'Stranger Things' Season 4 Makes a Big Mistake With Will's Gay Storyline
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Warning: Stranger Things season 4 volume 2 spoilers follow.
Stranger Things raised a lot of questions when the first part of season four finally arrived back in May. Who would Nancy choose? What's Vecna's skincare routine? And of course, why are all these episodes so ridiculously long?
While we don't have definite answers for any of these questions just yet—We're thinking Steve, Fenty, and narcissism, in that precise order—the Duffer brothers did promise us that the biggest question of all would finally be addressed properly in volume two (via Variety).
Namely, is Will Byers a fledgling gay in the making?
After many, many hours and many more endings, we finally have an answer: Will is kind of definitely gay, kind of.
So there you have it. It's not exactly the answer you might have been expecting, given how much the cast has banged on about Will's apparently obvious love for Mike. But it's the best we've got right now.
The first "Will is kind of definitely gay, kind of" moment arrives in episode eight when Will finally reveals what's in his secret painting. And yes, it's giving Cher. Because at its heart stands an idealized, heroic version of Mike with an actual heart symbol.
Will claims that this is how Eleven sees him as he raves about how amazing Mike is in general because, yeah, Eleven. That's what Eleven thinks. Definitely not Will.
Okay, fine, it's very obvious to everyone watching, including Will's own brother, Jonathan, that Will probably definitely maybe thinks all these things as well and that he too is in love with Mike.
It's a tale as old as time: gay boy falls in love with straight best friend, straight best friend falls in love with Eggo-loving psychic, so gay boy paints a dragon picture to express his feelings for straight best friend, but that gives straight best friend the courage to tell Eggo-loving psychic that he loves her, leaving gay boy behind to look out the car window and cry while pretending he's in an MTV music video.
We've all been there.
And that's why the line, "When you're different sometimes, you feel like a mistake," probably hit home for a lot of queer people watching in particular. It certainly stuck with Jonathan, who later took Will aside in volume two's second "Will is kind of definitely gay, kind of" moment.
Halfway through season four's never-ending finale, Jonathan explains to Will that he loves him always, no matter what. Tears are shed, and the pair lovingly embrace. It's the beautiful, heartfelt coming-out moment that we've all been waiting for, except there is no coming out. Not really. Because Will doesn't actually express his true feelings in this scene, or any other for that matter.
This has led some fans to accuse the show of queer-baiting, which is essentially where LGBTQ+ relationships are merely implied to get queer fans on board without including any actual representation that could risk the ire of bigots.
That doesn't apply here, necessarily. Will's moment with Jonathan only makes sense if Will is gay, so there's more going on than just mere implication. If you want to accuse the cast and crew of hyping up more direct queer representation when there's almost none — now that could be considered queer-baiting. But the text itself isn't, not exactly.
Still, the fact remains: Will's sexuality is just subtext.
For a lot of fans, that seems to be enough. While some argue that Will's queerness doesn't need to be defined yet—he's so young!—others point out that this was the reality for many queer teens back in the '80s and still even now for some.
That's all true, to some degree, but that doesn't explain why we're rarely given a glimpse into Will's own internal state as he starts to process these feelings of otherness.
As Vulture points out, season four is all about revealing the feelings and thoughts that these characters hide away from the world, whether it's Max admitting she wanted Billy to die, Mike telling Eleven he loves her, or even Hopper and Joyce finally acting on their feelings for each other. Yet Will's innermost secrets are only acknowledged briefly in a very roundabout way.
And what's worse is that these "kind of definitely gay, kind of" moments aren't really in service of Will's story at all.
During that emotional conversation with Mike, Will is clearly coming out if you read between the lines. But primarily, his feelings are being used there to inspire Mike and fix his relationship with Eleven. So basically, Will's queer-coded struggles are just there to fuel a straight ship.
This wouldn't feel quite as exploitative if Will's coming out to Jonathan went a bit deeper, but again, his angst is being used in service of another character's storyline. And a straight one at that. Because yes, there is some catharsis for Will that comes from his brother's acceptance, but the scene is really about Jonathan. It's about him learning to accept Will "no matter what" instead of what Will is actually going through on the inside.
And that's it. Aside from these two big moments, Will doesn't have much to do this time around, as per usual. To be fair, there are a lot of different characters and storylines to juggle, but that means it's even more important to get those fleeting glimpses of this journey right. And come on, it's not like there wasn't enough time this season...
Queer people aren't just props or plot devices that can be used to further the straight agenda, no matter how well-intentioned these attempts at "representation" might be. Let's hope some actual queer people in the writers' room ahead of season five give our bowl-cut queen the resolution he deserves in the final season of Stranger Things.
Stranger Things is now streaming on Netflix.
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