Why Eleven & Will Are the Most Compelling ‘Stranger Things’ Relationship
Opinion
Get Inside the Upside Down
For exclusive news and updates, subscribe to our Stranger Things Newsletter:
As Season 4 drove home with the gang spread out across Hawkins, California and Russia, there’s nothing Stranger Things loves more than grouping its characters into different teams — well, aside from pairing them off. From Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) to Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Max (Sadie Sink), Stranger Things does romance exceedingly well. (I would be remiss if I didn’t mention will-they-won’t-they couple Joyce and Hopper, whose finale kiss is worth screaming about from the rooftops.) The show plays out these relationships perfectly, milking the ensemble’s natural chemistry for all its worth in Season 4 — which is sure to have contributed to its Outstanding Drama Emmy nod, even though its actors were snubbed.
The chemistry, however, doesn’t just shine with the show’s couples: If there’s one thing Stranger Things does better than romance, it’s platonic love. (Or, as Robin would say, “Platonic with a capital P.”) Steve (Joe Keery) and Robin (Maya Hawke), the ride-or-die besties that became inseparable in Season 3, are a fan favorite duo for good reason. After being held hostage by Russians and their bathroom floor heart-to-heart about Robin’s sexuality, their unshakable bond is one of the bright lights of the show. The same goes for Steve and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo). But as iconic as these friendships are, Season 4 presented another severely underrated duo that proved to be even more compelling: Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown).
Ever since Will went missing at the start of the series and Eleven uncannily recognized him in a photograph despite never meeting him, the two have shared an interesting connection that fueled the plot but hasn’t really gotten much time to develop on a personal level. The first two seasons gave them hardly any interaction — granted, Will was trapped in an alternate dimension for most of one — and in the third, despite bonding more with the friend group, El was mostly preoccupied with her relationship with Mike. However, things finally turned around for the better in Season 4: El became an honorary Byers at the end of Season 3, moving with the family to California for a fresh start.
Season 4 kicked off with the pair as sort-of siblings with a dynamic that, while fueled by a deep platonic love, was complicated by one-sided jealousy that’s sure to continue on to Season 5 — and, with Will’s unnerving declaration that he can sense the villainous Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) and Eleven’s longstanding link to the dimension, the duo, who are two sides of the same coin, are likely to be instrumental to saving Hawkins. Read on for the four reasons that Will and El’s friendship should be a central focus of the final season.
Will accepted El into his family
Will and the rest of the Byers welcomed El into the family without question after they thought Hopper (David Harbour) died in the Season 3 finale, and the two became each other’s sole friends at school when they struggled to fit in. When El had to present a school project, they shared a cute moment where she looked to him for reassurance, and he especially showed some brotherly tendencies when El got picked on and tried to comfort her. Even though he’s not the most confrontational of teenagers, he tried his best to support her and offered to help fix her project when bully Angela (Elodie Grace Orkin) tripped her and it was ruined. And after El was taken to the police station for hitting Angela, and Will and Jonathan weren’t allowed to see her, Will says boldly, “We’re her brothers and we’re family.” Literal sibling goals.
I only wish that Stranger Things would have delved more into what their relationship was like in California, and what it was like getting to that point; after all, they were hardly friends before Season 3, and even then they hardly spoke. Now, it’s apparent that Will would do anything for El, including putting her feelings first (but more on that later), and El would likely do the same. I wonder, with Will’s connection to Vecna, if El will have to save him from his clutches and sacrifice herself for him. I can only hope they both get out of Season 5 alive and get at least a few cute sibling moments in the process.
Netflix
Their Upside Down connection
The pair share a common language with their experiences with the Upside Down. The dimension was a big unknown for the first three seasons, but the fourth answered a lot of questions about the weird Hawkins parallel and expanded on the series’ mythology — ahead of Season 5 at least, which the Duffers confirmed will deliver some much needed information about the Upside Down’s origins. Of course, in Season 4, even as some answers were given, just as many questions were raised. As El regained her memory of her traumatic childhood in Hawkins Lab, it was revealed that El was the one to open the initial rift to the Upside Down, banishing Vecna (a.k.a. Number One) there. Did she just open it or create it? Brown says it’s the latter. But why her? Also, why is it frozen in time — more specifically, the day Will got trapped there?
The finale saw the Upside Down merging with the real-life Hawkins, and the latest season disclosed that when Will was possessed by the Mind Flayer back in Season 2, he was actually being influenced by Vecna. There’s a lot more to unravel there, with even Schnapp hoping that the Duffer Brothers will address the question of why “Will was the first victim and the first one captured.” And Will probably will be crucial to the gang’s strategy in killing Vecna; he confided in Mike that he knows how Vecna thinks, after all. The Duffers teased that the final season will bring things full circle with Season 1, with Will “a big part and focus.” Naturally, Eleven is key to all things Upside Down as well — they are both drawn to it for a reason, though we don’t know why — so the adoptive siblings will surely take center stage, as they should!
Their shared interest in Mike won’t get in the way
Schnapp recently confirmed that Will is in love with his best friend Mike, an apparent yet unspoken fact in Season 4. If Will’s jealousy watching El and Mike get wrapped up in each other at the roller rink didn’t make it clear, his impassioned speech to Mike in Episode 8 surely did. El, blind to his plight, thought that Will’s painting was for a girl, but it was a sort-of-but-not-quite confessional painting for Mike. However, it still didn’t clue him in to Will’s feelings. In the speech, Will told Mike that the painting shows him as the “heart” of the Hawkins team — and he made him feel better by saying Eleven “will always need [him]” and Mike makes her feel “like she’s better for being different.” Come on, Mike: We all know Will’s really talking about himself, not El.
But it’s clear that Will, despite his jealousy, will prioritize his sort-of sister’s feelings over his own. Schnapp gave some further insight into what was going through Will’s head in Season 4: On top of being afraid to come out out of fear of rejection from his friends, who didn’t really acknowledge his trauma from previous seasons, El “is like his sister, but he doesn’t want to hurt her because if he says he likes Mike, that’s gonna hurt her feelings.” I have a feeling that Will’s interest in Mike will come to light in Season 5 — Schnapp also hopes there will be a coming out scene — but regardless, I don’t really see Mike and El staying together anyway. Will and El’s bond is so strong, I don’t see anything putting cracks in it — even a shared love interest.
They both know what it’s like to be an outsider
So far, both Will and Eleven have felt like outsiders most of the time, even with their friends in Hawkins, so it makes sense that they’d become close. (Honestly, I found it odd that it took until Season 4 for them to realize that they’d make great friends.) In Hawkins back in Season 3, Eleven at least had her new friendship with Max to make her feel less out of place, but in California, El was isolated to an extreme, unable to make any new friends. Will had been feeling separated for longer. In Season 3, Will tried to get his friends back into D&D, like how it was before he was kidnapped and possessed, but his friends had left him behind. “We’re not kids anymore,” Mike told a frustrated Will. (Funny how they started playing D&D again in Season 4, though, once Will had left Hawkins. Seriously, Mike?)
But from the start, both Will and El haven’t totally fit in with anyone except each other — Will’s trauma and experiences in the Upside Down separated him from his friends, and El’s powers and devastating childhood growing up in a lab set them apart, but I’m sure also brought them together. They’ll likely continue to be each other’s lifeline in the quest to kill Vecna and close the Upside Down, and I’m here for it.
The best part of Will and El’s relationship — and all of the interactions between the actors in the show — is that it truly feels genuine. It’s not too heavy-handed or too light; you can tell that these actors really do have a bond and aren’t forcing it. It’d truly be a crime if we don’t see more of Will and El’s friendship on screen in Season 5, but I don’t think we have too much to worry about, with Will once again becoming the focal point and how important his sibling relationship with El is. Wileven supremacy!
Stranger Things, Seasons 1-4, Streaming now, Netflix
