Movies - TV
Stranger Things Keeps Failing Will Byers
By VALERIE ETTENHOFER
"Stranger Things" is failing Will Byers, and it's also failing the fans who by this point seem to love his character more than the writers do. Viewers who identify with the young, bullied, sensitive boy have been waiting years for him to express his feelings, but he seems to be trapped in a narrative closet.
We know more about Dustin's long-distance girlfriend and the Russian smuggler who adores peanut butter in Season 4 than we do about Will, who spends about nine hours of the season in the background. In what looks to be an attempt to lengthen a plot involving Will expressing his residual affections for Mike, the series writers have instead left him hanging.
The Upside Down drew in outsiders long before Vecna's origin story was revealed; the lonely, the ill-adjusted, and the outcast all appear to be drawn to its evil power. Will mirrored the metaphor perfectly as the first person to find himself in the Upside Down, but when he returns from the Upside Down, he spends the following three seasons feeling left out.
The show's season four finale will probably bring this idea from season one full circle, as Vecna openly preys on secrets and insecurities. While it won't reverse the seasons spent sidelining Will and concealing his identity, there is hopefully a reason for it. Will Byers, who was once the series' heart, deserves a better ending.