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I think the Upside Down always existed, but once Eleven 'killed' One and forced him into the UD, he used his powers/abilities to shape/mold the UD into something he could use to try and get back to the Rightside Up - or at least use other methods & UD-supplied tools to manipulate the connection between dimensions to do so - and get revenge on Eleven. He also used what was available to become the 'master' of the UD. (IE, the "demorgorgons" and that huge black particle thing he formed into the "Mind Flayer") That's my view on it, but mmv.

I wouldn't mind seeing El in a healthy happy relationship because she deserves something good in her life, but Mike - as he is currently, and has been since S2 - is not the person she should be involved with romantically.

Yes. I fully realize he's still a younger teen and has a lot of time & room to grow emotionally, maturity-wise and such, but right now his relationship with El has lots of bad/wrong vibes. Comes off as wanting to be controlling and is very needy of her to need him, most the time.

Yeah, watching Will confess to Mike, and all the awkwardness & Will's heartbreak due to Mike not feeling the same - due to Mike's likely not even being bi-curious - will be super exciting to watch. Not. Although, I will say, I still feel that Will (& El!) could do better than Mike, for a romantic partner.

The cat - that was never really in the bag - seems to officially be out of the bag now. This is just one of numerous articles about it, a NS interview with Variety being the source; ‘Stranger Things’ Star Noah Schnapp Confirms Will Is Gay and in Love with Mike D'oh! Thought this post was new to the thread, but didn't see the one by @Cranberry.

Fully agree. I know the series is about more than just one person or storyline, but it will feel 'wrong' if Will isn't a very essential part of the final battle against HC/O/V. I mean, the whole series - especially the first two seasons - started with the majority of the main cast tightly circling his orbit because of what happened to him in and because of the UD. Hell, the very first episode was pretty much dedicated to the character - title and all - even with as little actual screen time he was in it. And I would like to see him develop - or has had since S1, or even born with - powers. Doesn't have to be as OP'd as El and Vecna, but still have abilities nonetheless. While being able to sense HC/O/V's presence and thoughts/feelings is indeed helpful and advantageous, its not really something he can take the fight to a powered villain with.

I agree with this very recent discussion about Mike and how he treats people and his relationship with El. But that brings me around to Will's (supposed) unrequited crush on him. Other than having been good friends since kindergarten, what does Will see in Mike - at least from a romantic sense POV!? You can do so much better, dude.

Does that make HC/One Vecna the Psycho-kinetic Clown? And the demodogs are the circus animals?? Now I can't get the image of Vecna riding around Honkins in a clown car out of my head ......

Since we've made it through 4 full seasons for the main core of characters, and 2 or 3 for the main additions, lets have everyone (in the main group) survive the series finale [assuming S5 is really it]. I'm not looking forward to getting attached to someone for a good chunk of a season and losing them, ala Barb (s1), Bob (s2), Alexei (s3) & Eddie (s4), but stick with the formula to finish things off, is I guess what I'm saying. If they kill any of the main cast in the final season, it'll feel like nothing more than a "we had to do it for the shock value!!!!!!!!" move.

A few of my wants for Season 5 are; - Just once, it'd be nice to see the Wheeler patriarch be something other than useless. He makes a great La-Z-Boy advert, but not much else. - They need to bring back Mr Clarke. I missed him this past season. - Something for Will to do, or at least involve him more in the plot. He was seriously sidelined for the vast majority of S4. Would be nice to see that he has had or developed powers/abilities, even if only very limited, other than just being a HC/O/V & Mind Flayer,etc human radar alert system.

I don't say this because I want bad things to happen to him, but I predict that One/Vecna will possess Will - in S5 - so that he can 'exist' in the normal world. He's already basically done it already, as the "Mind Flayer", so it wouldn't be all that big of a stretch to imagine as a possibility. Unless the opening of the portals all throughout Hawkins means his Upside Down!body can & will exist in the normal world after he recovers, then nvm the above.

Wasn't that explained, back in S1, that she "saw" him (after he was stuck in the Upside-Down) while visiting the vast darkness of the 'in-between' she remotely views while in a sensory deprivation environment?

I won't hijack the thread by trying to debate, but it doesn't kill the debate for me - at least, not completely. I mean, sure, the hints have been very 'on the nose' and likely are what they look like, but after 2.5 to 3 seasons of these hints now, why won't they just make it official already - even if basically to just those of us in the audience. Johnathon could have told Will that he knows how Will really feels about Mike, instead we are left with the always ambiguous "You can can talk with/to me, about anything".

The subtext is unmissable, if they do go with the "Will is gay" storyline, but I still see it (more) as him still dealing with being stunted due to arrested development because of his dealing with the Demogorgon/Upside-Down & Vecna for a very large part of the 3 previous years, as well as bringing it all back by knowing what's going on as well as going back to Hawkins. I think it was highlighted when Will & Mike were talking about what to do with the reward(?) money, and Will fell back on the old "We could play D&D all day". I noticed the look on Mike's face when he said that was practically screaming "Not this childish crap again!". And I see Will's emotional overflows as more about his feeling abandoned by his best friend, instead of feeling unable to share with Mike that he is in love with him. Mike has extreme tunnel vision towards Eleven, and barely allows any time or effort to even acknowledge let alone just talk with Will. Mike's fear of Eleven 'not needing him anymore' was a bit weird. Other than letting her stay in the basement, hiding her from everyone but The Party, she's never needed him for anything. Comes off a bit as feeling the need to be in control of their relationship, even if he doesn't mean it to.

Does anybody still watch the new episodes of P:CoC, or the afternoon+evening+night long reruns on Thursdays? I watched the first new one of this season, but none of the others (yet). Guess I got tired of watching the marathons repeatedly and have been on a break. Will watch the rest of the newest ones at some point, but can't say I've missed it much at all - especially the nearly all day long marathons on Thursdays - in the past 2-3 months.

No clue if this ties into One/Vecna, either, but I've always found it weird that instead of just killing & eating Will and Barb, the Demogorgon(s?) did whatever it was doing to them in the Upside-Down. Barb didn't survive the process, and Will was a bit dead before they revived him, but it seemed they had another purpose for them other than as just food sources. And considering the very end of S1 and then "Dart" in S2, was the Demogorgons using them for 'breeding'/incubator purposes? Wondering exactly how intelligent the Demogorgons are. And is it their own intelligence or Vecna's own brainpower & actions through them, IE his creation(s)?? Actually, now that I think about it, it seemed like when Vecna brutally killed the teens in S4, he 'fed' off their deaths through those weird 'IV-like flesh tubes'. Maybe the long flesh tube thing they pulled out of Will's mouth and throat was something similar, and Vecna was feeding off his & Barb's life force? Many, many ways that One/Vecna could be weaved into the earliest storylines. Like for instance... I forget exactly how, but have seen it speculated that the outside lights flickering at the Wheelers, as Will rode off right before his running into the Demogorgon, was another possible way that signified One/Vecna's presence in the Rightside-Up.

I don't recall the audio clues of the chiming clocks, but in the very first episode, I always thought it a bit strange that the house's door lock disengaged itself after Will ran home and as he tried to hide from the Demogorgon, before he was lost in the Upside-Down. Especially after we saw that Eleven (& others like her, IE One/Vecna) could do the same through telekinesis. But as far as we know, Demogorgons don't have special abilities/powers like that. Whether that is a hint of Vecna having been planned out from the beginning or not, I have no idea, but its something that stuck out to me.

Well, JH is keeping busy, regardless of Magnum's status.... Magnum PI star Jay Hernandez books movie role; season 5 implications

Maybe (hopefully) this is a case of "no news is good news", but after all that initial news flurry about Magnum likely being saved, its been eerily 'radio silent' - or nearly so - for about the past 5 days to a week, purely speculation articles notwithstanding.

That's what I was trying to say. He said it in a waspish way, but Mike was basically telling Will that he & Lucas & Dustin were not solely interested in playing D&D 24/7/365 anymore. They had other interests outside 'The Party'; IE, that girls being interested in them - and kissing them - wasn't "eww, gross!" anymore. But due to Will's arrested development, essentially having about 1.5 years of his developing childhood stolen from him (held prisoner in the Upside-Down for a week of one year, and then possessed by the Mind Flayer for a portion of the next year) has left him still seeing life through a gap that's behind the rest of his age group friends and contemporaries. Not only is he behind the rest of them on the emotional/social development curve, but he also has to deal with being expected to somehow skip over that lost time and be on their level without being allowed to arrive there on his own schedule.

This was my take on things, as well. When Mike threw that "Its not my fault you don't like girls!" jab at Will, I saw it through the lens of it being more about the subtext of dickishly telling him to 'Grow up!' instead of 'Its not my fault you're gay'. But considering all the rest of the 'Will is gay' subtextual hints they've been throwing out there, I could see it as that being something Mike meant with that line, too.

Now that we are nearing 99% certainty that Magnum will be saved and continue, I am now wondering if the show's PTB and writers will walk anything back from the end of the S4 finale, as S5 opens. I still maintain that if CBS hadn't been dumb and just renewed the show from the get-go, there likely wouldn't have been the full sharing of feelings between the two and definitely not a kiss. They would have kept dragging it out as long as possible - based on what we'd seen previously.

Anybody ever watched the show called Web of Darkness? They seem to be taking 3 'instances' and acting out the "story". Watched the very end of the previous episode and up to the first commercial break of the next one and I don't think its for me. Seems like the show is taking internet-based urban myths - or possibly based on 'real' stories - and playing it out with really bad & overdone acting. Lame.

Production Weekly - whatever that is, exactly - is reporting that the 5th season is currently in Active Development. And while that does not 1000% confirm the series has been saved/renewed, people are saying that this PW is rarely wrong nor falsifies the info they provide for shows.

I found myself disappointed in Will in the first couple of episodes of S4, in that he just stood way back and let the 'cool kids' pick on & bully Jane/11. I get he has a personal history with that exact type of thing from his middle school days back in Hawkins while just taking it from the bullies, as well as going through quite a bit in his own personal sphere - the most likely being gay SL - but even its just a weak wavering "please just leave her alone", just do something, man! And I lump Mike in with that as well, when that whole incident - leading up to her smacking Angela in the face with a skate - both boys just stood there gawping and watched her get utterly humiliated. Yes, Mike did get the DJ to finally turn off the music, but they should have been out there getting the group away from J/11 or her away from the crowd. Watching the lack of action and protection was so frustrating. Another thing; I don't know if they will or not, but if they do plan on making it so that Will will end up having a strong connection to the Upside Down/Vecna thing back in Hawkins - after they all finally get back there - it will fall a bit flat to me. Simply because that while I know that they are currently halfway across the country from Indiana and Hawkins, they've given no hint at all that Will's 'UD radar detector' ability/feelings has alerted him to what's going on back there. Before Owens picked J./11 up and the soldiers attacked their house, its been played that he's had no idea in the slightest that Hawkins was still dealing with its supernatural curse crap.