When “Stranger Things” returned for season five, fans were excited to see where Mike and Will’s relationship would end up. Unfortunately, audiences were disappointed with an unsatisfying ending, and many felt that they had been queerbaited into believing something that was never there. 

Even though Mike and Eleven are together in the finale, the most genuine relationship pairing has always been Mike and Will. 

In the early seasons of the show, many characters repeat the idea that love makes you crazy. In season two on Halloween night, Will gets scared and leaves his friends. Mike follows Will and asks if he is okay. They talk for a while, and Mike tells Will that if he is going crazy, they will go “crazy together.” Will nods, smiles, and agrees that they are “crazy together.” This exchange symbolizes the two of them saying they love each other no matter what happens. 

Season four of “Stranger Things” opens with a letter from El to Mike during spring break of 1986. In her letter, El tells Mike that Will has been painting something and that she “thinks it is for someone he likes.” As the exposition finishes, the scene turns to Mike, who is laying in his bed reading El’s letter. He has read the whole letter and it is entirely unlikely that he would forget what she wrote in the span of three to four days. 

That afternoon, Mike flies from Hawkins to California to visit Eleven and Will. When he arrives at the airport, he greets El, who is wearing an outfit suspiciously similar to Will’s. El wears a dress layered over a plaid button-up shirt. Will wears khaki pants with a nearly identical plaid button-up shirt. 

When Mike greets Will, he asks him about the painting. There is an awkwardness to the interaction, and it feels like Mike is holding back from asking more. The discomfort gets to Will, too, and he brushes the painting off before they leave the airport. 

Mike, Will, and El go to Rink O Mania, a local roller skating rink. When El sees girls who bully her, she lies to Mike and says that they are her friends. Mike and El cannot be honest with each other, but Mike and Will can. Will goes to Mike and tells him the truth, trying to look out for Eleven, but the conversation quickly morphs into an argument about their friendship. 

As two of them argue, Will exclaims that Mike only called him a few times. In a later episode, Dustin tells the rest of the party that “Joyce has a new telemarketer job” that has kept calls from going through, and he adds that “Mike won’t stop complaining about it.” It seems easy to assume that Mike has been trying to call El, but that is not the case. To keep Eleven safe from the government, Mike and El only communicate to each other through letters. Mike had been calling to talk to Will. 

Will points out that throughout the year Mike was not communicating, Eleven had received an abundance of letters from Mike. Mike says that El is his girlfriend, Will asks what he and Mike are, and Mike says they are friends. He says, “We’re friends” twice: once to prove it to Will, and a second time to prove it to himself. Mike has to convince himself that what he is saying is true. 

As the fight ends, the soundtrack plays. The song that plays is titled “In the closet (at Rink O Mania).” It is later revealed in season five that Will had been in the closet and hiding his sexuality, but he is not the only closeted character in this scene. 

“In the closet (at Rink O Mania)” is not the only reference made to Mike being closeted. In season four, Mike has Will’s drawings pinned up on a cork board, and to the right of them is a One-Way street sign pointing directly toward his open closet with a mirror on its door. Mike is starting to realize who he is, the closet door is wide open, but he has not looked in the mirror yet. 

As season four wraps up, Mike and Will have a heart-to-heart in the back of a van. Will finally shows Mike the painting and Mike lights up. Will claims that El commissioned it, and Mike acts like he believes him, but his gaze keeps falling to Will’s lips. 

Season five takes off 18 months later in the fall of 1987. Hawkins is quarantined, littered with government officials, and Will is riddled with questions about who he is. As the party investigates what happened to Vecna, Robin and Will start growing closer. Will catches Robin kissing her girlfriend, Vickie, at the hospital. Instead of getting angry, Will asks Robin when she knew her crush, specifically someone of the same gender, liked her back. 

When Robin describes falling in love to Will in the tunnels, she tells him that “time slowed down” and that her crush’s “hair blew in the wind.” This heartfelt speech is what drives Will’s development throughout the series, and the anecdotes shared with him save the party later in the episode. 

Will remembers Robin’s words which unlock his new powers, and the audience is given a cinematic shot of Will wiping the blood off of his nose. The cinematography in this scene is intentional. 

Time literally slows down as the shot turns slow-motion. The wind whips around Will, sweat drips from his brow, and then the camera pans to Mike. Lights flash around them like sparks going off in Mike’s head, and the look of love that he gives Will is undeniable. 

The image of Will on screen is not just what he looks like–it is how Mike is seeing him. Even while wiping his nose in the same way Eleven does, Mike only sees William Byers. Not as a “weapon,” which he calls El in season one, but as an “honest to God sorcerer.”

After Will comes out and makes it clear he had feelings for Mike, they climb up the radio tower outside of the building. They come to a stop and Mike offers Will his water bottle. Mike is offering Will to drink from his bottle after finding out that he is gay, and all of this is happening a mere six years after the start of the AIDS epidemic. This display of trust shows how much Mike cares for Will, how comfortable he is with him, and how he may feel something more than just friendship despite what he says. 

The party graduated, Mike shelved his D&D binder next to Will’s, and “Stranger Things” came to a close. There is irrefutable evidence that Mike and Will had something more than the show let on. They have raw, tender moments with emotional weight tied to their relationship than Mike and Eleven.

Regardless of how “Stranger Things” wrapped up its story, the truest pairing will always be Will and Mike.

Starting around the time that season three was released, “Stranger Things” fans have argued about who Mike should end up with. Some argue that he should have ended up with Will in the finale. However, it is made clear in Eleven’s final moments that she was the only one for him.

Mike meets Eleven in the woods during a rainstorm in season one, and noticing that she looks terrified and cold, he takes her home and lets her stay in his basement. Because she has no clean clothes and no hair, he gives her a wig and a dress as a disguise in order to help her blend in at school. 

Skipping to the events of the season one finale, Mike’s older sister Nancy makes a comment about how she suspects he has feelings for El. He denies again, but by the end of the episode, before she disappears with the demogorgon, Mike kisses El and asks her to the school dance. 

Throughout the first season, when Mike is not with El, he is defending Will, his missing BEST FRIEND. Of course he is going to go through pictures of him, reminisce, and defend him against those who are bullying him, while he is missing and possibly dead. However, any real friend would do this, so these examples are hardly proof of Mike’s ‘love’ for him.

By season two, the gang has regained Will and also welcomed a new girl named Max while Eleven is seen hiding out in a cabin in the woods that belongs to Chief of Police Jim Hopper. Hopper becomes sort of a father figure to El, and wants what is best for her. Unfortunately, this includes keeping the fact that she is alive a secret from Mike.

Everyone believes she is gone for good after the events of season one, but Mike refuses to give up hope. He radios her on his walkie talkie for a total of 353 days in a row, and this proves his dedication to, not only their budding romance, but to her as a whole. He wants to know that she is okay, and he wants her to be safe. El can see these efforts by stepping into Mike’s mind with her telekinesis, and it pains her that she cannot say anything.

Eventually, El gets sick of Hopper’s strict house rules so she leaves when he least expects it to go out and find Mike. El gets jealous when she sees Max, and skips town before letting Mike know of her existence. 

Eleven moves on to hide out in Chicago, but events happen that cause El to run back home to Hopper and Mike. They have a tearful reunion, and he learns that she listened to each of his calls without the ability to say anything. Mike is angered by everyone around him as he believes they see El as just a solution to their problems and not as a person. After El eliminates the portal, Mike and El finally get to go to the dance, and carry their relationship on to the next season. 

Some people believe that because Mike grows protective over Will throughout the events of season two, that he develops feelings. However, it is clear that Mike is just trying to keep his best friend from being taken again, or bullied.

The relationship we know and love is still going strong at the beginning of season three, but then Mike gets caught up in a lie that prompts El to dump him. They get back together in the season finale as El admits that she had heard Mike tell everyone that he loves her, and she tells him she loves him, too. Unfortunately for them, El and Will have to move to California in order to get away from the mess that is Hawkins, Indiana.

One of the main Mike and Will moments in all of season three, actually, does not prove anything. The two are having an argument because Will claims that they never hang out anymore because of Eleven, and Mike responds with, “it is not my fault you do not like girls.” Some believe that hearing that come out of Mike’s mouth was a turning point for Will in discovering his sexuality, and while I do not disagree with that, this moment does not exactly prove anything about Mike.

Season four takes place over spring break of 1986, and Mike goes to visit the Byers family in their new home in California. Mike and Eleven are having a wonderful time catching up, but then El realizes Mike never really tells her he loves her and this prompts an argument. After getting separated, they find their way back to each other, and Mike admits that he is sorry for not telling her he loves her enough when he truly does.

Because of El’s absence throughout the season, Will and Mike spend more time together. It is obvious at this point that Will does have feelings for Mike, but all he does is give Mike a speech about his being different. This moment is pivotal for Will’s character, and truthfully, I do love it. However, I do not find it as proof of Mike’s feelings for Will, which are non-existent.

By season five, Mike and El are fully secure in their relationship, and it is clear how much they have matured emotionally. They support each other, trust each other, and defend each other when needed. They create a post-battle plan to run away together, but this plan never comes into fruition because Eleven sacrifices herself for the greater good. 

It is in Mike’s head that they share a final, tear-jerking goodbye while Prince’s “Purple Rain” blasts around them. Her ending is open-ended, though, as we never actually see her die, but Mike presents a pretty realistic theory of what could have happened in order for her to still be alive. 

In season five, we finally get to see Will live his life as who he wants to be when he comes out to the group as gay. It is in his coming out speech that he also admits to a former crush on Mike that has since gone away, because he knows they are nothing more than best friends. 

In its entirety, Mike and El’s love story was bittersweet. There were extremely low points, but also high ones as well. Fans hope and pray that Mike’s theory of El’s existence is true, and imagine them finding each other again years later. While El’s ending is not clear, it is crystal clear that Mike and El belonged together, and no matter what, it was always going to be them.