The Wheelers - Tumblr Posts

Can we have more Nancy and Mike interaction next season?? Please?? I could write a god damn essay on them PLEASE. I need more of them canonically interacting.

Let Nancy be protective of her younger brother. Let her be worried about her vision coming true.

Let Mike be kind of confused and act like she hates in but in reality he doesn’t. Let him look up to Nancy.

Let the two characters be awkward, let them talk and bond, let them become closer. PLEASE!!

I could write a god damn essay on the Wheelers. And I might. I might. I might write a little essay on them and their god damn nuclear family.

The church scene with Jason was actually so important to the Wheeler parents and it's not talked about enough... Lucas said it best when he said "normal" wasn't real it's just for psychopaths like Jason (not the direct quote but that's the gist of it), because that's what everyone realized that season. Karen goes from nagging Mike hardcore to making it clear by the end of the season that she loves him before hugging him. Ted goes from calling the DnD club the high school dropouts club to calling the media satanic panic bs. It's subtle, but it's there.

And it's important in understand how both of them interact with Mike. How Karen focused on laying onto Mike about his troublesome behavior and punishing him without doing enough to Mike him feel safe to open up around her. Her problem was always that she wanted Mike to come to her while simultaneously never making him feel like she should. How can Mike feel safe coming to her about the fact that he's gay if she's always harping on his flaws trying to make him a "perfect" child?

Karen realized in that church scene, watching Jason, the good looking heterosexual popular basketball star, the child that every mother at that time would have wanted, the opposite of everything Mike is, ranting and raving about Mike's DnD club and how they're satanist and murders and realized: holy shit who raised him? Who gave him that hero complex? Who indoctrinated him this way? And her realizing that she's glad Mike is uniquely who he is and she loves him for it and she would never change it. And she should show it.

Ted doesn't nag Mike often, but his jabs are almost always related to Mike presenting in any way queer. (I actually was writing a post on this because it's so fascinating but the gist of it is that there's most likely a cycle going on here. It's sitting in my drafts but idk if I'll post it because ~ social anxiety~). Anyways, things like "see what happens", "our son? With a girl?", referring to the DnD club as the "high school drop outs club", and "no sweetie pie" (idk if Ted even knows El exists lol).

"Anything is possible" he says and Karen snaps at him that their children aren't murderers, and of course he knows that... It's not what he meant he says, but he did say it. The DnD clubs are "queer" and "satanic" in the media he reads and watches right? It's his scripted line from what he sees, what he should say because it's what everyone else is saying. But he doesn't believe it. He doesn't believe Mike and his friends are murderers. However, as long as he follows the script, as long as he partakes in this "silly, terrible play" (as Henry called it) where he wakes up, works, eats, sleeps, reproduces, and dies- which are the only things we see Ted ever do bar death- doing the bare minimum performance as a father, then he doesn't have to think about that cognitive dissonance. He doesn't have to think at all.

He could just sit there and eat, letting Jason come and go with his mob, just like he does when Karen is scolding Mike at the dinner table. Except his donuts are uneaten because for once he can't just distract himself when there's someone making his son's DnD club out to be satanists capable of serial murder in a church of all places, and when there's a mob ready to chase them down. And so, for the first time he goes off script- it's subtle, he's just not eating the food in his hand and paying attention. But then in the next scene, he goes even further off script saying that the media satanic panic is tabloid bs rather just just absorbing it or sleeping.

Both Karen and Ted are evolving, it's subtle, but s4 was a turning point for them I think.

Assuming that the leaked titles are true, I really don't think that either Nancy, Karen, or Mike will go missing in ep 2 considering that they are hinted to have a more active presence in the season, and I don't see that happening if they up and vanish.

It could be Holly, but honestly, I think it might be Ted. This would be similar to how in Meg has to save her father in A Wrinkle in Time, something the Duffers have confirmed multiple times is inspiration for the show.

Thoughts on "Escape from Camazotz"

Oppressive Suburbia, Conformity, and Season 5 Themes

I've long thought that a major focus of Season 5 will be the contrast between the families of The Wheelers and The Byers, and exploring how non-traditional family environments can be freeing vs the oppressive structure of the nuclear family.

In a Wrinkle In Time, Camazotz is a planet controlled by the big bad of the book, the "IT", who forces the citizens into a conformity that resembles American suburbia. All of the houses the same, the citizens the same, doing the same things at the same time without individual identity. Without anything different. Different means a lot of things, but with Stranger Things dropping different in reference to Will's identity and the presumable themes of this season, it will heavily codify as queerness and how it threatens the cisheterosexual family model.

Henry was raised in the 1950s, a decade still revered by conservatives for it's traditional family dynamics that supposedly were the peak of culture and happiness for all. That was all a lie, of course, and Henry knew so as he shows to Nancy and Eleven during his monologue. The second most conservative decade aside from the 1950s in American society is widely considered to be the 1980s.

The Creels will serve in parallel to The Wheelers; the worst example of what they could become and the damage that this type of family could do to a child that is different in any way. Notice how Vecna selectively shows Nancy visions of The Wheelers dying, but not anyone else she may consider family or friends (like Jonathan).

That is; unless they change their ways and come together as a healthy functioning family facing their traumas, The Wheelers will be toast.

Karen has been moved up to a main character role this season. Ted's actor says the father starts to show up more for Holly (hold that) and realizes he wants to act differently. Holly has been recast. Finn has said Mike goes on a much more personal journey this season, and steps up as a leader.

Oh, also: the catalyst for all of this is that Holly goes missing. The contrast will help show how the Byers (including El and Hopper here) were able to pull together and help solve Will's disappearance, versus how the Wheelers as a closed off nuclear family grapple with Holly's vanishing.

Each of the Byers is in some kind of a non-1950s conformist relationship, but particularly Will (not in one now but we all know he will be). I think El might represent, after she breaks up with Mike, the fear of the unmarried woman being satisfied without a husband. The above shot really emphasizes my point.

I predict that Will will end up coming out to his family rather early on, and we will see all of them immediately accept him with little surprise or push-back. Will is a visible gay man who comes from an open minded non traditional family (divorced, non-married, adoptive) that is willing to have honest conversations.

But this theme will place the most focus on the Wheelers. Mike is the main character of said family and this will particularly focus on his arc, and his acceptance of his queerness in the midst of suburban conformity.

He is not visible, he comes from a Reagan-supporting family who don't communicate with each other. He is not particularly close with his family like Will is. He pushes his feelings down and tries his damn hardest to be normal despite it all. His trauma hasn't really been addressed at all. He is falling back into his usual habits - the one thing he dared to do different (grow his hair long) has gone back to how it was.

It's not all doom and gloom though. This season above all will be a redemption arc of the American nuclear family, how they choose to escape their conformity and learn to be there for each other, thus overpowering Vecna. Not that the Wheelers are going to end this personally.

"Great, more hysteria. Just what we need". "It's the news, now indistinguishable from the tabloids".

The Secret Truth of Stranger Things: the crux of it all is that the Wheelers are cursed. The Byers just got dragged into it the worst because the Wheelers had crushes and they are potentially Future Wheelers.

holly wheeler - who/what are you? an informal post about all of the holly oddities I've discovered so far.

where do I even begin with this one? I'm just going to jump into it and show you all the weird connections I've found that mostly relate to holly-el/jane, holly-alice and holly-sarah. I have no real conclusions so far so I invite everyone to take a look and share their thoughts.

oddity one: the hair

All four are blonde girls, and three have pigtails or twin braids, reminiscent of rabbit ears.

oddity two: the rabbits

terry ives' home, inside what should have been jane ives' room:

holly wheeler and her rabbit lite-brite:

alice creel and the dead rabbit:

And why the rabbits? Well, they're all a reference to Alice in Wonderland. The first rabbit in the painting in Jane's room is just literally the rabbit from AIW, fitted with a pocketwatch.

Alice in Wonderland:

Just check out #whiterabbitgate for more on the two above, the song 'White Rabbit' is also connected to El and just general HNL activities.

The Rainbows:

(above is the Terry Ives flashback from season two)

Holly's outfit in Season 5 is incredibly colourful and there are at least 3 different rainbow items inside her room.

The Flowers:

^ Holly even has yellow red and blue flowers on her bicycle basket.

My questions have already been: why is Vecna/Henry seemingly interested in her enough to not only lure her but continue 'playing' with her for multiple scenes? Why is Holly suddenly relevant?

I'm also a BTVS fan, and the idea of a younger sister suddenly introduced had me thinking of Dawn. Dawn was Buffy's younger sister introduced suddenly in Season 5 (literally out of nowhere) - until it turned out that she wasn't a fully real person, but a powerful energy turned into a human that was sent to the Summers' house where they would protect her. She never existed until she was fourteen, but they all believed she had with false memories. Furthermore, she becomes the target of that season's villain which Buffy has to protect.

So then we get to Holly's room:

Most notably for this post are ALF and the 'A Royal Pain' book. Let me just show you the plot summaries for both, starting with ALF:

I initially thought the ALF reference was just a reference to El (and it very much could be a dual thing). But considering the strangeness.... and the parallels that are coming to light between them.

A Royal Pain:

There has already been baby-switch precedent in the show. In fact it's a major theory about Jane Ives and El - that they aren't the same child. But when it's been specifically brought up, it's been in relation to the Wheelers. Karen, was your other daughter swapped in the hospital? Or something even crazier?

I'll get to more when my ideas are less of a mess. But there's also something interesting @bylerposting has brought up - the way that Mike has this whole interesting out of place dialogue with El.

But what if it wasn't about El - what if it was also subtext for Holly? She came into the family even though she wasn't a biological daughter. The Wheelers were like her new parents, and Nancy was like her new sister.

And there's so much more I'm thinking of but can't get to right now, like Holly with the lights and her perception of the supernatural before others sense it. I just want to get this ball rolling for real.