I think a good parallel for the narrative development of Mike’s feelings for Will can be understood when comparing it to another (queer) Netflix show. The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself portrays a bisexual main character who actually! has a female and male love interest. He starts with genuine feelings for the girl and then develops feelings for a guy. Granted I haven’t read the books (so take this for what it’s worth) but the way the series illustrates a sorta slow and bodily but also very sweet attraction to Annalise at school who later turns out to be very crucial to his journey toward finding his father and then the genuine sexual tension and intrigue with Gabriel who joins the journey (unwittingly, at that, lol): it reminds me of Will and Mike and particularly Mike because it suggests that a show can still subvert major narrative expectations about love and relationships for main male and female characters in television. We don’t have to ignore genuine and visceral chemistry between two characters just because they’re both boys or girls. We can just run with it. They can still be really fun and fantastical and whimsical and gory shows about superpowers and witches and guess what! The main character is bisexual! Who woulda thunk it! It was so casual and I really appreciate that and wish this as a model for future shows because if Stranger Things leans into the very real and palpable romantic chemistry between Mike and Will I don’t think it will be as jarring or earth-shattering as we might thing for a ‘general audience,’ whatever that means. It can just be because it’s right.
Anyway, I’m rambling. Watch queer television people.
Naya Rivera died saving the one thing she loved the most in this world—her son. That’s what her life was dedicated to: to nurture and to love everything he was, everything he would be. Her son will carry her legacy past this lifetime and into another, everything he does ultimately molded from her image and character so that she’ll still get to live with us for as long as we’ll let her; and while it’s true most of us know and cherish her work, her voice, her talent, and her art, it also true that it this very thing—why she saved her son instead of herself, her love and heart—that we’ll cherish the most. That’s how she’s remembered.
Can’t wait for the inevitable tidal wave of “objective” and totally un-biased comments on Gabi and Gui’s performances this weekend. I’m ready to fight, y’all.
This is easily my favorite part of P/C’s FD. Their inside to outside change of edge Ina Bauer into their stationary lift. It’s so pretty and I can’t stop watching it omg.
Everyone else can go home. The fluidity, the sharpness, the outfits, the artistry — it’s all there. Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron prove again and again that the criticism they receive is often irrational and based on the idea that no one can live up to the Canadians. And yet, they go out there and do this and show they really are the greatest of all time.