Mileven and the Pitfalls of Expectation Against the Brilliance of Maturity We've Got
I posted this as a comment earlier, but u/StuuffNThiingss asked me to post it fully, so here is a (revised) analysis of what we have seen thus far for Mileven and why I, personally, think a lot of people have been a little extra in their disappointment with this season.
To start, I truly think that building up expectations outside of the show based on theories and potential “leaks” is seriously clouding our judgment of the show and the relationship that’s being portrayed on screen. The problem I see is when any of us grow emotionally attached to the ideas that have been presented online and feel like we need something similar in order to be satisfied with the show. Tbh, I think people should stop building up expectations outside of the show and getting disappointed when the show isn’t matching those expectations. And this can be said for many, many of the other theories for ST5 and I think plays a rather large role in the disappointment that has resulted in people claiming this season sucks—full disclosure, I vehemently disagree.
It might feel like the emotions are taking a backseat, like we’re being denied substantial Mike/El moments, but I’d argue three points on this:
- We actually get a pretty decent number of love/care moments between the two of them (see end of this post).
- Their relationship dynamic has significantly matured from other seasons (this is a good thing!).
- The events of this show are quite literally happening in less than three days and everyone is currently still in fight mode for obvious reasons.
None of the character reactions are unreasonable right now. And I’d say this is especially true for Mike Wheeler.
First of all, Mike has always been a perpetual optimist and fearful emotion bottler. He rarely unpacks anything when it comes to his fears and is constantly ready to act like everything is good and okay until he is forced to realize it’s not.
Evidence:
- Season 1: Literally all of his insane optimism about finding Will, including his perpetual insistence that they’re going to find Will once he realizes El’s powers can help. The fact that he repeatedly shuts down Dustin when they’re hiding in the bus and his full belief that he and his friends can protect El from the “bad men,” coming out in spades with his quite literally standing up to a ton of men with guns in the final episode.
- Season 2: Fully believing for an entire year that El is alive and coming back to him and that he’ll find her if he walkies her often enough. Emotion bottling came out heavily in his anger at Hopper for hiding El from him for so long and we also see it extensively in his depression at how long she’s been missing. He’s also the one who comes up with the plan to go set the tunnels on fire to help El when she’s closing the gate and is super restless prior to this plan.
- Season 3: The degree of emotional bottling he does in this season is actually pretty high. It’s this bottling that results in his lying to El about why he can’t see her, his supreme jealousy of Max, and it’s fully the reason that he blurts out that he loves her when he starts freaking out over the possibility of her in danger again. What’s great about this season, though, is this is where his emotion bottling and optimistic belief in her sort of collide because despite his fears of losing her where he freaked out at everyone “treating her like a machine” and needing another plan because he “can’t lose her again,” he immediately fell back on that optimism when El asked him to trust her. This is actually the single most reinforcing season for Mike’s excessive optimism because despite all of his fears of losing her, they essentially win against the legit biggest danger they’ve ever faced and so of course Mike develops the level of optimism we see in season 5. Mike also does some excellent internal thinking about Max’s comments and takes the initiative to apologize to El and, despite his fear of losing her that holds him back from a clear statement, he all but tells her he loves her without actually using those specific words.
- Season 4: He’s genuinely perplexed when El says he never says “I love you” and a HUGE part of that is his struggle to internally check himself on things he’s scared of—the only time he really had to was in his fight with Max and, given that El says “I love you, too” at the end of season 3, Mike has sort of entered this space where I think he genuinely believes El should know that he loves her. The majority of his emotion bottling here genuinely has very little to do with El and far more to do with the fact that he has a low view of himself; as far as Mike is concerned, Eleven is the most amazing and incredible person he’s ever met and his view is that he’s not good enough for her and this is something he needs to overcome and mature out of. The thing is, this is the only season where he really struggles with his optimism but it’s important to recognize that this is all in relation to the idea that El will one day see him the way he sees himself and has nothing to do with his belief in her. What’s extremely important to note is that all of these struggles that Mike faces are fully resolved by the end of season 4. He decides to stop bottling his fears and be openly vulnerable with El about them. Despite the full dire situation they’re facing, they once again come out having solved a significant amount of the problems they’ve faced. Given how Mike is portrayed when discussing Dr. Brenner’s belief that El wasn’t ready and the battle situation (also, don't forget the fact that Max isn’t dead—here’s that optimism that everything can be resolved re: supernatural abilities) Mike leaves this season portraying an impressive degree of confidence regarding their ability to get rid of Vecna. You can see the fear in his eyes when he’s talking to Will, but it takes him 0.2 seconds to return to the “we will” kill Vecna belief. And this is reinforced significantly when we see him planning out the crawl. Given all of this, I think it’s pretty safe to say that he’s significantly confident in their ability to get Max back as well.
Now let’s look at season 5. His parents might be injured, but they’re not dead—he’s going to hold optimism here—and his sister might be missing, but let’s be real, Mike “believes he and his friends can fix everything with the power of manifestation” Wheeler isn’t going to emotionally break over this. He begins this season fully running with the excessive optimism piece and you see it in every second of that rooftop conversation with El. But you also see it in his conversation with Holly in the school hallway. The closest he’s come to breaking so far this season was when he saw Nancy’s face re: Holly but he’s still not there yet because he very quickly switched to “fix it/plan” mode.
So when we consider what is actually going to break Mike emotionally, it’s important to remember that three things that can bring him to break are 1) when a lot of time has passed (see El’s absence re: season 2—he definitely came close but his excessive optimism and full belief in her “moving mountains” prevented a full break), 2) they actually fully fail and have zero hope of fixing it (death, this would require death—the only time he broke fully was in season 1 when he truly believed Will was dead; and this was pre his understanding that the supernatural existed and could fix things), and 3) when he's thinking about how much he sucks (and as I said, this piece is 100% resolved so no worry about it showing up here).
He’s so damn sure that everything can be resolved that having an emotional breakdown in this short of a time is actually super out of character for him. And this is why his immediate response to El’s comment about writing the ending is SO insanely optimistic. He pinpoints a goal and refuses to give up on this idea that if they all work together, they’ll win. Honestly, I adore his character so much for this.
And El needs someone like this so much. It’s a true testament to why they work so well together because even if he emotion bottles, he immediately goes into fix it mode fueled by optimism whenever it’s needed—he struggles a bit when it comes to his low self-worth and that’s where he needs help from friends, but even then he’s still in fix it mode—and traumatized El gains so much power and strength from his unending love and belief in her. The fact that he applies this optimism to her as a person, their relationship, and life in general just reinforces this. She needs someone to help her believe that promises will be kept and things will always be okay because this is something she struggles with.
As for El? She’s in full fight mode. Are any of us surprised? She’s never been an optimist. She’s always needed people to believe in her. And she’s terrified right now, but it’s a testament to how much she has grown as a character that this terror is coming out in a strength of will to fight and not in the same run away and hide way she was in season 1 or the severe lack of faith she had in herself in season 4. I think this is largely due to the fact that she has people to fight for now and she knows that these people love her no matter what. She has so much more to lose than she did in season 1 and she’s ready to give anything and everything she can to ensure everyone she loves survives this.
And this is why Kali’s manipulation is so fucking cruel because El knows there’s some truth to it and she also knows that Mike “I’ll fix it” Wheeler would never accept that there wasn’t a solution to the government “side quest” (lmaooo, ngl, I 😂😂😂 so much when he said this) and this terrifies her because that puts him at risk—the most important person in her life, the best source of love and comfort and belief and safety she knows isn’t someone she has ever been willing to risk. And we know this because he was the driving force behind her protective nature from season 1 onward.
As a couple, their season 1 arc was about El learning to trust and Mike manifesting the power of belief. Their season 2 arc was separate, developing his fear for the arcs of later seasons and her choice of found family—who does she have to fight for? Their season 3 arc was all about learning to grow as a young couple that prioritizes both their relationship and their friendships, moving toward (but not fully) a more mature space. For Mike, it was also very heavily centered on solidifying his optimistic belief in El (which is why he’s not outwardly worried when she’s in the UD—his belief in her is that strong). It was a preparation of recognizing needs and fears that would heavily impact their season 4 arc, which was about Mike overcoming his insecurities and his low opinion of himself and El recognizing that she was special to Mike for more than just her powers—their season 5 arc has largely seemed to be focused on El’s terror and what I hope will be her overcoming that. And since Mike has resolved a lot of his fears in seasons 3/4, his season 5 persona has been incredibly optimistic at literally every turn.
And again, all of the horrors began the night of November 3rd. It is now the evening of November 6th (realized my previous post saying morning was mildly inaccurate). So, realistically, we’re at what? Approximately 66-68 hours? Then subtract at least 9-15 hours for sleep. To expect these traumatized characters who are fully in fight mode, mind you, to be having long heart to hearts in such a short amount of time (51-53 hours) when they’ve been separated, no one has died yet (there’s no need for El to comfort Mike “everything will be okay” Wheeler when their history of saving the world has given him no reason to break down or believe they have any chance of failing just yet), there’s still a ton of shit to get done all of which is under a significant time crunch, AND when El clearly has something to hide from Mike for what she sees as a necessary move to keep him safe doesn’t make sense to me.
The love and care is 100% there, believe me. Half the reason anyone doubts this is because a certain subset is creating unrealistic fantasy out of tiny moments and misinterpreting every possible scene they can and so the natural inclination is to be disappointed that there aren’t more overt intimate moments (and those exist btw, my goodness, those are emotional af hugs) happening to disprove it (and it was never Mileven's job this season to disprove Byler because it already has)—but this season was never going to be about a romance and after all this time, just because certain shippers take every Mike and Will scene out of context (what’s wild is Will has been in far more danger than El through this season and we STILL see Mike more out of breath and concerned when something happens with El) doesn’t mean we’re not getting very reasonable amounts of Mileven content. Mike and El spent four seasons solidifying and maturing their relationship and we really don’t need to rehash that in this season nor do we need them all over each other when the world is ending. They are a significantly mature couple who has worked through a lot of relational things that many adults don't even work through in this mature of a way and there's a lot more to be thinking about for both of them. This season is and always has been about dealing with all of the external conflicts and problems that have been built up through the entire show (supernatural and governmental monsters), so that’s where the focus is.
And for anyone thinking that there haven’t been enough love moments in a show that’s wrapping up the two biggest battles that have been present since the very first season, I present to you my list (and I'm just one person, so I'm sure I've missed some):
- The running to each other hug at the beginning.
- Mike’s excessive optimism on the rooftop.
- Mike’s high level of trust and belief in El being able to find Holly.
- El’s determination to find Mike’s sister (who she barely knows, lbr).
- That beautiful reunion when she returns from the UD (this, to me, is one of the biggest and why I chose this moment for the pics—seriously, look at how tightly he’s holding her and the fact that the first words out of his mouth are a relieved “you’re okay”).
- Mike getting super annoyed at Kali for not believing in El.
- His face when the lights go wonky and his immediate rush to go check on her (y’all, he slammed that door when he rushed out and he was out of breath when he got to her—that’s not even a far run, so he had to have been booking it).
- His going into “fix it” and “I believe in you” mode when El is clearly upset about not being able to reach Will (this is a huge source of comfort for her); I know that this can also be read as him being worried about Will, which I 100% believe he is, but you’re lying to yourself if you think this isn’t also Mike purposefully showing El how much he believes in her when he can see she’s struggling to believe in herself; El wants to save Will, too, don’t forget that. This is her brother, after all.
- He takes the time to flirt with her while preparing the bath.
- Mike pushing El’ to be open about the fears he can very clearly see she’s having (like, ya’ll were looking for a Mileven comfort scene, this was it; Mike was never going to need that comfort, but El always was and it’s pretty huge that he’s been paying enough attention to her to pick up on it).
- Immediate fix it mode re: side quest.
- Reaffirming that he was always going to run away with her to “somewhere where there’s at least one waterfall” and “this is our story.”
- Immediately rushing to her when she gets out of the bath (please note, Will has been knocked out and in danger for hours at this point, and the first person he goes to is El with his high pitched voice of worry is El).
- They’re pretty together for literally the rest of the episode outside of when shit needs to get done re: planning.
Some of these may be small moments, but add them up and tell me you’re not looking at an extremely complex and mature relationship with a character whose resolved most of his internal fears and is perhaps a little more optimistic than he should be and another character who just found out about some seriously concerning external conflicts that put the person she loves the most at risk while also being manipulated by someone who is purposefully heightening those fears for her own agenda.
Posted Dec 29, 2025, 3:04 AM UTC