The Boys Are Back The Boys Are Baaack

The boys are back the boys are baaack

And that's the real core four by the wayyyyyyy ❤️❤️❤️❤️ Will is included like it or not 😘😘😘😘😘

Duffers: Ok we NEED to have a scene with the camera focusing on ‘potentially the last letter that Mike may ever receive from El’ physically, figuratively, metaphorically ending up in the trash. Wham! Oh and yeah, make sure you crumple it up even more. Take 38. Oh and nonchalantly throw it like it doesn’t mean that much to you. Take 39. We gotta get this right.

Someone was switched at birth at this point like why this many references to that... that's so weird 🤔 it's also often connected to mrs. Wheeler or Nancy somehow like she tells Nancy that in season 3 and then this book is near a book with Nancy's name... What is up with this

Was someone swapped at the hospital? Will? El? Karen and another baby? Nancy??? So random idk

I don’t know… is there something weird going on with the specific memories that were mentioned to the mindflayer/Vecna during Will’s possession… ?

Like… Vecna’s done something to those memories, those dates… like he’s stolen them, or hidden them from the minds of Will and the others who were present at the time. Because they had power over him last time.

March 22nd. Will’s birthday. It’s just… gone.

Drawing the rainbow spaceship? Building Castle Byers? Maybe they’re gone too.

And what about “Do you remember the first day we met?”

Mike saying “I feel like my life started the day we found you in the woods” to El because the memory of meeting Will on the swingset, asking him to be his friend… it’s gone.

just a ramble of thoughts on El's kinda dicky moments this season ("I want today to be about you and me" right in front of Will, rejecting Mike's identifying with being bullied):

El doesn't really have the social experience to always realize how the others have traumas they're processing too, and that her way of going through hers can have an impact on them.

or theirs on her. she doesn't realize Mike's behavior towards her is in fact the impact of Mike going through it, but a different "it".

you know how there's a certain moment growing up where you have that realization that, ohh wait, so everyone else is the main character in their own story, like I am mine? El's around the age for that, but she's still a big step behind, still also in the process of realizing that she even is her own main character.

while she's naturally empathetic and loving, the til-recently-only-memorable part of El's upbringing really gave her no experience in like… not being the center of attention, or having to perceive others' emotions. NOT that "being the center of attention" in the lab was ever a good thing, or resulted in her feelings being valued or anything like that.

yet while she was the sole focus of the lab, SHE was never important or had any agency. even once she was the only number, she was still just a number. a prop in someone else's story.

it's gotta leave her with this weird "I'm at the center of everything but also I don't matter at all" perception of herself.

which is how she's selfless in big ways (helped find Will at her own expense, ready to die to save them all from the demogorgon, saves the world every so often, etc), but then also has these little moments that come off pretty self-regarding in her treatment of Will and Mike. it has a lot more to do with being severely developmentally behind than knowingly being an asshole. I think the others (for sure someone as perceptive as Will) know to account for that, but it still must sting sometimes.

I think this scene is something important for El -

hearing Max's trauma dump was the first time she's ever listened to one of her friends speak at length about their feelings. I'm sure she would have listened to any of her friends any time, but no one ever really opened up like that (and Max still isn't opening up to her here). maybe especially no one tries to confide in El because they either think they shouldn't because she Has It Worse, or that she wouldn't get it.

but El does get it. Max doesn't use the word "monster," but that's kinda what she thinks of herself. she thinks she did something unforgivable. El's fresh off getting some closure on her own monster arc and then turns around and finds out Max has been struggling all this time with something similar.

seeing her best friend cry and hearing her actually talk about her darkest feelings - ones not so different from El's own - idk I think that's gotta be a big moment for El in her perception of other people