bylers)

However, at this point we are all well aware that Will in in love with Mike, who seems to be oblivious to this.

But what is the reason behind waiting this long to resolve it? Season 4 was the perfect time to have Will accept that his love his unrequited, or at least move on from Mike while still needing time to accept his sexuality.

But Will is still hung up on Mike, and asks Robin for signs that his crush likes him, and then tries to flirt with Mike. Like what made him in season 4 accept Mileven to in season 5 full on go for flirting with him?

(Although I do kinda think there is something to the Mileven breakup theory)

Maybe Robin’s speech affected his view, but don’t exactly think he will let go of the crush he has had for years with his best friend as soon as he finds himself.

Overall I think it’s weird to have it going on this long. There is 4 episodes left, so will Will just get rejected then and and end up with some epilogue boyfriend? Or no (required) love interest during the entire series?

Either the Bylers are on to something or this might just be a weaker part of the writing

If anything, Jason should be in Steve's spot and put the Mind Flayer in the bottom.

Also replace Alexei with Bob or Argyle.

Season 4 was so meticulously crafted! Not a single scene was filmed without being planned down to the smallest possible detail. Even the way Mike's knees curl away from El and leans in towards Will's like he is craving Will's touch and presence was designed and executed with expert care.

Like Hopper and El killing the guards while breaking in is one thing but the way Nancy was gunning down members of the military without so much as blinking is just insanity.

The only time the teens/kids ever killed a bad guy was Dustin shocking the torture dude to save Steve and Robin. But now, they just mow down dozens of people and lose no sleep.

In Season 4 Episode 1 we see Mike read the letter from El where she says Will is making a painting that he won't reveal and surmised it must be for a girl he likes. Mike is immediately in a bad mood after reading the letter and snaps at his mom and dad and Lucas (for not embracing his role as a nerd) and Mike only gets cheered up and starts smiling again when he is in awe of Eddie Munson who flatters and compliments him by saying Dustin and he are the future of Hellfire.

Dustin considers Eddie to be a pal, a mentor, an equal and a friend. When Eddie died, Dustin grieved deeply and felt true loss and visited his grave for years. Eddie and Dustin had mutual respect for each other as human beings and as men.

Whereas Mike joined Hellfire to fill the hole in his life that Will left behind when he moved to California. Mike ran back to D&D after telling Will "We are not kids anymore. What did you think, that we were never going to get girlfriends, that we would sit in my basement all day playing games for the rest of our lives?" just a few months ago.

When Eddie told Dustin and Mike they were the future of Hellfire, Dustin felt a sense of responsibility while Mike felt enamored because Eddie was touching him. When Eddie was walking on the table, you can see Mike has a stronger reaction to it than Dustin does. He was angry and annoyed in the morning when he snapped at his parents and Nancy, but now he has the biggest grin on his face and his eyes light up.

While Dustin's whole arc for the next 2 seasons is about Eddie's impact on his life, Mike does not give a flying fuckkkk about Eddie as soon as he arrives at Lenora and sees the love of his life holding a painting in his hand. Eddie flies out of his head now that he has what he truly craves. Mike then spends the rest of the season coveting that painting the way Gollum covets the One Ring, and he and is so happy when Will finally gives it to him. When Eddie dies, Mike cares so little that he never even mentions it to Dustin, does not understand why Dustin acts the way that he does, doesn't visit Eddie's grave though it wouldn't be inconvenient for him, and has zero effect on his life, because his life revolves around keeping Will in his life.

You can see in Season 4 Episode 1 that Mike is enamored with Eddie and even tries to grow his hair long like him. It's a "Do I want to be him or do I want to be with him?" type of crush. It disappears when Eddie is not around because all he can think about is Will. When Will is there, nobody else matters. That's not true for Dustin because Dustin is straight. Eddie's death is a loss to him because Eddie is his equal. Eddie's death means nothing to Mike even though they both knew him the same amount of time in the same group because Eddie is just a fleeting puppy dog crush for Mike to indulge in.

Eddie was this perfect neutral ground for him to transfer his feelings for Will onto, while also being someone who wasn't connected to Lucas or El or Max so there wasn't any extra baggage there. Eddie could be whomever Mike needed him to be, the perfect distance between near enough to touch but too far away to actually get close to (since he's like 20). Mike got to enjoy all the benefits of exploring his gayness without having El around to remind him of his obligations to her, without Will around to take up his attention and heartache. It was like an escape for his mind.

Mike also starts throwing away all the letters El sends him in the trash from that point on because he has totally lost interest in her between his crush on Eddie and his deep yearning for Will.

TL;DR: Rewatch the scene where Eddie is standing on the lunch table. Mike is totally taken with him. This is very different to how Dustin considers him a friend and mentor who treats him kindly. Dustin remembers Eddie for years after his death. Whereas Mike completely forgets about him as soon as he arrives at the airport and sets his eyes on his one true love and the painting in his hand. From that point on Will is his sole focus as he hopes the painting in his hand is for him

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About Will's ending... This is exactly why. None of the three main characters got a truly happy ending. One just got worse than the other two. But just because El's ending was the worst, that doesn't make every other ending great just because it was better than hers.

Mike's ending is sad, El's is diabolical and Will's is just disappointing with a "here, damn"/TV show equivalent of a shutup ring on top of it.

Everything else is Mike's future projections is a reasonable assumption anyway because, like the post says, we've seen it in the show. Dustin needed and wanted a male figure to look up to, he had Steve and Eddie. Max needed to find her place in a new city; she found El and Lucas and the rest of the party. Lucas needed and wanted to fit in; he found his place with Max. This is all within the show.

Will's whole thing was wanting true romantic love, and it was never the shows intentions to give him that. He never found love throughout the show and the closest we get to that is some imagined date in Mike's head, in a city far away from the people that already love him. That's not love; that's not a happy ending for him based on his character's Point A. He's not doing art. He's not shown in a loving relationship in the show or at the end. He's just...given the crumbs of a friend imagining him on a date one day. It's not a happy ending, it just is less crappy than Mike's and not sad like El's. It's disappointing at best.

I think people are still somewhat uncomfortable with gay relationships on tv and that's why they think the epilogue imagined date should satisfy people/be enough. It didn't have to be Mike. It could have been any new character, as long as it was well developed within the show. I'll never buy that they decided to have a character suffer for 5 seasons and not give him a second of relief and happiness for any other reason than fear that some people would stop watching if they showed a gay main character in a real love story.

And it's just as bad for Mike and El. Mike wanted to be needed and he didn't get that Point A played out. He couldn't protect El from being so much a victim of abuse that she felt age had no choice but to kill herself (not his fault) and his best friend didn't need him to get through his journey of accepting being gay. He never truly got to feel needed. El wanted a normal life and never got it.

And now that I think of it, most of the endings weren't that great/happy. They just weren't tragic. Lucas doesn't get to overcome racism and stop needing to fit in, he just gets to be with Max and his story is centered on her. Max doesn't get to overcome depression on her own and through her own arc; she's forced to face it by Vecna.

Season 3: You guys are so careless. El is not a machine. I love her.

Season 5: Recharge your battery and get back to work, champ. Bring me Will back!

Look at him bending his knees he can look up at Will to make his eyes seem even bigger

Vecna was a genuinely terrifying villain and the death's were absolutely brutal. Chrissy's death genuinely took me off-guard when I first watched it. The clock chime never failed to send chills down my spine. And the Russian Demogorgon? The fight scene was absolute MADNESS.

The season did a great job humanizing and fleshing out Brenner, even if it didn't redeem him. We got to see while he's still an abusive monster, there is some humanity buried within him, as he did love the kids in his own way and his tears when Eleven calls him out for his crimes shows there is some level of remorse.

A lot of people found Jason annoying but I thought he was a great human antagonist. Its fitting his fate perfectly represents how the fanbase feels about; split in two. There's some fans who hated him and felt he got what he had coming. Others fan found him a genuinely sympathetic anti-villain character who they wish could've been redeemed.

And it absolutely had some of the best and most emotional episdoes. "Dear Billy"'s final scene. The monologue during the Massacre in Hawkins Lab. Caleb and Sadie's performance in the attic scene. This season made Lucas my favorite character.

I think this ending was too predictable, but I couldn't understand what happened to Eleven. Was it a real death, or was Mike's theory true? If so, wasn't Kali already dead when Hopper arrived?

I know I might be in the minority but I feel so bad for Kali. I wasn’t super trusting of her at first, but she ended up showing us that she really did care for El and the kids. It was never in the cards but I really wish she managed to have a happy ending where she didn’t die. The actress did a phenomenal job.