#i am so full of cheerios i'm gonna shower and then get ready for bed babey

[argylemikewheeler]

some line-by-line analysis: the rain argument

Honestly to start, my favorite thing, I’m not sure why, is that when Will tells Mike to “forget it” and runs up the stairs, Mike doesn’t call after him. He just follows. Even before, when Will’s anger is still escalating, Mike just says “You [Lucas] want to keep playing, right?” and “We’ll just call the girls afterwards”, which aren’t really argumentative. They’re both positive affirmations (to Mike at least) that he wants to keep playing. There isn’t a “hey! knock it off! we want to still play!” from Mike, just an assurance that it all can wait until after... and even when Will storms out, he doesn’t use any interjections/argue after him. He just follows.

Once they get outside, Mike still doesn’t argue that Will is being unreasonable or ridiculous about his outburst. He just says “Will, come on. You can’t leave. It’s raining.” These are not any biased form of argument from Mike; he’s still not “raising a hand” (verbally) to Will’s outburst. He just wants to get Will to stay in any way he can-- or just not let Will leave mad, which Mike obviously hates BUT doesn’t engage with, unlike previously seen with other characters (Lucas, Max, Hopper etc).

Finally, we have the apology: “Listen, I said I was sorry, all right? It’s a cool campaign. It’s really cool!” again, still not saying that Will is unreasonable or getting Mike’s own view of the situation across: he’s still just trying to comfort Will. He knows he’s done something wrong or, again, he just doesn’t want to argue with him at all.

Finally, though, when Will makes an accusation Mike does respond with “That’s not true!” and he looks betrayed rather than incredulous. How could he, Mike Wheeler, be ruining a Party that he, for all intents and purposes of the show’s framing, is the “leader” of? How could he be ruining something he loves so dearly without knowing? How is that possible? It can’t be true.

After that, and what I find most interesting, is Mike stays silent as Will goes off on him. I mean, this is the most angry we’ve seen Will Byers and the most reserved we’ve ever seen Mike Wheeler. From the beginning, Mike is shown to be vocally righteous and stubborn, and Will is timid and of few words. But here, Mike stands and listens-- he doesn’t even lift his arms up in a silent way of arguing with him. He’s listening.

Mike gawks and waits, only cutting in when Will insults Mike’s desire to make out with “some [stupid] girl”. Again I’m not sure why, but I find it interesting that Will doesn’t address who Mike is making out with. It’s not a personal attack on El really. It’s an attack on Mike kissing girls in general over hanging out with them. Will, to me, isn’t calling El stupid; he’s merely labeling every girl that Mike will ever make out with as stupid. Again, it’s an attack at Mike choosing to do that, not directed at El. By not naming her, I think it really says a lot about the intent, but that might just be me.

And then we have the biggest line: “El’s not stupid!” followed by “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls.” I mean, what a wild pair of sentences. First, let’s address Mike’s rebuttal: it’s weak, right? I mean, I’m not saying that Mike even knows of his Other Feelings and that’s influencing how he speaks, but Mike really doesn’t go to bat for El that much here. He just cuts Will off by arguing the only point he could get in edgewise-- the only thing that could be argued. Him not knowing where Dustin was? Yeah, fair. Will being annoyed that Mike is picking girls over the Party? Yeah, that’s fair too. Calling El stupid? Yeah, NO that’s not cool. Here, Mike brings things back to being personal/being about El-- which wasn’t what Will was saying, and Mike probably knows that. It’s just the only thing he could finally interject about because Will is right in his own emotions.

Secondly, I almost don’t know what to intelligently say about the “not my fault” line. I mean, it changes the mood so quickly. So quickly. Mike makes it, in his own way, about their sexuality (and the ways that kids express it/experience it differently). Mike doesn’t say “It’s not my fault you don’t have a girlfriend”, no. He labels the entire conflict as Will’s inability to be romantically attracted to girls. He makes it personal and he makes it direct. He exposes that he’s noticed that Will isn’t taking interest in girls (rather than just pointing out he has no “luck” with them) and Will is silent.

There is nothing to say for Will. He can’t argue that point of reasoning anymore. If it was “not my fault you don’t have a girlfriend”, Will could have easily said “because I don’t want one!” and pushed the denial forward and offered an excuse to the sudden exposure of his actions. He stays silent and lets the sentence echo. The way he looks at Mike is one of shock, but the anger doesn’t go away. He’s not shocked that Mike knows/noticed; he’s upset that he’s chosen now to bring it up.

To which Mike apologizes! He knows, again, that he’s messed up. He goes back to affirming Will-- in tone only, in a way. “I’m not trying to be a jerk” is a bit more “hands on” than his previous listening technique, but he still says it in such a more calm way.

And now, the big part: “But we’re not kids anymore. I mean, what did you think, really? That we were never gonna get girlfriends? We were just gonna sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?”

First off? The tone. Mike’s tone at the end of this speech is the same as when he started. He doesn’t raise his voice despite asking a bunch of rhetorical questions and reiterating his point. He is calm as he actually starts the argument. The way he ends that last question sounds like a genuine question to me and it’s so fascinating. He wants an answer.

AND that’s because I think Mike’s confused about Will, honestly. I’m not saying Mike’s conscious of his confusion, but I think there is something about his friend that he just doesn’t understand-- and it’s his lack of attraction to girls, as previously noticed. He points out, at first, that he knows how Will (and himself) acted as kids. They experienced the same level of “feelings” for girls-- which was probably none because they’re goobers and twelve. But then Mike changes to asking what did Will think was going to happen, which in a way is Mike also prompting himself too. Obviously, by asking this, something hasn’t gone the way he planned either. And this, in a way, is probably Will not showing any attraction to girls-- never getting that girlfriend that was obviously something Mike was going to do. Mike thought they’d be the same again, just as they were as children, but Will’s different.

But here, also important to note, Mike brings it back to girlfriends and not just girls. Before, he accuses Will of not liking any girl but then when talking about himself (his language kind of cuts Will out of the “we” that is getting girlfriends after the “don’t like girls” comment) but then he’s back to pointing out that this new “we” of course was going to get girlfriends because they could. This is something a lot of people have noted in their own analysis but Mike really implies here that getting a girlfriend was an expected part of their teenage trajectory. And yeah, it might not say much for a boy to assume he’d get a girlfriend, but Mike is kind of accusing Will of essentially: what? you think we’d all be like you? not have any girlfriends?

And this is why Mike asks the last question so genuinely: he really isn’t sure what Will thought their lives would be like if he wasn’t going to get a girlfriend. The concept of Will not getting one is off-putting to Mike. I don’t think he truly knows Will is gay, but I think here he’s really kind of voicing his own confusion for how Will’s growing up with him. How can a boy not get one? Is that an option? Is that possible? How could someone show no interest in girls and then just, not get one? Mike marks this up to Will wanting to do the same thing as they did as children (when they all didn’t like girls at all,or more directly, thinking Will is “staying a child”) and Will takes this line to mean that they’d all keep the group together, that he’d get to keep his friends while he obviously misses out on romantic milestones: “Yeah. I guess I did. I really did.”

Will admits he thought he could have normal teenage years, and he has to hear from his straight-relationshipped friend that he was wrong. And Mike definitely doesn’t understand the difference in their answers/tone, but his face drops as he realizes that Will really did want that time with them, not just the “immature hobby”, so to speak.

Mike knows he fucked up-- he doesn’t know why or how, but he knows-- and promptly follows Will with an apology. He knows his words weren’t appropriate, if only for voicing an observation he shouldn’t have-- about Will and girls-- and he admits to being a “total asshole”. Which, yes, is nice because Mike kind of was in terms of turning his friend away but also? Nothing in that argument was particularly outlandishly rude. He never shouted at him, except for outing that he knew Will didn’t like girls. Mike’s apology being so severe says more, to me, about how much Mike understands about his words/fuck up than that he just knows he did bad. He wants to fix what he said, he just doesn’t know how.

And what’s worse is while Mike’s trying to figure out what happened and what he said in combination with what he feels himself-- and maybe in being more like Will than he thought-- Will is sitting alone and thinking everything he’s wanted (just staying in the basement, in that safety) is “stupid”.

What sucks the most, and what made that arc feel unfinished and unsatisfying to me, is that they never meet in the middle. At least not in season 3. I’m sure 4 will have them reuniting in the middle again. They’re best friends; they can’t be on opposite sides of understanding for long. That’s just not how they work-- it’s obvious it’s never been that way. And if “liking girls” is the thing that twists that dynamic, than goddamn that really means something huh?