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cherryzenith · 10 months

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Henry’s In A Tank: Stranger Things vs The Evil Within (2017)

So, I talked in this post and this post about Elder Brains, and today, I want to talk about The Evil Within, Ruvik, and the STEM system.

Long story short, I think that Henry is in another NINA tank somewhere, since Edward Creel is Vecna, and we don’t know where Henry is, and since Henry seems weirdly present during NINA.

Henward vs Ruben vs Ruvik and The Creels vs The Victorianos

I’m going to talk about Ruben/Ruvik in general in a little bit, but first, let’s just take a look at the initial, most obvious parallels.

Ruben/Ruvik as an adult vs Vecna/vs Burnt Henward:

Ruben as a child vs Henward as a child:

And if you still don’t believe me that this parallel is intentional, look at this official concept art for Vecna:

That’s definitely inspired by Ruvik. Ruvik even does the same damn hand thing that Henward and El do:

Now, let’s get into Ruvik’s backstory, and then get into the story of the rest of the game and how it ties to ST, and why I think Henry’s in a NINA tank.

So, as a child, Ruvik was isolated and “weird,” but very close to his sister, and also a child prodigy. He came from the wealthy Victoriano family, with a religious father (much like Victor), and a mother that he wasn’t close to. Ruben was doing science experiments as a child, and when he was still a child he met a doctor, Dr Jimenez, who assured Ruben that he also did similar science experiments, and that it didn’t make Ruben a monster. Even just initially here, this is already extremely similar to Henry having already known Brenner (talking about “the very doctor I had hoped to escape,” recognizing Brenner immediately by his face after waking up in the lab), and we also have the “monster,” imagery that is constant with El, Brenner, and Henward.

Then, one day, Ruben and his sister were playing in a barn when some disgruntled townsfolk lit the barn on fire. His sister died saving him, and Ruben was left burnt and disfigured, much like Henward in the yellow UD.

Although Ruben survived the fire, Ruben’s father faked Ruben’s death, and led Ruben’s mother to believe that Ruben died in the fire when in reality, he was imprisoned in the basement, and then later at Beacon Mental Hospital. This is SO similar to what happened with Henry- his death was faked (and Virginia likely involved), and then Victor was led to believe that Henry was dead when in reality, he was at HNL, with the mother vs father thing swapped for Henry vs Ruben.

Ruben, much like Henward is frequently associated with spiders. During the game, the player sees a fucked up fleshflayer-esque spider version of Ruvik’s sister. It’s a common motif for him, just like it is for Henward.

When the game begins, the player plays as Sebastian Castellanos, years after the Victoriano fire/Ruvik’s disfigurement (which we’ll come back to later in the STEM system section) but you don’t need to know much about him for this analysis, just that he’s the player character.

We end up at Beacon Mental Hospital, which takes us to the next section of this analysis.

Beacon Mental Hospital vs HNL and Pennhurst

So, Pennhurst and Beacon Mental Hospital look EXTREMELY similar:

At the beginning of the game, the player/Sebastian ends up at Beacon Mental Hospital, pursuing Ruvik. As the game progresses, we learn that the characters aren’t in the real Beacon Mental Hospital at all anymore- instead, they’re part of the STEM system/the version of Beacon Mental Hospital that exists in Ruvik’s mindscape/memories, as Ruvik is part of the STEM system, and the player character is hooked up to a STEM system tank, which we'll get into later, linking their mind to Ruvik's.

The whole "not in the real Beacon Mental Hospital" thing reminds me of the fact that the area of the lab that we see during NINA is COMPLETELY different from the lab we’ve seen in other seasons, and we’ve never seen the NINA area outside of NINA, and we have two different rainbow rooms, too, and the lab and Pennhurst are paralleled all the time, both being likened to prisons, both having orderlies in white uniforms, both experimenting on their patients, etc etc.

The STEM System vs NINA vs Elder Brain Tanks

So, the STEM system is basically multiplayer NINA (although, as is the point of this analysis, I think that NINA is also multiplayer).

Now, going back to the Victoriano fire and Ruben’s disfigurement and the death of his sister and Ruben’s father faking Ruben’s death. Prior to the player character entering Beacon Mental Hospital, Ruben escaped the basement, killed his parents, and became “Ruvik,” and went to work at Beacon Mental Hospital with Dr Jimenez.

Dr Jimenez would betray Ruben, however, and teamed up with the company, MOBIUS, to have Ruben captured, restrained, and forced to become a test subject, just like Brenner kidnapping Henward forcing Henward to be a test subject at HNL.

Ruvik was the first test subject for the STEM system project, and he was hooked up to multiple machines, and his body was experimented on until there was nothing left of him except for a brain, which became part of the STEM system. Ruvik, although just a brain in the real world, had a physical form in his own mindscape, and spent decades trying to find a way to escape his imprisonment. (again, VERY similar to 001/Henward trying to find a way out of the lab.)

Before Ruvik was killed/left as just a brain, though, MOBIUS attempted to sync his brain with Leslie’s- Leslie was a quiet boy, very similar to Ruben, and Leslie reminds me a lot of both Will and El, and was also a test subject at Beacon Mental Hospital.

Ruvik and Leslie’s brains were synced in the STEM system because they had shared trauma- both had lost their families in a violent manner.

I’m staring DIRECTLY at Murray talking about “shared trauma” in ST. Murray even ties "shared trauma" to "your dad," just like the shared Brenner trauma between El and Henward.

So, I’m also staring DIRECTLY at Henward and El during NINA and syncing their brains, and the shared trauma of Brenner/growing up in the lab, especially with all the talk of “you’re like me/we’re the same/papa hurt you," and how they have shared trauma and shared memories.

Unfortunately, Leslie’s brain was unstable (much like NINA glitching for EL), and that’s what resulted in Ruben being killed/stripped down to his brain, as Ruben wanted to proceed with the use of Leslie, but MOBIUS did not.

Decades later, Ruvik somehow managed to manifest himself in the real world briefly, and committed a massacre at the real-life Beacon Mental Hospital (which is why Sebastian was at the hospital in the first place, investigating the murders). Ruvik was searching for Leslie when he committed the massacre. It reminds me a lot of a.) Henward seemingly committing the massacre to try and get El out of the lab and b.) Vecna searching for Will.

Now, let’s look at the STEM system vs NINA vs Elder Brain tanks:

And when we jump to DND and look at Elder Brain tanks, how do those work? What do they do? Well, an Elder Brain (which resides in an Elder Brain Tank) is a hivemind- it’s what controls Mindflayers. And it’s also known as a living library, which has me staring DIRECTLY at the library in ST. Elder Brain tanks are typically kept in caves beneath cities, much like the NINA bunker, but I’m also looking at the basement of the library in ST as some sort of connection, especially since the library basement specifically was brought to our attention & tied to the Creels when Robin and Nancy went down to the basement to look for newspaper information about Victor & the Creel murders.

And interestingly enough, the fleshflayer from S3 also resembles the STEM system- which makes sense, since the fleshflayer is basically a hivemind/combined minds, just like the STEM system.

Also, the STEM tanks are literal bathtubs- bathtubs that are eerily similar to the Creel tub, and need I remind you that the sensory deprivation tanks in the lab are referred to as “the bath” by Brenner and El? And the fact that the S1 episode with the NINA-shaped, round pool in the school gym that El uses as a sensory deprivation tank is called “the bathtub”?

Like, it's the SAME sort of clawfoot tub.

Mirror Imagery

So, in order to save the game in The Evil Within, you have to find a mirror, which takes to to the safe zone of Beacon Mental Hospital. Mirror imagery is constant in this game, and I'm staring DIRECTLY at Henward talking about how he held a mirror up to his family & the mirror in the rainbow room during NINA.

Music

If you’re STILL not convinced that these parallels are intentional, I want to draw your attention to a certain song that plays in Pennhurst:

Clair de Lune. This song is CONSTANT in The Evil Within (which, need I remind you, takes place in an asylum JUST like Pennhurst), it’s the main song for the game, and is always associated with mirrors (which are extremely associated with Henward in ST), and specifically, are associated with the “safe zones” in the game, which, again, are accessed via mirrors, and the whole “music is safe/saves you” thing is VERY ST4. Clair de Lune is not just a song that happens to play once in the background of The Evil Within- instead, it’s THE song for it, you absolutely cannot miss it.

Dream Imagery

So, every subject that’s connected to the STEM system has some level of subconscious, “dreamlike” influence over it, and throughout the game, the whole experience of the STEM system is described as being like a dream/nightmare, except it's alive and can kill you because you're hooked up to the STEM system. (staring at all of the nightmare imagery with Henward, and Victor's "a nightmare far worse" vs Henward waking up in the lab vs El waking up in NINA, and Victor talking about a "waking, living nightmare" vs NINA basically being a waking, living nightmare)

We also have El talking about a shared “dream circle,” with Terry vs all of the dream imagery with Henry (Dream a Little Dream of Me etc), and the circular shape of the NINA tank. I think El and Henry were both likely present during NINA/connected mentally, like a STEM system, like an Elder Brain tank, and like a dream circle.

El talks about the dream circle "repeating," JUST like the repeating scenes during NINA.

Conclusion

But yeah! Like I’ve talked about before, I won’t be surprised if Henry has been in a NINA tank this whole time, which would explain why he seems so weirdly present during NINA sometimes- because he IS present. Just like how Terry was present in the dream circle and how Ruvik is present in STEM.

#another 10/10 post

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cherryzenith · 10 months

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richard siken//dirty valentine

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cherryzenith · 10 months

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MIKE WHEELER + A MEDITATION ON BOUNDARIES

"Back when I thought I was straight I would go on dates with boys. The boys would usually want to kiss me. I disliked kissing, but I thought that their preferences deserved to count as much as mine, and I reasoned that they probably liked kissing more than I disliked kissing. So kissing was a morally good thing to do. I also reasoned that if I told them I disliked the kissing then they’d feel guilty and enjoy it less. So I did not tell them. I am certain I was making some kind of critical error but it has taken me a long time to figure out what it might be." (x)

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cherryzenith · 10 months

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not to be completely doomsday about Mike Wheeler in S5 but

It turns out, getting to Mike, now that was the key.

vecna is absolutely looking for Mike in S5 and while i hate everything about that with every fiber of my body but also kinda love it for the angst, if Vecna getting to Mike would be the key then how about-

Sorry, "keys". Two keys.

Two-man rule.

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cherryzenith · 11 months

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byler x jurassic park. thank you for your time.

#love this concept #love this art #im gnawing on the bars of my cage rn #fav #art

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cherryzenith · 11 months

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Is the Upside Down Will's mindscape?

So I’ve been thinking about what exactly the Upside Down is. Is it another planet? Another dimension? Then it hit me. What if it’s someone’s mindscape? We’ve seen what Vecna’s mind looks like and the Upside Down seems like it could be something similar. Did El somehow banish Henry into someone’s mind? El’s powers, along with all the other lab kids, were always centered around contacting other people’s minds. Her power to open portals to other dimensions came out of nowhere and was definitely not taught to her by anyone at the lab. It makes sense for this power to have something to do with the mind since that’s what she was focused on.

Here’s the original Upside Down compared to Vecna’s mind lair. Looks similar, right? Floating objects, smoke/fog, rocky structures, bright storms ahead, and it seems to be endless. So let's dive in:

The Upside Down was originally yellow before it became blue. Yellow is Will’s representative color. This is what initially made me wonder if this is Will’s mindscape. So where are Will’s objects? We know Vecna has his house floating around to show that it’s his mind. Will would have been 8 years old when Vecna was banished. Maybe the Upside Down had little to no structure because his brain wasn’t as developed yet? As Will got older, it started to look like Hawkins and changed colors.

Will does have a few monsters in his mindscape that we see ignore Vecna’s presence. I think these monsters could be representations of Will’s trauma. Lonnie was abusive and Will dealt with a lot of bullies so the demogorgons could be a physical manifestation of trauma. Vecna displays his victims on the pillars in his mind. Maybe the monsters are fictional creatures Will has defeated during DnD campaigns? He is a very creative kid so his mind might be filled with fictional monsters. I think the trauma manifestation is more likely, though.

Music also opened a gate to the Upside Down! Right when Joyce started to play Should I Stay or Should I Go, a gate opened in the wall and then it started to close when she turned the music off. A song with significant meaning to Will opened a gate. They figured out music would save Max because it can reach parts of the brain that words can’t, so how did music open a gate to the Upside Down? It’s Will’s mind.

Obviously, the gates we see inside of the confirmed mindscapes look very different from the Upside Down gates. When El opened a gate into Will’s mind, she somehow made it a physical location. This could be the reason why the gates look different. Will’s gate looks more fleshy, almost like the edge of a brain?

We also see what Max’s mind looks like before she steps into Vecna’s mind. It’s blue and foggy with fuzzy edges. When the Mind Flayer is taking over Will’s mind, he seems to be transported back into the Upside Down. These visions are very similar to Vecna visions, so shouldn’t Will’s surroundings just turn blue and foggy like they did for Max? Why does his mind have vines, spores, and creatures, just like the Upside Down? Is Vecna just taunting Will with his traumatic memories or is this what Will’s mind looks like?

Mike asks if Will’s visions of the Upside Down are real or if they’re in his head and Will isn’t sure. When Max was in a trance, she couldn’t tell what was real or not until she saw the music gate. Why is he confusing fake and real in the same way Max does? Is the Upside Down all in Will’s head in a literal sense?

When Vecna enters someone’s mind, a red storm appears. Notice how the storm is a combination between blue and red. It seems like Billy’s mind was also blue before he was flayed. So both Max and Billy have blue mindscapes. The Upside Down is currently blue. We know that the storm is red because Vecna’s mindscape is combining with the mind he is currently in. Why is Vecna’s mind storm appearing inside the Upside Down if his mind isn’t combining with someone else’s?

Vecna also brings spores with him when he enters someone’s mind. Max’s Snow Ball memory starts to fill with spores when Vecna finds her. When Max changes her mindscape to look like her Snow Ball memory, she leaves a decorative table in her other memories. It’s a piece of her current mindscape. This table has a similar function to the spores but Vecna’s mindscape doesn’t have spores in it. Why is Vecna bringing characteristics of the Upside Down with him when he goes into her mind? If the spores are just there because that’s where Vecna’s real body is, wouldn’t Max leave behind traces of her physical body’s location too? She would have pieces of the Creel attic in her mind if this were the case. Vecna is bringing spores with him because his mind is combining with Will’s mind the same way he’s combining with Max’s. His real body is in someone else’s mind and he is bringing pieces of it with him, just like Max’s table.

The Upside Down being Will’s mindscape would explain why it’s stuck on the day he went missing. Will’s mind is stuck because of the trauma he endured. When Will talks about that trauma, he says he felt frozen in fear. His fight or flight response is freeze (for the most part). The Upside down is frozen in time and it’s cold! Did Will freeze his own mind as a stress response? He hasn’t moved past that trauma and neither has his mindscape.

Vecna’s mind also seems to be stuck in his house. There are just pieces of his house left like it’s been breaking and rotting away. Maybe the same is happening with the Upside Down. It looks like Hawkins for the same reason Vecna’s mind looks like his house, Hawkins is significant to Will’s development as a person. I think when Will entered his own mind, he did something similar to what Max did with the Snow Ball. He transformed it to look like his home because he was trying to hide in the light. Vecna started rotting Will’s mind the same way he did Max’s so he could hunt him.

This also explains why Will can still feel Vecna even though the Mind Flayer was removed from his body. Vecna is still inside his mind! Max said that she felt “marked” by Vecna because he was still lingering around her mind. Will’s Vecna sense is much stronger than what Max describes because he has been physically marked by him.

Could this partially be why Will survived in the Upside Down for so long as well? Everyone else was attacked upon arrival. If it’s Will’s own mind, he could navigate it better and find places to hide. Vecna probably targeted Will because of this as well, he wanted to meet the owner of the mind he’s in. But he didn’t kill him like he did everyone else. Vecna likes it there and he couldn’t kill Will without his perfect world being destroyed. This is why he was planning on killing everyone but Will in season two! He wanted to take over Will’s mind so the Upside Down would belong to him instead.

There are some inconsistencies with this theory, though. Why doesn’t Will feel Vecna when he’s in California? Why does distance have an impact on how Will feels his own mind? Maybe this has something to do with birthdaygate. As Will gets further from his own mind and memories, he forgets pieces of himself and other people begin to forget as well. Speaking of birthdaygate, the Upside Down being Will’s mind also explains my theory about the gates destroying Will’s memories. He’s forgetting his own memories.

The distance thing also gives a reason as to why the Russian gate only worked when they were in Hawkins. They needed to be near Will for it to work. In fact, Will was just above them when they finally got the gate open.

I’m not even fully confident about this theory myself, but it would explain a lot of things! In terms of what the Upside Down represents, this also supports it representing homophobia (here). Will has a lot of internalized homophobia so his mind would reflect that. Anyways, the Upside Down is visually similar to the mindscapes and even behaves similarly. I believe the differences (vine gates, regular people can enter, etc) are due to El somehow making Will’s mind a physical location.

#im printing this post out and eating it

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cherryzenith · 11 months

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Forced conformity “killing the kids” and dancing to the beat of your own drum is a constant motif in the show.

The fact that Eddie even says this. Right before that extremely queer coded montage of Mike “Hawkins isn’t the same without you” Wheeler trying to find a replacement player for Hellfire.

So what “social norm” is Mike feeling like he’s being forced to conform to? Michael Wheeler…a character who dances to his own beat until he starts dating El…who we are shown has gone back to his roots in s4 once El isn’t there…who canonically believes that Hawkins isn’t the same without Will. And suddenly he’s cosplaying as a “cool guy” at the airport, which is honestly so telling because when has Mike ever dressed that way before?!

So why start now? The first time Mike has seen El and Will since season 3 — which just so happens to be the very season that depicts the physical manifestation for the Mind Flayer in Hawkins, outside of the Upside Down. A monster that was literally confirmed by one of the writers to be an allegory for puberty:

The fact that the writers are literally showing AND telling us — point blank — that Mike Wheeler is feeling like he has to conform. That something is different between him and Will all of a sudden. There’s a tension that wasn’t there before. And he can’t tell his girlfriend he loves her.

Just let that sink in for a minute.

Mike is trying to stick to a “normal” path. He’s not acting like himself until El is gone. He won’t hug Will even though he feels like Hawkins isn’t the same without him. We are then shown several intimate heart to hearts between him and Will in Cali once El leaves. He’s dressing a little more like himself again (in a blue windbreaker with a pocket over his heart that displays a literal arrow pointing directly to Will in nearly all of their blocked scenes together, but I digress…)

And as if this all doesn’t stack enough, Mike can’t tell El he loves her until Will reminds him he’s the heart and El is literally in a life or death situation. And even then, it’s a total copypasta ILY. (Coupled with a massive callback and to the whole forced conformity monologue that even got us here to begin with I REST MY CASE.)

And since we’re talking about the monologue, I’m just gonna leave this here:

“I don’t know how to live without you.”

“Hawkins isn’t the same without you.”

This grand love confession is in an episode titled “the piggyback” and we get Mike piggybacking off Eddie’s words, Will’s words and even his own words directed towards Will during a scene where there should be an original love confession.

In conclusion, why the actual hell are we being shown that Mike being in a relationship with El makes him feel like he has to conform unless it’s due to the fact that Mike is queer and secretly in love with Will.

I just removed my shipper goggles and asked myself, “what is the theme of the whole show?” And while stacks of evidence and subtext and symbolism, of course, drive Byler endgame home all the more…this simple little notion right here solidified it more for me than anything else.

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cherryzenith · 11 months

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Suzie's in Salt Lake City

or, the Bingham house as narrative metaphor

Why do they look like a whole ass indie band from 2009 ^

Argyle is buzzing to witness Mike get aggressively Cupid's arrow'd by Mini Will Byers Cornelius. Notice that as the door opens and focuses on Cornelius, actual-Will disappears from the shot leaving just Mike and the little bowlcut boy with the adorable buck toothypegs.

He's pretty feral, and his arrow finds it's mark smack bang in the middle of Mike's forehead. Wake up, sleepyhead! (Double points for the yellow arrow. Pass Go and collect 200 pounds Cornelius.)

So Suzie's house is already carnage. I agree with Argyle; this is my kind of party. But for real though, what the heck is going on? We are given the impression the Cali gang need to be on their best behaviour. We expect a highly-regimented household, strict and shapely. This is clear even if you have no prior knowledge of traditional Mormon life. Could we be entering a subconscious landscape, a narrative metaphor? And could they be telling us to not pre-judge, to let our preconceptions and expectations fly into the wind? Perhaps it's too early to say.

The space is formally decorated, with elegant panelling and mirrors on the mantel. But the colours wash into the palette we've been seeing all along; the yellow of Will and the natural 70s wood of the old Byers' house.

You'll start to notice that we follow Mike through the house. We are seeing through his eyes... that is, until it switches into Argyle's pov briefly. We'll get to that.

I won't be making a big deal of the girl laying down clutching her throat while her brother films her, and the fact that they're making a joke of their father, and that it's dramatic and overplayed, and of course the cherry on top:

'...and father - your terror?' *insert actual chef's kiss* 'it looked genuine.'

I mean, it needs no explanation. So on to the next:

The knife chops across Mike's neck and we meet a pair of twins bickering over just how much salted water might eventually kill their father. Notice the phone in back, the twin dog photos on the board, and the abundance of yellow and blue.

And just at a crucial moment when they're trying to get information and failing, little Will Cornelius Byers turns up, snapping the electricity off and plunging them into darkness.

And our actual Will disappears entirely.

Eden confronts Cornelius and snaps the power back on.

Will is still excluded from the below hallway shot, even though there’s room for him to be visible in the corridor, and Mike follows Argyle with his eyes as Argyle watches Eden pass. And doesn't it just remind you so much of something else? Something else surreal and dream-like?

Even down to the grandfather clock, which we pan out to see momentarily before zooming back in on Argyle. Nancy was watching Henry's past, but could Mike be watching his own story? Seeing himself (Argyle) becoming distracted by the girl (Eden as El) when he should be focusing on Will? This self-critical kind of regret is a common thread of the young queer experience. It's a theme explored beautifully in Benjamin Saenz's Aristotle and Dante (spoilers ahead!)

Ari dreams repeatedly of running over his best friend Dante with his truck while taking a real-life girl, Ileana, on a date. In reality, he was distracting himself from Dante, ignoring his feelings and burgeoning sexuality by experimenting with dating a girl from school. But his subconscious brought everything to the surface, forcing Ari to confront the fact that he was pushing his best friend - who was madly in love with him - and his romantic feelings for that best friend aside.

We then cut to the time out bench upstairs, where Cornelius-Will is plopped by Eden. Will himself was kept in the Upside Down, where 'time out' was constantly happening. We saw Nancy's diary frozen on Nov 6. Was Will outside of time? This could explain why he didn't die of hunger or thirst in the notably water-free Upside Down (the dry bed of Lover's Lake, Steve's empty pool).

'You try to make another escape, and I'm getting father.'

Cornelius hisses at his sister, and we have 5 minutes on the clock.

Then Argyle and Eden are face to face again, and Mike is highlighted as being both observant of, and disgusted by, Argyle’s infatuation.

And meanwhile, poor Willeth is hidden and stuck, trying desperately to peer around, to escape from behind Argyle who is paralysed with love at first sight, to get this mission going.

Up in Suzie's room, and DAMN that's a lot of blue and yellow.

Half shadows on Mike’s face as he spots the window - we've switched back into his direct pov.

Give her a shove.

Give Mike a shove, Will! 'You're the heart.'

A shove through the open and very enticing window, you know, the one with the lightly fluttering blue and yellow curtains, with the beautiful sun and peaceful birdsong outside...

But the room itself really is overwhelmingly blue and yellow. Its so garish, perfect for a prepubescent kid and probably leftover from Suzie's childhood, but it - along with the entire house tbh - is so co-ordinated that we have no choice but to associate it with the when blue meets yellow in the west code, even if we aren't also associating that code with byler (although there'll be yet more code talk later, cos soon Jon is going to say maybe its hidden in the code somewhere and Mike, ever 'clueless', will respond with that makes no sense).

We have the blue piggybank (piggyback!) and the yellow fan behind Will, the blue ribbon medals behind Mike, the blue radio microphone, yellow telephone, yellow games on the shelf, blue journals, and a cheeky rainbow poster behind Mike too. The university flag by Will is blue and yellow, which contrasts the red golf one behind Mike in El’s room… you name it. Suzie is apparently an Insta girl from 2017, curating her whole life around colour co-ordinated aesthetic vignettes. This seems highly unlikely for such a scientific gal, so we can instead presume it's visual storytelling heightened to the max.

That might be the craziest thing I've ever heard

says Suzie. Is she talking to me or to the gang? Is she talking about their plan or the whole plot line to come?

Now, another mention of code in-show! We are repeatedly told to crack codes, and in s3 and now s4 it's explicit:

In Suzie's room, Will is hiding in the dark again. He's often hidden via blocking all season long; his outfit blends in with the desert, or he's behind other characters as the camera employs some clever parallax techniques. It happens when Brenner dies in the desert, at the gas station, and even at the cabin reunion later on.

They're making him seem all unimportant and secondary in order to better pull the rug from underneath your average attention-negligent audience member come s5.

And here we have Will framed behind Mike, associating them together once more, on more of an equal levelling than Argyle and Jon, who are both sitting lower down. It's the beginning of this improvised fabrication that Will and Mike are creating together.

Then Argyle chimes in with Americantendo. A real item reborn into a facsimile, a simulacrum - just like Suzie's itself compared to the story as a whole. And if Argyle is still representing Mike in this microcosmic dream of sorts, we can see actual-Mike chiding Argyle-Mike for making up such a stupid name, for having such a stupid idea...

Argyle also looks absolutely freakin wasted, which is hilarious as he is basically permanently high and thus shouldn't whitey like this, and so it's clearly a result of meeting Eden and therefore being utterly love-at-first-sight-struck. Which, when you consider the Argyle-Mike metaphor, is... well.

(Plus, in this literal situation at Suzie's, when Jon can barely speak either, it serves to highlight how well Mike and Will work as that team they promised each other they'd be.)

And, Suzie is the first to say Argyle's idea is stupid! This combined with her disobeying the rules of her father to follow true love's path (changing Dustin's grade), and then sneaking into the office to help them (again thinking it's for Dustin' benefit) tells us that she is happy to break the rules and social norms for a cause she believes in. In other words, Suzie is an ally.

I just love how Will watches Mike here. Improvising with your true love bestie when you can't even get facial cues? Not easy! Could it be foreshadowing of their working together to hatch top notch plans on the fly in s5?

And if we look closer, we see that Jon and Argyle are indeed barely lucid. It's practically a Weekend at Bernie's situation up in here.

(Can we blame them though? They've been driving hours while Mike and Will have been having an extended love-in on the crochet-comfy backseat.)

Why has she never heard of it?

Because it's top secret, says Michael.

Cut to him and Will again.

Oh, gosh, what could possibly be hidden in the code here? Could it be Nina? Could it be Vecna himself? Could it be all the experiments at Hawkins lab? Could it be something else, too? Something involving two people standing right in front of her??

Look, I don't care what anyone says, I love Mike and Will's flat hair at Suzie's house. Wig work for Will 4/10, and Mike looks like he's just stepped out of the shower and the water shrank his fringe by 3 inches. But it works to make everything a bit more off-kilter, as if Suzie's house is out of time, a magical house of mirrors and metaphor.

I also love that they remain cringefail losers forever. Beautiful lighting and love-hazy camerawork? Chef's kiss. But if, for s5, they suddenly do Bridgerton-style glow ups and make these boys look like cliched leading men for when we finally watch them undeniably falling in love? NO THANKS. Unrealistic monsters this and unrealistic gay love story that, but an 80s show without bad hair?? Now that's unrealistic. Angela was somehow the school's most popular bully despite having a barnet that looks like a well-used kindergarten paintbrush. Bad hair is a stalwart of Stranger Things and I'll accept nothing less.

Back to Suzie's. Once more, she asks them to confirm just how improbable and unlikely their story is.

Seriously, they're giving Rolling Stone centrefold poster all day long. Will is the drummer cos he's in the back, keeping the rhythm of the whole story going, holding all this shit together behind the scenes. You just know Argyle is bass and sometimes keyboard if he's feeling funky. Rhythm guitarist Jon keeping it chill on the right. Oh hi, lead singer/guitarist Mike Wheeler! He definitely does that thing where he goes and stands on Will's drum riser and just sings to him while they have extended uninterrupted eye contact

Just kidding! Mike doesn't play guitar, does he.

Oop.

Mike pretending to love metal like Eddie but he's actually in his singer-songwriter era, taking a break from glam synthpop to pen acoustic classics like That View-Master Feeling which is about being stuck in Hawkins and feeling caught between Will and El

FOCUS!

We're at Suzie's, and she just SCOFFS at their proposal (it's subtitle-confirmed scoffage). Biblically, we have a doubting Tom Suz!

But it's ok, because Will extended-weed-exposure-shrinks-my-bowlcut Byers has a solution to all that scorn. He's gonna MAKE you believe, Suzie...

... with selflessness!

Selfless Will Byers. Will Byers lying about who a gift is for. Where will I see that again?

"It's for Dustin." Will starting this part of the lie is very in-character - he's making it about someone else’s gain. He does the same later, in the van, but he almost lets the truth slip, because he so wants to honestly accept Mike's adoration. He's spent months in silence, painting, pining, wondering what happened to them. Where did the boy who smiled at him in his old kitchen go? The boy who blushed and grinned lopsidedly, flustered and speechless in a way Will had never seen? Will poured himself into that painting. It would have been an offering as well as a gift; a truce, a token of something as of yet unspeakable. It must have been so tempting to let Mike know the truth despite the risk, because if nothing else, Mike loved his art, and Will missed sharing it with him.

But Will caps the situation off before it gets out of hand, and continues with his little El-commissioned-me fiction, allowing himself nothing more than a graze of skin against skin and a stolen glance or three.

Damn, do you want to talk intimate cinematography? I'll never get over the van scene.

Back at Suzie's, this fiction about the Nintendo gift is not just clever quick-thinking on Will's part (he is good at hiding, and hiding doesn't always mean climbing into the cupboard behind the telly when an inter-dimensional monster rocks up), but a sort of emotional manipulation too. Suzie's attention piques when she hears Dustin's name again; we know she would do anything for him. She even says so herself.

And clearly Mike is no stranger to deception, either... he's straight vibin' with Will's lie idea.

Course he is! They're a T-E-A-M

Seriously, guys, when's the EP out?

Byler stop being photographed like you're album artwork for a 1980s synthpop ballad challenge

[Challenge failed]

BACK TO SUZIE'S! I SAID FOCUS!

All is going great, but then Mike rubs salt in this subconscious wound by making it all about...

birthdays.

And bingo. Birthdays are pretty important, aren't they? And Suzie knows exactly when Dustin's is, down to the hour. Time, time, time.

So they've won her over. Ah, the power of love.

Will's missed birthday is something only eagle-eyed fans would pick up on, but that's what makes it perfect groundwork for a big ol' bday reveal in s5. A roller rink is even a classic spot for a teen birthday - and in the 80s? The skating heyday? In Cali especially, where skate culture continues to this day with it's home in Los Angeles' Venice Beach?

It's almost like El's planned day was a birthday surprise for Will that went awry or somehow got mixed up in everyone's minds. Picture Mike arriving just in time for Will's birthday; there's a gift for Will as well as for El, and they all plan to head out for food before going on to the rink for the main event, where there'd be a huge cake and milkshakes and Jon and Joyce and music and fun.

And as Suzie establishes she knows Dustin’s birthday down to the hour, displaying an intimate dedication to her love, Eden once more interrupts and Argyle is immediately distracted. Eden has a key necklace prominently visible around her neck… we see key imagery near El in s2 when she roams Hawkins Middle, searching for Mike - and also in the idea that she is the key to ending everything. But it’s not a key round Eden's neck - it’s a lock. So who is the key?

The religious imagery continues with 'burn in hell', and Eden places her hand over the lock necklace, hiding it.

The biblical imagery continues later when Will stands in front of a painting of the Last Supper, but not before he's hiding in the dark of the corridor again, well out of sight even though the others are hiding too... and not before Suzie's little monologue about breaking the rules sets up some nice 1980s small town prejudice parallels that could well relate to certain other people in the room right now.

'I've never seen father so angry...' and 'he needed me!' and 'after learning the terrible truth' ... these are all relevant for El's own journey, too.

But before that, our boi Cornelius is back, messing with that pesky power again.

Lights out.