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    Wednesday, January 14
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    Stranger Things’ Coming Out Scene Is Sweet, But Corny

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    Stranger Things is nearly over, with its finale set to premiere on Netflix and in theaters on Wednesday, December 31. Its penultimate episode, “Chapter Seven: The Bridge,” included a scene that was a long time coming: Will (Noah Schnapp) finally coming out to his friends as gay after crushing hard on Mike (Finn Wolfhard). It turns out Will’s identity isn’t merely a footnote on his character sheet, but actually ends up playing a pretty major part in the show’s supernatural horror elements. Now, after years of keeping the truth to himself, Will has finally told all his friends and a few acquaintances who were just kinda around that he is a card-carrying boy liker, and the final scene has received a pretty…mixed response.

    So let’s break it down. Will, who has a psychic connection with series big bad Vecna, is in his feelings after finding out the monster has been using him as a spy since he returned from the  Upside Down in Stranger Things’ first season. He also learns that his connection to this other world created the Upside Down tunnel system that formed underneath Hawkins National Laboratory in season 2, which “infected” the real world and led to the deaths of many innocent people.

    Later in the episode, he tells his mother about Vecna’s hostile takeover of his mind, and says that the villain sees “everything,” knowing his secrets and preying on his fears. So in order to beat Vecna, Will says he needs to give him one less secret to wield, and wants his friends and family to know the truth.

    Will sits down with a dozen people of varying importance to him and gives, well, a pretty straightforward coming-out confession of the sort that you’d expect from just about any well-meaning show from the early 2000s. He goes on about how he and all his friends are still the same except for one little detail: “I don’t like girls.” He says that he had a crush on someone he knew wouldn’t like him back, and that Vecna showed him a manufactured future in which this came between him and his friends, not because of bigotry, but because their overbearing worry for him makes him feel othered to the point of pushing them away. 

    As Will starts to cry, his mother and friends, one by one, promise that they’re not going anywhere and then give him a big group hug. It’s sweet, but maybe a bit overwrought for modern sensibilities? There’s a lot to unpack about this moment and how it may or may not land.

    For some, there’s just some absurdity to seeing most of the cast of Stranger Things lined up to listen to Will tell everyone he has a crush on another friend in the room, and it also doesn’t help that much of the cast is just not reacting much at all to the revelation. But I don’t think that the silliness of the scene is the only issue. 

    By 2025, it feels like some queer people may have become a bit jaded toward the traditional coming-out story. It’s certainly still a universal part of queer experience, but when it’s often the only lens through which mainstream media views the queer experience, a young twink tearfully telling his bros he’s “still the same” as he always was probably isn’t going to land with queer viewers the way it once would have. On the contrary, some queer people don’t find comfort in stories where a gay character only finds solidarity if they focus on how they are the “same” as their cishet friends. I’d rather see stories about that support not being given under the condition of what makes me similar to others, when it should be offered regardless. 

    In the case of Stranger Things, I think I’m willing to offer it some grace because it is ultimately an ‘80s period piece, and even though the Stonewall Riots happened nearly 20 years prior, there was still a lot of work to be done in 1987. So if 16-year-old Will has no other framework to communicate his truth to his friends in the late ‘80s, fair enough. Especially if there are still young people living in small towns like Hawkins who are watching shows like Stranger Things and still at that stage in their lives.

    That said, the ‘80s setting does have some fans wondering where the hell this universal acceptance is coming from. Yeah, you could argue the Stranger Things gang has been through so much that they don’t have time for homophobia, but when has an apocalypse ever been enough to make a bigot admit to the error of their ways? I don’t know, it’s an awkward line to walk when you’re including queer characters in your story. If you show a completely accepting universe, you run the risk of coming off as inauthentic, but if you portray the reality of the queer experience, you will inevitably have the most online armchair consultant calling your work a moral failing to the gays you hope to represent. Everyone’s got their preferences, but as hokey as the scene might be, I have a hard time viewing it as anything other than well-meaning.

    The bigger problem I have with the scene is one many people are having with Stranger Things’ final season, which is that the writing is so straightforward and inelegant that you have to wonder if Netflix is actually telling writers to dumb down their work for the people who are always on their damn phones. Stranger Things has reasonably complex mythology and lore, so I don’t think anyone who’s still invested after five seasons needs to have dialogue mashed up and spoonfed to them like they’re a baby, but that proclivity feels pretty apparent in this scene. At the very least, the polarizing moment has got the shitpost pipeline flowing.

    Also, holy shit. They took 12 hours to shoot that scene and then another 12 hours for reshoots? Jesus. Anyway, here’s the superior scene of Robin coming out in season 3 to cleanse your palate. 



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