Stranger Things first came out on 15 July 2016 on Netflix. The series had taken the world by storm when it first came out. Young teenagers armed with nothing but their Dungeons & Dragons knowledge and scientific curiosity were out in the streets fighting the evil in their hometown. Set in Hawkins, Indiana, the series brought out the 80s in all its glory. High school juniors in their 80s fashion and vintage arcade games and cars and the suburbia — all of it created a sense of the past mixed with the supernatural phenomenon that flooded the subtext of the entire plot.
Created by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things broke barriers in the extraordinary graphics and plot it demonstrated. And now, 6 years later, with Season 4 already out, the series cast may also explore the boundaries of sexuality as Finn Wolfhard hints at a possible confirmation of Will Byers’ coming out.
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Stranger Things 4 Addresses Will’s Sexuality
Since the first season, the audience was flooded with near-miss hints at Will Byers’ sexuality. The first instance was when Winona Ryder’s character, Joyce Byers, rushes to the police station to make her concerns known about Will’s disappearance. As she paces nervously in Hopper’s office, she rambles on about how her ex-husband, Lonnie, used to call him “queer” and “a fag”.
The disappearance of Will after the first episode didn’t pursue that plot’s thread any further but focused on the monsters, Eleven, and the secret experiments in the lab. With Will back in the cast as a series regular in the second season, the narrative focused more on his visions of the heralding doom of the Mind Flayer and his PTSD from the time he spent in the Upside Down.
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In Season 2 Episode 1, after he’s back at school, he is constantly stared at which makes him feel like a freak on display. To make things worse, he is given the moniker “Zombie Boy”. When the situation upsets him, Jonathan asks him to talk about it, and not feeling up to it, Will lashes out at his brother. In the conversation that follows, he says everyone, including Lucas and Dustin, treats him like he’s a “freak” and fragile as if he couldn’t handle things on his own.
Will doesn’t mention Mike, however, which could have been an early premonition or a clever Easter Egg on the screenwriters’ part to indicate Will’s possible romantic feeling for Mike.
Finn Wolfhard Confirms A Possible Rumor
The cast of Stranger Things has spoken out in a recent interview. When asked about a possible rumor of Will having feelings for Mike, the actor portraying the latter had a few words to say. In an interview, Finn Wolfhard says, “I think you find out slowly through the season, Will’s kind of love towards Mike and I think it’s a really beautiful thing” and that there is “probably a mutual understanding and an acceptance” from Mike.
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The phrase “mutual understanding and acceptance”, especially on Mike’s part, suggests that both Will and Mike are aware of the former’s feelings and that could mean that the feature-length Season 4 Vol. 2 finales will not only be gruesome but also sentimental and full of revelations.
Source: The Independent
