here is PART 1 :

and it’s the season with a Russian conspiracy under that very same mall he spends all this time with Will in close proximity. Mike is also extremely paranoid this season, El breaking up with him is a relief at first and then he starts questioning how it will look like and that

causes him so much distress and the plot gets crazier. (Mrs Driscoll is also a paranoid schizophrenic so that might be something) Here you need to consider that the upside is Mike’s mindscape, Mike is the encapsulation of what living in conservative Hawkins does to a person

forcing them to conform “conformity that’s the real monster/that’s what is killing the kids” he is the character who represents this best, not Will, Will never tried to conform he always stayed true to himself no matter how much it cost him, Will is too honest, he doesn’t try to

pretend, but Mike does “friends don’t lie” yes except when they lie all the time and about everything. “Boyfriend lie all the time” oh yes they do.

His mindscape is so dark and filled with monsters because Mike hates himself, it’s heavily influenced by dnd because Mike is the DM, he has low self esteem and suffers from depression (as you can see all throughout the show and particularly in season 4) he needs to conform and

yet his performance is cracking, he can’t be this person he tries to portray and his repressed emotions are physically coming back to haunt him. And what are the Russians trying to do?the very cartoonish Russians that are definitely not real but the conception a 14 year old boy

has of the “enemy”, using something as strangely basic as Planks constant to protect their master plan? And fun fact their leader is even named Mikhail, when Joyce, Hopper and Murray infiltrate the guard literally asks “did Mikhail send you?”, well those Russians are trying to

open a gate to the upside down, to Mike’s mindscape to his repressed emotions, with a laser of blue electricity, representing Mike’s desire for Will, Steve in season 2 says the sexual electricity, and a song in Mike’s playlist is literally called are friends electric?.

Throughout season 3 Mike thinks he is being spied on and conspired against constantly and this is manifested by the whole nonsensical Russian plot, the Russian spies and this mysterious conspiracy with that cartoonish Green liquid (blue+yellow) , them trying to open the gate,

to Mike’s mind scape forcibly creating a breach in the impenetrable fortress of his repressed thoughts. The Russian base being described as an impenetrable fortress. Murray not understanding what they are doing either

As for the meat flayer plot well remember that joke they made about the lingerie store, being the same as the meat flayer? the writers saying so much is going on for Mike and ending in “can we just play dnd?”, the fact that the Duffers said the monster represents puberty?

Well all of this is actually literal, Mike is losing control on his perfect summer romance plot and his hidden homosexuality is literally manifesting as a monster made out of flesh, and it takes all the people representing the conservativeness of Hawkins,

first Billy the literal encapsulation of toxic masculinity and heterosexuality, who Mike is literally going to lure with a sing songy voice shirtless into a sauna, Billy literally saying he will murder him (like come on the subtext, it’s so gay, wether you think Billy is

repressing his own homosexuality, he is the archetype of those bullies who will commit a hate crime),and the other victims represent conformity as well,Heather is the perfect American girl with the perfect model of a rich American family (the song playing being miss American pie)

the other victims are the toxic men being misogynistic to Nancy, Mrs Driscoll is a Christian. All those people are representing what it’s like to fit in in Hawkins flawlessly, something Mike can’t do, can’t be, the conformity he aspires to but ultimately fails at and it’s driving

and it’s driving him crazy he says it to El “they say it makes you crazy” yes crazy means love but it also means literally crazy, Mike is telling the audience he is going crazy all in the same episode Robin and Steve are drugged and their storyline makes less and less sense.

And all those people representing conformity in Hawkins end up consumed and absorbed into a monster that hunts them and specifically El,she ends up cornered by Billy in a vision of the cabin,as if to say her perfect cabin romance with Mike was just an illusion,she calls for Mike

involving him in the scene and then Billy says “All this work, all this pain for you, we’ve been building for you” , all the work I put into this relationship, all the pain I put into conforming it’s what you wanted, it was for you, this story I’ve been building it was for you.

They then think it’s about the flayed army but they aren’t sure. Billy let’s her go and she falls into Mike’s arms and unusual for him he doesn’t ask what happened (he doesn’t know what happened he has no awareness of what he is doing, but the writers are hinting that he does)

but that’s when he completely loses control of the narrative when the flayed get assimilated, he looses it to Shadow/MF i believe (who I think is the ghost of Mike’s real mother who died in another timeline but I am not getting into this right now).

Season 3 might be the season where El looses her powers but more crucially I think it’s the season Mike looses his control on the narrative, in season 4 he has barely any agency. Dustin and Suzie sing “Never ending story” quite clearly meaning the story is not over, giving you

the answer “and there upon a rainbow is the answer to a never ending story” they attack the flesh monster with flamboyant rainbow colored fireworks and Joyce closes the gate, Mike’s secret is safe for now he gets back together with El at the end of the season.

Here is PART 3 : https://x.com/achromatic_wh/st...